Reviews for Telling travels

The average rating for Telling travels based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-11-16 00:00:00 Richard Smith What a road trip! So much of what Tim Cahill describes involves the preparation -- the paperwork, logistics, and financial backing -- that must be figured out before starting a marathon trip such as the one General Motors bankrolled. I understand he was trying to make a point, but I would've enjoyed the book a bit more had he told more stories like this one, which happened while he and his driving partner were driving through Ecuador: "If we were to be captured by terrorists anywhere, Ecuador was the place. The previous month, during a wildly vitriolic campaign for president, one candidate, Abdala Bucaram ... claimed that he had been abducted secretly, and he told no one of the kidnapping. The videotape released by his opponents, Bucaram said, had been filmed during his captivity. He had been forced, at gunpoint, to have sex with the three women in the video. The evil terrorists who had subjected him to this appalling torture intended to destroy his campaign. And, okay, sure, he appeared to enjoy it, but you had to understand, his life was at stake." Who wants to hear about stamps and paperwork when there are sex stories about corrupt Central and South American politicians to be told?!

Review # 2 was written on 2009-11-29 00:00:00 Richard Browd Two guys drive from Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in a 1-ton GMC Sierra pickup, 15,000 and some miles, in 23 days, 22 hours, and 43 minutes. One of them, Tim Cahill, puts you in the cab for the moments of seething tension, giggle fits, crushing despair, and blinding joy inherent in any long road trip, magnified logarithmically by this distance and speed, and the dizzying bureaucracy of getting the truck and the people through customs, immigration, and police checkpoints in (!) eleven Latin American countries. In fact, they came to feel they were not so much drivers as "documenteros," document bearers. This is good enough to read twice.