Driving the Pan-American Highway

Driving the Pan-American Highway
By Raymond & Audrey Pritchard
ISBN 1-881233-48-0
Printed version: www.lulu.com/content/547872

The purpose of this guidebook is to assist those wishing to drive through Mexico and into Central America. The United States was a sleeping giant in the l9th century. The railroads that were built across the country wereinstrumental in its development. Mexico and Central America are being awakened from their slumber by the building of the Pan-American Highway. In the future travel, ecotourism and trade agreements will stride hand in hand with industry to create exciting and explosive new growth in this part of the world. This will lead to the development of new tourist meccas for vacationing North Americans and others. Furthermore, the present economy is forcing many retirees and senior citizens, who live on fixed incomes, to seek more affordable housing and life-styles south of the border. Just like the birds facing the coming winter, they will turn to the South in ever greater numbers. The massive numbers of automobiles in Mexico and the Central American countries assures proper road maintenance and an abundance of modern service stations. Many of these new stations are being equipped with stateside Circle K-type mini-marts and provide complete car care. The past history of the ancient Aztec and Mayan civilizations are here for us to rediscover. However, the greatest discovery we have in store, are the lovely and fascinating peoples of these countries. With these things in mind, we have created this annual guidebook as an aid, so you can step out without fear, and enjoy the beauty of this historical part of our hemisphere. Good news for those of you planning to travel through Central America. In 1997 the presidents of all the Cenral American countries proposed a joint project to improve the Pan-American Highway. After all of these improvements have been made, one private company will then be put in charge of maintaining the highway in good shape in all of the Central American countries. This will improve the infrastructure of the region, speed up commerce and make travel easier.