Three Letters from the Andes

by Patrick Leigh Fermor

In 1971 the celebrated traveller Patrick Leigh Fermor accompanied five friends on a remarkable journey into the high Andes of Peru. His adventure took him from Cuzco to Urubamba, on to Puno and Juli on Lake Titicaca, down to Arequipa and finally back to Lima. The expedition was led by a writer and poet and the party included a Swiss international skier and jeweller, a social anthropologist from Provence and a Nottinghamshire farming squire - all seasoned mountaineers. The other two participants - the author himself and a botany-loving duke - were complete novices. As the group travelled from Lima into increasingly remote parts of the country, Leigh Fermor captured their experiences in a series of letters to his wife. Whether recounting the thrill of crossing a glacier, the rigours of campsite life under a blanket of snow, their lively encounters with locals or the strangely moving sight of a lone condor circling in the sky, the author vividly conveys the excitement of discovery and the intense uniqueness of the land.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, History, Biography Memoir

118 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1991

About the author

Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor, OBE, DSO was of English and Irish descent. After his stormy schooldays, followed by his walk across Europe to Constantinople, he lived and travelled in the Balkans and the Greek Archipelago acquiring a deep interest in languages and remote places.

Fermor was an army officer who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Battle of Crete during World War II. He lived partly in Greece in a house he designed with his wife Joan in an olive grove in the Mani, and partly in Worcestershire. He was widely regarded as "Britain's greatest living travel writer".

Reviews

[Daren · Rating 2 out of 5]

In 1971 PLF travelled to Peru with a group of wealthy mates and swanned about for a month.

His mates consisted of Lord Kinross; the Duke of Devonshire; Deputy Director of the National Trust; A Swiss climber and world ski champion who managed Cartier in London for 30 years; and lawyer / social anthropologist Andre Choremi. So, you know, just a few mates scratching together a few quid to see the Andes.

The book takes the form of three letters written home to PFL's wife - lightly edited for context and content and supplied with footnotes to clarify various things.

Jumping straight to the point, this was not of great entertainment. The writing is descriptive in parts but not overly; the history is scattered and very light - contextual only; the content is only mildly interesting. As you might expect in a letter home, there are logistics, meals, interactions with locals and hotel experiences (no hot water, eggs not prepared well) to discuss...

Don't get this book confused with Fermor's travel writing - while I am not his biggest fan, it is far better than this, which is quite dull and almost pedestrian in it's delivery.

Recommended only for the PLF completist.

2 stars

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd read this one decades ago, before I read or knew anything about Fermor. Now I am in the situation of going back over his work after I have come to regard him as a great writer.

There is something singularly dense about Fermor's writing. It has to do primarily with his incredible erudition and his keen sense of observation. Three Letters from the Andes consists of three long letters to his wife Joan written during a six-week trip to Peru with several friends in 1971. They go to Cuzco, mountain-climbing in the Andes from the Urubamba Valley, then off to Puno and Lake Titicaca on the border with Bolivia (just as Bolivia is having one of its frequents coups), and finally to Arequipa and back to Lima, from whence they return to England.

Here is one of Fermor's incredible paragraphs which one hopes never to come to the end of:

Our hosts were Mr and Mrs Hugh Morgan, friends of Michael and Demaris Stewart and extremely nice. It was a large dinner and I had a charming, very quiet and beautiful neighbor called Doña Diana de Dibos: she was English, moreover, and first married to a Spaniard who fell in the Civil War, and then -- now -- to a Peruvian. Exchanging-life stories, she told me she and her brother had been brought up by her father, who was a retired British admiral, half on shore and half on a yacht, at St. Tropez, when it was a little fishing town, of which her father had been affectionately styled 'the mayor' ... Suddenly I realized who she was: the sister, that is, of Mike Cumberlege, that amazing buccaneerish figure (very funny, very well read, and with a single gold earring) who used to smuggle us into German-occupied Crete in little boats; he captured later by the Germans trying to blow jup the Corinth Canal, held prisoner for three years in Flossenberg concentration camp and, tragically, shot four days before the armistice: a marvellous almost mythical figure; Xan and I knew him well. His sister Diana and I fell into each other's arms and I told her lots of stories about him she'd never heard.

By the way, during WW II, Paddy Leigh Fermor and a handful of Cretan insurgents captured the German commander of the island and hustled him over a couple of mountain ranges to a waiting British sub. The whole story is told by a fellow guerrilla, W. Stanley Moss, in his excellent book Ill Met By Moonlight.

There is little about Fermor that is NOT remarkable. I was heartbroken that he passed on in 2011. But more than anyone I know, le lived, he saw, he stored up wonderful images, and he wrote them down in a mere handful of books that I see now I will spend the rest of my life re-reading.

[Kumasama · Rating 1 out of 5]

*Score: 3/10*

This is a series of 3 letters that the author wrote to his wife while travelling in the Andes, mainly in Peru and Chile.

...and I think this should have remained letters and never got published as a book. I rarely use this word to describe a book, but this was truely boring in every sense. The writing is bland, descriptions of nature generic, and everything that I thought will be exciting turned out to be dull and dry.

How can a unique and amazing setting like this turn into such boring text I have no idea. On top of this, the racist remarks are all over the place, with the author commenting on the unique culture and people more like he is observing wild life rather than people. I did not appreciate his tone at all, nor his sense of humor.

I went into this hoping for something spiritual, mystical, and beautiful like I have experienced earlier this year by reading Underland by Robert Mcfarlane. This was the complete opposite in my view.

Knowing this is one of the author's worst rated books, and sense its in letter forms, maybe I should have not started here, so I might give this author another shot by reading his most famous and acclaimed book at some point in the future, but my experience of reading this book might prevent me from prioratizing the next read for him...

[Ruth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was really surprised, I always imagined Leigh Fermor would be engaging and interesting but this is dull. A group of very privileged friends go to the Andes and literally and metaphorically look down on everyone.
Having just read Dervla Murphy’s Full Tilt which is also based on series of letters sent home while travelling there is no excuse for this level of tedium. Read hers instead, it was great.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slight tome, edited by Fermor, of three letters he sent his wife back home about a trip he took with friends to the Andes in 1971. I have not read him in some time, so I forgot how very very British he is! It being the early '70's, there are hippies in here, and people searching for spiritual enlightenment, and a handsome and hip young priest. It is a little weird reading him using the word "psychedelic"!
Good descriptions, a little fun, but sometimes the Brit "looking down their nose" at locals is a bit much. Nice that the beginning of the book lists his other titles - I forget he did more than just the trilogy of tramping through E Europe pre-WW II.
Worth a read for Fermor fans.

[Camelama · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my kind of travel writing - details of the logistics of moving about the country, the trials and tribulations of booking rooms when you don't know what to ask for, who cooks and who climbs, NOT being able to go certain places, and contemplative descriptions of the world around you - good and bad. I read this non-stop and wish it was 10 times as long!

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful short story compromises three letters the author sent to his wife while travelling in the Andes. Full of anecdotes, description and humour. Lovely, easy read.

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a travelogue in the form of three letters written in August 1971 that comprise a diary describing a trip Peru to the Andes Mountains to climb mountains followed by a journey to Lake Titicaca and then a visit to Lima by a group of upper crust Brits. The author exhibits little tolerance for other cultures as the book is laden with prejudicial, cultural stereotypes that contain derogatory views of people different from themselves (colonialist mentality). The writer also shows no inclination to make the best of things when something goes wrong. Instead the author prefers to complain, recite a litany of wrongs, and denigrate people and places. He ends with a recitation of places that he visited during the group’s final stop in Lima before heading home.

Nevertheless, the book is interesting as a snapshot of a time, place and mindset that is no longer tolerated or accepted by many people. It also surprisingly provides some engaging and intriguing descriptions of the land, places, people and the environment that the travelers encountered.

[Cathrine Hoffner · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you took a swig every time Fermor said something racist in this brief travel memoir in the form of letters, you’d be drunk as a lord before the end of part one.

I love the Andes, but I did not particularly enjoy reading about this Rich Boy trip. I did not vibe with anything the author said, thought or did, and I’ve read much more fascinating and beautiful descriptions of Peru elsewhere.

One thing I liked about this narrative was the ending, because it was very relatable: that feeling you get when you return from a wonderful trip and you can’t help but wonder what the people and the things you encountered in that far-away place are up to right this moment, as you hit the runway back home and get ready to return to reality.

[Martin Pilkington · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book consists of letters from Patrick Leigh Fermor to his wife Joan. When he undertook this trip, with the others in the book, PLF was 56 years old. The impression you get is of someone considerably younger. In all of his books the enthusiasm, the love for what he's doing shines through.

I did get a sense that this was a world that has now vanished, that all of the people in this book don't exist anymore, and the places have changed beyond recognition, even though it was only (only!) 70 years ago. Does anyone drink quite as much as these people did? Probably not anymore.

A loving look at the Andes and it's peoples.

[Nikki Griffith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny, brilliant, fascinating

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

One for the PLF completists only

[Jan Sandford · Rating 5 out of 5]

How I have missed Patrick Leigh Fermor. Wonderful little book. The best travel writer ever!

[Gail Kennon · Rating 3 out of 5]

lovely little adventure with charming companion.

[Hattie Charnley-Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously dated with some questionable vocab/references, but interesting to read while doing the same itinerary 50 years later

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

"When the celebrated traveller Patrick Leigh Fermor accompanied five friends on a remarkable journey into the high Andes of Peru, his adventure took him from Cuzco to Urubama, on to Puno and Juli on Lake Titicaca, down to Arequipa and finally back to Lima.

"The expedition was led by a writer and poet, and the party included a Swiss international skier and jeweller, a social anthropologist from Provence and a Nottinghamshire farming squire -- all seasoned mountaineers. The other two participants -- the author himself and a botany-loving duke -- were complete novices. As the group travelled from Lima into increasingly remote parts of the country, Leigh Fermor captured their experiences in a series of letter to his wife. Whether recounting the thrill of crossing a glacier, the rigours of campsite life under a blanket of snow, their lively encounters with locals or the strangely moving sight of a lone condor circling in the sky, the author vividly conveys the excitement of discovery and the intense uniqueness of the land."
~~back cover

This is charming little book, capturing as it does exactly what it's like to go adventuring into parts of the world that are remote, hardly known to man. The author captures the rigors and terrors encountered, the joys and sublime moments that are part and parcel of any expedition of this sort. Well written, with a sharp eye for the details that matter and a complete absence of those details that don't.

[Leonie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was quite an odd book in that it detailed a group of posh white blokes poncing around the Andes with a group poor brown blokes carrying their stuff. The author was incredibly connected and that was the most interesting part of the book to me. It was neither travelogue nor memoir but something in between. I guess it was vanity pressed?

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Utterly delightful, PLF nearly surpassing the Andes themselves. But not quite.

A note on my idiosyncratic stars. They are logrhythmic not parabolic. Average gets one star, worth reading two, etc. So only whereas This would surely warrant a 5 by most, I reserve such for Moby Dick and the like. Time of Gifts is a lofty 4, and this isn't quite there, but read it!

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally finished; it's taken a long time for such a short book, but I have enjoyed it and will go on to read others by him. I wish I had a more visual imagination as the pictures he paints with words are wonderful, but sadly my mind cannot see them in proper detail - more training needed perhaps.

[james · Rating 3 out of 5]

Proving Leigh-Fermor's epistolary prowess, this little book is full of his wonderful descriptions of place, though short on much else. Only read when you've finished his other books.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good armchair travel in the middle of (yet another) blizzard. Three letters back to his wife, and short enough to keep the format interesting. Any longer and I would have wanted more from it.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh Patrick, I really want to hate you for your dodgy mythmaking for SOA and your old boy privilege. Why are you so very good at landscape?😫