Backcountry Mexico: A Traveler's Guide and Phrase Book [Paperback]

Bob Burleson (Author), David H. Riskind (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1986

If you've always longed to strike out through the open country of northern Mexico armed with frying pan and bedroll, then this guide to the people, culture, folkways, landscape, and language of rural Mexico is for you. Out of twenty years of travel in backcountry Mexico, authors Bob Burleson and David Riskind have produced perhaps the most practical and accurate guide available for the unconventional tourist--the man or woman who prefers to get off the beaten path by foot, burro, mule, canoe, raft, or vehicle.

Product Details

• Paperback: 335 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press; 1 edition (1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 029270755X
• ISBN-13: 978-0292707559
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,712,907 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely useful for the adventurous traveler., May 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Backcountry Mexico: A Traveler's Guide and Phrase Book (Paperback)

Although I speak spanish fairly well, I do not know many of the more technical terms. When my truck broke down in the middle of the Chiapas, I did not know how to begin to tell the mechanic that I finally located what was wrong and what I needed to fix it.

Without the helpful technical phrases abundant in this book, it would have taken me much longer to find the tools and equipment that I needed to repair my vehicle.

I highly recommend it to anyone traveling in the outback in Spanish-speaking countries.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than just a phrasebook, January 27, 2004

By 

Stephen Taylor (Chapel Hill, North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Backcountry Mexico: A Traveler's Guide and Phrase Book (Paperback)

I was a Spanish major in college, but would honestly have no idea how to express myself in a lot of real-life situations to be encountered in the backcountry. So this guide helped me brush up on some of my "practical" Spanish for an upcoming trip to the Sierra Madre, Sonora and Chihuahua. You would probably be better off knowing some basic Spanish before messing with this guide, but it's not 100% essential. The authors use dialogues with topical themes, like "Can I cross your land?" or "Hey, my truck broke down". The dialogues and vocabulary lists highlight colloquial Mexican usage and point out some backcountry "linguistic etiquette" (like addressing people as "amigo" instead of "señor", which is perfectly acceptable in the backcountry). The vocabulary lists here are also great, with a bunch of practical terms arranged thematically.

This isn't just a phrasebook, though. It's also a guide to the practicalities of getting around and enjoying the backcountry and how to behave in situations that most city-hopping tourists just don't encounter. A lot of rural Mexicans (in places like inland Chihuahua, for example) rarely meet tourists and are often offended by arrogant or just plain ignorant gringos who don't necessarily mean offense. This guide addresses some issues like how to ask for permission to cross somebody's land or what to do if you need to ask directions from a woman if the man of the house isn't around. It's also just generally a useful "how to" guide to hiking and camping in rural Mexico.

Great book. Worth taking with you.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great book, June 22, 2003

By 

"linguist-guy" (boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Backcountry Mexico: A Traveler's Guide and Phrase Book (Paperback)

It is a great book. It lack grammatical explanations, but it does provide phrases on many subjects, often those you won't find in phrasebooks (e.g. conversations with ranchers on their work). I think not only it may give you specialist vocabulary, but can be a good introduction to conversational language.