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 Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile
by Sara Wheeler"Travels in a Thin Country is a book vastly different from Bruce Chatwin's ''In Patagonia,'' and not just because of its somewhat different geographical range. While Chatwin was a traveler in the classic tradition, Wheeler is a tourist. (Unlike Peter Mayle, she does not admit it.) In fact, this accounts for much of her considerable charm. Travelers are lonely, antisocial creatures, squinting suspiciously at you from beneath the brims of their slouch hats, then scuttling off spiderlike on their own eccentric errands. Wheeler makes a vow early on not to ''hang out with backpackers,'' but her basic gregariousness scotches this plan almost immediately. She hangs out not just with backpackers but with sailors, nuns, socialites, policemen, tour guides, bartenders and schoolchildren. Her stories are the sort shared after curfew at the youth hostel, tales of picturesque exoticism and mild discomfort -- chickens-on-a-bus stories, you might call them. Wheeler seems like the sort of person nearly anyone would enjoy having as a companion on the road for a week or two. She's resourceful, funny, a delightfully keen observer of life around her. On the island of Chiloe, she watches a fisherman in a green hat pluck a small translucent crab out of a fresh sea urchin: ''He . . . placed it under his top lip, allowed it to crawl round his gums till it reached the back of his mouth, then flipped it between his back molars -- and crunched.'' You can almost taste the unfortunate creature, whether you like it or not. The best sections of Wheeler's book are as salty as that. "
--New York Times Book Review  Paperback - (3/99)
ZB3656 Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chil $13.95
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