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Cloud Forest
Peter Mattiessen has long been known for his travels to some of the remotest lands on earth, most notably recorded in The Snow Leopard. The Cloud Forest brings to vivid life a South American journey that took him from the Sargasso Sea to the jungles of Amazonia, from the Inca city of Machu Picchu high in the Andes to the bleak rocks of Tierra del Fuego and the winds and vast skies of Patagonia. The result is an incisive and marvellously well-observed journal by a born writer and naturalist, a voyage of exploration among the people, places and fading wildlife of this most exotic and mysterious of continents.
320 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1961
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About the author
Peter Matthiessen
143 books912 followersPeter Matthiessen is the author of more than thirty books and the only writer to win the National Book Award for both non-fiction (The Snow Leopard, in two categories, in 1979 and 1980) and fiction (Shadow Country, in 2008). A co-founder of The Paris Review and a world-renowned naturalist, explorer and activist, he died in April 2014.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
November 1, 2015
The Cloud Forest: A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness is actually two books: The first part is a rather slipshod diary of a trip encompassing parts of Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina in a diary format. It almost seems as if the destinations are selected haphazardly. The second part makes up for it. It consists of a mostly failed expedition down the Urubamba and Ucayali Rivers to find (1) the jungle ruins of Picha and (2) a strange fossil mandible found near the Mapuya River.
Peter Matthiessen and his partner Andres Porras Caceres contact one Cesar Cruz to join them, but he never shows up with the promised equipment at the rendezvous. Instead, Peter and Andres are forced to make their own way down the treacherous Urubamba, especially the rapids at the Pongo de Mainique. Eventually, they meet up with Cruz, who apparently was hoping the expedition would never show up. They never make it to the ruins at Picha, which are in the territory of a very violent Machiguenga tribe; but they do get the mandible. But instead of Matthiessen flying it to the U.S. with much acclaim, it winds up in a lawsuit between Cruz and the man on whose property it originally lay.
If you should read this book, I suggest you concentrate on the long sixth chapter, "Beyond Black Drunken River," which deals with the Urubamba/Ucayali expedition.
Peter Matthiessen and his partner Andres Porras Caceres contact one Cesar Cruz to join them, but he never shows up with the promised equipment at the rendezvous. Instead, Peter and Andres are forced to make their own way down the treacherous Urubamba, especially the rapids at the Pongo de Mainique. Eventually, they meet up with Cruz, who apparently was hoping the expedition would never show up. They never make it to the ruins at Picha, which are in the territory of a very violent Machiguenga tribe; but they do get the mandible. But instead of Matthiessen flying it to the U.S. with much acclaim, it winds up in a lawsuit between Cruz and the man on whose property it originally lay.
If you should read this book, I suggest you concentrate on the long sixth chapter, "Beyond Black Drunken River," which deals with the Urubamba/Ucayali expedition.
January 26, 2016
The Snow Leopard is one of the powerful books I have ever read, and I keep thinking I will find something meaningful in his other work. I imagine there are these books he wrote before his interest in Buddhism and his opening into mysticism, but this is the 2nd or 3rd book I have read and disliked immensely. There were a few times I imagined myself on a boat drifting down the Amazon, and around every corner, discovering some new bird or tree. But his absolute racism and disregard for the indigenous peoples he encountered is unforgivable. Over and over he writes of their ignorance and stupidity, and judges them in Western terms that are biased and inaccurate and hateful.
I can’t quote his horrible words, and yet, there is such promise of a better man he may become and how he sometimes gets it right when he observes: “In New England one walks quite gradually into a wood, but not so in the jungle. One steps through the wall of the tropic forest, as Alice stepped through the looking glass; a few steps, and the wall closes behind. The first impression is of the dark, soft atmosphere which might be described as “hanging” for in the great tangle of leaves and fronds and boles it is difficult to perceive any one plant as a unit; there are only these hanging shapes draped by lianas in the heavy air, as if they had lost contact with the earth. And this feeling is increased by the character of the earth itself, which is quite unlike the thrifty woodland floor at home; here the tree boles erupt out of heaped-up masses of decay, as if the ground might be almost any distance beneath. The trees themselves are so tumultuous and strange that one sees them as a totality, a cumulative effect, scarcely noticing details…and it is true that the jungle seems strangely silent, even when the air is full of sound; the sounds are like sounds form another sphere of consciousness, from a dream, and then suddenly they burst singly on the ear.”
I can’t quote his horrible words, and yet, there is such promise of a better man he may become and how he sometimes gets it right when he observes: “In New England one walks quite gradually into a wood, but not so in the jungle. One steps through the wall of the tropic forest, as Alice stepped through the looking glass; a few steps, and the wall closes behind. The first impression is of the dark, soft atmosphere which might be described as “hanging” for in the great tangle of leaves and fronds and boles it is difficult to perceive any one plant as a unit; there are only these hanging shapes draped by lianas in the heavy air, as if they had lost contact with the earth. And this feeling is increased by the character of the earth itself, which is quite unlike the thrifty woodland floor at home; here the tree boles erupt out of heaped-up masses of decay, as if the ground might be almost any distance beneath. The trees themselves are so tumultuous and strange that one sees them as a totality, a cumulative effect, scarcely noticing details…and it is true that the jungle seems strangely silent, even when the air is full of sound; the sounds are like sounds form another sphere of consciousness, from a dream, and then suddenly they burst singly on the ear.”
October 28, 2015
The Cloud Forest is a classic of its genre, perhaps undeservedly so.
A young Peter Matthiessen, after a few books of fiction, his first divorce, and one wildlife book, sets sail from New York on a cargo ship M.S. Venimos bound for the Amazon. For a travel book which revels in specificity and attains to verisimilitude, the very first sentence startles: “November 20: A pale November sky, like a sky on the moon.”
Granted, the trip takes place in 1960, before we knew what the crystalline, profoundly black moon sky actually looks like, but why start a non-fiction work with an image of fantasy? Is he implying his “Chronicle of the South American Wilderness” is of a place so other-worldly as to be, almost, unknowable?
Yet the hint of moon-travel may be more apt than intended for, frankly, Matthiessen spends the first half of the book in a linguistic space suit, isolated from the elements and with few human interactions. Despite Brazil’s dominance of both the Amazon and the South American landmass, Matthiessen admits only half way through the book that his Portuguese is nil with this jokey justification: “Brazil is the only country in South America which uses Portuguese, and if one’s Spanish is precarious, as mine is, one should not risk losing it altogether by attempting to speak Portuguese as well.” [Mar. 12, p. 143 in my 1987 Penguin Travel Library edition]
OK, but why is the book’s first, and very slow, half nearly bereft of human description (not to mention de minimis interaction) and, instead, with page after page of bird sightings? I had to wonder if Matthiessen simply digs birds more than people.
Indeed, for his first ecstatic walk into the rainforest near Manaus, he is joined “at the last moment by my fellow passenger, that redoubtable maiden, Miss X.” Yet, due to “the little shrieks and cries uttered by my companion,” the author is not pleased with her company and “affected a sort of trance, not wholly false, and with a rapt expression disregarded her; and after a time, infected by the atmosphere despite herself, she became silent.” [Dec. 23, p. 39]
Had we previously learned something, anything about Miss X (other than being a “redoubtable maiden”), the author’s freezing her out may have been understandable, even amusing. Instead, a certain coldness settles over the book, like the sky on the moon.
Granted, Matthiessen is a self-styled “naturalist-explorer,” and like the Earth Firsters these doom-ridden days, seems to prefer Humans Second. But his mild misanthropy becomes more pernicious in the book’s later contacts with Indians, underlining the defect of character. More on that later.
The good news is that the book’s grinding first half – in which he makes it up the Amazon as far as Pucallpa in Peru, flies over the Andes where he does the touristy sites, then buses or flies down to Tierra del Fuego; and a return trip (after a Manhattan rest?) in which he alights in Mato Grosso, Brazil, before flying to Bolivia – comes to an end. An interlude chapter named “Notes on the Cities” is in fact where the book came alive for me, for Matthiessen finally lets down his guard and revels in all sorts of amusing prejudices, including about the continent’s Mussolini architecture (“the heavy hand of dictators”), the superficiality of Carnival (“like Rio itself, [...] colorful and flimsy and very good fun for a very few days”), and the newly built Brasília, “less inspired than pretentious, a brave new city cunningly disguised as a World’s Fair.” [pp. 115-117]
As you can see, he writes reasonably well (the book was his first serialized in The New Yorker; though the number of verb-less sentences, such as the book’s first, irked me) and with a certain humor, but the superficiality of his first impressions begins to weigh. Why bother? He alludes to his sponsors expecting him the next month to fly out of Buenos Aires to Africa, without ever explaining why or who they are. Indeed, he never bothers to say why he is visiting South America in the first place.
As befalls many a writer whose intelligence and self-regard are elevated, Matthiessen suffers greatly, even amusingly, from general-itis. This allows him to say “in South America radios are always played for all they’re worth, and at full volume” [Apr. 11, p. 167] and other mirthless generalizations. He is a grumpy flyer – which doesn’t keep him from three full pages of aerial observations from a plane in a particularly lethargic part – and raises his discomfort to a philosophical rant on the entire culture: “One becomes stolid and resigned as any dray horse, aware that an infusion of logic, honesty, and efficiency into this world would create a chaos impossible to imagine.” [Mar. 15, p.148] His frustrations overflowing, I had to laugh at that!
Luckily – and I should say immensely so for him – Matthiessen meets a few interesting characters at a bar in Pucallpa who tell him about a monster fossilized jaw deep in the rainforest only waiting for a willing and monied Gringo to mount an expedition to bring it out. Despite his skepticism (“Jungle legends are, in the main, absurd”), Matthiessen falls for it and re-arranges his plans – thankfully, for without it, I doubt the book would have been published.
He persuades the brother of a friend in Lima to join him on the jaunt, a jungle explorer and ex-Governor, no less, of an interior state. And without Andrés – to whom the book is dedicated – there would not have been a book, for Andrés does all the talking (and translating to English) and, at one jungle juncture, saves the author from certain death after he insults a brigand by calling him “shameless.”
But the author is very shy about revealing the mechanics of his journey. Only towards the book’s end, when Andrés is flying out, does he admit how heavily he depended on him for translations, saying “...I scarcely spoke. Come to think of it, I’ve hardly put a hundred words together since we left Machu Picchu, nearly three weeks ago.” The problem with this confession is that it comes after nearly a hundred pages of dialogue transcribed as if the author was both hearing and speaking directly.
Such cracks in the verisimilitude, starting with that opening moon-sky image, detract. The author organizes his work in travel journal style, a fine tradition dating back to 2nd century Greece, but the heavy weight of verbatim quotes from myriad books, and other scholarly diversions, makes one doubt he carried an entire library with him. So the dating of entries just doesn’t ring true and all those verb-less sentences – as though rushed and never re-written – appear as contrivances.
Once you doubt an author’s voice, it is hard to recover. I am not one to project contemporary sensibilities onto times over a half century old, but Matthiessen’s attitude towards Indians as less than fully human seems revealing. One of his most faithful paddlers, “with his Indian face of stone,” is likened to the fossil jaw for “Alejandro was suddenly a monolith into which, at odd moments of the day, life might be breathed and wooden, implacable motions instigated by the simple insertion of a banana.” [Apr. 27, p. 244] On the earthen floor of an Indian hut, a series of items and “babies comprise the greater part of an organized litter” [Mato Grosso, p. 131].
Matthiessen reaches for an epiphany at book’s end when, after hurting the boy’s feelings, he realizes that Alejandro, along with Andrés and himself, deserves part of the credit for the paleontological discovery.
“And I kept thinking how very much how we had taken this slow, shambling boy for granted, as a kind of ungainly presence, as faceless and heavy and patient as one of the big duffels – this is the way such peons are treated here, and, having always had liberal pretensions, I disliked very much how easily I had fallen into this custom and become hardened to it.” [May 6, p. 265]
Although no human is beyond repentance, even here we hear the author’s justifications, and I, for one, feel more sorry for him than for “our good and faithful Alejandro” who is “off to Lima ... to match his wits with his loud vivo compatriots of the streets. I’ll remember him with fondness, and wish him well.” [May 6, p. 288]
These are the journey’s last words. I can only say I feel the same about the author.
A young Peter Matthiessen, after a few books of fiction, his first divorce, and one wildlife book, sets sail from New York on a cargo ship M.S. Venimos bound for the Amazon. For a travel book which revels in specificity and attains to verisimilitude, the very first sentence startles: “November 20: A pale November sky, like a sky on the moon.”
Granted, the trip takes place in 1960, before we knew what the crystalline, profoundly black moon sky actually looks like, but why start a non-fiction work with an image of fantasy? Is he implying his “Chronicle of the South American Wilderness” is of a place so other-worldly as to be, almost, unknowable?
Yet the hint of moon-travel may be more apt than intended for, frankly, Matthiessen spends the first half of the book in a linguistic space suit, isolated from the elements and with few human interactions. Despite Brazil’s dominance of both the Amazon and the South American landmass, Matthiessen admits only half way through the book that his Portuguese is nil with this jokey justification: “Brazil is the only country in South America which uses Portuguese, and if one’s Spanish is precarious, as mine is, one should not risk losing it altogether by attempting to speak Portuguese as well.” [Mar. 12, p. 143 in my 1987 Penguin Travel Library edition]
OK, but why is the book’s first, and very slow, half nearly bereft of human description (not to mention de minimis interaction) and, instead, with page after page of bird sightings? I had to wonder if Matthiessen simply digs birds more than people.
Indeed, for his first ecstatic walk into the rainforest near Manaus, he is joined “at the last moment by my fellow passenger, that redoubtable maiden, Miss X.” Yet, due to “the little shrieks and cries uttered by my companion,” the author is not pleased with her company and “affected a sort of trance, not wholly false, and with a rapt expression disregarded her; and after a time, infected by the atmosphere despite herself, she became silent.” [Dec. 23, p. 39]
Had we previously learned something, anything about Miss X (other than being a “redoubtable maiden”), the author’s freezing her out may have been understandable, even amusing. Instead, a certain coldness settles over the book, like the sky on the moon.
Granted, Matthiessen is a self-styled “naturalist-explorer,” and like the Earth Firsters these doom-ridden days, seems to prefer Humans Second. But his mild misanthropy becomes more pernicious in the book’s later contacts with Indians, underlining the defect of character. More on that later.
The good news is that the book’s grinding first half – in which he makes it up the Amazon as far as Pucallpa in Peru, flies over the Andes where he does the touristy sites, then buses or flies down to Tierra del Fuego; and a return trip (after a Manhattan rest?) in which he alights in Mato Grosso, Brazil, before flying to Bolivia – comes to an end. An interlude chapter named “Notes on the Cities” is in fact where the book came alive for me, for Matthiessen finally lets down his guard and revels in all sorts of amusing prejudices, including about the continent’s Mussolini architecture (“the heavy hand of dictators”), the superficiality of Carnival (“like Rio itself, [...] colorful and flimsy and very good fun for a very few days”), and the newly built Brasília, “less inspired than pretentious, a brave new city cunningly disguised as a World’s Fair.” [pp. 115-117]
As you can see, he writes reasonably well (the book was his first serialized in The New Yorker; though the number of verb-less sentences, such as the book’s first, irked me) and with a certain humor, but the superficiality of his first impressions begins to weigh. Why bother? He alludes to his sponsors expecting him the next month to fly out of Buenos Aires to Africa, without ever explaining why or who they are. Indeed, he never bothers to say why he is visiting South America in the first place.
As befalls many a writer whose intelligence and self-regard are elevated, Matthiessen suffers greatly, even amusingly, from general-itis. This allows him to say “in South America radios are always played for all they’re worth, and at full volume” [Apr. 11, p. 167] and other mirthless generalizations. He is a grumpy flyer – which doesn’t keep him from three full pages of aerial observations from a plane in a particularly lethargic part – and raises his discomfort to a philosophical rant on the entire culture: “One becomes stolid and resigned as any dray horse, aware that an infusion of logic, honesty, and efficiency into this world would create a chaos impossible to imagine.” [Mar. 15, p.148] His frustrations overflowing, I had to laugh at that!
Luckily – and I should say immensely so for him – Matthiessen meets a few interesting characters at a bar in Pucallpa who tell him about a monster fossilized jaw deep in the rainforest only waiting for a willing and monied Gringo to mount an expedition to bring it out. Despite his skepticism (“Jungle legends are, in the main, absurd”), Matthiessen falls for it and re-arranges his plans – thankfully, for without it, I doubt the book would have been published.
He persuades the brother of a friend in Lima to join him on the jaunt, a jungle explorer and ex-Governor, no less, of an interior state. And without Andrés – to whom the book is dedicated – there would not have been a book, for Andrés does all the talking (and translating to English) and, at one jungle juncture, saves the author from certain death after he insults a brigand by calling him “shameless.”
But the author is very shy about revealing the mechanics of his journey. Only towards the book’s end, when Andrés is flying out, does he admit how heavily he depended on him for translations, saying “...I scarcely spoke. Come to think of it, I’ve hardly put a hundred words together since we left Machu Picchu, nearly three weeks ago.” The problem with this confession is that it comes after nearly a hundred pages of dialogue transcribed as if the author was both hearing and speaking directly.
Such cracks in the verisimilitude, starting with that opening moon-sky image, detract. The author organizes his work in travel journal style, a fine tradition dating back to 2nd century Greece, but the heavy weight of verbatim quotes from myriad books, and other scholarly diversions, makes one doubt he carried an entire library with him. So the dating of entries just doesn’t ring true and all those verb-less sentences – as though rushed and never re-written – appear as contrivances.
Once you doubt an author’s voice, it is hard to recover. I am not one to project contemporary sensibilities onto times over a half century old, but Matthiessen’s attitude towards Indians as less than fully human seems revealing. One of his most faithful paddlers, “with his Indian face of stone,” is likened to the fossil jaw for “Alejandro was suddenly a monolith into which, at odd moments of the day, life might be breathed and wooden, implacable motions instigated by the simple insertion of a banana.” [Apr. 27, p. 244] On the earthen floor of an Indian hut, a series of items and “babies comprise the greater part of an organized litter” [Mato Grosso, p. 131].
Matthiessen reaches for an epiphany at book’s end when, after hurting the boy’s feelings, he realizes that Alejandro, along with Andrés and himself, deserves part of the credit for the paleontological discovery.
“And I kept thinking how very much how we had taken this slow, shambling boy for granted, as a kind of ungainly presence, as faceless and heavy and patient as one of the big duffels – this is the way such peons are treated here, and, having always had liberal pretensions, I disliked very much how easily I had fallen into this custom and become hardened to it.” [May 6, p. 265]
Although no human is beyond repentance, even here we hear the author’s justifications, and I, for one, feel more sorry for him than for “our good and faithful Alejandro” who is “off to Lima ... to match his wits with his loud vivo compatriots of the streets. I’ll remember him with fondness, and wish him well.” [May 6, p. 288]
These are the journey’s last words. I can only say I feel the same about the author.
August 1, 2011
This was a very uneven read for me. The beginning is kind of beautiful, but then it drags on and on for quite awhile. And then it picks up again during the Mato Grosso chapter about halfway through and ends up actually being pretty entertaining, even though I felt like I didn't actually like Matthiessen all that much. I think the problem is that the first half of the book felt very aimless--he goes here and describes things, and then he goes there and describes things, and then he goes to this other place and describes things, and it's not really clear why he's there or what he's doing besides wandering around describing things. And it doesn't seem like he is even enjoying it all that much. But for the second half, Matthiessen is on a mission: a guy says he knows where there's a giant fossilized jawbone, and an expedition is formed to go and find it, even though mostly the guys that are going are skeptical that such a thing actually exists. Adventures ensue. This part is interesting and very funny at times, and they definitely have an eventful journey. But I think by the time I finally got to that part, my mind was already a little numb with all the wandering and describing things bits and so even though the end was pretty great, I'm not sure I can say that I really liked the book as a whole. If I ever reread it, I'll just start on chapter five or six and go from there, and I think I'll probably enjoy it much more.
January 15, 2018
Sometimes I like to judge a book by its cover & I've wanted to read this book for years due to the evocative title & that gorgeous blue butterfly. This book is full of lyrical descriptions and I felt I was transported directly to the jungle, insects and all. Now that I've finished this, I only want more! More South America, Indian tribes, nature in general, travelogues from decades ago, and more Matthiessen.
Having said that, the book did drag in places for me, especially in the beginning. The second half, "Beyond Black Drunken River", felt like a different book. The story really came alive & the navigation of the Pongo de Mainique is worth a little slogging in the first bit. Exhilarating, terrifying, and very Thurber-esque, the last leg of the journey had it all!
Having said that, the book did drag in places for me, especially in the beginning. The second half, "Beyond Black Drunken River", felt like a different book. The story really came alive & the navigation of the Pongo de Mainique is worth a little slogging in the first bit. Exhilarating, terrifying, and very Thurber-esque, the last leg of the journey had it all!
April 8, 2008
Peter Matthiessen, for all his talk about being a liberal, is a total racist regarding the indigenous peoples of South America. One could dismiss it as a product of the relatively poor social dialog around racism in 1961 (when the book was written), but his level of elitism goes beyond lack of modern PC. Regardless, this is a well written and insightful travel narrative. I especially admire his attention to the native plants and animals of the lands he ventures through. There is a great river rafting sequence too.
April 21, 2020
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Though it was written in the 1960s Matthiessen saw very clearly how the onset of small commercial ventures would grow and change the lifestyle of both environment and people. He was able to convey to the reader the uncertainty and danger his trip into the rainforest would bring to his guides and also his almost complete reliance upon their skills. The description and journal of his journey on the M.V. Venimos was a beautiful and contrasting start to the book.
August 31, 2018
An exciting journey down the world's greatest river. Matthiessen is the best kind of storyteller: flawlessly incorporating the people, the places, and the history of the South American wilderness (with a healthy dose of the flora and fauna of the region). Why 4 of 5? I think the early chapters, detailing his journey to the continent, could have been abbreviated greatly. Otherwise, excellent.
Read
February 23, 2017the author's racism towards the South Americans, and his confident hubris grates after a while. He inherits the (now thankfully dead) great British tradition of writing about the habits of the natives, dismissing them as 'mindless' and 'slow', and never actually talking to them, bothering to learn their language, or interacting with them in a way that suggests an empathy accorded to fellow humans rather than species in a zoo. Though the descriptive writing is solid and worth the read, a lot of that credit is due to the innate beauty of the features of the Amazon forest.
August 16, 2025
It’s hard to reconcile with Peter Matheissen being this openly racist but I guess it was the early 60s and that was par for the course. The book is 2 parts, his expedition to procure a remote fossil and the rest of his travels.
It reads like 2 books where the racism is a lot more open in the first set of chapters, where he laments how the missionary influence hasn’t helped the natives become more civilised, and celebrates the few instances where they are “much improved” thanks to the missionaries.
In the second half, he observes the exact opposite, how the verve of the Indians is gone with those who have missionary influence as against living in the wild. It is interesting because his next book is about tribes in Papua New Guinea and he writes a really good account of their life without displaying any racism. In general it is true of his later works, that his racist attitudes are a lot less obvious except during extreme duress.
It reads like 2 books where the racism is a lot more open in the first set of chapters, where he laments how the missionary influence hasn’t helped the natives become more civilised, and celebrates the few instances where they are “much improved” thanks to the missionaries.
In the second half, he observes the exact opposite, how the verve of the Indians is gone with those who have missionary influence as against living in the wild. It is interesting because his next book is about tribes in Papua New Guinea and he writes a really good account of their life without displaying any racism. In general it is true of his later works, that his racist attitudes are a lot less obvious except during extreme duress.
October 30, 2025
I've taken into context that this book was written in the 60s and I knew going in that it would likely have a racist depiction of the Indigenous people of South American. Given how popular his other novel, The Snow Leopard, is I was curious and willing to try it out for the sake of wanting to learn more about South America and the biodiversity.
HOWEVER this tale is one of a grumpy white dude who wants to explore a new country yet hypocritically hates when a country looks different than America, has different customs and at some points in the books, mentions that genocide of the native people would be good. He is truly happiest when talking about random birds. There is a full chapter on his rating of "how hot or ugly women of different nationalities are" and in general, every depiction of the humans he meets, unless if they're a white man, are vile. Nothing really happens either story-wise, it's a boring spew of random things he sees and racism. I listened to the audiobook version and while the narrator was ok and I enjoyed the pronunciations of Spanish words, the material was too dry to really do anything with. Don't read.
HOWEVER this tale is one of a grumpy white dude who wants to explore a new country yet hypocritically hates when a country looks different than America, has different customs and at some points in the books, mentions that genocide of the native people would be good. He is truly happiest when talking about random birds. There is a full chapter on his rating of "how hot or ugly women of different nationalities are" and in general, every depiction of the humans he meets, unless if they're a white man, are vile. Nothing really happens either story-wise, it's a boring spew of random things he sees and racism. I listened to the audiobook version and while the narrator was ok and I enjoyed the pronunciations of Spanish words, the material was too dry to really do anything with. Don't read.
October 25, 2023
This book started very promising, with a description of travel via small freighter from New York to South America, then proceeding up the Amazon. Matthiessen describes his journey all over South America, including a harrowing voyage via raft down the Urubamba in rainy season flood stage. However, the book was written in 1960, and betrays the fact with the casual racism and Eurocentric outlook probably quite common at the time. Descriptions of the flora, the fauna, and the countryside are fascinating, but I had to keep reminding myself that the author was a product of his upbringing. I think he got better than his 30 year-old self, as I have myself.
July 23, 2022
Thoroughly enjoyed this account of Matthiessen's extensive travels in South America. The Mato Grosso and Beyond the Black Drunken River chapters are written with tremendous skill for describing particular people and experiences in a particularly isolated and dangerous place: the high-stakes jungles of Peru. The fact that he floated the Urubamba in 1960, at a time when it was one of the last areas on the planet where modern civilization was yet to exert its influence (Matthiessen asserts in multiple instances that the global track record of this influence to-date has been, at best, a dubious one), leaves no doubt as to the author's sense of adventure and ability to keep a cool head in pure wildness. If you've ever been on a long backpacking trip and suffered through the pain of tough terrain, then there are dozens of passages in the book about Matthiessen's difficulties in the jungle and on the river that you will feel in your bones.
My favorite aspect of his narrative voice in this book, much like in the far superior Snow Leopard that Matthiessen published in 1978, is how honest he is about his impressions, his mood, his apprehensions and doubts. He has no issue making it known that he is not enjoying the surroundings, the people, and even himself. This is especially true in the book's first half, when he was in Patagonia. He did not like it and he makes that clear without spelling it out. I had similar feelings at times in parts of Patagonia and perhaps that is why it seems notable and interesting to me. Where Doug Chatwin can come across artificially enthusiastic at times in Songlines, Matthiessen is assiduous in his authenticity. While reading, I also caught faint, fleeting suggestions of Joan Didion's tone in his style, not in specific phrases or phrasings but in a more holistic and generalized way. She was writing in Vogue and the National Review around this time, moving around in what were likely some of the same New York-centric Ivy League circles Matthiessen did, so I wonder if he'd read her work and admired it.
'Money pretty much has its way throughout all of South America, to a degree quite startling even to a mind grown hardened to the spectacular graft and corruption in the United States. One wonders at times why the Communist Party hasn't made more progress, Church or no Church, because it is the peasants who are getting it in the neck. But one forgets about the appalling ignorance which stands in the way of constructive resistance, an ignorance which the Church itself, with its use of mystique and sacrament, tends to perpetuate--I hesitate to say "encourage," but the fact is that in backward countries or communities ignorance appears to be the Church's handmaiden; at the very least, the two are often seen in company.' - Mato Grosso
'At the airstrip, early the next morning, George Glass, the missionary-pilot, asked me to lead him and the Templetons in the prayer usually offered in these planes before a flight over the wilderness. I refused, rather too abruptly, saying I did not feel qualified, and afterward felt a sudden sense of being cut off from the others and at loose ends. How serene these people are--as if religion were a state of shock, deep, peaceful shock, that good men like these are driven into by the spectacle of reality. Or is it that we, on the far side of the same abyss, do not wish to relinquish our tiny identities to a higher power? At least, I don't, and I'm just as aware as the next man that temporal ambitions are insane.' - Mato Grosso
'It was a sunny afternoon and, while humid, not uncomfortable in the shade, and I was able to absorb the atmosphere of mountain jungle as I went.' - Beyond Black Drunken River
'I photographed the building process--the first photographs I have taken in some days, as the camera has been tied into a rubber bag while traveling, because of the frequent stream and river crossings and the rain. Unlimbering it has been more trouble than I have cared to take, perhaps because I dislike carrying a camera: it seems to me that one misses a great deal of seeing and feeling when thinking of one's experience in terms of light and angle.' - Beyond Black Drunken River
My favorite aspect of his narrative voice in this book, much like in the far superior Snow Leopard that Matthiessen published in 1978, is how honest he is about his impressions, his mood, his apprehensions and doubts. He has no issue making it known that he is not enjoying the surroundings, the people, and even himself. This is especially true in the book's first half, when he was in Patagonia. He did not like it and he makes that clear without spelling it out. I had similar feelings at times in parts of Patagonia and perhaps that is why it seems notable and interesting to me. Where Doug Chatwin can come across artificially enthusiastic at times in Songlines, Matthiessen is assiduous in his authenticity. While reading, I also caught faint, fleeting suggestions of Joan Didion's tone in his style, not in specific phrases or phrasings but in a more holistic and generalized way. She was writing in Vogue and the National Review around this time, moving around in what were likely some of the same New York-centric Ivy League circles Matthiessen did, so I wonder if he'd read her work and admired it.
'Money pretty much has its way throughout all of South America, to a degree quite startling even to a mind grown hardened to the spectacular graft and corruption in the United States. One wonders at times why the Communist Party hasn't made more progress, Church or no Church, because it is the peasants who are getting it in the neck. But one forgets about the appalling ignorance which stands in the way of constructive resistance, an ignorance which the Church itself, with its use of mystique and sacrament, tends to perpetuate--I hesitate to say "encourage," but the fact is that in backward countries or communities ignorance appears to be the Church's handmaiden; at the very least, the two are often seen in company.' - Mato Grosso
'At the airstrip, early the next morning, George Glass, the missionary-pilot, asked me to lead him and the Templetons in the prayer usually offered in these planes before a flight over the wilderness. I refused, rather too abruptly, saying I did not feel qualified, and afterward felt a sudden sense of being cut off from the others and at loose ends. How serene these people are--as if religion were a state of shock, deep, peaceful shock, that good men like these are driven into by the spectacle of reality. Or is it that we, on the far side of the same abyss, do not wish to relinquish our tiny identities to a higher power? At least, I don't, and I'm just as aware as the next man that temporal ambitions are insane.' - Mato Grosso
'It was a sunny afternoon and, while humid, not uncomfortable in the shade, and I was able to absorb the atmosphere of mountain jungle as I went.' - Beyond Black Drunken River
'I photographed the building process--the first photographs I have taken in some days, as the camera has been tied into a rubber bag while traveling, because of the frequent stream and river crossings and the rain. Unlimbering it has been more trouble than I have cared to take, perhaps because I dislike carrying a camera: it seems to me that one misses a great deal of seeing and feeling when thinking of one's experience in terms of light and angle.' - Beyond Black Drunken River
November 21, 2019
Sometimes it takes a while to get there. There, could be anywhere of course and might even be mythical. Our hero Peter Matthiessen is found, at a rather earlier age, in the spiritual middle of the Amazon struggling to find meaning amid odds a civilized man like himself can't but struggle to overcome.
Divided into roughly three sections, The Cloud Forest, is as much a travelogue as it is an anthropological study of differing cultures and lost worlds. The first section is the affable telling of getting to and into the Amazon on a commercial boat. Here PM encounters his first Culture. He describes seafaring characters and the attendant struggles at ports and with navigation and schedules that must be endured while a sense of community and commerce evolves on the ship. It is a picturesque telling and is a nice contrast to going up the River rather than down.
The second section is a wholly different South America. This one starts at Cuzco and winds itself through the Southern states on a search for the Cape of Good Hope, which PM never sees. (yes he does not make it to Hope) It is about the Wild West of the white ranchers and the degradation and marginalization of native cultures who clash hopelessly against the territorial and resource gobbling "civilized" society. After a while he wanders back into Brazil, finding and leaving an old shipmate, and once more Cuzco and eventually the lonely halls of Machu Pichu.
It's at this point, at the behest earlier of a shady character named Cesar Cruz, that PM and an adventurous companion named Andres set out in search of some Inca ruins and a gigantic fossilized jaw bone.
Throughout this downstream journey PM steps his descriptive and emotional prose into high gear. In fact add 50 more pages of description to this third section and a condensed but longish intro of the earlier material to the front and the Cloud Forest would join the Snow Leopard as a must read on anyone's bookshelf.
The journey is long and hot and sticky and muddy and rainy and dangerous and full of evil smells and contrasting beautiful flora. PM and Andres meet many unsavory characters as they work their way down the river. The haciendas with their not exactly enslaved tribal members feel like something out of Apocalypse Now, and the Land Owners seem shifty at best. Filled with challenges and moments of self doubt PM and Andres with an ever-shifting cast of vaguely dangerous companions make it to a spiritual doorway that will possibly glide them to safer territory.
In this different territory they become friendly with some missionaries who guide them in a motorized canoe to a jungle town where they devise plans to obtain the fossil and after meeting up with Cruz come to realization that they have missed the ruins. Which is perhaps the definition of culture in this land of poverty among the colors of exceptional beauty. It seems everyone from the colonists to the natives somehow never quite makes it to the boat.
This book seems like a hard won effort to write an adventure story like many before detailing the out of place European in the unforgiving landscape of South America. However, without this writing I don't believe PM would have had the ability to write At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Dry Tortuga, or The Snow Leopard.
I would like to give this 3.5 stars with caveat that if you want to know where some of his other works had their beginnings here would be a great to place to begin. Instead I gave it 4 because it is still a great place to start and GR only allows for whole ratings. Grrrr.
Divided into roughly three sections, The Cloud Forest, is as much a travelogue as it is an anthropological study of differing cultures and lost worlds. The first section is the affable telling of getting to and into the Amazon on a commercial boat. Here PM encounters his first Culture. He describes seafaring characters and the attendant struggles at ports and with navigation and schedules that must be endured while a sense of community and commerce evolves on the ship. It is a picturesque telling and is a nice contrast to going up the River rather than down.
The second section is a wholly different South America. This one starts at Cuzco and winds itself through the Southern states on a search for the Cape of Good Hope, which PM never sees. (yes he does not make it to Hope) It is about the Wild West of the white ranchers and the degradation and marginalization of native cultures who clash hopelessly against the territorial and resource gobbling "civilized" society. After a while he wanders back into Brazil, finding and leaving an old shipmate, and once more Cuzco and eventually the lonely halls of Machu Pichu.
It's at this point, at the behest earlier of a shady character named Cesar Cruz, that PM and an adventurous companion named Andres set out in search of some Inca ruins and a gigantic fossilized jaw bone.
Throughout this downstream journey PM steps his descriptive and emotional prose into high gear. In fact add 50 more pages of description to this third section and a condensed but longish intro of the earlier material to the front and the Cloud Forest would join the Snow Leopard as a must read on anyone's bookshelf.
The journey is long and hot and sticky and muddy and rainy and dangerous and full of evil smells and contrasting beautiful flora. PM and Andres meet many unsavory characters as they work their way down the river. The haciendas with their not exactly enslaved tribal members feel like something out of Apocalypse Now, and the Land Owners seem shifty at best. Filled with challenges and moments of self doubt PM and Andres with an ever-shifting cast of vaguely dangerous companions make it to a spiritual doorway that will possibly glide them to safer territory.
In this different territory they become friendly with some missionaries who guide them in a motorized canoe to a jungle town where they devise plans to obtain the fossil and after meeting up with Cruz come to realization that they have missed the ruins. Which is perhaps the definition of culture in this land of poverty among the colors of exceptional beauty. It seems everyone from the colonists to the natives somehow never quite makes it to the boat.
This book seems like a hard won effort to write an adventure story like many before detailing the out of place European in the unforgiving landscape of South America. However, without this writing I don't believe PM would have had the ability to write At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Dry Tortuga, or The Snow Leopard.
I would like to give this 3.5 stars with caveat that if you want to know where some of his other works had their beginnings here would be a great to place to begin. Instead I gave it 4 because it is still a great place to start and GR only allows for whole ratings. Grrrr.
March 31, 2025
El libro tarda en arrancar, siendo el primer cuarto algo tedioso y con poco que contar más allá de la descripción de la escasa faua y flora y algunos detalles de su vida en el barco de línea con el que llega al Amazonas. Realmente no comienzo a tener interés hasta la parte de los Andes y la Patagonia, en la que poco a poco el relato empieza a colorearse, acompañado de interesantes descripciones de la vida de tribus ya desaparecidas, viajes tormentosos (literalmente) en avión y descripciones de la vida Quechua y Aymara. Encuentro algún comentario ofensivo para con los primeros, y esto está a punto de dar al traste con toda la lectura pero por suerte continué.
El libro es fascinante, el cómo Matthiessen consigue relatar el viaje de tal forma que da la sensación de que le estás acompañando en todo momento. Los mejores momentos son aquellos en los que describe la vida de las tribus del Amazonas y las especificidades de cada región del Urubamba y sus terratenientes, ya sean mezquinos mestizos o misionaros. La travesía del Pogo es excelente en la forma que está narrada. La sensibilidad que tiene Peter para captar los más mínimos detalles en el entorno y en la psicología de las personas es admirable. Pienso en el testarudo y valiente Andrés, en el leal e inocente Alejandro, pero también en el misterioso Epifanio o en el nunca bien ponderado César.
Es una pena que al final “el ingniero” Matthiessen no se embarque en pos de la “ciudad perdida” de Picha - de la que por cierto no he encontrado ninguna reseña actual, ¿será algo más que una ensoñación de la selva?.
Acabo “The Cloud Forest” y me cuesta reprimir el impulso de leer toda su bibliografía de inmediato.
El libro es fascinante, el cómo Matthiessen consigue relatar el viaje de tal forma que da la sensación de que le estás acompañando en todo momento. Los mejores momentos son aquellos en los que describe la vida de las tribus del Amazonas y las especificidades de cada región del Urubamba y sus terratenientes, ya sean mezquinos mestizos o misionaros. La travesía del Pogo es excelente en la forma que está narrada. La sensibilidad que tiene Peter para captar los más mínimos detalles en el entorno y en la psicología de las personas es admirable. Pienso en el testarudo y valiente Andrés, en el leal e inocente Alejandro, pero también en el misterioso Epifanio o en el nunca bien ponderado César.
Es una pena que al final “el ingniero” Matthiessen no se embarque en pos de la “ciudad perdida” de Picha - de la que por cierto no he encontrado ninguna reseña actual, ¿será algo más que una ensoñación de la selva?.
Acabo “The Cloud Forest” y me cuesta reprimir el impulso de leer toda su bibliografía de inmediato.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 4, 2023
Reminds me of how Graham Greene crafted out of his real-life travels in The Lawless Roads (aka Another Mexico) his better work, the novel The Power and the Glory, a generation before. In 1960, Peter Mattheissen chronicles his adventures farther down into Latin America. A scattershot account, starting as naturalist journal, morphing into quest for a legendary icon, and then easing off the scene without any dramatic denouement. Such may be truer to verisimilitude, but it doesn't make for the most cohesive narrative. I think if he'd created a tale about the river mini-expedition itself, it'd probably have resulted in a more entertaining and compelling read for us. However, the source material down to the surname and spitting image of one of the main characters in his subsequent "At Play in the Fields of the Lord" gets his first cameo or two here. I haven't finished the novel yet--perfomed by Anthony Heald...both he and the equally talented George Guidall have recorded this--but I reckon that having encountered some background material in CF now, my approach to the remainder of APitFotL will be enriched. What once could be assumed without spelling it out, these times sixty+ years later, now needs the disclaimer that said writer expresses his prejudices honestly. No one gets off easily. Few natives last long if innocents: missionaries and settlers and scoundrels of every skin tone get their own close scrutiny.
Read
July 5, 2020Travel Diary of 1960 vintage by a most interesting and avid explorer/vacationer. He's not exactly a real explorer since he partakes of the amenities available to him. But he's not really a vacationer either, most vacations aren't this long, rigorous or potentially dangerous. He doesn't massage the sensitivities of today's PC crowd and doesn't apologize for his era nor should he. But he does at times acknowledge the dismal plight of many of the peoples of South and Central America and to a degree empathizes with them to the extent he can since he's leaving shortly. His writing style, content and broad observance of the flora, fauna and people he crosses path with is what the book is about. He is clearly a dedicated birder and notes each new specie he discovers though the thousands of miles he traverses back and forth by every possible conveyance. All in all, this book was worth the read, at times a bit slow but plenty white knuckle experiences to qualify as an Amazon exploration. In that regard it was true of his trip. Few adventurers in our era will attempt such an ambitious project, or have the luxury of time available to accomplish it.
July 23, 2018
I love travel books that explore not only cultures and biologies, but also use what is discovered to philosophize about the human condition. There are not a lot of authors that fit that bill and I had high hopes for Matthiessen, a wonderful writer. It was good: better than most, not as good as some. It was great with the former, revealing a culture and peeling back some of what has to be the most primal of forests, but not so open with the latter concept. It could be because of the exhausting and arduous nature of most of his journey. There was certainly much that I learned in seeing that part of the world through his eyes. I can handle myself well in the outdoors, but this was beyond my abilities...and almost beyond Matthiessen's. He was lucky a number of times. A fascinating read that was well worth it.
September 3, 2021
Having read and adored Peter Matthiessen's classic The Snow Leopard, a book about the often overlooked and unexplored South American wilderness by the same author was something I couldn't resist. And I'm glad I didn't. This book was a delight from start to finish and every detail was so vividly rendered that the book overall was really quite striking. Every giant tree, white crocodile, and jungle sound leapt off the page at you. There are also many interesting stories and facts about the people that Matthiessen met on his travels, and in particular the Native American tribes. What I like most about Matthiessen's writing is his honest, witty and unsparing accounts of what he experiences during his travels. Overall, I think every nature lover should read this book and everything else by this author.
February 16, 2025
The Snow Leopard is one of my favorite books of all time, so when I came across this book just after spending half a year in South America myself, I was excited to read it, and baffled by what I ended up reading.
The first half of this book reads like some random travel blog - just flat descriptions of, say, what it’s like to visit Macchu Picchu. Dry, detached, and overall just not very engaging.
The second half, on the other hand, is fantastic - a journal of a perilous trip from the Andean foothills into the Amazon, it is much more like his later works and to me felt much more personal and engaging.
If you decide to pick this up, do yourself a favor and just read the Black Drunken River portion - the rest was sadly not really worth the time.
The first half of this book reads like some random travel blog - just flat descriptions of, say, what it’s like to visit Macchu Picchu. Dry, detached, and overall just not very engaging.
The second half, on the other hand, is fantastic - a journal of a perilous trip from the Andean foothills into the Amazon, it is much more like his later works and to me felt much more personal and engaging.
If you decide to pick this up, do yourself a favor and just read the Black Drunken River portion - the rest was sadly not really worth the time.
July 13, 2020
This book tells of Peter Matthiessen's travels to (on a cargo ship) and around South America in 1960, ending with a trip along the Urabamba River, a tributary of the Amazon in Peru. Matthiessen didn't speak much Spanish or Portuguese and the first two thirds reflect this lack of language knowledge as we get detailed descriptions of the landscapes and wildlife of places from the Amazon to the Sierras to Tierra del Fuego, but not many comments on the people. The last third is the most interesting and he is joined by a Peruvian friend who helps him understand everyone. The trip is exciting and interesting and you get a stronger feel for Matthiessen and the others on the trip.
December 10, 2017
This is really just a diary of the author's wanderings in Brazil, Peru and a little bit of Argentina. The bulk of the content covered his decent down the Urubamba river in the Peruvian Amazon from the cloud forest to the lowland jungle in search of a rumored fossil. While some of his observations were astute and can even be sublime in the evocation of the atmospheric jungle, there was too much of the mundane such as his interactions with fellow travelers who were more often than not mere caricatures of the stereotypical macho, violent and lazy Latinos and native Indians.
December 3, 2018
A somewhat interesting book from a historical perspective. However, there are many issues with the book. First, it's a journal about the author's travel through the South American region that contain Cloud Forests...it doesn't provide much in the way of providing information on that eco region as I was hoping. Furthermore, the author's view on the local population and native is problematic and racist. Finally, no background information is given to the places he's traveled which is not great if you are not familiar with the region or have traveled there yourself.
April 4, 2019
Matthiessen writes wonderfully vivid prose. The adventurous, wilderness genre of Cloud Forest suits my particular sensibilities. Cloud Forest probably could have been edited and compiled in a more continuously engaging way however.
September 18, 2021
The writing is confusing as to time and sequence. Some people like the first half, some prefer the second half. A good book to read if you are interested in Peru and Patagonia. The author had many perilous adventures and lived to tell the tale.
June 19, 2019
3.5. Wordy, while describing maps and geography, but displayed a great sense of adventure.
October 15, 2020
Part 1 I found forgettable, but Part 2 - Beyond Black Drunken River - was as good as any Matthiessen I've read, which is to say very good indeed.
November 21, 2011
Enjoyable in places but fairly uneven on the whole. I was also distracted by Matthiessen's admitted, though only occasional, hypocritical forays (more of a personal gripe on my part, perhaps, than anything else). Example: he decries in one moment how the constant groan of his group's outboard motor along various waterways in the Amazon basin diminishes his appreciation of the tranquil "jungle" setting. The next moment he willingly disrupts such tranquility himself by throwing in with his company's amused and entirely purposeless use of rifle fire, volleying rounds into the hides of hapless caimans left to sink to the murky river depths (mind you, without any intention of retrieving meat for the privileged gringo's expedition). This isn't Hemingway or Theodore Roosevelt, but Mr. Snow Leopard, the champion and master of elegy for the dwindling wild, and - believe it or not - an actual Zen master. Matthiessen acknowledges his hypocrisy in this regard, having just criticized his (non-indigenous) Peruvian companions for the senselessness of this practice, before taking it up himself and admitting boredom and apparent envy as the cause. He seems regretful of the decision to casually mow down these non-disruptive reptiles but later in the book records repeating this "sport" again. This from the author of Wildlife in America, a measured lament recounting the demise of North American fauna, largely from the "hook and bullet," and a seminal work in American conservationism that predates Rachel Carson by some years. In some sense his participation is a candid admission and highlights the shortcomings in his own attempt to reconcile man's impact on remaining wilderness areas when confronted with external (social) pressures and internal impulse. The excitement of the moment prevails over the better judgement of the individual. One person or a small group hunting down individual animals is obviously inconsequential to species survival, but our cumulative interactions with wildlife in this way underlies the reasons for their threatened survival (the destruction of habitat being the chief risk and an extension of the above attitude). And it didn't end with turning only caimans into Swiss cheese. Near the end of the book, after bemoaning the fact that the only land mammal he'd seen for months of the journey was a prosaic rat species, his group finally comes upon some capybaras along the river; care to take a guess at their (and his) collective response? Note: the few native "Indian" guides along with them are actually never permitted themselves to ever hold weapons and are generally treated (to use Matthiessen's words) as "peons."
These episodes are only a minor note in the overall book, which does include nice testimony of his sense of wonder when reaching the kinds of sights that drew him to explore the wilds of South America in the first place. Such moments seem too few and are overwhelmed by the book's concluding section, which is devoted to the search for a large fossil mandible bone of unknown origin, deep in the jungle,that few locals believe exists, save one ardent discoverer who will lead them to it. He centers the dialogue of this several day "hunt" along treacherous waters more around the ensuing inter-company drama and growing annoyances that emerges within the group, rather than imparting the richness of sights they no doubt encountered. Again, an honest account of his travels and not some romanticized retelling is admirable on his part. This isn't the Jungle Book, and despite my lengthy complaints above, Matthiessen is not some trophy hunter out for blood, but a complex central narrator far from home, who doesn't hide his somewhat irritable side under the conditions. Complex characters- the underpinning of a good prose story, some would say. In that sense, maybe it wasn't so far off the mark.
These episodes are only a minor note in the overall book, which does include nice testimony of his sense of wonder when reaching the kinds of sights that drew him to explore the wilds of South America in the first place. Such moments seem too few and are overwhelmed by the book's concluding section, which is devoted to the search for a large fossil mandible bone of unknown origin, deep in the jungle,that few locals believe exists, save one ardent discoverer who will lead them to it. He centers the dialogue of this several day "hunt" along treacherous waters more around the ensuing inter-company drama and growing annoyances that emerges within the group, rather than imparting the richness of sights they no doubt encountered. Again, an honest account of his travels and not some romanticized retelling is admirable on his part. This isn't the Jungle Book, and despite my lengthy complaints above, Matthiessen is not some trophy hunter out for blood, but a complex central narrator far from home, who doesn't hide his somewhat irritable side under the conditions. Complex characters- the underpinning of a good prose story, some would say. In that sense, maybe it wasn't so far off the mark.
March 6, 2016
This is the story of the author's travel to South America between November 1959 until May 1960. He visits Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, and Tierra del Fuego (both Argentina and Chile). The travel intrigued me which is why I wanted to read this book. However, I have mixed emotions about.
I almost put this book aside a few times because it was slow reading (for me). The reason is that the book has no maps (except for 2 hand drawn maps relating to his Peruvian expedition). I constantly had to search for maps showing the rivers & towns he mentioned. I was lost without the maps. Also, I am no birder. I don't care whether a bird is yellow-billed or red-billed although this was important to the author. A general description of the birds and fauna would have sufficed. Also, he wrote mostly condescendingly of the indigenous people.
He did call the Quechas Indians "stupid" and "ignorant" and he called an Indian tribe in Bolivia "savages". Of "Spanish American girls", he said "most of them, unfortunately, (were) afflicted (sic) with traditional ignorance and passivity of demeaner except for Brazileans". I'm sure there must be a better way to describe the Indians & Spanish Americans without the condescension. He also doesn't think highly of western religion. The missionaries were friendly to him and helped him in his travels but he blames the churches for ruining the traditional life of the Indigenous people.
The latter half of the book was about his expedition from Cuzco down the Urubamba River to find an ancient bone fossil and a ruin that no while man has ever seen. I enjoyed this part because I have visited Cuzco and Macchu Picchu and have seen the Urubamba River. Also, he was a bit like Indiana Jones. He traversed down the Ponga de Mainique, which is 2 miles of white water rapids and whirlpools, during the rainy season. He stayed at local haciendas (merely huts) and was almost in a knife fight. What excitement! This part of the book was definitely a page turner. It would have been nice if there were pictures of the Ponga, though.
If you have ever read and enjoyed John Steinbeck's The Log from the Sea of Cortez, then your will also enjoy this book.
I almost put this book aside a few times because it was slow reading (for me). The reason is that the book has no maps (except for 2 hand drawn maps relating to his Peruvian expedition). I constantly had to search for maps showing the rivers & towns he mentioned. I was lost without the maps. Also, I am no birder. I don't care whether a bird is yellow-billed or red-billed although this was important to the author. A general description of the birds and fauna would have sufficed. Also, he wrote mostly condescendingly of the indigenous people.
He did call the Quechas Indians "stupid" and "ignorant" and he called an Indian tribe in Bolivia "savages". Of "Spanish American girls", he said "most of them, unfortunately, (were) afflicted (sic) with traditional ignorance and passivity of demeaner except for Brazileans". I'm sure there must be a better way to describe the Indians & Spanish Americans without the condescension. He also doesn't think highly of western religion. The missionaries were friendly to him and helped him in his travels but he blames the churches for ruining the traditional life of the Indigenous people.
The latter half of the book was about his expedition from Cuzco down the Urubamba River to find an ancient bone fossil and a ruin that no while man has ever seen. I enjoyed this part because I have visited Cuzco and Macchu Picchu and have seen the Urubamba River. Also, he was a bit like Indiana Jones. He traversed down the Ponga de Mainique, which is 2 miles of white water rapids and whirlpools, during the rainy season. He stayed at local haciendas (merely huts) and was almost in a knife fight. What excitement! This part of the book was definitely a page turner. It would have been nice if there were pictures of the Ponga, though.
If you have ever read and enjoyed John Steinbeck's The Log from the Sea of Cortez, then your will also enjoy this book.
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