Customer Reviews

Savage Shore: Life and Death with Nicaragua's Last Shark Hunters

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

 

 

Good travel writers are few and far between. This book reads fast. In addition to a few nightmares about the darkness of jungly places and the preying of freshwater sharks, we have learned alot from his risky and insightful ecological journey.

We learn the richness of Nicaragua, Mosquitia, and a compelling history of Miskito and Creole life on the Atlantic Coast of Central America. I rank this book among the very finest of all of the travel literature out there.

A few of the human kind can be found in places like Bluefields, Nicaragua, where if this book had instead been set in the wild west of the US, the only proper name for some of the residents would be desperados. Although conditions are definitely frontier-like the characters are very 20th century, and uniquely Nicaraguan. Interspersed throughout SAVAGE SHORE are referrences to, and the occasional crossing of paths with, Sandinistas, Contras, Colombian drug dealers and the odd modern day pirate. These characters though are not even the central focus, but they certainly add to what is already a fascinating and well written travelogue, cultural study, nature journal, and critique on human greed, economic exploitation, and political chaos.

The central characters are not men at all but bull sharks that live, breed, and hunt in the Caribbean waters of Nicaragua's east coast. It is the "most willful and aggressive of all tropical sharks" and what makes it unique and worthy of a book, is that "like no other shark, it possessed the ability to cross from salt water to freshwater, hunting far upriver". That means that the bull shark can be found up the Escondido river near Bluefields or more impressively, 60 miles up the San Juan river, all the way to Lake Nicaragua. It is as the author says "shark where shark should not be - in fresh water, on human territory."

The book tells the tale of this shark and the men who hunt it, as they have for generations, - bravely, in open dugout canoes with hand held lines. The sharks are hunted for their body oils, the fins are used to make soup and the skin is tanned into leather. Poverty means that resource management is non-existent and overfishing means that the shark itself may soon be gone from its last great freshwater holdout - lake Nicaragua.

Fear and greed, the author says, are the two most common human emotions the bull shark elicits. Perhaps it's fitting then that this also best describes the pervasive feeling that one gets from this rough and tumble area. History has a part to play. In the 17th century Bluefields was the capital of the British protectorate - the Mosquito Coast - which stretched the length of Nicaragua's Caribbean shoreline to Puerto Cabeza in the north, and beyond into what is now Honduras. This explains how a town with an Anglo name exists in a Latin country. Slaves from Jamaica were brought in and their descendants are now the large, patois/english speaking Creole population. Co-existence with the Miskito, Sumu, and Ramu indians has not always been peaceful but the natives of this area have at times pulled together, usually in the face of some external threat, whether natural as in the many hurricanes that have devastated the area, or man made as in the political tribalism and battles between Sandinistas and Contras.

This story of sharks, at sea and on land, makes the place most appropriately named SAVAGE SHORE. Yet in an irony fitting for this book, the area is also the focal point of Nicaragua's tourism industry.

Clever writing by a young author who obviously did some research into not only the Bull Shark but also the sometimes enigmatic Nicaraguan culture, history and politics. After traveling to all but one of the Central American countries and working in Honduras near the Mosquito Coast for over 2 years I found his descriptions to be most accurate. Like most travel writers he does some ad-libing to make it more interesting, but hey that sells more books! His greatest gift seems to be his ability to bring characters to life. As I read I could really picture what they looked like and how they acted. Believe me, there are some interesting characters in the 3rd world jungle countries! I had to chuckle when throughout his travels in Central America people thought he must be American. Marriot shrugged it off, almost offended at times it seems. Being English or American in La Moskitia would be an advantage for sure, but in the interior being American can be otherwise. If Mr. Marriot reads this I hope he will respond personally for it would be a real pleasure to share stories of our different adventures in Central America. Someday I will write a book of my own adventures very similar to Marriot's but they will be short stories, for I had no real mission while I was there besides working and living "La Vida Loca." Marriot has piqued my interest enough to buy his 1st book "The Lost Tribe." Until then, escribisteis bien vos!

A couple of quibbles.
1. The book is an absorbing look at a remote part of Latin America and the author has a great eye for detail and a wonderful talent for description BUT he lavishes it on every last pile of dog feces, human sputum, sweat smell, foul breath and any other evidence that he's passing through savage, hostile territory. I've never been to Mosquitia but spent years covering Latin America, including backwoods places in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru as well as the large and small cities of Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Panama, Nicaragua, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. I found the people fascinating and mostly charming and much of the scenery gorgeous. I'm put off by someone so intent on describing the ugliness of nearly everything he sees and everyone he meets.
2. It's vivid travel writing but I only believe about half of it happened the way he describes. He harps on the hardships, the long walks in near-fatal heat, the excruciating boat rides, etc., but is vague about some of the logistics of his trip, including how he got to Nicaragua in the first place, presumably by jet airliner. The account is weighted to emphasize the suffering of a civilized man alone in savage territory. That's a good writing angle but it only rings true part of the time. The shark lore and observations are good but the trip is finally pointless, despite efforts to give it mythical depth. It was a long, uncomfortable journey where he met a lot of colorful characters (artfully described) but in many cases, nothing much happened, and in the end he arrives nowhere and discovers nothing beyond what he gleaned from the Internet about Latin American history and zoology. Ending with a meaningless scrap of paper summed up by "nothing" sounds soulful and dramatic -- good try at making something out of, yes, nothing.

If you want shark stories, stear clear of this book. Make no mistake; Marriot makes an incredible journey and has some amazing experiences. However, he has direct encounters with only three sharks and those all occured in one day. I would say 75% of this book is about Nicaragua's history and politics, 10% discusses shark mythology and 10% is a heavy handed attempt to draw metaphors between the two. This leaves 5% for actual sharks.

In short, a big disappoint for shark fans. Instead, check out Shark Attacks : Their Causes and Avoidance by Thomas B. Allen.

This book is a must read! It gives the reader great insight on a dying culture and the Samoza Regime that helped destroy it!

Our son sent us this book,after reading it while in Nicaragua.
My husband comes from a GREAT story-telling family and this book feels like it belongs in our family tales!Who would believe a book about the near-disappearance of shark fishing in Nicaragua would be SO compeling?