Customer Reviews

The Naturalist in Nicaragua

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This book should be required reading in school, the historical perspective, info on nature, and Belts perspective on anthropology are priceless and disturbing.

A cross between a travel book and biology class, under extreme conditions with 4 legged transportation. It makes me appreciate how difficult it was to travel, back in the day, in a tropical country.
The author was working for a mining company and travelled extensively. Belt does an excellent job of describing what he experienced.
Some things are little changed up to the present day, horses and mules are still pulling wagons with wooden wheels, now competing for room on the roads with modern 4x4's.
Nicaragua has lost much of what Belt describes but is still a beautiful country. Read the book, then go visit before the population destroys the rest....

This book is one of the best natural history books ever writen. Thomas Belt lived in Nicargua for 4 years during the last century and his travel with in the country descrived the way the tropics used to be 100 years ago. Since he wrote the book, 98% of the low land tropical dry forest have been deforested.