Unscripted Journeys: Adventures in the land of the Maya

Downloaded from Smashwords Here, this is the telling of the authors time in Mexico where he lived with his wife in an artists enclave in the 1970s. Out of the blue, they were rounded up with a large group of other expats and arrested. The majority were deported soon after, but four were imprisoned for around a year while charges were talked about but not formally laid. The deportees included Green's wife Debra and another women, who were permitted to stay to assist their husbands in prison. Green becomes bound legally to three other men (because the authorities insist on treated them as a single legal case), and struggling with the different tack each wants to take, making dealing with the authorities complex.

Eventually they were released and deported, although that makes the whole process seem straight forward, but as Green's story tells it is far from simple, and the amount of uncertainty and unknown during their ordeal is quite extreme.

There is a lot to this story, told in a straightforward way, and although self published, not riddled with the usual typos and grammatical issues.

The early part of the book sets the scene - where and how they live, what they do, some localised travel and exploration (they have a van set up for camping). Then there comes a knock at their door, the federal police push their way in, tell them to pack their vehicle and accompany them. There is no explanation, and no option!

Tacked on the end of this story are a couple of chapters on other trips to Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. These stories which are accompanied by a few photographs, taken by his travel companions, as he is a non-camera traveller (and obviously wouldn't have had one in prison).

This was a book I had on my phone and read a few pages at times where I didn't have a book to hand.

3 stars - easily worth a quick read.