A campaigning environmentalist, Alastair Sawday has visited most corners of the globe and in this readable and light-hearted book he opens up some of the world's treasures and curiosities to the armchair traveller. A Suffolk childhood introduced him to the realities of helping with the harvest, and he regrets the gradual disappearance of job opportunities within a rural community. A gap year in America introduced him to the delights of sailing, and after a degree in law he once more headed into the world, this time to teach in the Caribbean town of Vieux Fort, where he was able to go harpooning and hear the legendary cry "Dere she blows". A dash down to the Orinoco river followed, calling at Trinidad on the way, where the carnival atmosphere was already beginning, "a joyful riot of music, costumes, carousing and dance, shot through with sexual tension". Choosing to cross the frontier by canoe, he and his three companions were dropped off in the jungle by a skipper who assured them that another boat would be along soon. The next morning another boat did appear, but the skipper was paralysed with fright by the waves on the Orinoco delta and resorted to prayer, while his passengers bailed hard until they found themselves illegally in Venezuela. Back in England, a job teaching at Framlingham College offered a much-needed period of calm. "Barging around in Wales" finds him listening to the humiliations borne by a young black female Marine, "A Baroque Flourish" takes him to Norman Sicily and the superb mosaics of Monreale with its Moorish columns, while "Gondola!" focuses on Venice and the Slow Food Movement of northern Italy. 312pp, paperback.
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