The long road home.

Vans.

As the day begins to grow dark a pair of head-lights appear on the road, a van decked-out as a maroon-white camper pulls up beside us.

Sam, with his skin red, sunburnt, and just starting to peel sits up with bleary eyes, he'd been kind of sleeping under the tree, I help him to his feet and we peer at the van, the windows are tinted and on the roof there appears to be some sort of tent-box thing, they look much more prepared for Mexico then us.

An old guy with white hair and wrinkled skin around his eyebrows gets out of the driver's seat, "Hello there," the man says sounding surprisingly British. A lady, who I assume is his wife sits in the passenger's seat, she waves at us.

"Uh hi," I reply.

A silence falls that quickly becomes awkward. "We were just passing through on our way to El Paso, when we saw the two of you sitting by your car, and Pam, my wife thought you looked a bit broken down, do you need a hand?"

Sam and I stare at each other, my head feels kind of burnt out and all I can do is open my mouth. Sam is pretty much my reflection.

"Okay then," the man says uncomfortably, "I'll be off if you don't need anything, we want to book into a campground before eleven." For another awkward minute he stands there before turning back to his camper.

I takes all of four steps for me to snap out of my trance, "No, we need help," I beg. The man turns around and I half collapse at his feet, "Please, do you have any water?"

****

Pam hands me a cup of tea and a smile, "There you go dear."

I take a sip, the hot tea soothes my throat and the sweetness gives me energy. "Thank you."

When she smiles the corners of her mouth wrinkle, Pam looks like a typical grandma, wire-frame glasses, cardigan and a tea pot.

For a few minutes I just sit; drinking tea and trying not to feel my face, which is probably sunburnt beyond belief.

"What brings you to Mexico?" I ask.

"The heat, the culture, the food, the people,"

"And the adventure," Steve adds in a very Attbroughish fashion.

They both chuckle, it must be a private joke.

"And why did you decide to come here?" Steve asks.

"Well, mostly the coast and the warmth," I say.

They both nod.

"Yes, the same reason that we decided to take our first trip to Spain," Pam says giving Sam a cup of tea.

"The summer of '74 wasn't it dear?"

"Yes that was the one."

Pam starts humming a tune and Steve gets a glint in his eye (I know a real life glint), and it's all so cute and sweet, Sam looks like he wants to pass out again.

They lend us a tent, and Pam makes soup for 'Tea' (Dinner), they decide to abandon their plans to get to the campsite in favour of hanging around with us, after 'Tea' we have a good old fashioned campfire and Steve tells us stories of some of their travels, which are just the right amount of boring to encourage conversation throughout, we have pudding then supper and everything is just perfect, I feel so calm and unstressed even when my sunburn begins to peel slightly and go to bed wishing that I had grandparents.

The next morning Pam and Steve are up early, and apologise for having to wake us up, "If we didn't have a plane to catch we'd let you sleep there all day,"

They take their tent, fill up the Corolla with Gasoline and give us a quick farewell then they're off; Sam and I both stand in the middle of the road waving to them, our faces are burnt and Sam's ears are even peeling, I'm pretty sure I smell like a deceased garbage-can but still, we have a lot to be thankful for. 

****

After filling up from a petrol station that turned out to be embarrassingly close, and buying an over-priced bottle of Aloe-Vera for our sunburnt faces then travelling to a half-decent looking hotel Sam holds out his hand to me, "Are we alright?"

I shrug, then take it; "Yeah, we're alright." 

Hey there. I haven't really finished this chapter, but I'm uploading anway.

 I'm kind of unsure how many people are reading this, sometimes it feels like heaps, other times it feels like only one or two. I want to finish this story so that I can re-write it. Every-time I read the old chapters I discover something that doesn't fit.

Hope you enjoy this chapter!!.