Customer Reviews

Eight Feet in the Andes: Travels with a Donkey from Ecuador to Cuzco

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dervla Murphy always delivers good travel stories, liberally dosed with history lessons. Despite all the decriptions of hardship, privation and poverty, Eight Feet in the Andes is lyrically written and exciting: makes you want to trek through the Andes eating stringy goat meat, which is saying something for the author's talent. However, she can overplay that "Look at me, I'm an eccentric gringo lady" hand a bit too often. (She also never seems to have mastered enough Spanish to know that she's using the masculine form of the word.)

The book is marred in places where Murphy can't keep her Western judgments or personal prejudices from coloring her descriptions. Sure, it's her perspective, but seeing her list homosexuality alongside violence and drunkenness as examples of "Indian" depravity is a little startling. Especially in the second half, there are repeated references to the "stupidity" and "low IQ" of the "Indians," and the "intellectual dishonesty" of the entire country. Murphy dismisses the value of literacy in the Sierra when she discovers magazine vendors selling soft porn, calls Peru "a nation of hypocrites," etc. It's funny how she condemns the 16th-century Spanish accounts of Indians as beasts and savages, yet makes similar observations herself and complains that Peruvians having the nerve to drive their trucks through the Peruvian mountains is a kind of "desecration." It's also not clear how she feels able to gauge the natives' intelligence when she herself makes it clear that she has never bothered to learn more than a few words of Quechua. It's definitely worth a read, but brace yourself for some of the more self-righteously arrogant spots in an otherwise broad-minded account.

Wonderful, uncomplicated and witty descriptions of the environment, culture, peoples and journey. Amazing courage to do what had to be done to get through. Made me want to travel mysel, instead of earning large amounts of money in an office. Truly inspirational.

Although the thought of reading about Dervla Murphy's trip throught the Peruvian Andes did not greatly interest me because of the potential for boring day-by-day narration, I found Murphy's description and narration of her trip very enlightening. Murphy deftly ties together her story of her trip with historical facts and cultural observations of Peru. Although I did not always agree with Murphy's opinion of the Peruvian people, she gave me food for thought during my trip to Peru.

It's a travelogue, after all, how good can it be? Very good, actually. The Misses Murphy are not only intrepid explorers (lunatic also applies, as Ms. Murphy herself notes), but excellent observers. I suppose that is why she gets published. "Eight Feet" is not only funny but educational, and cannot help but kindle wanderlust in the reader. Best read episodically (think every night before bed) because that is how it is written, one travels with them by sharing in the emotional triumphs and tribulations. While her nature descriptions are evocative, one really connects with the more human aspects of the journey. I can only try to imagine the rivers and mountains, and it took me half the book to grasp what 'puna' referred to geographically. Banks, thievery, and rumbling bellies are in abundance, however, and are what make this book worth reading. The same holds true for "Where the Indus is Young" and, I imagine, the rest of her books. When I've read them, I'll let you know!

Dervla Murphy is definitely a one of a kind treasure. The vistas she conjures up in this book are breathtaking. The hardships she endured are more than most of would care to experience in our travels. Still, it's a great armchair experience!

In true Dervla-style, this book logs her journey through the Andes with her young daughter and a mule. The little family traces Pizarro's route through Peru from Cajamarca to Cuzco. Dervla's ability to live so simply, and quite frankly endure such hardships, never ceases to amaze me. Her daughter, Rachel, shares that same talent. As with her other books, she paints a realistic picture of the country; the good, bad, beautiful, and ugly. Ever empathetic and never judgemental, she describes the land, people, villages as well as economic/political situations in an easygoing style.

Dervla Murphy, her 9 year old daughter, and a mule walking through Peru makes for great reading. Her encounters with the native Peruvians and her accounts make for worthwhile reading. I am looking forward to read more of her travel books.

Dervla Murphy grew up in Lismore, County Waterford, to parents she called "Dublin bourgeoisie". Her father was the local librarian and her mother suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. Murphy's parents met in Poland, he on a biking trip, she on a hiking trip, and renewed their relationship which had started at a birthday party when the two were seven years old.

Murphy inherited wanderlust; she writes that at her tenth birthday she received an atlas and a bicycle and decided to cycle to India. She left school when she was 14, and took care of her mother, spending month-long cycling trips in Europe. Her mother died in 1962, and Murphy left on a solo trip from Ireland to India.

The result was Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, the first of over twenty travel books, describing her adventures, usually alone and usually totally self sufficient, relying on the generosity of people living in the area.

In 1968 she gave birth to her only child, a daughter named Rachel, who she raised alone, "a brave choice in 1960s Ireland." Murphy started taking Rachel on her trips when Rachel was five, and this journey through the Andes when Rachel was nine.

Murphy, Rachel and the mule named Juana followed Pizarro's route from Cajamarca near the border with Ecuador, to Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital--traveling over 1,300 miles at high altitudes. Murphy's book is basically a travel journal, with short essays about the difficulties of the journey (including the theft of Juana), the failures of modern society, interactions with native Peruvians, and commentary by Rachel.

For example,

"...When the blizzard started at 2:30 Rachel agreed that we shouldn't complain because the wind was behind us. As she put on her waterproof poncho I covered the load with our cape and wrapped myself in a space-blanket. Then for two and a half hours we plodded on through swirling soft snow that restricted visibility to about fifty yards. It wasn't intolerably cold but soon our feet were numb. And poor Juana, with her head down and ears back, was misery personified. At last Rachel began to crack up; for the first time she complained, of cold feet. I knew the agony she was enduring - you might say we were in the same boot - but as the sky was lightening slightly I urged her to keep going in the hope that soon we could set up a dry camp. Then the snow became rain/sleet and soon there was a lull, though the clouds remained low and unbroken. We rushed the tent up and were just putting down the last peg when the sleet started again.

"As I was writing this Rachel drifted back from the edge of sleep to say drowsily - 'Do you know what you're like? You're like those Spartan mothers who left babies out all night on mountains to see if they were worth rearing!'..." (page 167)

I bought this book to learn about Peru, and it filled in some blank spots very well. But more than that, I found a charming, witty, interesting travel writer who I plan to read a great deal more of.

Robert C. Ross 2008