No comments about Guia De Las Reservas Naturales De La Argentina Iv/ Guide of the Natural Reservations of the Argentina IV: Noroeste (Guia De Las Reservas Naturales De La ... De Las Reservas Naturales De La Argentina).

No comments about Raleigh (NC) (Images of America).

No comments about Personal narrative of travels to the equinoctial regions of America, during the years 1799-1804 (Bohn's scientific library).

2 comments about Off the Map: A Journey Through the Amazonian Wild.

1. I must admit that the cover photo caught my attention at the local library and I'm sure glad I found this hidden gem! John Harrison has the audacity to attempt an upstream traverse of a remote Amazon tributary...yes, upstream, against and around raging rapids, fallen trees, swift currents and for me, the horror of horrors...multiple hornet and wasp nests! Then he plans on hauling his canoe and all the gear 15 kilometers over a small mountain range to a river that makes it's way to the northern coast of South America. On an old Indian trail across these mountains that may not even still exist. And not by himself or with another seasoned, masochistic Amazon adventurer like himself, but with his wife! Need I say more? This book is a must read for anyone who enjoys REAL adventure stories where there is no quick rescue should things go wrong. So order it today (or go to your local library) and start reading because you won't be disappointed!



2. People who are interested in reading about the Amazon rain forest or French Guyana should in fact read another book called "Antecume", a true biography written by the Andre Cognat, who dared to venture alone on a small canoe on the Oyapock River (at the border of Brazil and French Guyana), got lost and injured, and was miraculously rescued by Amerindians (the "Wayanas", a tribe with whom he still lives among today), many years before Mr. and Mrs. Harrison and at a time when much of Guyana was still unexploired.
   
   I have my doubts as to whether the events narrated by the Harrisons have indeed truly happened or not, or at least the way they are depicted in this book. It is my impression that the authors' exploits have been quite exaggerated. I visited Guyana several times and I have not heard of the Harrisons. In fact, Guyana is no longer such a risky place in the wilderness to venture into! It has been quite modernized since colonial times and 'the bagne" over the past decades; especially after the rocket launching site was build near Kourou. There is now easy access to healthcare facilities, and transportation and telecommunication equipments are quite modern and widely available. In fact, the most remote areas located at the East and South of the Guyanese territory are stricly delimited and called "zone interdite": in other words, it is even illegal to enter them without the authorization of the local government.

1 comments about Virginia Off the Beaten Path, 8th (Off the Beaten Path Series) (Off the Beaten Path Series).

1. Where else but in the wonderful state of Virginia would you find five - not one, but five - "kissing bridges" - available for the curious traveler to visit? Jump in your car, forget about the busy highways. Instead, head to the red hued Sinking Creek Bridge in Giles County or the 150-year old Humpback Bridge in Covington, where you can eat your picnic lunch in the nearby park.
   
   Judy Colbert covers these fascinating sites and much more in the 8th edition of Virginia Off the Beaten Path. Discover where to stop for interesting historical and cultural forays, where to eat and where to spend the night if you want to extend your road trip for another day.
   
   This book provides info about sites and amenities in each geographical area of Virginia, so that you can plan the ideal road trip - or trips. You and your spouse can tour wineries across the state or you could introduce your young children to our country's history in a way that they'll never forget.
   
   We highly recommend Judy Colbert's Virginia Off the Beaten Path.

1 comments about Desert Memories: Journeys Through the Chilean North (Directions).

1. I've lived in Chile and I've lived in the desert (but not Chile's Norte Grande). Ariel Dorfman writes very compellingly about the many complex aspects of desert life - the mining-based economy, the range of people who come from elsewhere, the relation of the desert as "periphery" to those "other places" who live off its wealth. Also he does justice to the desert's beauty, native peoples, transportation systems. He involves himself in the narrative, almost Woody-Allen style at times, but this book isn't in the British travel narrative mode of "here are all the awful things that happened to me." Rather, it's a story of extraordinary people and places - world-class scientists, grass-roots activists, byzantine networks of in-laws (few Chilean memoirs would be complete, lacking these!). It's a measure of this gifted writer's absolute skill that he has so many funny moments, and fine descriptions of the desert's landscape, and the pathos of people working to reclaim the ghost towns of the mining industry, all in one book. One of the book's most moving moments, for me, is the chapter that ends with the narrator observing of one town citizen who'd returned to a reclaimed ghost town, that there was no need to ask if he'd kept the key to the house he'd been forced to leave thirty years earlier.

   The title is absolutely right: memory and time are crucial to the desert. In writing of Chile, one of the most complicated and interesting country of the world, Dorfman brings with him his experience, contacts, broad awareness of this land. The narrative is beautifully structured, too. Dorfman, in all, is getting better and better with time. There are many wonderful books about Chile's extraordinary history, its many-layered social class structure, its heart-breakingly beautiful geography. The field of social and ecological memoirs/travelogues about Chile is a very crowded one, with some top-notch writers (think Darwin, just for starters...). Desert Memories is one of the best books there is for anyone considering a trip to this country.

1 comments about Insight Guides Peru.

1. Told me what I needed to know for being in Paris for only 2 days.

1 comments about Che Guevara and the Mountain of Silver: By Bicycle and Train through South America.

1. This book was a serious disappointment to me. First, the book is not about cycling. Nor does she venture within a thousand km of Torres del Paine National Park, which is featured on the front and back covers. While the bike makes occasional appearances in the first 60 pages of the book, it is usually on a bus or in a truck as the weather was less-than-perfect, there was wind, or the roads had potholes. The author initially places the blame for this on her desire to cover more ground with her traveling companion, who leaves South America early a few pages later for a lack of cycling! From that point the author scraps the bike journey entirely and instead travels by bus, train and taxi with her unwieldy luggage including a wheeled suitcase. She somehow spends a year between Santiago and Potosi, Bolivia, then wastes the final half of the book talking about all of the things she didn't have time to do in her final weeks because she is needed on a lecture tour and has a book deadline.
   
   "Now I had a contract to finish a book and a string of lectures to give in the New Year, so I had to travel with an eye on the calendar and get home in good time. It seemed to be one of life's ironies that my original escape to travel had turned into a travel career, which was now interfering with my freedom to travel!"
   
   I might add that it is apparently interfering with her ability to write a decent travel book as well. This book is mostly a collection of her prejudices and dislikes, her awkwardly expressed feminist stance and poorly rendered, often patently false, rambling prose on the history and geography of the region. The book jumps from topic to topic without any predictability apart from the fact that it surely won't be about anything expressed on the cover. The summary on the back of the book tells of how she "witnesses the funeral of Augusto Pinochet" but she watched it on TV!
   
   Throughout the book she whines about the young travelers and locals she encounters alike. How one guy in a hostel uses the computer too much and cooks in the hostel instead of going out (whereas she makes a habit of eating rich, often imported foods and staying in 5 star hotels) or that a guy that sits next to her on a long bus ride and has the audacity to eat greasy, smelly empanadas. One gets the feeling that she is new to South American bus travel... It is apparent from the book that the only people she connects with are those that have read and admired her previous books and treat her as the sort of demi-celebrity she believes herself to be.
   
   Her disdain for Bolivia and blanket statements about that country are unbelievable, especially from a woman who spent only a couple of weeks visiting a very small section of that country. She doesn't bother to visit the train graveyard in Uyuni, to cycle (or even properly see) the salt flats, to visit the mines in Potosi. Not to mention the rest of Bolivia. Instead she stays in luxurious hotels that do not give a hint of the local flavor and whines that no one is available to cook her Christmas dinner. She doesn't bother to get the full picture before she ineptly delves into a discussion of Bolivian politics that looks at things from one side only, and inconsistently at that.
   
   The Che aspects of the book are troubling as well. She interleaves her story with his for the first part of the book, repeating the same quotes of his with disdain time and time again. That he willingly ate food or accepted lodging from the poor. That he didn't want to stay in hotels though he could afford to. But one gets the sense that he got a much better picture of the land and the people than she did paying top dollar in her luxury lodging and avoiding interaction with the local population.
   
   She cares for North Americans even less and evenly applies her stereotypes to all North Americans she knowingly encounters. She is very pro-British, tough, to the point of arguing with and insulting a drunk Chilean who insinuated that the Queen drank gin. She also uses the term 'Indian' which, aside from being offensive to a lot of indigenous people in the Americas is confusing when she also discusses her previous cycling trips through India.
   
   The author would do well to get back on her bike and take the time to write a decent book and to give it a good edit. This book is filled with embarrassing misspellings, inaccuracies and a laughably naive and sheltered view of the places she visits.
   
   This book is a waste of your time and money.

No comments about Insight Pocket Guide Rio De Janeiro And Its Coast (Insight Pocket Guides).

No comments about Looking For Mr. Guevara: A Journey Through South American (Selva Trilogy).