To Belém & Back: Backroads Brazil with my Black Lab
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.96 (717 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0991337220 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 264 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-05-03 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
SallyT said Man-and-best-friend road trip with a lot of Brazilian history and culture thrown in.. To Belém and BackAs I was driving along a particularly potholed utility road in Connecticut last week, I thought to myself, Well, these are nothing compared to those potholes back in Sobral! So vivid in my mind were the driving conditions on the back highways of Brazil that it took me a minute to remember that I have never actually been to Brazil. But I have, in a way. I accompanied Ben Batchelder and his soulful black lab, Atlas, for a very long, very bumpy trip from their home in Minas Gerais (a few hours’ drive inland from Rio) up to Belém, on the northern coast of Brazil, then back along t. Easy and fun way to discover Brazil L. Mcsweeney Wonderful book that will introduce you to an area of Brazil that few are familiar with. Ben drove, with his black lab, through the back roads of Brazil (which are safer than the highways) where few tourists go, discovering warm people, quirky places, nature at its best, some wonderful food, and some awful road conditions, including pot holes that look like moon craters. Interspersed is some solid information on the history and politics of Brazil - not too much and he won't test you on it —but enough to make you want more. Thoroughly enjoyed it.. "I had a great time reading the book" according to Eduardo Muszkat. As a Brazilian, I could not believe an american fellow with a dog would be brave (or crazy) enough to drive a car all the way from Minas Gerais to Belém much less with a dog! But since he did write the book, I knew from the start he had actually completed the journey, so I went ahead and read it without fear.Ben is a "matter of fact" traveller, who takes in a day at a time, allowing fortune to define who he will meet and what will happen next. He had done that on his first book around the borders of the US, but Brazil is certainly a different ball game. Reading Ben's narrative, I learned so much about my o
like a normal re-pat, moved deep into the interior of Brazil.Here he drives his two-wheel drive station wagon into the , on the notoriously dangerous Belém-Brasília highway, and back along Brazil's endless Atlantic Coast, on roads few if any Brazilians brave. Along the way, humorous encounters with countless locals help him to plumb Brazilian culture and history, in so many aspects the flip-side of the American experience, and reveal how he fell in love with Brazil's beguiling warmth in the first place - along with black Labs.. Have you ever wondered how to travel with your favorite pet in a huge tropical country where footloose foreigners are suspect? Author Ben Batchelder abandoned a cozy corporate career and, instead of returning to the U.S. Hence the need for such a ferocious breed as Labrador: for protection
You'll book a flight - and a car rental - before the tale ends.". "Watch out for the potholes! Enough of an outsider to succumb to fearless wanderlust in a dangerous land, enough of an insider to know better, Batchelder is that rarest of travel narrators: part intrepid adventurer, part cultural interpreter, full-time storyteller. Taking the reader on a rich, startling odyssey of modern Brazil, To Belém & Back is told with consummate verve, a sly wit, and sumptuous detail of character and place