What do you think?
Rate this book
Enchanted Vagabonds
Dana Lamb and his wife had a great idea: build a sailing canoe and voyage south along the Pacific Coast from Southern California to Panama. Warm water, gentle surf, benign beaches...a suitable way to spend the summer.
This was in the 1930s, and one pictures them pounding nails into plywood and 2x4s. At last they are off on a junket that almost ends in disaster. What saved them was their intelligence, a "can do" sense of the possible and their cheerful courage.
"One of the great adventure stories...an improbable undertaking with people as believable and genuine as the couple next door." (B-O-T Editorial Review Board)
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
7 people are currently reading
207 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
October 30, 2023
A husband & wife adventure-travel trip by sailing canoe from San Diego to Panama in the 1930s. I read this one back in 1991 and really enjoyed the fun and adventure in the book. At the time, I didn't question whether their experiences were authentic, though some did seem a bit far fetched. A few years later, I read an article suggesting that much of the book had been fictionalized in order to generate reading audience interest. Articles on their adventures were published in an American newspaper in serialized form as their journey progressed. Truth or fiction, I found this an interesting and well written tale of travel and adventure. It also offers us a glimpse of coastal Mexico and Central America before modernity, money and the tourist industry changed things forever. Recommended for anyone with an interest in off beat, fictionalized, informal travel adventure from back in the 1930s.
May 5, 2022
The premise of this book alone is phenomenal, a husband and wife team sail from San Diego to Panama in a sailing canoe. The level of danger and adventure they lived at so consistently is hard to imagine that it’s real, however their tales have been verified. To trek with such compassion for the locals and indigenous peoples, while being white westerners, speaks volumes of the the Lambs character as people and their understanding of the world. This book was adventure on every page with great pace and photos, maps, and graphs to compliment their stories.
April 22, 2009
“Enchanted Vagabonds” written by Dana Lamb is published by the Long Riders’ Guild Press, which has dedicated itself to reproducing books from something called the Equestrian Travel Classics. These are books that have fallen from mass distribution with the passing of time, but which the publishers feel “remain of global interest and importance."
“Enchanted Vagabonds,” a 414-page opus of dense reading and no plot to speak of, involves a journey made by Lamb and his wife Ginger in the thick of the great depression. Friends from childhood in then-agricultural Orange County (Southern California) Ginger and Dana had dreams of adventure. Having little to lose, they set out from San Diego in a canoe/sailboat of their own engineering, for the Panama Canal.
The sojourn took three years and it is a tale most engrossing, especially for those who hunger to know of an earlier world before crowding, pollution, modernization, and the mass endangerment of nature’s many species of plants and animals.
It is of special interest to Southern Californians of the surfing variety for its early chapters dealing with the Baja California peninsula, which today (and thanks to its ruggedness and inhospitality) remains a kind of last frontier for those seeking raw territory to discover and roam.
Revealing indeed is this portrait of a Mexico largely unsettled and a nation only in name. As they make their way down the Pacific coast of the great country, each stop into port represents a sampling of Indian/indigenous life almost unspoiled by the sullying hand of European culture.
More often than not these Indian villages welcome the sensitive and sensible travelers with open arms, grand fiestas, and kind treatment; treatment that on a few occasions represents the difference between life and death for the lusty and ingenuous adventurers.
Stricken with malaria in the jungle, mad with fever to the point of delirium, the couple awaken many weeks later in a village that has taken them in and assumed the difficult task of curing and nurturing them back to life. The difference between depression-era America and the pre-Columbian ways of the Indians marks the couple so that, as Lamb puts it, “we no longer fit in to the picture” (of modern life).
The Indians are not friendly at every turn, and particularly along a stretch of inland seas the couple must traverse to avoid death at the hands of powerful “norther” wind storms, they are hounded by a violent and malevolent tribe known as the Mareños.
The Mexican government had, at this point in time, tried to subjugate these scoundrels with an army that never made it back. And so you get an idea of the danger they faced.
So virgin is the country that the couple, on wayward ventures inland and on foot, discover lost and forbidden cities of pyramids and altars for human sacrifice. Throughout their trek, the couple is confronted with a, “strange throbbing rhythm. You felt it even more than you heard it. It was like a nerve beat. It seemed to permeate the air. We were never entirely able to dismiss the effect of this vibration upon our minds and bodies, for we were to hear it many, many times in months to come. We can offer no explanation as to what it was, where it came from, or who produced it. We called it drums for want of another name, but we do not know.”
The psychology of these two discoverers reveals much of what has changed in the human psyche and in the soul of nature in the 70 years. Their behavior is more akin to safari hunters than that of the modern day eco-tourist. When floating through the Sea of Cortez surrounded by hundreds of giant manta rays, Lamb gets it into his head to harpoon one. Later on, in a lagoon, he does the same to an alligator. In such instances, Mother Nature strikes back and the adventures become more akin to misadventures. Along the way they shoot tigers, ocelots, jaguars and anything else that gets in their way. On the Island of Cocos off Costa Rica, they clean their camp by leaving the refuse out in anticipation of the tides that will be carrying it away.
They are inhabiting a time and space where nature still rules, where man is far from indomitable, and “natural” resources are so abundant as to overwhelm and threaten human life.
Trouble with the Indians is met with the white man’s friend, the gun. Carefully planned ambushes of tribes that have it out for them are replete with powerful gun battles and although there is never once a body count, one gets the impression a few natives must have been felled along the way.
Kind and sensible when met with kindness or mild distrust, the couple are capable of matching violence with violence.
Many times they are in hell with endless strange insects that inflame and scar their skin and infect them with illnesses that threaten their very survival.
Other times, they are in paradise as this time when, after pulling themselves onto a beach to set up camp, Lamb goes for a little walk:
“I took both guns – Ginger’s automatic in case I should sight small game, and the Luger in the event of a tiger – and my new machete, and hacked my way towards a group of palms I had seen from the sea. Cutting through the last string of brush to the palm grove, I came upon a beautiful blue lagoon. I gazed in wonder. Tired and hungry as I was, I forgot everything else for the moment. This was the 'Promised Land.' A little fresh-water stream ran into the lagoon, and across it tall coco palms lined a white sand beach. Ducks floated in the water. Great blue herons, snowy egrets, sandpipers, and shorebirds were everywhere. Parrots, and other birds with gorgeous plumage whose names I did not know, flew overhead. Fish made rainbow arcs of color as they leapt and splashed. It was a scene whose beauty made me doubt the evidence of my own eyes.”
Here they meet a pair of “Azteco” Indians, relatives to the ancient Aztecs, who help them establish a hut and teach them how to live off the rich land surrounding. They stay for a number of months. The Indians tell them of a “Forbidden City” their tribe is sworn to protect.
Despite an old tale, pregnant with warning, of a Spanish army that entered the surrounding land never to return, the couple decide to search for the forbidden city and ultimately find it, replete with mounds hiding pyramids, protective walls and a limestone sacrificial altar upon which they set up camp and start a fire.
“The effect of such an experience is indescribable. We seemed to have brushed aside times’ limitations. The past and present were telescoped. The mind was able to recapture images as though it were not subject to the restrictions of space and matter. I do not tell you that what we saw with our physical eyes, or heard with our finite ears, these evocations of the past. It was rather an awareness not dependent upon either of these usual instruments of sense perception.
“We sat utterly still. The silence was broken only by the sharp staccato of the fire’s explosions; then, far off, insistent, vibrant, that rhythmic monotone.”
Lamb was an intelligent observer who renders the landscape of Mexico masterfully. The many descriptions of the troubles had at sea in their undersized “Vagabunda” can be a bit too detailed and lose those who don’t possess a command of boating terminology (the jib, stern, starboard, etc.) or a full vocabulary of the sea’s behavior (squalls, shoals, breakers, etc.). Were this a novel, one or two harrowing sequences upon the violent seas would have been sufficient, but Lamb is writing a travelogue and diary, so that these must be recorded, sometimes at the expense of a patient reader.
“Enchanted Vagabonds,” a 414-page opus of dense reading and no plot to speak of, involves a journey made by Lamb and his wife Ginger in the thick of the great depression. Friends from childhood in then-agricultural Orange County (Southern California) Ginger and Dana had dreams of adventure. Having little to lose, they set out from San Diego in a canoe/sailboat of their own engineering, for the Panama Canal.
The sojourn took three years and it is a tale most engrossing, especially for those who hunger to know of an earlier world before crowding, pollution, modernization, and the mass endangerment of nature’s many species of plants and animals.
It is of special interest to Southern Californians of the surfing variety for its early chapters dealing with the Baja California peninsula, which today (and thanks to its ruggedness and inhospitality) remains a kind of last frontier for those seeking raw territory to discover and roam.
Revealing indeed is this portrait of a Mexico largely unsettled and a nation only in name. As they make their way down the Pacific coast of the great country, each stop into port represents a sampling of Indian/indigenous life almost unspoiled by the sullying hand of European culture.
More often than not these Indian villages welcome the sensitive and sensible travelers with open arms, grand fiestas, and kind treatment; treatment that on a few occasions represents the difference between life and death for the lusty and ingenuous adventurers.
Stricken with malaria in the jungle, mad with fever to the point of delirium, the couple awaken many weeks later in a village that has taken them in and assumed the difficult task of curing and nurturing them back to life. The difference between depression-era America and the pre-Columbian ways of the Indians marks the couple so that, as Lamb puts it, “we no longer fit in to the picture” (of modern life).
The Indians are not friendly at every turn, and particularly along a stretch of inland seas the couple must traverse to avoid death at the hands of powerful “norther” wind storms, they are hounded by a violent and malevolent tribe known as the Mareños.
The Mexican government had, at this point in time, tried to subjugate these scoundrels with an army that never made it back. And so you get an idea of the danger they faced.
So virgin is the country that the couple, on wayward ventures inland and on foot, discover lost and forbidden cities of pyramids and altars for human sacrifice. Throughout their trek, the couple is confronted with a, “strange throbbing rhythm. You felt it even more than you heard it. It was like a nerve beat. It seemed to permeate the air. We were never entirely able to dismiss the effect of this vibration upon our minds and bodies, for we were to hear it many, many times in months to come. We can offer no explanation as to what it was, where it came from, or who produced it. We called it drums for want of another name, but we do not know.”
The psychology of these two discoverers reveals much of what has changed in the human psyche and in the soul of nature in the 70 years. Their behavior is more akin to safari hunters than that of the modern day eco-tourist. When floating through the Sea of Cortez surrounded by hundreds of giant manta rays, Lamb gets it into his head to harpoon one. Later on, in a lagoon, he does the same to an alligator. In such instances, Mother Nature strikes back and the adventures become more akin to misadventures. Along the way they shoot tigers, ocelots, jaguars and anything else that gets in their way. On the Island of Cocos off Costa Rica, they clean their camp by leaving the refuse out in anticipation of the tides that will be carrying it away.
They are inhabiting a time and space where nature still rules, where man is far from indomitable, and “natural” resources are so abundant as to overwhelm and threaten human life.
Trouble with the Indians is met with the white man’s friend, the gun. Carefully planned ambushes of tribes that have it out for them are replete with powerful gun battles and although there is never once a body count, one gets the impression a few natives must have been felled along the way.
Kind and sensible when met with kindness or mild distrust, the couple are capable of matching violence with violence.
Many times they are in hell with endless strange insects that inflame and scar their skin and infect them with illnesses that threaten their very survival.
Other times, they are in paradise as this time when, after pulling themselves onto a beach to set up camp, Lamb goes for a little walk:
“I took both guns – Ginger’s automatic in case I should sight small game, and the Luger in the event of a tiger – and my new machete, and hacked my way towards a group of palms I had seen from the sea. Cutting through the last string of brush to the palm grove, I came upon a beautiful blue lagoon. I gazed in wonder. Tired and hungry as I was, I forgot everything else for the moment. This was the 'Promised Land.' A little fresh-water stream ran into the lagoon, and across it tall coco palms lined a white sand beach. Ducks floated in the water. Great blue herons, snowy egrets, sandpipers, and shorebirds were everywhere. Parrots, and other birds with gorgeous plumage whose names I did not know, flew overhead. Fish made rainbow arcs of color as they leapt and splashed. It was a scene whose beauty made me doubt the evidence of my own eyes.”
Here they meet a pair of “Azteco” Indians, relatives to the ancient Aztecs, who help them establish a hut and teach them how to live off the rich land surrounding. They stay for a number of months. The Indians tell them of a “Forbidden City” their tribe is sworn to protect.
Despite an old tale, pregnant with warning, of a Spanish army that entered the surrounding land never to return, the couple decide to search for the forbidden city and ultimately find it, replete with mounds hiding pyramids, protective walls and a limestone sacrificial altar upon which they set up camp and start a fire.
“The effect of such an experience is indescribable. We seemed to have brushed aside times’ limitations. The past and present were telescoped. The mind was able to recapture images as though it were not subject to the restrictions of space and matter. I do not tell you that what we saw with our physical eyes, or heard with our finite ears, these evocations of the past. It was rather an awareness not dependent upon either of these usual instruments of sense perception.
“We sat utterly still. The silence was broken only by the sharp staccato of the fire’s explosions; then, far off, insistent, vibrant, that rhythmic monotone.”
Lamb was an intelligent observer who renders the landscape of Mexico masterfully. The many descriptions of the troubles had at sea in their undersized “Vagabunda” can be a bit too detailed and lose those who don’t possess a command of boating terminology (the jib, stern, starboard, etc.) or a full vocabulary of the sea’s behavior (squalls, shoals, breakers, etc.). Were this a novel, one or two harrowing sequences upon the violent seas would have been sufficient, but Lamb is writing a travelogue and diary, so that these must be recorded, sometimes at the expense of a patient reader.
June 12, 2019
An engaging read, but too many 'near escapes from certain death' and fantastical adventures for anything in here to warrant credibility. While the author may have stretched the truth, there is no denying this was an epic journey providing insight into Mexico cultures + wildlife along the Pacific coast not so long ago (1930's). If you are good at suspending disbelief this will be a fun read, if a bit tedious due to the length...
July 18, 2025
It was 1933 when Dana and Ginger Lamb left San Diego in a homemade, 16-food canoe/sailboat (the Vagabunda) and for three years traveled 16,000 miles from California, down the coasts of Mexico and Guatemala to Costa Rica. They ended their journey by crossing the Panama Canal in 1936.
I was entranced the whole time, starting with reading about what Baja was like 100 years ago. Everything was astonishing, from the people they encountered, to the physical feats and suffering (ack, the bugs!), to the way they could build or cook anything out of almost nothing. Their energy toward life was amazing. While they were certainly incredibly strong and independent, a lot of people helped them along the way. The last part in Cocos Island is a worthy of a whole book in and of itself!
I especially loved that chapter where they were living with indigenous people for a few months in Puerto Escondido who helped them heal from malaria. They were administered various treatments, including a woman who touchingly chanted through the night as Dana and Ginger lay sick. I was also struck by how there was a two-spirit (transgendered) person in their community. Lamb wrote several paragraphs about how accepting the community was.
I discovered that the Vagabunda is on display in the lobby of the Adventurers' Club of Los Angeles, and the Lambs' papers and film are housed in the Sherman Library in Corona del Mar.
Thank you Cynthia for loaning me this copy of your favorite book.
I was entranced the whole time, starting with reading about what Baja was like 100 years ago. Everything was astonishing, from the people they encountered, to the physical feats and suffering (ack, the bugs!), to the way they could build or cook anything out of almost nothing. Their energy toward life was amazing. While they were certainly incredibly strong and independent, a lot of people helped them along the way. The last part in Cocos Island is a worthy of a whole book in and of itself!
I especially loved that chapter where they were living with indigenous people for a few months in Puerto Escondido who helped them heal from malaria. They were administered various treatments, including a woman who touchingly chanted through the night as Dana and Ginger lay sick. I was also struck by how there was a two-spirit (transgendered) person in their community. Lamb wrote several paragraphs about how accepting the community was.
I discovered that the Vagabunda is on display in the lobby of the Adventurers' Club of Los Angeles, and the Lambs' papers and film are housed in the Sherman Library in Corona del Mar.
Thank you Cynthia for loaning me this copy of your favorite book.
September 4, 2021
There are some credibility issues with the story but if half of it is true it’s still quite an adventure.
Coming back in 1936 from their 3 year adventure he makes this observation, ‘while we were a part of an organized society much that we now see went unnoticed: the increasing reluctance and inability of large groups to solve their own problems; people’s growing distaste for economic, social and political freedom, if it entails personal responsibility; their willingness to barter these things for someone’s promise of a larger life with a minimum effort on the part of the individual; the tendency of more and more people to regard governmental relief agencies as a career; their naive belief that a political messiah or economic formula can do for them the things that all men must do for themselves or perish.’
Their adventures were enough to teach them this valuable truth that is even more relevant today! Can you imagine if he came back to 2021 America?
Coming back in 1936 from their 3 year adventure he makes this observation, ‘while we were a part of an organized society much that we now see went unnoticed: the increasing reluctance and inability of large groups to solve their own problems; people’s growing distaste for economic, social and political freedom, if it entails personal responsibility; their willingness to barter these things for someone’s promise of a larger life with a minimum effort on the part of the individual; the tendency of more and more people to regard governmental relief agencies as a career; their naive belief that a political messiah or economic formula can do for them the things that all men must do for themselves or perish.’
Their adventures were enough to teach them this valuable truth that is even more relevant today! Can you imagine if he came back to 2021 America?
June 2, 2024
Enchanted Vagabonds was entertaining at times, but not nearly as engaging as Quest for the Lost. Never would have read the Lamb's second book had I read them in order. Still wish they had penned more stories of their adventures. Such a fun couple!
September 2, 2025
An amazing adventure and a great retelling. The one reality of a true adventure is it is not always exciting. This being what I think is a more truthful account involves A LOT of downtime. That being said this really does make you want to explore and get out into the unknown.
April 23, 2021
I hope most of this is true. A pretty fantastic tale, but they have pictures to prove some of it.
February 3, 2010
Excellent! Made me want to make my own boat and sail down the coast living off the ocean and getting in adventures :)
I was totally blown away by the story of the Lambs and their unquenchable thirst to explore further and further when any normal human being would have given up long ago. It seemed no obstacle could hold them back for very long.
Some of their thinking was way ahead of it's time considering that their journey took place in the mid 1930s. A lot could be learnt from their approach to dealing with the indigenous people of Central America. They were welcomed and taken care of by most of the tribes they encountered, mostly I think due to their respect for the culture of the people whose land they were entering.
For anyone who likes Robinson Crusoe / Swiss Family Robinson types stories this is a MUST read :)
I was totally blown away by the story of the Lambs and their unquenchable thirst to explore further and further when any normal human being would have given up long ago. It seemed no obstacle could hold them back for very long.
Some of their thinking was way ahead of it's time considering that their journey took place in the mid 1930s. A lot could be learnt from their approach to dealing with the indigenous people of Central America. They were welcomed and taken care of by most of the tribes they encountered, mostly I think due to their respect for the culture of the people whose land they were entering.
For anyone who likes Robinson Crusoe / Swiss Family Robinson types stories this is a MUST read :)
April 4, 2009
This is my all time favorite book. It is out of print, but well worth buying if you can find a copy. I first got a copy of this book from the library, 22 years ago, and a few years ago found a reasonably priced copy on the internet. I love this book because the protagonists set out on an amazing adventure, and just live truly in the "now" any place their trust in the universe to be guided. Also, they describe places in the early part of the 1900s that no longer exist in the same way.
Read
November 27, 2008Exciting with near death threats in nearly every chapter! Husband and wife built a canoe-kayak-sail boat and explored the coast from San Dieago, Ca to the Panama canal in 1932.. FUNNY, Exciting, and well wrote.
December 15, 2007
a real life adventure story in the 1930s.
for anyone with a restless spirit, read this book, then leave everything behind and go for it.
for anyone with a restless spirit, read this book, then leave everything behind and go for it.
July 30, 2008
Adventures of a married couple who took off in a small boat at the time of the Great Depression and sailed to the Panama and survived!
Want to read
August 10, 2009Couple travels down the pacific coast. Recommended by Mateo in Pisota.
January 9, 2011
I've read this numerous times since I was young. We have an old copy that has been passed around the family. I love this book!
February 26, 2015
True-life adventures of an American couple traveling in Mexico in the 1930s.
Currently reading
July 17, 2011Starting this today. My parents read this to us as kids. I'm looking forward to revisiting the adventure.
February 1, 2011
One of the best adventure stories ever!
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews