Travels in a Thin Country (Abacus travel) [Paperback]

Sara Wheeler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 7, 2006 | Series: Abacus travel

Squeezed in between a vast ocean and the longest mountain range on earth, Chile is 2,600 miles long and never more than 110 miles wide - not a country which lends itself easily to maps. Nor, as Sara Wheeler found out, does it easily lend itself to a lone woman with two carpetbags who wishes to travel from the top to the bottom, from the driest desert in the world to the sepulchral wastes of Antarctica. Yet, despite bureaucratic, geographic and climatic setbacks, Sara Wheeler managed to complete that journey in six months, discovering en route a country that is quite extraordinarily diverse. This is an account of an odyssey which included Christmas Day spent with a llama sandwich on the Tropic of Capricorn at 13,000 feet, a sex hotel in the capital, four days wedged aboard a cargo boat, a wet tent and and high street bank in Patagonia. In Santiago she talked her way into the prisons, in Tierra del Fuego she hitched a lift around Cape Horn on a supply boat delivering a coffin, and in the high Andes she lived on a Vedic commune. From Easter in the slums to an eventful week on Robinson Crusoe Island, the author picks her way through the complex reality of South American Catholicism and the fragile peace of a newly-born democracy. She also drinks a lot of wine. This improbable ribbon of land has been home to Andean tribes who remain the most scientifically neglected people in the world; it has been conquered by conquistadores, pillaged by Sir Francis Drake (no hero in Chile), exploited by foreign imperialists, blighted by the Panama Canal, governed by the world's first democratically-elected Marxist president and stamped upon by one of this century's most reviled dictators. And, as Sara Wheeler discovered, they have all left their mark on today's Chile - an extravagantly complex country, hidden behind the Andes and stretching to the end of the world. Other work by the author includes "An Island Apart".

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Notably well written, perceptive, lively and sympathetic.  Sara Wheeler is very well worth reading." --Daily Telegraph

"She is a marvelous writer--funny, elegant and observant.  As a traveling companion, Sara Wheeler is shrewd and
amusing and likeable and well informed . . . not just a good but an outstanding travel writer." --The Oldie

"Always lively and informative, sketching in the history with a light but sure touch . . . she admirably conveys the mood
of contemporary Chile." --The New Statesman

"A gifted writer with a knack for discovering the unexpected . . . Ms. Wheeler is a writer with attitude." --The Hindu --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Inside Flap

Squeezed between a vast ocean and the longest mountain range on earth, Chile is 2,600 miles long and never more than 110 miles wide--not a country that lends itself to maps, as Sara Wheeler discovered when she traveled alone from the top to the bottom, from the driest desert in the world to the sepulchral wastes of Antarctica. Eloquent, astute, nimble with history and deftly amusing, Travels in a Thin Country established Sara Wheeler as one of the very best travel writers in the world. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Abacus Little, Brown (December 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0349105847
• ISBN-13: 978-0349105840
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,913,368 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Superficial and disappointing, August 22, 2008

By 

A. J. Cornish Bowden (Marseilles, France) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile (Modern Library) (Paperback)

This is a 2006 reissue of a book written more than ten years earlier, and in her introduction to the reissue the author describes it as a young woman's book, but she is too kind: a rather silly and ignorant book would be more accurate. The central problem is that she doesn't seem to have decided what sort of book she was trying to write. A travel book may fall into one of three genres: a tourist guide, an analysis of the political and social character of the country visited, or an account of the adventures experienced by the author. Sara Wheeler doesn't appear to have had any adventures, so the third of these is a non-starter, but her book fails in both of the other two as well: it has too few descriptions of the places visited and too many accounts of the conversations she had about politics to succeed as a tourist guide; as a social and political analysis it has much too much chit-chat. In any case case her knowledge of Chile is very superficial -- the kind of thing she would have heard from her political exile friends in London before she went, rather than things she saw with her own eyes. One has the impression that her main objective was to confirm the ideas she had before going to Chile, and within Chile she stayed (amongst other places, of course) at the British Embassy and on the estates of very wealthy people, where no doubt, she was able to confirm her prejudices. She tells us, for example, that the Chilean population is riddled with anti-semitism: she could easily have picked up that idea from talking with her wealthy friends, but as a description of the population as a whole it is complete nonsense.

Who could visit Lake Chungura in the far north of Chile without finding anything at all to say about its beauty? Who could pass through the Region de los Lagos in the south, but refrain from stopping because she didn't think it would tell her much about Chile? Sara Wheeler, that's who. She mentions (correctly) that the Region de los Lagos is a favourite place for Chilean people to go on vacation, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to her that seeing where ordinary people go on vacation and what they do there would tell her more about the ordinary life of the country than visiting a military base in the Antarctic.

All in all a very disappointing book, with very little of interest to say.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Walking on a thin line, August 26, 2007

By 

Bjørn Chr Tørrissen "World traveller" (Oslo, Norway) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Travels in a Thin Country (Abacus travel) (Paperback)

Since I did a similar trip to the one in this book a few years ago, I was curious to see whether Sara and I also had the same experience. We didn't.

Whereas I just left home, Sara apparently first spent much time learning Spanish and gathering a network of contacts in Chile, including a number of official tourist offices that gave her free or cheap accommodation and transportation, very briefly mentioned here and there. Her contacts in Santiago, some at the British Embassy and some filthy rich families, Chile's de facto aristocracy, gives her access to interesting people and a level of luxury that "normal" travellers seldom encounter.

So reading the book is not the best way to figure out what you can expect to see and do on your own trip through Chile. Nevertheless there's a lot of background information about the country which may be useful to you. Also because she did her trip in the early 1990s, so a LOT has changed since then. All the destinations she mentions are still very much open to tourism, and you get a general idea of what they are like. I was disappointed that she only spent half a day in Torres del Paine, which to me was the most beautiful spot in the country. Also, she goes to "Chilean Antarctica", but there's not much of value to be gathered from reading her account of it. She only spent one day there, being guided by Chilean officials in and around a tiny settlement.

Sometimes she's funny in a very British manner, but it rarely lasts more than one sentence at a time. One of the other reviewers appears to find Sara rather promiscuous, going off with one man after the other on, well, overnight adventures to remote places. I often travel like that, and although it may seem like a stupid/crazy thing to do to some people, travelling in certain regions often means suddenly sharing a car/tent/meal with people you just met the day before. Although I'm sure there must have been short-term romance in the air at times, I certainly don't think less of Sara for not "admitting" it in her book. It just wouldn't add any value to the tale.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars kept the magic of Chile alive..., March 15, 2006

By 

L. Fafard (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile (Modern Library) (Paperback)

I disagree with the other reviewer's comments who felt he had to slog through the book waiting for it to payoff. I thoroughly enjoyed Sara Wheeler's writing on Chile and reccomend this book to anyone who has traveled to Chile or is contemplating a trip.

I started reading her book at the end of a 2-week adventure in Chile and many of her comments and thoughts resonated with my own experiences in Chile. I hated to leave the country and its beauty behind, but her book allowed me to retain and relive the magic of my own trip for another week+ as I savored her writing.