My adventure of a lifetime
by
Victor Forsythe
I am the one with my arms crossed, second from the left, dark hair.
I first went to Ecuador in 1962 as a very young child. My mom sent me to live with
her sister cause she was having problems with my Dad.
I came back in '64, went to high school and lots more things happened;
as you may know from my story, "Birth of an Angel".
I next went to South America
driving a V.W. bus in 1973 after my trial for sales of hashish ended in a mistrial. They wanted to try me all over again so I decided to leave the USA in 1973.
* * *
In 1975 I was arrested and extradited back to the US, did a year in jail
after making a deal with the DA, and I was ready to drive back again.
My first trip was really awesome because so many incredible things
happened to me. The really sad thing is that I don't have any pictures of
that trip. But I am searching for some of the people who knew me so hopefully they might have some photos to post here.
My second trip back in 1976 was to start an Eco-community on land I inherited
in Ecuador. I found people that said they were interested in going down with me
through an ad in Rolling Stone magazine.
Crazy dreamer, or what??!!
Here I am in the foreground with my girlfriend, Debbie, with two of the guys who went with me,
and in the background, laughing, with the hat is my sis. (She fell in love with Nick from New Zealand, the guy standing in the middle, and going to New Zealand to live with him.
(She thought I was nuts to leave and I sure was!)
I was really in love with Debbie. She was going to meet me down there
but a trip that was supposed to take a couple of weeks turned into a
four year odyssey all over Mexico, Central and South America.
Another picture of the bus
Another picture of my 1948 international bus that made the trip!
I later added a bedroom up top with a ladder thru the back roof.
I took out the seats and made a real cool camper inside with a fold-down mural of
ancient ruins of Mexico and Central America next to the kitchen sink.
In
In Ecuador I met my Yoga / Spiritual teacher Dr. de la Ferriere
thru his disciples.
Like Nano from Chile. He and I were both Yoga teachers together.
Here he is enjoying a great South American style vegetarian dinner.
We got up every morning at 5 am to do exercises and yoga and we also
gave classes during the day.
This girl also was a teacher with us. She later married this guy and I took this photo
of them in 1990
I guess you can say I'm world traveler.
Highlights of this trip include:
Traveling an ancient road from the ruins of Palenque, thru the incredible falls of
Aqua Azul and seeing some of the most incredible rainforests of Mexico.
They may not be there today, they probably wont be there for long.
(The road was so damn narrow I couldn't find a place to turn around! Yikes!)
The incredible meeting with Shiela, a young Costa Rican girl whose beauty was surpassed only by the incredible mind games she played.
This three week trip turned into a mind blowing adventure, having to turn back from Northern South America, living in Costa Rica for 1 year, several months in Panama, going thru the midst of a brutal civil war in Nicaragua and El Salvador on the way back and then a year in Mexico.
Hight Highlights of that trip include:
Waiting to find a barge that would take my bus to Colombia from Panama and running into a busload of 50 male and female disciples of a sex "guru" from New York who were making a trip around the world to India. We made a deal to rent a barge and make some money. Filling the barge with paid travelers took two months and after blowing an engine off the coast of the Darien swamp, we waited for two weeks for parts to be airdropped from Miami.
Driving thru Managua Nicaragua after the devastating earthquake leveled the entire city in 1973. The place looked like it had been hit by the atom bomb!
Starting a natural foods restaurant in Ecuador and meeting Johnny Lovewisdom, in Vilcabamba. A place with the most oxigen in the air I have ever breathed! Perhaps that is why National Geographic has done several articles on the place because so many people live to be over 100 in that town!
During the next few months I will make pages on those aspects of my two trips overland.
If you wish to be informed of my new pages, just drop me a line.
