Customer Reviews

Cloud Garden

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The Cloud Garden is a must read for anyone who likes orchids, adventure, or travel! The authors Tom Hart Dyke and Paul Winder made you actually feel like you were in the jungle with them going through despair as well as outright comedy with the FARC guerrilas. Essentially the book is about botanist/traveller Tom Hart Dyke and adventure traveller Paul Winder (both strangers to each other) and how they meet up and decide to cross the Darien Gap on the border of Panama and Columbia. Six days into their journey they are kidnapped by FARC guerrilas and held hostage for nine months. The authors provide a very descriptive detail of their environment, kidnappers, and impossible situations that had to be overcomed. Highly recommended!

I read this book this past week. I could NOT put it down. It's the true story of two men hiking the Darien Gap and getting kidnapped by "FARC-ish" geurrillas... The sadness in this book is greatly overturned by the comedy that results from things like lacy underwear, AK-47's, injuries, orchids, worms, and even the occasional fart joke.

I definitely would recommend this book to just about everyone.

This book fell into my possession while I was backpacking around South America, no less. It is, at the very least, a cautionary tale about the foolishness of attempting to cross the Darien Gap. As a middle class white male westerner I could relate to the boredom with conventional travel and recklessness which motivated the writers to try and cross the Gap. The book itself is an insight into a part of the world outside conventional view. It is a window into the life and experiences of Guerillas who own this strip of no-mans land.

I enjoyed the authors style and story, I loved Columbia on my visit and this book reminded me why - the natural beauty, the lawlessness, the adventure. Of course, the authors experience is overlayed with the sense of possible death which they live under. But it is treated with typical English gallows humour.

A great read.

I received this book as a gift, and have found it to be an excellent read. Conversational in style, you feel like your sitting in the pub listening to them tell their story. Their colorful language allows you to share their experience in the jungle - slogging through swamps, sitting in the rain, or even sharing the excitement when Tom discovers new orchids. I laughed and cried and feared right along with Tom and Paul. A great book!