Travelers' Tales Central America (Book Review)

“Travelers' Tales Central America - Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama : True Stories” (From the series, Travelers' Tales Guides), #1885211740, c2002, edited by Larry Habegger & Natanya Pearlman.

I am not sure why this book was not more popular. Unlike travel guides and regional fiction, it rarely turns up dirt-cheap on the used market, and it is an even more rare a find as a traded volume in any ex-pat book exchange. It is an eclectic collection of excellent travel and/or adventure writing. It is, like life often is in the countries covered, at times as beautiful as it is frightening, as heartbreaking as it is hopeful. With 1-2 exceptions, the authors here are clearly some of the best on-the-road writers in English. Some of the chapters are essays pulled from the author’s stand alone book, while others are taken from famed periodicals (some are edited to fit), but all are significant.

Most online booksellers do not provide a decent summary, the table of contents, or any review of any kind. Since the authors are so well known, and the titles fairly descriptive of the essays therein, I will list what you get inside: “On Guatemala's Gringo Circuit” / by Doug Fine ; “A Garifuna Awakening” / by Natanya Pearlman ; “In Search of Ben Linder's Killers” / by Paul Berman ; “Some Things to Do: Corn Island and the Festival of Crabs” / by Jason Wilson ; “Bones and Heads with Hussein” / by Tom Joseph ; “In Search of Blue Butterflies” / by Sue Hubbell ; “The Last Penal Colony” / by Scott Anderson ; “Surfing La Libertad” / by Kevin Naughton ; “Pacaya!” / by Steve Wilson ; “Viva Sandino Koufax!” / by John Krich ; “In Search of Zen” / by Lea Aschkenas ; “The Rainbow Special” / by Cara Dabchick ; “An Evening with Croc Poachers” / by Randy Wayne White ; “Dancing for Centavos” / by Martin Mitchinson ; “The Lady Who Lassoed Jaguars” / by Joseph Diedrich ; “When Water Bends” / by Victoria Schlesinger ; “Everardo” / by Jennifer K. Harbury ; “Deceptive Moonrise” / by Yael Flusberg ; “Hear Voices” / by Martin Mitchinson ; “Return to Laj Chimel” / by Rigoberta Manchu ; “In the Land of the Cunas” / by Henry Shukman / ; “Recommended Reading”.

Many ideas (goals, theories, dreams, nightmares, etc.) have becomes almost synonymous with Central America: The “Banana Republic”, CIA coups, the future of baseball outside the U.S., the fate of 20th-century indigenous peoples, the second wave of illegal U.S. immigration, the birth & spread of eco-tourism, U.S. intervention, DEA camps, Iran-Contra, the last great surfing finds, Operation Just Cause, UNESCO-declared cities, a “soccer war”, living somewhere less hectic and far less commercial for only $x a day…etc., etc., etc. What is really there, as well as the ideas mapped on to Latin America from abroad, eventually surface in the culture and also in the analyses of those traveling through it. This collection of essays is really quite good, and each of the countries is well represented.