Staying Friends In Chile (Between Extremes - John McCarthy, Brian Keenan)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	Between Extremes - John McCarthy, Brian Keenan
Date:	17/04/01 (212 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Uplifting testament ot friendship

Disadvantages: Too much of Neruda's poetry for my liking

This co-written account of McCarthy and Keenan’s trip to Chile owes its existence to the four years of incarceration that they spent together in the Lebanon. To pass the time, they let their imaginations run riot with all sorts of imponderable projects. One of which was “Would the Yak be a suitable creature to farm in a hostile environment like Patagonia in Chile? – This being despite the fact that they come from China!”

Thus the idea of Chile was implanted in them.

Using the need to at least see Patagonia for themselves they embarked together on an offbeat and searching tour of Chile. The country is not the only aspect being searched herein. There are frequent and honest accounts of how they each got the other’s nerves.

Brian’s snoring and (to John at least) his ability to sleep just about anywhere at any time, proved a major problem.

John’s constant planning to the nth degree got Brian’s goat, plus his ability to look like he had just escaped from a Rohan shop’s window after 12 hours on a train.

Come to think of it, I snore and my wife is always reading travel guides – what conclusion do I draw from this? Help!!

This is not a tour guide in the accepted sense but it will no doubt whet the appetite of many with itchy feet to visit this highly individual country, which at times is only the 30 miles from the Pacific coast to the Argentinean border in width, but 3000 miles long. This alone shows how difficult it was, and still is to govern from Santiago.

Try as they might, they find it very difficult to get anyone to talk about the “Pinochet” years, even though democracy is now the order of the day. It’s almost as if the people they meet are adopting a kind of “At least the Fascists got the trains running on time” mentality as was bandied around in Italy at one point after WW2 – even people who had someone in
their family “disappeared” during this era seem reticent to criticise it in full.

Particularly in the distant south, where the living is hard, the feeling seems to come through that no matter who’s in charge in Santiago, it doesn’t mean much down here.

As part of their intended itinerary, they trek to Argentina on horseback over the Andes, having been forced to admit to little or no experience with horses. Some of the exploits seem foolhardy to a package-holiday man like me, but nonetheless, they make for gripping reading.

In fact, throughout their travels their mode of transport ranges from rickety to downright dangerous!

I read this book whilst on holiday in Gran Canaria, and somehow, being somewhere with a history of Spanish colonialism heightened the atmosphere of the book for me.

A “rattling good” read, which is a laying of ghosts and a validation of a warm friendship for the writers, and a fascinating non-travelogue style insight into Chile for me, and hopefully others, too.

The Yaks? Oh yes, they spoke to someone in Patagonia who thought it might be a good idea because Santiago were giving grants for diversification of agriculture, suggesting they speak to the Chinese embassy re importing the beasts!

Summary: