A bridge symbol over a blue line on a map has meant a lot of different things to our travelling family: sunlight, blue sky and a breeze out from under the humid canopy of a forest; a break from a washboard road’s rattle and dust; clean, dry and solid ground to make a Land Rover repair; and lazy lunches listening to rolling water and unfamiliar birdcalls.
Bridges have also been the source of some anxiety. Given our highly standardized, Canadian understanding of what an automotive bridge is they have often appeared hastily constructed, poorly maintained, imaginatively engineered and downright abandoned. Bridges are also, too often, your only way of moving forward.
This page is the shearpin.org bridge appreciation page. A growing list of the scenic, the imaginatively engineered and the crumbling.
This bridge warranted a walk. Twenty minutes before reaching it, a Dodge "dually" pick-up carrying a faded Pepsi logo and the glass bottles found in rural Mexico had rattled past - headed in the opposite direction. The varying pattens of tire tracks on the road was futher evidence that the bridge was regularly travelled.
The river was lazy 30 feet below, but the banks had been heavily gouged by the rain water that flowed with violent momentum from the cliffs above. The footings were made of solid cement and hinted at a deck of the same construction that had long ago crumbled. Crossing first on foot, the concrete had been replaced by individual lengths of metal beam that appeared solid, irregular in length and packed with dirt at each end. Some were polished by crossing tires and some were bowed by weight and time to reveal the rocks and water below.
I crossed first in my NAS Land Rover Defender 90 followed by my brother in a Discovery 1 he had borrowed from my sister. The metal beams sagged under the weight of the Rovers and complained with groans, squeaks and what sounded like buckling and brittle cracks. Steady throttle and across.
The single-lane, dirt road continued from the bank on the other side. This was the last of the bridges. At the bottom of the canyon we dropped down a gouged riverbank to lurch and scramble through river sand and over submerged rock. In an hour or two we found a sand bar with driftwood for burning under a sliver of stars above the solid black of the rock canyon walls of Mexico's Barrancas Del Cobre.
With our family of three in the confines of a travel laden Land Rover 110, picking up on spoken and unspoken emotion is an important part of keeping the peace. In a truck without air conditioning under the intense sun of a Guatemalan afternoon quiet, hyper-attentiveness betrayed the nervousness of my wife and daughter. I have found a quiet confidence and a steady throttle is best in these situations.
The stacked stone walls, wandering livestock and fields of corn had dwindled with our gradual climb in elevation. The dirt road had also changed from fast and dusty with washboard sections betraying regular traffic to a tight squeeze through overgrown vegetation and low range climbs over rutted, loose dirt and rock.
We had passed some vaqueros ushering cattle down the track and spoke briefly in almost Spanish to a local on a sputtering motorcycle. For the past hour the road seemed desolate - but there were clear tire tracks in the dirt ahead.
We caught glimpses of a metal bridge over a river from the twists and turns of our descent. Our speed increased as the road improved and pushed cooling air through our open windows and dash vents. Michelle dropped the map she clung to and 13 year old Astrid started happily pointing out the curiosities around us.
The bridge itself looked regularly traveled and the constant, steady flow of the river below gave it a sense of steadfast permanence. Our tires hummed on the grate decking as we crossed with Astrid quickly pointing out the road sign and the power line following the road at the bridge’s end. We paused on rusted steel to watch the river make its way through boulders and swaying vegitation and know, for sure, where we were and which direction we were headed in.
Dust from the crushed limestone road hung low like it was heavy in the humidity of the afternoon - never kicked-up high enough to collect on the dash or camp gear in the back of my Land Rover. At 35 miles per hour I could safely swerve around the worst of the potholes and embedded rock. The rattle was as constant as the movement of my hands on the steering wheel, but my sweat and my effort kept the jarring impacts intermittent.
The 3 spoke, plastic wheel was sticky in the heat and alive in my hands. Vibration, rattle, the metallic clank of metal fuel cans, the dull thud of plastic water cans, the squeak of storage boxes held snug under ratchet straps and the groans of dusty, battered suspension bushings. Then, it all stopped. With four-wheels on the concrete bridge there was only the familiar hum and whine of the drivetrain, and the squeak of dusty drum brakes as I eased the little Land Rover, I called Eore, to a stop.
The concrete bridge had a solid permanence - seemingly untouched by the erosive effects of water, wind and time. I sat on the uprights at its edge where the road dust collected as if shed from passing vehicles eager for a brief respite on the smooth surface. With my legs dangling over the water below I packed corn torillas I had bought back in Mexico with Fu Fu, a dish of mashed plantains, I had leftover from breakfast.
