Comments

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  Terence Baker May 6, 2011 at 4:54am

  Currently reading Norman Lewis' collection of travel essays, A View of the World. Lewis, who passed away at the age of 95 in 2003, is one of the finest, if not the finest, travel writers ever to come out of the United Kingdom, and there is some competition there. Try and pick up a copy of this for writing on banditti in Sardinia; Cuba in the age of Hemingway, Fleming and Castro; Naples; Ibiza; taking Cossacks back to Central Asia to a very grim future during World War II...and after all his adventures he went back to a small farmhouse in rural Essex.

  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1436803/Norman-Lewis.html
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  Mark Mattson March 21, 2011 at 6:03pm

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  Terence Baker March 2, 2011 at 4:15am

  Recently got back from a trip to Valencia.

  The most famous writer from there--at least one I have heard of--is Vicente Blasco Ibanez, who many people would be forgiven for not having heard of, Most have heard of his most famous novel, The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (Los Cuatros Jinetes de Apocalipsis).

  He has a fairly wide road named after him in Valencia, and it is this road that the Valencia authorites want to lengthen so that impatient people can get to the Mediterranean Sea one minute quicker than they would have done otherwise, but the problem is to many that in order for this to be done it will have to wade through and destroy an area of the Roma/fishing village of Cabanyal, which I walked through for a wonderful two hours. Yes, it's crumbling, but money better spent than spent on needless roads could make the area amazing.
  Have a look at this site for more details:
  http://vidalondon.net/2010/10/10/valencians-fight-to-save-cabanyal
  Ibanez is perhaps a little wordy and dense for modern tastes (not yours of course, you read everything), along the lines of my favourite Spanish writer from that generation, Pio Baroja y Nessi, but worthwhile nonetheless.
  Valencia is always worthwhile, especially is areas of Cabanyal, El Carmen and Russafa, which is the wonderful Slaughterhouse bar/bookstore, quite the place to be.
  http://slaughterhouse.es
  Lastly, I wrote something a little more comprehensive on Valencia at
  http://allhallovians.blogspot.com
  As always, happy reading, happy travelling
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  Ed Wetschler January 5, 2011 at 5:01pm

  New York Travel Writers Association's new prez, Denise Mattia, pulled an interesting quote out of her hat at last night's meeting:  

  “In times of change, learners inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” 
              -Eric Hoffer
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  Terence Baker December 19, 2010 at 8:09pm

  And yes, Sam, I will...or did. The article is below.
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  Terence Baker December 19, 2010 at 8:08pm

  Hi David,

  Yes, I did, and it seems I did not just follow in the footsteps of Gabo but also the equally celebrated David Appell. I will read your article on Barranquilla, a city I liked. I must be unique in that I have now travelled twice from the USA to Colombia and still have not been to Cartagena.
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  Terence Baker December 19, 2010 at 8:02pm

  Here is my latest humble effort, on Colombia, with Spain, my favourite place in the world.colombia.article.pdf

  https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9012270856?profile=original
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  David Paul Appell October 12, 2010 at 9:51pm

  Cool trip, Terry! In Quilla, did you go to La Cueva, the bar/restaurant where Gabo & cronies hung out? It's a bit tarted up these days but still has a lot of lore inside (I wrote about Barranquilla for MSNBC.com a little while back; click here if you're interested in having a look). Then in Cartagena last year I rode by the house he owns there -- zipped up like a fortress, that one!
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  Sam Scribe October 10, 2010 at 6:43pm

  I've just discovered this group. I read One Hundred Years of Solitude when I was a teenager, and its images are still with me. Terence, will you be writing about your trip, and if so, where?
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  Terence Baker October 10, 2010 at 6:35pm

  I just returned from northern Colombia, where essentially I was following the "trail" of Gabriel García Márquez, from his earliest journalistic days in the sweaty, ramshackle port of Barranquilla (be sure to see its wonderful Museo del Caribe, which has a floor dedicated to the 1982 Nobel Prize winner (this year's winner, Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa, was the first south American winner since the Colombian)). I also went to Santa Marta and Riohacha, where the La Guajira Wayuu indians influenced his novella, The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother. One notable excursion was to a hot spring in the Cienaga swamp, unlit (the car's headlights helped a little), with bats the size of dinner plates swooping down and, unseen behind thick foliage, a goods train rumbling by from the mines of Aracataca, García Márquez's birthplace. This really set my literary mind aswirl, images of the 3,000 dead workers massacred in the banana plantation of his fictional town of Macondo (did you see that the BP oil rig in the Mexican Gulf was called Macondo!) being transported away, as memorably portrayed in his One Hundred Years of Solitude.