Customer Reviews

Chasing a Dream in the Galapagos: A Personal Evolution

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I read this book in two days because I just couldn't put it down. It's one of those books that works on multiple levels-it's a personal memoir of the author's journey (starting long before the actual trip), it's a travel book that will inspire you to take a trip of your own, and it has just enough history and science thrown in that you get to feel like you're learning something along the way of this fun adventure.

The beautiful descriptions of this faraway land with it's amazing wildlife will give you a newfound appreciation of what you can see even in your own backyard. It's a reminder that as resilient and adaptable as nature may be it can also be very fragile in this too quickly changing ecosystem.

Pick up this book, enjoy the journey and be prepared to be inspired!

A really great read. Both entertaining and informative. If you too have been harboring a dream of visiting the Galapagos Islands then this is the book for you.

Bette Pegas had a dream, one that would have been easy to say "no" to. "Maybe I'm not meant to be a traveler," she says. Haven't we all been at that place in our own lives? Yet, Ms. Pegas didn't just leave it in her dream box - she took it out and went for it. A woman like that inspires me.

In her book, "Chasing a Dream in the Galapagos", Ms. Pegas shares with us in an intimate way - as if writing in her journal - her passage from dreamer to go-getter. And in that passage she grows as an individual becoming a stronger, empowered and more confident person.

We get to know her lovely traveling companions - her two daughters, Suzanne and Heather and her niece, Yolis (the risk-taker and translator) as well as those she leaves behind - her husband, Art and her sister-in-law, Connie whose words of encouragement helped to propel Ms. Pegas, "You are meant to take this trip and you must take it."

During her visits to the tiny islands, Ms Pegas paints a vivid picture of the prescious landscapes and wild creatures who, in many cases, only live there: "Along the trail, the air smells of musky feathers. Galapagos doves with impressive blue eye-rings peck cactus seeds while Galapagos mockingbirds chase insects and feed on bits of carrion."

Her interest and admiration for her hero, Charles Darwin, captivated me. At the end of her story, she gives us a glimpse into Darwin's life and works and his important message, " . . . we as men are not isolated from nature; that we are, indeed, a part of it . . . For our works have now begun so to overwhelm the environment that we can only survive if we learn not only to dominate, but to rule wisely."

I learned a great deal about Ms. Pegas and about the Galapagos, but what made the book profound and a must-read for anyone and everyone who cares about our precious planet, was her answer to people who asked if she wanted to go back to the Galapagos: "Of course . . . I'm no longer afraid of the journey . . . It's the islands themselves that make me tremble today. Too many people and too many invasive species threaten their very existence."

Just as Ms. Pegas will live her passion for the Galapagos through conservation efforts and spreading the word about their fragility, I too have a new appreciation and understanding of what it means to support their very survival. I happily have been inspired to not pay a visit to the Galapagos but instead visit it through Ms. Pegas' inspiring and vivid account.

Memoirs are hot right now, and we can certainly see why people want to look back to times that worked, when we know how things turned out. But the best memoirs use experience to empower us in the present.

One of the latter is Bette Blaydes Pegas's new travel memoir, Chasing a Dream in the Galapagos; A Personal Evolution.

Pegas writes beautiful prose. Her haunting description of a village in a volcano crater that disappears when the fog rolls in and her joyful discovery of Blue-footed Boobies dancing with their mates and exchanging gifts make us feel like Galapagos insiders. What empowers us is her personal evolution from a woman who yearned for 20 years to visit the Galapagos and see Darwin's tool-making finches--but couldn't make herself get on a plane to go--into a woman who tries what she fears but desires, and discovers who she becomes.

An intensely personal writer in all her fiction and nonfiction, Pegas quietly unbuttons her coat and we're inside another skin before we've even adjusted our glasses. Most of us have a private dream that we hide from everyone but our closest and dearest. What would happen if we stopped making excuses and went on our adventure of a lifetime?

Chasing a Dream in the Galapagos is a first-class ticket to the islas encantadas with a delightful companion.

Pegas includes a helpful description of the Galapagos Islands and a very good, concise biography of Charles Darwin.

I enjoyed reading this memoir about the author's trip to the Galapagos since I am planning a trip there. If you're going there, you'd probably enjoy it too. Otherwise I'm not sure it would mean much to you.

Libraries interested in memoirs and travelogues revolving around nature will find Chasing a Dream in the Galapagos: A Personal Evolution to be vivid, inspirational reading. Pegas' journey to the Galapagos and observations of nature strengthened her relationship with her daughters and provided personal insights, revealed in this fine odyssey.

This book was great--the writing style was light and engaging--I liked the photos of the animals, too. It made me want to go see the huge tortoises and iguanas and all the birds on the Galapagos Islands. I had no idea of the island's history with evolution and Darwin and that was really fascinating, too.