Englishman Graham Mackintosh seems an unlikely candidate to walk the 3,000-mile coast of Baja, California--after all, he calls himself "the most unadventurous person in the world." Yet Mackintosh spent 500 days in that loneliest of deserts, carrying his world on his back, dining on rattlesnake and cactus, drinking distilled seawater, and living with fear as a constant companion. So, just what was this "most unadventurous" man doing in a place like Baja? In
Into A Desert Place, Mackintosh blames books for his transformation from armchair traveler to hardened adventurer. A taste for adventure travel literature soon developed into an addiction; when the library shelves had surrendered the last of their treasures, he went into a kind of withdrawal: "It got so bad that I even thought of doing something adventurous and crazy myself.... " Walking around Baja was not Mackintosh's first choice--he considered getting married--but a trip to visit friends in Los Angeles led him to the little Mexican village of Ensenada, which had been prominently featured in one of those adventure travel tales he'd read in England.
Like Tolkein's Bilbo Baggins, running down the road toward adventure without a hat or coat, Mackintosh set off to Baja without a tent or sleeping bag, hitchhiking his way around the peninsula until his money ran out. By that time, he'd fallen deeply in love with the harsh environment and was determined to come back and explore it more thoroughly. Into a Desert Place is his account of what he saw and learned on that second trip, and how he survived.
“Could well become an enduring classic. . . . Always vastly entertaining, this is one of the finest pieces of travel writing to appear in years and certainly one of the best books on Baja ever published. Don't miss this title; it's that good.”
- Coast Book Review Service
“What has resulted from [Graham Mackintosh's] unsuspected determination and stamina is a truly uplifting account of what one person alone against the world can accomplish. It is also one of the finest pieces of travel writing of recent times.”
- Irish Independent
“[A] 'can't-wait-to-turn-the-page' story.”
- San Diego Log
“An engagingly humorous and ultimately inspiring chronicle of high adventure.”
- Stockton Record
About the Author
Graham Mackintosh gives numerous lectures and radio and television interviews in both Britain and the United States.