Puerto Rico Travelcast

Before dawn in Palenque, our narrator kicks his BMW to life and tears off into the jungle, certain Paula has climbed into Conrad's jeep and abandoned him for Tikal. She hasn't — but the story he's telling himself is louder than the one that's true. The road has other plans. Dysentery, bad pills, and jungle heat turn the ride into a moving disaster. At Puerto Fronterizo El Ceibo, teenage Guatemalan soldiers in mirrored sunglasses lay his life out across a sun-baked table while one word floats through every conversation: CIA. He's a long-haired American alone on a German motorcycle on a road where the 1954 coup still lives just under the skin. What follows is a sweltering dance through searches, checkpoints, and a concrete-hole bathroom that nearly finishes him off. Somewhere in the smeared afternoon, with his BMW's rear bearing beginning to sing a death song, he finally understands what he's running from — and it isn't the border guards. The real border he crosses that day was never on any map. It was the

Cutty pays the bill for every bad choice he's made on the road to Palenque. As the last of the speed burns out of his system, Randy's grudge and Hernandez's talk of pilgrimage start to sink in—and Paula quietly decides how close she's willing to ride beside him. A thin wall, two separate motel rooms, and one simple question ("Promise me you're not going to kill us chasing your sister") push their fragile partnership to the edge. By morning, an empty bed convinces Cutty he's been left behind, and he kicks the BMW toward Tikal in a panic, chasing a jeep that may not even have Paula in it.

Cutty and Paula limp into the sweltering jungle town of Palenque looking for a barefoot "nun" who paints motel signs and answers to Floey. Instead, they walk straight into a wall of heat, mushroom‑eating pilgrims, and Randy—an old L.A. friend whose grudge may be more dangerous than any bad road. Over one long day, Cutty learns how far ahead his sister has already gone, who flew her into the jungle, and why the Maya sacbe she's walking isn't just a shortcut through the ruins but a kind of pilgrimage. By the time a local patriarch explains that some journeys matter more than whether you survive them, Cutty is realizing what the cost of this chase is. Please stand by for part two of this chapter next week

In Chapter 11 of Revelation at Tikal, Cutty decides that time is the enemy. Floey circled Palenque in her books. She might already be there. She might have found whatever she was looking for and moved on. So Cutty does what Cutty does best and worst: he tells himself a story that makes the reckless thing sound necessary. He takes a black beauty without telling Paula. What follows is an all-night speed run south through Mexico, fueled by amphetamines, gas-station food, Coca-Cola, and the desperate hope that he can close the distance between himself and his missing sister. The drug hits hard: the road slows down, the curves become almost beautiful, and Cutty's body stops complaining long enough for him to ride far past the point of common sense. Paula, riding behind him, slowly realizes something is wrong. They reach Mexico City after dark, cold, wet, and half-lost in a freeway system that seems to end without warning. A patient guard gives them directions south toward Córdoba, and Paula solves the mystery of s

In this chapter of Revelation at Tikal, the road finally eases up—at least for a while. Cutty and Paula roll into a funky beach shack outside Mazatlán, where "Mi Restaurante" serves fish baked in a stone stove, Mexican Coke in sweating glass bottles, and attitude from a green parrot that refuses crackers. A simple meal turns into a kind of truce: between sore bodies, bad Spanish, and a mission that keeps pushing them south, they let themselves enjoy being exactly where they are. At Campo del Sol, a half‑forgotten trailer park on the sand, they pitch a tent among aging RVs and stray dogs. A swim in the Pacific turns into something more—Paula finally lets her hair down, literally and emotionally, and an impulsive decision in a shared sleeping bag changes what this trip means for both of them. Meanwhile, Cutty can't stop thinking about the miles ahead. With Palenque and Tikal still far down the map, he teams up with a local surfer kid, Guillermo, to find something stronger than coffee to keep him awake on the ni

After the play and a long drinking session with the actors, Cutty and Paula wake up in Rocinante at Dr. Summers' place feeling the price of the night before. Cutty's head is trying to leave through the ceiling, his stomach has become a tilting disk at the bottom of a lake, and the only sensible rule is simple: move slowly, and do not anger the physics. But even hungover, he reaches for his journal. The dream he writes down is too vivid to ignore: a flying sailing ship, a huge crew, an endless supply of Cutty Sark whiskey running dry, and a mysterious destination somewhere south. Paula, barely awake, sees the meaning before he does. Cutty is the Cutty Sark. His own nickname, his own history, and his own uneasiness about drinking are all tangled up in the dream. For Cutty, it is one more example of something obvious sitting right in front of him that he somehow failed to see. Then the chapter shifts from hangover logic to road logic. Cutty starts breaking down the life he has been living out of Rocinante and re

When a Beverly Hills English teacher who once passed joints around a secret high‑school writer's club pours tea in her canyon‑side dining alcove, Cutty and Paula finally lay out the real stakes of their trip south: a sister missing into the ruins, a brother lost on a Project Blue Book mission, and a cult that worships "astronauts in the stone" more than human lives. Over one afternoon, Floey's underlined textbooks, a map of Maya and Inca sites, and Paula's memories of the Temple of the Rising Moon braid into a single, dangerous trail that runs from Coldwater Canyon straight to Palenque. Meanwhile, a hustler friend outfits Cutty's BMW for the road, Paula quietly signs away her future to the Army to finish law school, and the distance between them closes to the width of a motorcycle seat as they aim themselves at the jungle and whatever waits there.

Cutty dives into one of California's quieter circles of hell—the DMV—to chase a paper trail that might lead to his missing sister's stolen car. A bored state clerk cracks open the real scam behind Ayer Dada's "Temple of the Moon," and the hunt shifts from missing person to rigged game, with a fake holy man flipping pink slips and an ex-husband circling her gallery money. From fluorescent linoleum to the Oxnard marina, Cutty and Paula close in on the Rising Moon, a yacht with a newly painted name on the transom and a dirty history. There's cult muscle on the dock, cold harbor water under the planks, and one dangerous declaration from Paula that changes what "soul mate" means when someone's already in too deep.

Cutty wakes from a Maya-influenced nightmare with one thing clear: he's still failing to reach his missing sister, Floey. Over sulfurous campground showers and rocket‑fuel coffee in a cramped RV, he and Paula sketch the first real plan—call the gallery, chase Ayer Dada's yacht, and see if the DMV can shake loose her stolen car. As the stakes climb from bad dreams to legal threats and cult money games, we see the first hints of who Paula is rebuilding herself to be—and how little time Cutty has to find Floey before the lawyers, the ex‑husband, and the true believers close in.

Bonus: Previously in Revelation at Tikal – Chapters 1–3 I flew down from Alaska expecting a surprise reunion with my big sister at her first Los Angeles gallery show—and walked straight into a tombstone painting she'd signed with her own name and death date. While collectors treated her "death" as a clever stunt and the gallery owner counted the money, Floey herself was nowhere. Chasing the few clues she left behind, I fell back in with old friends, reclaimed my beat‑up RV Rocinante, and followed her trail into a decaying New Age commune in the Pasadena hills, where a guru was busy selling off her car and her faith. There, amid UFO‑Maya posters and chanting true believers, I teamed up with Paula, a sharp‑mouthed law student trapped in the cult, and together we pulled off a small heist, a big escape, and proved I'm willing to get bruised and stupidly brave if that's what it takes to find my sister.

On a cold December night, Cutty and Paula roll Rocinante into Leo Carrillo Beach, looking for a cheap campsite and a little sleep before chasing Cutty's missing sister up the coast. They find a flirtatious ranger, sea caves glowing radioactive blue, and a manila envelope in Floey's trunk—stuffed with nothing but blank pages and a message Cutty suddenly understands might be meant for him. Chapter 5, "Leo Carrillo and the Blank Pages," is where the road trip turns intimate, the mystery deepens, and Floey's past begins to demand a witness.

Cutty and Paula climb higher into the Pasadena foothills to the Temple of the Rising Moon's shabby bungalow where Floey once painted, meditated, and immersed herself in her work. Inside the linseed‑stained room they find a vandalized trunk, a mirror haunted by half‑erased Zen graffiti written in soap, and one last sketch of feathered ancient astronauts and falling suns. As they drag Floey's heavy trunk back to Rocinante, Cutty realizes someone else has already been rifling through his family's secrets, but still hopes that whatever Floey left in that box may be a map to where she's gone next.

Cutty pushes Rocinante up into the scrubby mountains above Pasadena, following a hand‑painted sign toward the Temple of the Rising Moon and the sister who vanished into its orbit. What he finds is a crumbling "spiritual community" with a prophet who talks like a brochure, a classic woody wagon half‑packed for escape, and a law‑school dropout named Paula who is closer to mutiny than enlightenment. A simple argument over a pink slip spirals into a raid on the commune's money man, a showdown with Ayer's hired muscle, and Cutty's first real glimpse of how dangerous this brotherhood is willing to be to keep its flock.

Cutty goes back to Pasadena, to the battered camper van Rocinante and the buried bomb shelter where his old crew still jams, hoping someone can tell him why Floey vanished from her own gallery opening. Instead he finds stasis: a house frozen in old habits, friends half‑converted to cabbage‑juice enlightenment, and a dangerous new rumor that pulls Floey even farther out of reach. This chapter peels back the history between Cutty, his sister, and the men who orbit her, setting the stage for the long chase south. Next Wednesday at 5 a.m. Eastern, Chapter 3 of Revelation at Tikal drops on the feed, as Cutty's search for Floey pulls him deeper into the Temple of the Rising Moon cult looking for old secrets and finding new threats.

Cutty Braughn flies into Los Angeles expecting a reunion with his big sister at the opening of her first real gallery show. Instead, he finds a room full of wealthy strangers drinking free wine and staring at a small painting that announces Floey's death. The dates on the painted tombstone say she died two weeks ago—but no one can tell him where she is, or whether the "death" is a stunt, a hoax, or a warning. As the gallery owner quietly cashes in on the mystery, Cutty realizes this night will knock his life off its tracks and send him chasing his sister through communes, jungles, and old ghosts. This episode begins the quest that will carry him all the way to Tikal and beyond.