Investigating the "green dreams" - those well-intentioned but often misguided visions - that inspire tourism in Central America, Steve Benz travels from the Mosquito Coast to Costa Rica and along the Ruta Maya. His encounters with foreigners, including "New Agers" at Mayan ruins, North American retirees in Costa Rica, and eco-tourists in the rainforest, lead him to question the impact that visitors are having on the region and its people.
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It's hard to imagine that newspaper editors turned down the submissions Stephen Benz filed from Peru in 1984 in his quest to become a foreign stringer, but their loss is our gain, because those disappointments set Benz on the ecotrail through Central America that resulted in this fair-minded, observant, timely, and beautifully written book. Central America is a complex place, with as many issues and viewpoints as plant, bird, and insect species. Head to the jungle and the scenery is breathtaking, but the politics are hairy. How do tourist dollars impact oppressed Indian groups? Is accepting a stork dinner exhibiting sensitivity to indigenous cultures or exploiting the wildlife? Is it true that the only hike worth taking is the one that's excruciatingly difficult and preferably life threatening? Benz has a keen eye, a fine wit, an endearing candor, and a laudable willingness to listen to the opinions of all the individuals and factions involved. He reports with a facility that belies the difficulty of the task, covering the views of students and local businesspeople, backpackers and tour guides, holier-than-thou sorts and oblivious vacationers, landowners and Mayan activists. Benz portrays with great style a beautiful land, a profusion of conflicts, and an amusing assortment of adventures in a book that's as valuable to read as it is entertaining and enjoyable. --Stephanie Gold
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Candid portrait of eco travel in Latin America,
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This review is from: Green Dreams: Travels in Central America (Paperback)
Mainstream media usually gives Latin America a raw deal. News articles zero in on violent crime, political uprisings and natural disasters, while tourism features tout escapism from cruise ship extravaganza to Fantasy Island-wannabes.Rarely are environmental issues discussed, let alone ecotourism initiatives. However, this situation is improving. Case in point is the publication of Green Dreams, (Oakland: Lonely Planet, 1998, 278 pages, $13) by Stephen Benz. This new volume in Lonely Planet's Journeys series provides narratives from the authors travels in the Amazon, Chiapas, Honduras' Mosquitia, Guatemala and Honduras. Despite the chapters about his adventures in South America and Mexico, the book is unwittingly subtitled, "Travels in Central America." The chapters are arranged chronologically, detailing the authors first forays into "ecotourism" by traveling to Iquitos, Peru's port on the great Amazon River. He has been told he can survive as a stringer if he writes unusual travel pieces. "Not much money, but a quick and easy by-line, and it paid enough cash to keep you going for a spell without having to resort to the even older stand-by of giving English lessons," he explains in the opening chapter. A year later he headed to Honduras, another political hot spot, in search of journalistic opportunities. But instead of covering the war, he finds himself wanting to explore the country's wilderness. "Here it was, the object of my quest, the Rio Platano. I should have felt exhilarated, but in fact, I felt vaguely disappointed; I had no idea why, exhaustion perhaps," he writes, adding, "Or perhaps the biosphere had become in my mind something so fantastic, a place so sublime that reality was bound to seem anticlimactic." Benz's observations are candid and thoughtful. He recounts other adventures in Costa Rica, and a trilogy of chapters about the "Mundo Maya" - a megaproject tourism scam that exploits the indigenous peoples. On his journeys - seemingly random in choice - he meets up with an incredible cast of characters perfectly detailed and familiar to anyone who has spent time traveling in Latin America. Here are his meetings with journalists with fat travel expenses, government lackeys, ugly tourists, and dare devil bus drivers. His epilogue recounts some of his adventures on the internet, trying to touch base and keep track of places he grew to love, if not on his first journey, then in memory. Thanks to the author's candor, Green Dreams redefines the travel narrative and paints a realistic picture of what green travelers can expect south of the U.S. border. Ron Mader is the host of the Eco Travels in Latin America website. He travels extensively in the U.S. Mexico borderlands and is the author of the new guidebook, Mexico: Adventures in Nature (John Muir Publications, 1998).
3.0 out of 5 stars
In Search of "Authentic" Eco-tourism,
By
This review is from: Green Dreams: Travels in Central America (Paperback)
Author Stephen Benz took many trips to Latin America during 1982-1997. In Green Dreams, he writes of the rapid economic and ecological changes in the region during this time. Benz definitely likes to "rough it" and disdains "packaged" travel. Green Dreams recounts some great adventures but - unfortunately - the book's despairing tone is a turnoff.
As with all good travel stories, Green Dreams recounts some great adventures. In 1982 Benz was attempting to break into journalism in Lima, Peru. Looking for a different angle on the country, he journeyed to Iquitos - deep in the Amazon. Once in Iquitos, he took a wild journey down the river with an ill-prepared Peruvian tour guide. Also, Benz paints a vivid picture of the seedy ex-pat journalists who flocked to Honduras in the 1980s to cover the Nicaraguan contras. Still another good section is Benz's coverage of the Zapatista rebels in Mexico during the 1990s. I don't rate Green Dreams any higher than three stars for two reasons. First, I'm probably the wrong audience for the book. I read travel books for entertainment and to get a sense of foreign countries. Benz's discussion of the "nuts and bolts" of ecotourism just didn't "hold" me. More importantly, Green Dreams is a downer. Benz continually reiterates how tourism is undermining local communities. I would have enjoyed the book more had Benz spent more times on the joy and adventure of traveling abroad. For those interested in the problems of developing eco-tourism in a way that benefits local communities, Green Dreams is a good read. Those interested in an entertaining travelogue will want to look elsewhere.
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