Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile (Modern Library (Paperback))

I felt deceived by the cover of this book which was of the famous spires in Torres De Pines. Sara spent one day in the park and devoted one page in her book to the part of Chile I was most interested in. She spent a lot of time in impoverished villages, and even two weeks living in slums of Santiago. It seems she was intent on being a traveler rather than a tourist. In her romp sponsored by the Chilean tourist board and the U.S. Navy and the help of a few well-placed friends in London she did see the country. A lot of time was spent on the politics and corruption of the government. Obviously, extremely well-read and informed about the regions and history the book is educational. Sipping Piscos and hanging in clubs seemed to be a favorite pastime. Even though I had hoped for more on the Lakes District, a place I would like to visit, and the famous Torres des Pines, I was pulled forward by her descriptive powers and back-handed sense of humor. Perhaps, it should have been titled Brit on the Road in a Long Thin Country with a picture of her driving a Hertz Hummer on a rough track.

To accompany Sara Wheeler on her journey through Chile, from the norhern desert to the icy tip of Antarctica, it's bestto pack a good map as well as a Spanish and English dictonary. It's easy to get lost. Is she still in the Andean foothills or did she double back to Azapa valley? She hitchhikes here andthere, with questionable companions, giving little thought to the readers who must follow along.Wheeler is quite capable of lyrical writing. When she describes the five-storey tenement inhabited by friends, one can almost smell the garbage spilling from the plastic bags. However, such writing is rare. Too often she substitutes ten dollar words for real insight. It's hard to get excited about the Island of Quinchao described as "green and undulating, with an occasional excrecence of shingle-tiled extravagance."Wheeler has little knack for what might interest readers. She wastes several pages on a tedious visit with policemen that ends in a silly prank involving a stuffed beaver while devoting barely a line to the tantalizing prospect of obtaining water from sea mist.Historical and political events are inserted here and there likethe mud puddles she encounters - and are just as clear. Isabelle Allende's novels were the first to whet my appetite for Chile. Unfortunately, Wheeler nearly killed my desire to travel there.On page 264 Mark, a fisherman, says of the far southern ElventhRegion 'Civilization is a thin veneer down here.' Wheeler'sbook is a thin veneer over the country. Chile deserves awriter with the skill to dig deeper into it's soul.

Travelled right along with her, from one end of the country to the other--her descriptivenarrative kept me anxious for the next adventure, and I hated when it finally came to an end!

Good for the Solo AdventurerI read this book as I explored Peru on my own an many years older than Sara. The connection of place and experience was energizing. If the book has any flaws, it is that we are left with so many unanswered questions about Sara. How did she end up in all the places she eventually landed, many quite luxurious, with whose help? I was very enchanted by her determination to do this journey and her refusal to leave any of the length of Chili unconnected during her visit. You learn a lot as a reader by reading this book.

Until now, and for no particular reason, I have only read male travel authors. Sara’s account of Chile was very interesting from geographical, historical and political points of view. Her command of language is enviable and at times I’d lose the thread of an experience while I looked up the definition of 10 words. The book is worthy of five stars even though, as a women, I would have enjoyed knowing how she managed relationships among the many men she encountered and with whom she traveled.

Reading about Chile as I continue to socially isolate during this pandemic. The author manages to paint a picture of Chile through a foreigner’s eye without being annoying and self aggrandizing which I appreciated. Having traveled south to north in Argentina, this book managed to make me feel nostalgic for a place I’d never been.

This a well-written and interesting travelogue. I did enjoy it, but prefer to read travels memoirs by ordinary people who do not have the advantages that Ms Wheeler has all along her journey. She has wealthy and influential contacts which the average traveler just does not have. Staying in a million dollar hacienda must be nice, but how many of us can actually do that? I will stick to the memoirs of the average traveler struggling to find their way in a strange land.

It was great to read as I travelled the top to bottom route myself. It added much as she travelled to off the beaten track places and met many people the average travel would not.

This review applies to Travels in a Thin Country, The Broken Road, A Time of Gifts, Roumeli and a few others by the same author. I am very keen on travel writing and on this basis bought the books, supposedly by one of the great travel writers. Overall they present as being written by a self indulgent, smarty pants show-off using many complex and very rare words when simple words would work better ( and I am very interested in words). Avoid.

Many of us have pottered around different parts of the globe in our younger years and met assorted people, variously interesting or boring; I should have hoped that some sort of taste of the uniqueness of character of Chile should have come through from this travelogue. Also, although she describes some of the people she meets, few stand out as being real individuals. Nor, perhaps more importantly for an enquiring reader, does she indicate the fascinating polyglot racial backgrounds that comprise the non-Indian population. Nor does she seem to have noticed how Chile's history - the Great Pacific War at least - is a backcloth to so much of the country's mores; a statue or a square named after Prat or O'Higgins in every town. I cannot agree with the reviewer who thought she had drawn a balanced view of the Allende-Pinochet episode; it seemed to me that she had arrived with the standard Guardian-reader's preconceptions. Nor his dislike of the latter part of the book when she explored Patagonia and touched Antartica; perhaps she was a little over the top in the extasy of her adjectives - this did not bother me for the basic interest of her account brought some quickening interest to her book. That she did not sample the strangeness of the Atacama Desert towards the Bolivian frontier (nor the quaint atmosphere of Arica where desert meets the Pacific) was a pity; as was any deep exploration into the glories of the high Andes.

This is a travelogue from the early 1990s, when Chile was emerging from the dictatorship of General Pinochet. The author travelled for months from roughly from north to south taking in the Atacama desert, Santiago, the lakes, and even Antartica. This is an account of the people she met, even more than of the places she saw.The book has a 5000 word preface written following a return visit in 2006 - this should be read as an epilogue as it references people from the original work, and doesn't mean a whole lot until you have read the book itself.Unfortunately , time passes on, and the book is possibly a little dated now to use as inspiration for a visit to Chile, or as a guide to what to expect

In the early 1990s Sara Wheeler set on a several months journey from the north to the south of Chile. In this book she describes, warts and all, her journey bringing to life the great landscapes, the people she met and the political climate after the Pinochet years, all enveloped with her personal thoughts and feelings whilst travelling. A great book to be enjoyed on its own merits and as an introduction to the country, if planning a visit there.

I now feel like I have been to Chile! This is a brilliantly written account, now some years back, with beautiful details and real emotion. Throw Eat Pray Love in the bin where it belongs and read this instead.