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Chuck Williams
Travel has always been important to me, for the adventure it unfolds, and because of my curiosity about other people and cultures. After college I joined the Peace Corps, and was assigned to Afghan...view moreTravel has always been important to me, for the adventure it unfolds, and because of my curiosity about other people and cultures. After college I joined the Peace Corps, and was assigned to Afghanistan, where I spent two years, first teaching English to middle school boys, and then for an English language newspaper, The Kabul Times, creating and placing advertising for the paper, part of the Afghan Ministry of Information. There I made a lifelong friend of my Afghan boss and his family. While in the Peace Corps I was able to travel to India, Thailand, and Cambodia, visiting Angkor Wat at a time when there were very few Western tourists in Cambodia.
On my return to the United States, I discovered there was a country next door to Texas where I lived that was in many ways as poorly known and understood as any other place I had seen in the world: Mexico.
I began visiting Mexico at a time when hitch hiking was safe, and traveled many times across the country from the Texas border to Guatemala, by hitch hiking, train, and bus. I found friendly, enthusiastic, welcoming people who spoke many languages in addition to Spanish. In spite of my limited Spanish I heard their many stories. They spoke of brutal oppression in the past, as well as their love of life and their country. They told of mysteries and hidden secrets in the mountains and jungles: yes, there were buried ruins out there; if I wanted to visit, it was possible.
Later when I had a family of my own, I took my son and daughter to experience Mexico, and then when they no longer needed looking after, I continued to travel in Mexico. The colonial cities, the modern metropolis, the pre-Columbian pyramids and ruins, the beaches and jungle, the highland plateau of the Sierras, all continue to draw me to them, and finally to write about them.view less