The Cloud Garden : A True Story of Adventure, Survival, and Extreme Horticulture

Rating:
Summary: can't put it down
Review: I am half way through and I love it, well written, fun, exciting.

Rating:
Summary: Guns and orchids
Review: On maps, the Darién Gap doesn't look like a hotbed of armed guerillas. But you have to ask yourself why the Pan-American Highway, which runs otherwise unbroken from Alaska to the bottom of South America, takes its one and only break between Central and South America-at the Darién Gap. The gap's jungles have been effectively off-limits even to the hardiest backpackers for the past 10 years. Guidebooks and Central American officials alike have just two words for it: "Don't go."

So why would Tom Hart Dyke and Paul Winder, two well-brought up British lads, disobey so many direct orders and venture into the Darién Gap with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a couple of packs? In their "true story of adventure, survival, and extreme horticulture," The Cloud Garden, Dyke and Winder explain themselves. Dyke's passion is orchids. For him, the untrammeled jungles and wetlands of the Darién Gap represent a botanist's dream-an opportunity to see rare flowers undocumented by any other scientists. Winder, an escapee from a boring bank job, is in search of the ultimate adrenaline rush. The fact that almost no one dares traverse the gap makes it an irresistible challenge. Both adventurers get what they are looking for-and a lot more than the original bargain.

Just as Winder and Dyke are about to cross into the relative safety of Columbia, they are kidnapped by a band of FARC guerillas. What follows is a harrowing tale of torture and a fight for survival. The young men know enough Spanish to hear the kidnappers talking matter-of-factly about murdering them on an almost daily basis. For months, Winder and Dyke are marched from one makeshift camp to another-deprived of clean water, threatened and humiliated.

Cloud Garden is not, in the end, a travel documentary or an orchid study. Nor do Winder and Dyke take any position on South American politics. Their tale is one of two men figuring out how to make it out of the jungle alive. What makes the book interesting reading is the sense of humor the writers bring to even the most sordid aspects of their capture. While making an outward show of cooperation, Winder and Dyke assign belittling nicknames to their captors, like "Tank Bird," "Space Cadet," "Nutter," and "Lost Cause." When asked for English lessons, they teach their kidnappers obscenities. When the opportunity presents itself, the captive Brits even pee into their tormentors' drinking water. By maintaining an invisible, inner resistance to their capture, the two men keep their high spirits intact, even in the face of constant death threats.

But Dyke and Winder emerge, in the end, as more than just adolescent pranksters; they are also incredibly brave. Their kidnappers form the wild notion to ask for $3 million dollars in ransom. Dyke's family could, technically, raise that amount of money and more-by selling Lullingstone Castle in Kent, their ancestral home. When ordered to write home, demanding millions for his return, Dyke writes: "Dear Mum and Dad. Our kidnappers are all idiots. They are a bunch of gits. Give them absolutely nothing. We are well. Don't worry about me."

Readers will find themselves turning pages and delaying dinner while Winder and Dyke slowly blossom into the heroes of their own misguided adventure.


Rating:
Summary: Interesting story of survival lacks suspense
Review: The book's topic caught my interest as did a good magazine review. (The copy we purchased from Amazon.com was without pages 118 to 179 so check before you begin to read. Amazon.com was great and sent us a replacement volume which also was missing the same pages. We finally found a bookstore that exchanged it for a correct version.) The story here is about two young men who choose to hike into the guerrilla held The Darien Gap between Panama and Columbia. The gap where there is no longer any Pan-American Highway. At the end of their telling (I'm not giving anything away, after all the authors wrote the book so you know they survived) the authors make the comment that the British press caught on to the story because of Tom Hart Dykes love of flowers. It was the "hook" all newspapers look for in such stories, and that is also the hook they use in telling their story. But your not going to learn much about Orchids from this story is told in parallel first person narrative which centers on their immature decision to tempt fate and danger and then tests their ability to survive. In a strange way the book reminded me of Jon Krakauer's excellent "Into the Wild" about a youth who graduates from College and ends up alone, dead in the wilds of Alaska. Both books share that same desire to decipher why some young males make such choices. Overall I would recommend the book as an interesting first person adventure, but it is strangely lacking suspense and I really was let down that we really learn nothing about the band of guerillas who hold them captive. I certainly missed that insight which is so strong in the novel "Bel Canto".

Rating:
Summary: Not Where I Want to Go
Review: The discoveries made by eccentric British naturalists down through the years have literally turned the scientific community on its ears. But not all exploring trips have yielded spectacular results. In 2000, a young botanist set off to Central America in search of rare and beautiful species of orchids. He met up with another young explorer in northern Mexico. Where else to go but the Darien Gap, the only place where the Pan-American Highway isn't finished.

Traveling through the Gap, collecting along the way, they were just hours away from the Colombian border when they were ambushed by FARC guerillas who were to hold them hostage for the next nine months. From then on, their survival was a matter of extraordinary endurance, incredible ingenuity and not just a bit of luck.

The book written by this pair is a combination of travelogue, adventure store, and surprisingly not without a bit of humor.