What not to do when exploring and hunting for orchids!!
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And now for something completely different.
Tom Hart Dyke, (the plant nut), and Paul Winder, (the climbing nut), tell the harrowing story of their capture in the Darien Gap.
"Don't go there" they are told again, and again, and again. Do they listen! Of course they didn't, if they had, they would not have been able to write this book.
With each young man giving their own accounts of their experiences throughout, they take us on a daunting journey. The story starts as a tale of their meeting. The colourful and detailed scenes give the reader (if they have an imagination) a real feel for the surroundings. The graphic details of the camps, the sights and smells, give the reader all that is needed to be dragged into the jungle with them.
As the story unfolds and the terror begins, you can't help feel the fear and dread. But with brilliantly punctuated humour, these two brave, potty, extrovert, confused, defiant, and terrified Brits, manage somehow to get out, not only with their lives, but with their sanity intact.
A song and dance routine, of a well known song from The Life of Brian, is now thought to be the British National Anthem by their Captors each of whom had be given nicknames by Tom and Paul. Given the terrible circumstances and the conditions they live in, it's hard not to feel some sort of pity for some of them who quite clearly didn't want to be their any more that Tom and Paul.
Tom's obsession continues as he badgers the guerrillas into taking him orchid hunting, and at his deepest hour, he designs a garden (as any plant nut would in his situation).
A brilliant tale of dogged determination to survive, humour and borderline insanity, constant fear of execution, then sudden release, kept me in suspense.
I read this book in less than 24 hours, and finished at 3.26am. I had to get out of the jungle. I laughed out loud and at times cryed. I'm sure most people will do the same. I recommend it to everyone.
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Two go mad in central America
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Gosh, what jolly chaps these two are! Cripes, what japes they got up to, eh?
This book is a strange contrast between an almost unbelieveable adventure and the most self indulgent refusal to face the situation they were in. I can only imagine the stress and anxiety that being kidnapped and held for nine months in one of the most lawless places in the continent must have been like. And I have to imagine, because you don't get it from the book.
Winder and Hart Dyke are doubtless lovely chaps, but they're not writers. They both come over as self indulgent prats. Let's ignore all the guidebook warnings and head off, on our own into the Darien Gap. Gosh, here come some oiks with guns and dash it, we've been kidnapped, but oh look, there are some orchids.
They never manage to generate a sense of tension, because throughout their Hooray Henryish tone sucks it all out. With books such as this, we always know that they are not going to die because we're holding the book they wrote about it in our hands. But Joe Simpson's Touching the Void is almost unbearably tense, as he describes what he went through. This never gets into that as they'll give a juvenile nickname to one of the guards and then have three pages on what his dream garden will look like when he gets back to mummy and daddy's castle in Kent. (I quickly found myself wishing that someone else had been kidnapped)
That said, it is an amazing story and that gives it the three stars. But by the time you finish, you'll just want to slap the both of them and say "When Lonely Planet warns you not to go somewhere, they're not joking. They know what they're talking about and mean it". Where next for these two? Flower hunting in Helmand?
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A blooming good read...
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Not your usual 'how I spent my kidnap' essay. I picked this up second hand in a Dubai bookshop, not expecting much from it, and was hugely pleased with what I found. The clumsy and downright barking protagonists are in turn endearing, infuriating and hilarious. Gone are the macho action movie fantasies about what to do in a tight spot and in come song and dance numbers in the jungle along with abject fear, disarming hilarity and extreme gardening. A great read, even my usually chick-lit obsessed partner couldn't put it down - so get it and enjoy it, you won't regret it.
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A really good read, buy it!!.
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I have just finished this book and really enjoyed it, it has kept my attention all the way through and left me with nothing but admiration for the two guys and what they endured, although what they entered into was to say the least ill advised, they seemed to cope with their ordeal with remarkable cheeriness when faced with some truly horrific circumstances, all in all a great read, well written, you will enjoy it!!
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Guerilla gardening
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The Cloud Garden is an immensibly enjoyable book, somewhat remniscent of Touching the void, removed to the Darian Gap, particuliarly in the way the narrative switches between Paul and Tom as the story progresses, although for me Toms narrative is the better, as he is quite an eccentric character, and its most amusing to hear him relate his garden building excercises while being held captive, much to the exasperation of the guerillas.
The story is propelled along at a nice pace as we follow the lads from their capture while foolishly attempting to cross the darian gap, through their internment in various jungle camps at the hands of a ragged bunch of guerillas who may have some connection with farc.
The characters of the guerillas quickly established by the boys habit of giving them nicknames, and the battle of wits between the two groups is often hilarious.
Despite having a good idea that things are not going to end up to badly, there are still plenty of moments of tension, and its hard not to feel the despair and fear, its a shame the map at the front of the book gives away so much of the story really, especially the absurd events following their capture.
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