1,800 Miles, Eight Countries, and One Incredible Journey from Mexico to Colombia
October 23, 2017
British explorer Wood (Walking the Nile, Walking the Himalayas) narrates in lamentable fashion another formidable trek, this time his travels across Central America—a journey that spans eight countries and includes the harrowing jungle of Panama’s Darién Gap. Wood’s subject matter is fascinating, but the prose often ambles into cliché (he is caught “sweating buckets” or worrying that his crew had “bitten off more than we could chew”), and though he offers historic asides and insights into the politics of the region, these don’t offer much depth. At times his descriptions of the locals become caricatures: he imagines a Mayan man’s “forefathers, naked except for a jaguar skin and a bow, perhaps a feather in… hair.” As Wood hikes southward, he sees migrants making the treacherous journey north toward America and Canada, but misses the opportunity to offer anything beyond a passing glance. Wood’s crossing of the Darién Gap with his support team of indigenous locals and a clearance from Panama’s border police is anticlimactic. The narrative feels tired, but fans of Wood’s previous books will certainly welcome another journey with him.
Starred review from February 15, 2018
Former British paratrooper and author Wood (Walking the Nile; Walking the Himalayas) likes to walk. But this title is a bit of a misnomer; he is only walking from the Yucatan to Colombia, not Alaska to Patagonia. Even so, it is a daunting trek. Wood and his Mexican guide/friend Alberto cross eight countries encompassing Central America (sorry El Salvador) through jungles, barren plains, mountains, narco lairs, gang-infested neighborhoods, and haunts of human smugglers. There are snakes, stadium-sized scary critters, and quadrapeds you wouldn't like to meet. The author hints, once or twice, that a film crew accompanied him, making a documentary and helping with logistics. But rather than taking anything away from the adventure, this only guarantees that we are reading their travelog and not their obituaries. VERDICT So often books on great treks seem to relish recounting only maladies, sexcapades, or drunken capers. Not so with Wood; he focuses on the people and places he and Alberto encounter, which makes for great reading.--Lee Arnold, Historical Soc. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
January 15, 2018
The British explorer's latest trek takes him by foot from Mexico to the edge of Colombia.The book's title might be misleading, as Wood (Walking the Himalayas, 2016, etc.) notes in the introduction: this trip was "solely a journey through Central America." The author was joined by Alberto Caceres, a recently divorced Mexican friend who had "never been in a jungle, or walked further than a few miles." Despite a few blisters, however, and more than few complaints, the chatty Caceres, who could "charm the hind legs off a donkey," kept up the pace. Sometimes on uncharted paths and often on major highways where the main obstacles they faced were drunken drivers and thoughtless truckers, the two covered 1,800 miles in a little over four months. Wood excels at verbal snapshots of the differences among the countries, and he avoids dwelling on the monotony of many of the days in favor of describing more exciting ones spent diving into caves where they discovered Mayan skulls, climbing unnamed pyramids, eating termites ("bitter and woody") during a lesson on jungle survival, getting caught in quicksand, and being escorted through the gang-ruled barrios of Honduras' San Pedro Sula, which until recently "held the dubious honor of being known as the murder capital of the world." While this means that readers only get tantalizing glimpses into the author's experience, it also makes for brisk reading. The narrative culminates with a trek through the jungles of Panama's Darien Gap, an area ruled by drug lords that has, during the past 20 years, "swallowed up more people than perhaps anywhere else in the western hemisphere." Fortunately, Wood and Caceres made it through the "brutal, skin-tearing, lung-busting jungle climbs" with nothing worse than some nasty spider bites.A jaunty glimpse into the cities and countryside of Central America from the point of view of a traveler well-equipped to compare life there to other countries around the globe.
COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.