Journeys in Latin America

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33065, 4 November 1972, Page 10

Journeys in Latin America

Haff a Dozen of the Other. By Sebastian Snow. 222 pp. Black and white photographs. Hodder and . Stoughton. Intrepid yes, but Sebastian Snow is no abstemious, rigidly self-disciplined, humourless, explorer dedicated to hardship. To him it is a way of life that began when he was 21 (in 1950) with a solo motor-cycle trip across Lapland, followed that same year by a lone overland expedition from Istanbul to Karachi, much of the way on foot Between then and this latest book he has made several adventurous journeys in South America, married, been a chicken farmer, and somehow managed to return to his distinctly bachelor form of holiday: climbing an active volcano, searching for a lost Inca city, or rafting down the Amazon. Mr Snow writes in a breezy style that minimises the dangers and discomforts, and maximises the personal encounters with both friendly and hostile Indians (the six journeys in this book are all in Latin America). His people come alive, often imbibing the local cup that cheers but also keeps them going when the going is undeniably not according to American Express. Impenetrable

jungle and the possibility of death at the hands of remote tribes, are real hazards understated in favour of the light-hearted information such as the 18 bottles of Pisco that were crated and labelled as snake serum to save giving offence to kind missionaries who airfreighted the expedition into the jungle starting point. The separate parts of the book are accounts of a journey from source to mouth of the Amazon; climbing Cotopaxi, the highest volcano on earth, and Chimborazo, the highest mountain in Ecuador; the search for the lost Inca city of Paititi; another voyage, from the Orinoco to the Plate; a climb to the lip of an active volcano; a journey in the 1541 footsteps of Francisco de Orellana, who crossed South America at its widest point and discovered the Amazon. The photographs are homely rather than impressive, and belie the undoubted courage of the author over a period of 20 years’ adventuring. Although Mr Snow had some “scarey” encounters with danger, his tinexaggerated reporting style means his book makes bed-time reading without fear of nightmare.