( 6 reviews )
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Posted: Sep 11 2008
I found this book to be as awful as the author's first story. The author is irresponsible by not bothering to learn virtually anything he'll need to know prior to his journey, and he treats the environment disrespectfully throughout his walk. The flavor of his narrative is rather ego-centric as well. If you know and love Baja, you'll wish this guy had never set foot there. If you love adventure, either from an armchair or as an active participant, you would be insulted by this author's works.
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Posted: Aug 25 2006
The concept of the trip was interesting, but it could have been better if more of his personal experiences was recorded. There is a lot of historical quotes, which may be of interest to some, but it may have been better to have an initial quote for each chapter instead of breaking it up throughout the story.
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( 4 of 4 found this review helpful ) Posted: May 22 2002
Fourteen years after his trek around the coast of Baja California, Mackintosh, now a San Diego family man, is again drawn from the common world to a most uncommon journey. This time trekking southward in mountainous inland Baja with a pack burro. [I have had the great pleasure of meeting Graham Mackintosh and talking with him about his earlier book and about this one. For what it's worth, I found him to be the same gentle pilgrim that we meet in his writings.] "There was something very compelling and liberating about surrendering... From now on there would be no Mitsubishi, no Microsoft, no modem, no modern world, and maybe no home or wife -- just [the burro] and me, my goal, my God, and the good, simple people of Baja California," muses Mackintosh in a moment of introspective single-mindedness. Something that I enjoy about his observations, thoughts, and interests, if how often they closely resemble my own; one example being his delight in the company of a certain species of bird which I also particularly enjoy -- and which never fails to exhibit and inspire a certain indescribable joy -- the black phoebe.As in his earlier book, Into A Desert Place, frequently recurring samplings of the history of Baja (and Alta) California, including the accomplishments and abuses of the Spanish missionaries, are well related and seamlessly augment the story. Mackintosh labels himself 'a poor Christian and a worse Catholic' and, for this reader, many of the books finer moments center in the author's spiritual questionings, insights, struggles, perhaps heresies, visionary experiences, and graceful redemptions. "Behind the cool, hard, smooth rock, I sensed that there was another reality close at hand. That's how far I had come! I had seen the solid, indubitable forms of the great mountains and valleys dissolve into extraordinary visions; and at times I had almost felt myself dissolving into the world... I sensed it wasn't just an illusion. For a few precious moments, I had been freed from my hobbles. I had looked and stepped beyond... The journey... seemed, in part, a vital preparation for a much bigger journey to come."
