Beyond Tijuana: A Journey through Latin America

by Graeme Sparkes

Graeme Sparkes and his partner Tania spent a year travelling north through Latin America. This enthralling account of their journey takes the reader through lush, rain-soaked jungles, across arid deserts, and into the chaotic life of the region's cities.

Sparkes gives a frank, compelling and sometimes comic account of his and Tania's adventures. He has an eagle eye for irresistible detail: the majestic extremities of the landscape, the grubby hotels, the antiquity of the culture, the endemic poverty, and the extraordinary people Sparkes meets on the road.

Beyond Tijuana is a sweeping evocation of Latin America, and an intimate glimpse into the experience of travel itself.

214 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Graeme Sparkes was born in Tasmania. He has taught in high schools, picked tobacco, driven taxis, taught English in China and travelled throughout Latin America, Europe, the United States and Australia.
He recently retired and will spend more time writing.

Reviews

[Kate Ferguson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an interesting travel story about Central America in the early 1990s. I couldn't stand his "holier than thou" attitude throughout the story though. It seems to be kind of a theme in travel memoirs to hate other travelers. The author seemed to think that just because he had been to Latin America before and spoke better Spanish than some of the other gringos he encountered along the way that they were there to be mocked or not worthy of his time.
I did find a lot of new places to add to my list of places to see though.

[Artemis Eclectica]

A quirky and generous book ... Sparkes captures the flavours, the heat, the exhaustion and the endless fascination of cultures so different from his own.