Customer Reviews

San Sombrero: A Land of Carnivals, Cocktails and Coups (Jetlag Travel Guide)

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

 

 

Look, we don't know each other. I may be an inveterate exaggerator, right? I might give all fives on my Amazon reviews. I might detest conflict and only say nice things about books.

You don't know, do you?

So let me assure you that none of those things is true, because I'm going to make a statement that might seem ludicrous: SAN SOMBRERO is one of the funniest things I've ever read. My wife thinks so, too, and we don't agree on very much. Even my Rhodesian Ridgeback seems particularly jaunty when I'm reading SAN SOMBRERO.

An Aussie friend introduced me to the Jet Lag travel guide spoofs. SAN SOMBRERO is actually the third in a series but the first I've read. It doesn't matter where you begin, but - if you have ever read a serious travel guide of any kind (say, Frommers, Rough Guide, etc.) - then you'll *love* what these lunatics do with the genre.

SAN SOMBRERO is roughly based on Costa Rica, Cuba, and any number of other Latin American 'travel paradise' locations. Each time you think the authors have exhausted their uproarious takes on one of the conventional aspects of the genre, you turn a page and they hit you again.

It's inexhaustibly entertaining, right up to the 'insert' at the back of the book.

I can't wait to read PHAIC TAN and MOLVANIA.

Aussies, all is forgiven, even your abysmal cricket side and the freakin' long airplane rides it takes to get where you are. You can come home now and rejoin the family of nations.

I don't go out of my way looking for comedy, but I found this in my parents' collection during a visit back home. Probably the more familiar you are with Latin America travel guides, the more you'll appreciate this book, which exaggerates the dangers of travel (disease, political unrest, insects, street food), and desperate living conditions, etc. as much as the guide books tend to downplay these conditions. This book is funny to me because rather than being absurd, it is loosely based on the (sometimes frightening) truth. The book is well-designed and illustrated- if you just looked at the pictures, you wouldn't know it wasn't a real guide book. Following are some excerpts (which are by no means highlights, as the humor is relentless):

"Be very suspicious about taking a ride in a cab where a 'friend' is accompanying the driver. San Sombreran taxi drivers don't have friends."

"San Sombrerans are passionate movie-goers, possibly because cinemas are the only air-condition buildings in town."

"Political instability has seen 17 different presidents take power in the past decade, the shortest reign being that of Alivio Escrevez who was assassinated halfways through his own inauguration speech."

While not quite as good as the first book on Molvania, San Sombrero is still a fun book and well worth the time to read it. It makes you even want to read the restaurant and hotel information for the twist they manage to work into them. Vive San Sombrero! Vive (insert name here), el Presidente!

Very funny, as are the orher two titles in this series. Amazon should offer a package collecting all three- "Molvania", Phaic Tan" and "San Sombrero". There are several other titles mentioned in these books as future publications in the Jetlag Travel Series. I'll buy them when available. I'm particularly looking forward to "Travel for Seniors" with information on the twenty best places in the world to lodge a complaint.Iwant to know if Rick Steves' many books on European travel inspired the authors of the Jetlag Series to parody them. Please comment, Santo Cilauro.

Once again, the Working Dog team have come up with a gem for the Jetlag travel series. You'd have thought that by the time book three came out, the format would be a little tired, but you'd be wrong.

Definitely worth buying.

I own the first two in this series (Molvania, A Land Untouched By Modern Dentistry, and Phaic Than, Sunstroke on a Shoestring). I bought this hoping it was half as funny, because they were hilarious. Imagine my pleasure to find that the third installment was new, fresh, and still very funny. I love to read these while I am travelling.

If this is your first trip to San Sombrero do buy this invaluable guide to get the (very) low down on the Central American paradise. The guide really does reveal all and in the style that you'll be familiar with from other guidebooks: color photos, city maps, vital hotel and where to eat info, bold type text for things to do and look out for.

Seasoned travellers might think I've seen all this before though. This latest satire hasn't really moved on from 'Phaic Tan', still very funny and stylish looking but hardly new. But wait. There's more! Inserted in the back flap is a classy looking thirty-page brochure: the Jetlag 'Hot Guide'. Looking just like one of those glossy mags found in suites of up-market city hotels. Arty photos and vacuous copy describe what the well-heeled should spend their money on and possibly drink because the back cover has an ad for Uzbekistan's finest vodka.

The Jetlag folk have produced another (similar) winner with San Sombrero but I hope the next fake goes for something completely different, maybe a cruise line brochure or a complete city guide.

Funny, though I did not enjoy it as much as the jetlag guide to Molvania.