Article 2 - REVIEW OF “TRAVELS IN A THIN COUNTRY” May 2006 edition of First Church of The Streets

    Have you ever traveled solo in a foreign country for months on end, or even considered doing so? Sara Wheeler considered this, and went. "Travels in a Thin Country" relates the author's trek through the country of Chile, where she starts in the north by Arica all the way south to the part of Antarctica managed by Chile.

    Wheeler, who traversed the entire length of the country, manages to convey enough detail about each area of travel without getting too lost in the subject. Despite this, she takes enough time to describe the area. Considering how much territory she covered in so little time, she manages not to rush through the subject matter, as though she was wholly present in each moment, even in retrospect. She weaves politics and history rather seamlessly, and her text is such that it doesn't seem like an abrupt jump from subject to subject. Her narrative allows the reader to be able to experience the trip, to give the feeling of living through the trip with her.

    This kind of travelogue is the ideal: while it conveys adventure that most people probably won't experience, it also gives enough detail that if I the reader wanted to visit the place, I would know which sections I would choose to visit, and maybe which to avoid. Wheeler, a perennial traveler, came up with the idea to traverse Chile when she met a Chilean man in her native Britain. Her encounter with him led her to decide on Chile as her next major destination.

    She explains how she prepared for the trip, learning the Chilean dialect of Spanish, obtaining the necessary visas and finding lodging through various friends and friends of friends. While on the trip, she describes how personal encounters led to accommodations, ranging from an estate in Los Lingues with servants, to a cargo ship carrying fish, animals, and bulldozers through Natales. You can feel the excitement vicariously through Wheeler as she successfully manages to book a trip to Antarctica on a Hercules.

    Wheeler has a knack for connecting to all kinds of people, whether native Chileans, or the various foreigners she encounters along the way. She extends a welcoming spirit to anyone who crosses her path, and hence, though being alone, she finds friendship amongst strangers. Her keen instinct brings her many friends, and also seems to insulate her from any danger.

    Wheeler experiences a common affliction amongst travelers, the ambivalence of leaving a place that has been a temporary home. She pines for her native Britain, yet wants to remain in Chile. She doesn't wax romantic about the "superior" qualities of the developing world, but respects the culture she has made a temporary home. She seems at heart a Britisher, but her soul is willing and eager to lap up the world around her. Her book represents an ideal spirit to aspire to when roaming the unknown world.