I'm really not mad at Mr. Bowles for creating a book out of a collection of writings on his travel experiences (including photographs), even though I was totally going to do that. Considering his travels were from 1950-1993 and he traveled with his wife, Jane, I'm sure our experiences were quite a bit different. Or maybe he also swam naked in the Mediterranean, and simply chose not to write about it.
Travels includes more than forty essays and articles from this great American author over a more than forty year time span. His travel memoirs cover all corners of Morocco, as well as France where he reminisces spending time with Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound. He writes of travelling across Guatemala with his wife and a parrot, and buying their own island in Sri Lanka. He also recalls journeys to Costa Rica, Kenya, Algeria, Turkey, Spain and India. The book concludes with a previously unpublished micro autobiography that will leave readers envious that someone has managed to pack so much into one life.
Bowles insights and perspective of these far away cities are beautifully and vividly written. Definitely beats my taking shots at a bar in Barcelona, after they were lit on fire, along with the rest of the bar and almost burned my eyebrows off, story. What can I say, I'm an acquired taste.
And yes, we got to roast marshmallows on the bar also.
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