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Title: Into a Desert Place: A 3000 Mile Walk Around the Coast of Baja California by Graham Mackintosh ISBN: 0-393-31289-5 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.77 (13 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Triiumph of the Ordinary
Comment: Travel books about daring trips to places filled with hardships erupt like volcanic ash from the "featured on sale" sections of bookstores. Authors fill the shelves, as they have for a dozen decades, with endless sagas of how they climbed-a-mountain-and-everybody-died, why they sailed-the-Pacific-in-a-sea-of-storms, and even all-the-good-reasons-why-people-should-not-do-the-dangerous-pastime-the-author-does.
"Into a Desert Place" features many of the hallmarks of this unfortunate genre of "we nearly died" non-fiction. Baja California's alien landscapes, spiked with impassable mountains, rattlesnakes and boojum trees, certainly qualifies in many regions as a "need a sense of high adventure and a contempt for danger to tour there" area. Yet, "Into a Desert Place" does not repel in the way that "body count on Mount Everest" books can. On the contrary, this book simply charms. "Into a Desert Place" is a complete revelation--an accessible, winning account of how adverse conditions can be met by those most basic values--determination, a good attitude and, indeed, a good heart.
Mr. Mackintosh manages to convey the hardships of the trip, the kindness of most of the people he met along the way, and his own struggles to complete his quest, all without undue sentimentality or boastfulness. The book has a folksy, simple feel about it, but it is anything but a simple book. Instead of the usual travel book conceits based on machismo or "sheer pluck", we see Baja through the eyes of Everyman. We need more books like "Into a Desert Place" and fewer books about how many innocent tourists drowned at sea. We all belong in the desert place to which this book removes us. After reading this book, the reader may not wish to walk around Baja, but the reader might well wish to find that place of quiet, and think a bit.
Rating: 5
Summary: A wonderful, entertaing account of unusual travel.
Comment: This story is so wonderfully refreshing when compared to the many stories of adventure travel on the market today. If you like the unusual in travel, then this will be a fun book as the author takes you along on his 3,000 mile trek around Baha California relating the story in his own, uncomplicated style. You'll feel just like you are walking beside him, as he encounters, rattlesnakes, scorpions, cactus thorns, thirst, hunger and lonliness. You'll rejoice with him as he comes upon the many small fishing camps along the way and meets wonderful, friendly local fisherman who share their meager food and water with him so he can continue onward. The highlight of travel is often those you meet along the way and this story is no exception. For a first-time author, he does an exceptional job in relating this story in a simple, understandable way, just as if he was talking with you personally. It's truly remarkable that a person with no previous hiking or trekking experience could pull of such a feat. His determination and upbeat attitude pushed him to the conclusion of his quest. If you like travel and adventure, this is a good one.
Rating: 5
Summary: Spiritual Journey not just a travel adventure
Comment: I originally read this book several years back and now find myself periodically rereading it as its a spiritual journey packaged in a travel adventure. I dream of doing something like it however will probably not. If you like "cultural experiences" with the locals where you travel to you will love this book.
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Title: Journey With a Baja Burro (Sunbelt Cultural Heritage Books) by Graham Mackintosh ISBN: 0932653413 Publisher: Sunbelt Publications Pub. Date: November, 2000 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Almost an Island: Travels in Baja California by Bruce Berger ISBN: 0816519021 Publisher: University of Arizona Press Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $16.05 |
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Title: The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck, Edward Flanders Ricketts, Richard Astro ISBN: 0140187448 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Forgotten Peninsula: A Naturalist in Baja California by Joseph Wood Krutch, Ann Zwinger ISBN: 0816509875 Publisher: University of Arizona Press Pub. Date: August, 1986 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Searching for Steinbeck's Sea of Cortez: A Makeshift Expediton Along Baja's Desert Coast by Andromeda Romano-Lax ISBN: 1570612552 Publisher: Sasquatch Books Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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