WALKING THE AMERICAS

1,800 miles, eight countries and one incredible journey from Mexico to Columbia, this is a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller and travel and adventure writing at its best. The award-winning author, explorer and photographer Levison Wood has taken part in world leading expeditions on five continents and is an elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and acclaimed documentary presenter. The British explorer has walked expeditions which have taken him from the Nile River to the peaks of the Himalayas and in this book he recounts a four month long trek along the spine of the Americas travelling with Mexican photographer Alberto Cáceres. Journeying from sleepy barrios to unexcavated Mayan ruins, Wood encounters personal stories, cultures and popular legends that paint a riveting history of Mexico and Central America. He takes family meals with local hosts, learns to build an emergency shelter, and witnesses the surreal beauty of the landscapes. He attempts to cross one of the world's most impenetrable borders - the Darién Gap from Panama into South America, a notorious smuggling passage and the wildest jungle he has ever navigated. Genuinely adventurous, this is an accomplished piece of cultural reportage that combines travel journal with history lessons, memoir and survivalist handbook. Beginning in the Yucatán and moving south through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, we are taken to glamorous cities and ruins lying in unexcavated wilderness. Wood encounters indigenous tribes in Mexico, revolutionaries in a Nicaraguan refugee camp, fellow explorers and migrants heading towards the US. The relationships he forges along the way are at the heart of his travels and meantime he contends with the region's natural obstacles like quicksand, flashfloods and dangerous wildlife. 291pp, paperback with colour photos.