May’s book review: Patagonian Road – A year alone through Latin America by Kate McCahill
Beginning this book called Patagonian Road I was at first excited, after all the cover features a dirt road curving away to snow-capped Andean mountains. My expectations were quickly re-calibrated upon looking at the introduction’s map of visited locations and the chapter headings- this travel journal covers from Guatemala south to Buenos Aires, Argentina, while exploring stops through Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, but it does not include southern Argentina and Chile’s Patagonia region.
So the by-line of the book is a better title, and the author, editor, the list of people in the acknowledgment, and publisher all screwed up naming the book, although a weak link as hinted at by the author referencing the book she traveled with: The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux. The trip destinations make this travel log essentially an extended version of the Gringo Trail that links northern Chile through to Machu Picchu. In a one-two punch combination, after starting Chapter 1 the first real paragraph lets us know the author’s self-similar sexual orientation. I suppose people must live by their priorities, ours is the appreciation of South America. This is a rocky start on a new book, but I am a geologist, understanding rocks are what I do. Equally quick author lets us know we are in for piecing together the trip with the novice travel bible- the Lonely Planet. I let out a sigh, determined to see it through. She does not state this, but the trip was taken in approximately 2011; the book was published in 2017.
Kate McCahill uses plenty of colorful adjectives briefly splashed before us before attempting I am sorry for my home nation’s behavior moral stance that the United States is bad. I suppose being consistent with gender stereotypes, coming from Boston it was highly unlikely stepping off the plane in Guatemala that she would seek out the local shooting range for some firearm practice or seek out the local surf break. No, we get the expected, yes, that is right, socialist lecture. I go from sighing to laughing; had I not suffered enough having just read Eduardo Galeano’s book “Open Veins of Latin America”? She tells of U.S. intervention, oppression of indigenous people, and the numbers that were slain (mainly or entirely Latino upon Latino, and this is critical to consider for all the countries she will describe in the book). She has already begun the story on page 4 in the Prologue with an excerpt from the very end of her trip, awakening us to the tragedy of Argentina’s disappeared. That was history, I have a good friend in Mendoza, and today the concern is ongoing corruption. Yes, Latin America is full of problems, dutifully disclosed by the author, social merit badge completed. Let the travel description continue, which begins with the feeling we all typical go through, one of exposure to what is different, then reporting on those novelties.
I have never been to Guatemala, what McCahill describes in first-person present-tense must be what is like. She starts with the predictable bus ride experience in Latin America, thus reinforcing my travel preferences to avoid them at all costs. Buses in Latin America are where you lose a lot of time, get robbed, or die in a gruesome crash. Peru loses dozens and dozens of lives every year in buses crashing down the mountainsides. Last time I rode a bus in Ecuador my laptop was stolen. But limited means backpacker-type travelers carrying Lonely Planet guidebooks circulate by bus, sigh again and dig into reading all about it.
By page 17 we rewarded with the first computer chatting with her significant other. This is what we have in today’s travel adventures, people describing talking to their friends, staying in constant communication. How very different all this is from my own travel journal entries I put together in a book called “Field Days in Peru”, that was before email and cell phones had arrived, and then my trip was not about checking the tourist must-visit places off a list but instead it was work and learning about the geology of the Andes. Yes, my review of McCahill’s first book will be jaded, 20 years’ experience traveling in South America lends perspective. As is so frequent the case, travel stories are best received by the uninitiated, they read far better that way. Back to the point of this paragraph, the story is now being related by a lesbian socialist Millennial armed with advanced English skills.
She begins in the town of Xela and the Mayans and a Spanish school. This is a reasonable beginning point for somebody facing a year ahead of them going farther and farther south. I can emphasize with tackling the Spanish language, it is something that still occasionally is difficult twenty years on, particularly when my wife is playing her Peruvian romance songs lived-streamed in the kitchen. Nonetheless, I do not think I would want to live through McCahill’s Spanish live-in learning experience either. No gracias.
We are treated with nicely detailed lists of Guatemalan little details, and not a single Mayan ruin visit. Basically, that is just nuts. What is reported are not the sort of features I would key in on. What stands out to me these days are Spanish accents and difference in slang. The amount of Spanish terms used in the book is very limited. The account is pleasant enough, until the dream is broken by her feelings on telling her lover about this or that, and giving us a flashback description of a lesbian day in the park and hinted tumble in the car. Where did Guatemala go? Oh, in the next paragraph, but perhaps this is a genius mechanism that McCahill employs to urge the reader onward to see whether or not her sexual desires will be transformed after extended travel in South America? Will this trip represent a life changing experience?
Learning a new language is tiring work when tackled many hours at a time each day. A couple years ago I tried with Quechua lessons in Cusco, Peru. The Spanish school experience is likely the same, though I did not learn it this way (it took me much longer!). Reading about somebody else’s experience in language school is not exactly engaging, to say the least. I know that one picks up the language when you can begin to think in the words instead of translate, and more-so when you dream in another language. The days passed in Xela giving us glimpses of the ordinary in Guatemala, and further rubbish of the author wondering about if her relationship with “E” will last. She passes Christmas Eve and never really says if she learned Spanish at all. She relates several times about feeling far away from home. I contrast that in my travels by reminding myself each time a place seems distant that it is home for the locals, that being here is not remote.
She travels to the town of Antigua and onto descriptions of staying in low-rent hostels. That goes the way it always does, so no point in dwelling on it. She describes the nearby volcano, then follows that by saying “nothing calls out to me here.” WHAT! It is a volcano! It is hard for a geologist to read about wasted time in a place that has interesting geology. She quickly redeems herself by talking about earthquakes. So I continue to read on and so does the Spanish classes in the book. She visits a coffee finca, a farm, and brings up the book “Open Veins of Latin America.” Interesting. My six page book review probably sees the work a bit differently than McCahill did. I will leave it to that. McCahill dawdles in the injustices of others for a while. Checking the social justice box again. It continues with a beach town, more social justice lessons, descriptions of people and food, and the Guatemala landscape left unpainted except for the tale of spilled blood. The tale repeats through different towns, giving different names, giving us characters with no real visions of the country.
Next is El Salvador. The town Santa Ana. No mention of what it was like crossing the international border. This is a violent country in reputation. A boring bus ride following Paul Theroux’s route. Not my choice in travel, and it sounds downright stupid decision to me while reading this tale sitting in Denver. A midnight taxi ride into a town you know little about, alone, to stay in a ten dollar hotel that usually charges by the hour. She is not thinking very straight, so read on to see what happens. She ditches the place the very next day and takes a bus to San Salvador, a place I have only heard horror tales about. McCahill knows better, writing “I wish to never reach San Salvador.” And who writes a tourist guide to El Salvador? Respite at a decent hotel, then she continues onto Honduras, in another grueling bus ride. Not my definition of vacation, but this trip is about finding oneself right? She is headed to Managua, Nicaragua, another place renowned for violence. Another crappy hotel, then travel onto Granada. Nothing of these places really comes through in the descriptions except the general fear of leaving the hotel rooms and the buses. In Granada the colorful descriptions returns. And the tendency to hang with the backpacker tourists and make visits to Peace Corp worker’s projects. Moments at small public schools, not in churches, a few museums, and hot nights, and yes, more missing of “E”. The events are alright, though still not people or places I would spend time with for the most part.
More time with a Spanish teacher, this time it is Ana. I still question whether the Spanish was sinking in- it is now March. And then she is joined by the mysterious “E” to hold hands and visit Little Corn Island. Now I am questioning if I should continue reading the book but feel obligated to finish the review and complete what I started. Remember the screwed up title? It continued to say “A year alone…” but the frequent emailing and now an en route visit by a lover, so much for the rest of this book’s title! It gets a little steamier in Nicaragua and not in travel adventure.
E bails back to Boston and the travel continues to Quito, Ecuador. Again, hard not to hold preconceptions because I was there just four months ago. Quito can be dangerous, more the pity for it, because it’s a stunning valley in beautiful mountains. And her staying in a volunteer house, yeah, not great accommodations for security. One definitely should not walk the streets at night. McCahill receives this lecture which is fair enough. I spent my time there upscale at the Marriott hotel while doing business travel. The description we get in this book is the traveler’s bottom dweller version. She does end up in the nightclub scene, a place called Plaza Foch, but she does not mention the name. All tourists going through Quito end up there. The description of working at the local school and noting the various travelers clicks during her relationship decays falls totally flat. Millennial drama is not adventurous or interesting, it is depressingly shortcoming. What about visiting the historical Museo Casa de Sucre, seeing the plaza de armas, and visiting the Convento de San Francisco? McCahill gives us nothing.
In the same theme, next is visiting the incredible town of Baños. At least she takes a hike in the countryside and soaks in the hot springs. Not once does she mention the nearby looming and active massive Volcan Tungurahua that threatens the town every day with destruction. Is McCahill truly blind??? When I visited Baños in 2013 while writing “Hot Springs of the Andes” the volcano erupted at 1 am., covering the town in ash. It was frightening, because I knew all too well what potential death that behemoth extrusive force could unleash. She went to Baños, but the writing seems like she passed it.
She gives some detailed description of poverty in Ecuador, and awakens again to being part of the “one percent.” We are not sure if she is thankful for that or feeling guilty, and this from what reviewers hailed as expressing feelings so well from a female traveler.
A few more days in southern Ecuador, then two huge days of bus travel down the coast to Lima. After months of tropical forests she has entered the hyper-arid deserts of Peru, a radical climate change and soon she sees the culture change too. She sees Lima, the modern shops, but really does not experience Lima. Then her route takes her up to my wife’s home town of Huancayo, in the highlands of central Peru. Any travel account dealing with one’s significant others native town where we still have family is going to be seeing it through eyes we are not accustomed to.
The bus ride up to Huancayo is unlike anything she would have done before, and the highest elevation pass she would experience on the entire trip. My mother in law just made this bus journey last week, taking 12 hours because of snow at the pass delayed the trip by four hours. McCahill does not name the mountain pass (it is called Ticlio) nor give its elevation (4,815 meters). These factors matter as much as people’s names and the rather meaningless interactions between the people that she meets. This is the Andes, second highest mountain range on the Earth, a geological wonder. The riddles run deep in the Andes. Her trip is described as a shallow passing. Feelings do not displace facts. She is oblivious of how many buses have speed off the mountain curves to drown all the passengers in the Rio Mantaro. In Huancayo, she relates a bit of history, tries a gift chew of coca leaves, and makes no mention of the life force of the valley, the Rio Mantaro. Folklore songs feature this powerful river. She quotes Eduardo Galeano about the false stated abuse of coca to oppress people, and makes no mention of the spiritual aspect of the plant and the tie with Pachamama. At least she visits the town of Cochas and the center of carved gourd artisan work, a route taking her past my wife’s uncle house. She is fed a line about one of the carved gourds costing “800 Soles”, I have never seen such a high price over these 20 years going to Peru. But you know the say, a sucker is born every day, not that she bought it, thankfully. Alternatively, she miss-understood the Spanish when the price was told to her.
Next she travels to Ayacucho, the city and province I spent nine months in while doing fields studies for my Ph.D. in geology twelve years before her visit. The city is known for having 33 churches, that I used to joke with my field assistant was because there were so many sinners. The city that started Peru’s terrorist movement. Her bus trip from Huancayo to Ayacucho will mainly be along the Rio Mantaro, again unnamed in her description. She describes the river a bit as seen from the bus, but does not mention the color of the water, the depth of the cut banks, the width of the channel, nor the swiftness of the current. Are not Millennials tech savvy? Should could have Google mapped it later while preparing the book manuscript, or used Google Earth. Lazy writing or no curiosity about the world. She does mention the wasteland of mining she “sees”, but honestly, there are no mines along this route, and nothing of the scale she mentions. This part is just completely fabricated to sound off social injustices in the spirit of Galeano and is completely false. Some very small harmless gypsum quarries are passed, they are nothing like what she details.
McCahill briefly outlines the dark period in Peru with the Shining Path. When I first visited Ayacucho in 1998 the area was not so clear of threat, listed on the US embassy site as prohibited region for government workers. I saw bullet ridden abandoned small pueblos during my research, and stumbled into one possible terrorist encampment. Ayacucho countryside is arid, full of thick forest of cactus, hot, swarmed by biting gnats and swarms of locusts. The city is crowded, with a singular plaza de armas that features stone arches and large stone cathedral on the east side of the square. The food there is fairly poor, and yet there are enough hostels for tourists and the place has the draw for visiting the large capital city ruins of the Wari culture. Ayacucho in Quechua means the Place of the Dead, referring to the Wari tombs, which have also been termed a necrocropolis. McCahill at least takes a taxi to go visit these impressive ruins. I do give her credit for having visited Huancayo and Ayacucho- without numbers- I would guess 98% of the tourist coming to see Cusco miss seeing the rest of Peru.
A bus ride to Andahuaylas, Abancay, and then onto Cusco, the Mecca of world tourists for the history, bohemian reputation, and jumping off point for the ruins of Machu Picchu. I have done it twenty times, staying in places covering backpacker hostels to five star hotels. Her night spent in Andahuaylas was probably oblivious to the place being a major drug trafficking city. I was once told seventy percent of the businesses in the town are for laundering drug money. You can find sports cars racing the narrow colonial streets at night. A backpacker’s hostel- a return to the bus terminal. Ayacucho to Cusco is a long haul of many mountain curves, this is not the route the majority take to Cusco…and therefore an interesting travel description would highlight more about this journey. Instead, hardly anything is related.
Cusco goes in the consistent fashion of the lowest common denominator for traveling poor backpackers. Staying in a hostel of lower quality than what many Peruvians would use. Some casual sex after drinking too much, and then a bus ride towards Machu Picchu because it is cheaper than the train. The constant cheap travel becomes old reading, especially while knowing there is so much more that Cusco offers. Not even a token culinary try of Andean guinea pig, or cuy, for a traditional meal. Or the native fermented corn drink called Chicha de Jora.
Books could be, and have been, written about what is missing in her travel experience. But reviewers must gush over “but she is female and she did it herself.” Nonetheless, this is not anywhere on the same level of many women South America explorers, for example, read about Annie Smith Peck’s 1908 attempted first ascent of Peru’s highest mountain, Huascaran. The trials the Kate McCahill go through is more about perceived male threats in the Latino machismo culture that is decades behind standards in the northern hemisphere. The Latino men do like the exotic nature of the “Gringas”, or foreign women, but they also prefer fuller figures. I am not sure that any of the encounters with drunks and taxi drivers had any sinister intent behind the exchanges no matter how McCahill may have perceived it. I have recently interacted with at least a dozen women working on their Ph.D.’s in the geological sciences in South America, doing field studies in remote areas and contributing to science that have more interesting tales than this Millennial account of feelings. Others are active studying archaeology in various countries. Staying in a cheap hostel is not an accomplishment on its own, nor is riding a bus.
On to Machu Picchu- going on what she termed the Hippie Trail, a back route coming from downstream past the Santa Maria. She hikes up to the ruins instead of taking the shuttle bus, getting there late and then complains about the crowded lines, the rain, and then goes through a muddled emotional epiphany about friends and family- gone is the colorful writing and she provides zero description to paint in the readers mind what the Machu Picchu experience is really like. Similarly her mention of Aguas Calientes is dull, inaccurate, and lacking. She quickly moves on the same day catching the train back to Cusco instead of more appropriately staying another night. Granted the place is expensive, the guidebooks fully prepare one for the logistics, she does not sound at all prepared for making her trip. She is just one of millions that made the trip is rather poor style, nothing special. Any personal journey and personal bests or whatever you wish to spin it as does not equate to significant learning for others, or even literature.
Her journey continues south through Lake Titicaca, La Paz, historic Potosi, and desert town of Tupiza in Bolivia, and then runs through Jujuy, Salta, Cordoba, and Buenos Aires. For a supposed travel writer the depiction of La Paz is nearly incompetent. The obligatory visit to the underground mine in Potosi is poorly written too. No mention that Cerro Rico is the world’s largest silver deposit. And she had no concept that the mine she visited was being faked-mined as a show for the tourist, and she was oblivious that mountain has nearly 4,000 miners digging in a mining cooperative that is very political and organized. For somebody holding an elite college degree she is shocking ignorant in her statement that the 5,000 meter peak of Cerro Rico was stripped of trees. It is above tree line, there are no trees anywhere around most of the Altiplano of Bolivia; no Ms. McCahill, the mine did not ruin the environment in this manner. There is so much more going at Potosi that she does not take the time nor interest in attempting to write about. I was traveling in Bolivia approximately the same year she was, and was deeply impressed with how common pizza restaurants were in the country, and they are done for the locals, not tourists. Not once does McCahill mention this point. Even in the southern Bolivia town of Tupiza, which does sell pizza, we used to joke calling the town “Two Pizza.” The rest of her trip consists of amateur travel and underwhelming relating of minor personal realizations- all of it rather forgettable. I am impressed that a ~27 years “adult” misses her mother? The trip through Argentina is rushed to Buenos Aires- then she stayed in the city three months teaching, basically wasting away the time. How can one “do” Argentina and never mention having a Bife de Chorizo, Ojo de Bife, or a steak empanada in Salta? Or a mention of Quilmes beer? Or any beer brand from any of the countries she visited. What a botched trip report this book provides.
What is a good travel log? Is it the one that we move with the person in their personal journey, an introspective selfish fixation? Or is it one that teaches about a place, a time, a culture, and makes observations about those other places? One that is selfish or contributes to larger human knowledge? I have lost count of the times not carrying about McCahill’s interrupted email or lack of communication back north. I certainly know that many of the places described in the book paint a narrow picture and miss so much of what could have been appreciated or seen. What does this say for the effectiveness of Lonely Planet? Or following any Gringo Trail? And what does replication of the “Visit” to the places so many others have done contribute to anything? This book is touted with high reviews for the value of self-transformation…of questionable mastering of the Spanish language? Of being boxed into the same mind-frame as when her trip began? Frankly, I see zero learning in her experience. She wasted a fair amount of time suffering through low quality, which is not a sign of higher intelligence. All the while boring us with her screwed up relationship. 4.5 Stars on Amazon from 57 reviews and gushing endorsements printed in the front of the book demonstrates either anything can be faked or people really have no knowledge to make informed judgments. It is certain that all of the highly positive reviews come from people that are even more ignorant than she is! This trip story is largely the case of the ignorant traveler, and I will admit that I am a hard critique having been to many of the places described. Should the travel book only be valid for those who have never been there? The trip missed so much, wasted the time, no classic Mayan ruins in Guatemala, missed so much in Ecuador, shows a shallow understanding of Peru, blows Potosi’s majesty, and barely touches Argentina. For a good read about a journey seek elsewhere than the “Patagonian Road” that was never seen.
-James M. Wise, May, 2019
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South America seems to refuse to show its inexhaustible creative force.
