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Show H8 The Salt I bune TRAVEL PungentPitch Easy to Find — Just Follow Your Nose The Best Travel Booksof the 20th Century BY THOMAS SWICK KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE \ few weeks ago, the Modern Library cameout withits list of the BY TIM McDONALD THE ASSOCIATE LA BREA idad A stone's throw from the sparkling blue Gulf of Paria, on the south: ene. Evelyn Waugh, or awrence Durrell, novelists whosegreatest nonfiction works west coast of this lush island squats what’s probably the ugliest tourist attraction in the werebooks of fact that theyarestill alive but membership amongthe departed ally spits fire. You smell it before did not help Norman Douglas, youseeit as you bounce over un dulating, pock-marked roads, And Gerald Brenan, or Robert Byron three of the century's finest writers who, one gets the impres. sion from lit ture’s new synod if you didn’t knowit was a tourist attraction, you might hold your nose, avert your eyes and step on the gas The Amerindians believed the had the misfortune to specializein travel. The onlyreal travel book on the list was Isak Dinesen’s Out of Af rica (58), which falls into the cat formed because of punish ent from the gods. To modern Trinidadians, Pitch Lake in the southwest of the island is a source of income from tourism and Shintey Bahadur: The Associated Press Tour guide DevonFredrick, right, demonstratesfor a gro f visitorsto mining Some 55 miles (90 kilometers) from Portof-Spain, itisthe e largest Paria, on the southwestcoast of thelushisla natural asphalt lake in the world and well worth a visit if only for the sheer incongruity of a giant tar pit in the midst of tropical beauty The Trinidad Lake Asphalt Co. probablythe ugliest attractionin the Caribbean breadfruit trees have found a way to survive. Water rose, nymph lil ies and bird of paradise grow nat Port-of-Spain But the said to be unbearable. urally out of the muck to more than 50 countries last the algae that exported $3million worth of pitch Herons are everywhere, eating grows under pock year, accordingto the Ministry of ‘Trade and Industry But the lake is soa tourist at nearly 20,000 traction, drawit people last yes almost half of them foreigners. freshly caught fish to cook on the mately 100 ps (40 hectares) and 250 feet (75 meters) deep at the center. Underground ribbons of ets of er, along with hum mingbirds. andpipers and king fishers. Locals say that during the dry season, when the sun bakes They also believe the rainwater that collects in nooks a he lake has miraculous the skin of the lake, ospreys drop The circular lake is approxi. broiling surface asphalt seepage coil out from the depths, causing se 1s erosion blems to roads and buildings in the nearby town of La Brea. The word means tar or pitch in Spanish Most ofthe lake itself is hard enough to walk on, but if you tryit without a guide, you might hap pen on the central section that could swallow car “Walk right behind me guide Devon Fredrick Step > I step.” The heavy mining equipment that borders the south and east rims of the lake does little for the ambience But beauty flourishes in the surroundin, the lake. Cashew trees ring suava, mango and powers It’s good for rheumatism, ar: thritis, joint pain. all sorts of things.” Fredrick says. splashing the green- and yellow-tinged wa- ter on his face. “People come down and bathe in it. Your own personal Jacuzzi. Make you sleep like a baby The water has a high sulphur content. That may be the source of the belief in its curative powers elemental sulphur is relatively harmless to humans, but toxic to many st to bacteria it is also re le for the stink. It is that smell that in 1820 d Gov. Sir Ralph Woodford give up on the pitch as a fuel Accordin; jake’s r San| Francisco Theatre since tral in smell w and W ford abandoned the idea The lake was formed when dd to the surface crude oil se through fi in the earth's of years ago. The crust millic lighter eleme nts in the oil evapo: rated, leaving behind the heavier asphalt NYC BroadwayTour Su 5 day others bein in California famous Li Brea Tar Pit ish Civil War than place. Check yourlocal bookstore; if it's there, it’s probably under History” (or “Literature”). The same classification is usually tiven Rebecca West's classic idy of Yugoslavia, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon’ (38), Beryl Markham’s West With the Night(85). is, like Orwell's Hom age, less about aplacethan, in this Since no onewill have them on The Chaima Indians had other ideas about how the lake formed, After victory ove val tribe, the tribe gi away With its celebrat and eating the hummingbirds they believed held the spirits of their ancestors. Thus. I it, their winged god oper 1 nasty pitch to swallowthe village. ba ee ee SO 1 writ ing.” or writing about aa place by an outsider who settles there rather than one who passes through (itinerant). George Or. well’s Homage to Catalonia(42) is case, a spirit of adventure the and v rezuela earth and conjured t egory of “sedentary also sedentary, thoughit is really more about aconflict the Span Pitch Lake is one of three n: =ESCORTED TOURS-~ SOS| Naipaul and Theroux were handicappedby the Caribbean. It burbles, hisses and occasion lake 100 best nonfiction books of the 20th century and — whaddya know travel writers were hard to find. No V.S. Naipaul, Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux to mention a few ofthe better-known names not even any Graham their lists, it’s time to give travel writers their own. Here divided into two categories are the best travel books of the last 100 years. as chosen by a well-read and widely traveled committee of one. SEDENTARY 1. South From Granada, Gerald Brenan. Young Englishman leaves home. se s in a small Andalusian village, and writes a book that takes travel writing out of its dilettante sphere and creates Y Cromermeead with it a kind of novelistic an tnopel Dey Thi Time I Saw Paris, Elliot Paul This forgotten classic Fermor. You gain) sets off on a Hoo k of Holland to Cons ple and absorbs and assi by an Americanjournalist chron: everything in his path: cus icles in fascinatingdetail the life of a small street in Paris’ Latin wildlife, architectur (“Between the Woods and th is the second volume of still unfinished trilogy.) 2. The Road to Oxia Byron. The critic Paul I co} red this account of J ney through the Middl th Joyce’s “Ulysses” and Eliot's “The Waste Land.’ Quarter that is a microcosm of ter’ Francebefore World War II 3. Hunting Mister Heartbreak, Jonathan Raban. Settling briefly in places as dives h Key West, Alabama and Rabangets to the heart and humor of America 4. Old Calabria. Norman Douglas. Not a resident, but he trav eled so thoroughly and knowl i bly through this southern zion of Italy that t he book ni resounds with authority and crit ical admiration 5. Out of Africa. Isak Dinesen. From the first sentence “Thad a farm in Africa we are drawn 3. A Dragon Apparent, Norman Lewis. An exhaustive tour through Indochina by one travel writing’s greatest and least recognized practitioners. 4 In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin, A quirky, elliptical work that showed the artistic heights tale of the tragedy of Cyprus by one of the modern Mediterra: nean’s most eloquent rhapsc i 7. Beyond Euphrates that travel writing can ascend to. 5. An Area of Darkness, VS A study of India by the man who brought a moral inten sity to the genre. 6. Behind the Wall, Colin Thu bron. Thubron combines a keen helearned Mandarin intellect with an before this trip to China Stark. A travel autobiograp! the woman who was to the world what Durrell was to the connect into anotherplace and time Naipaul 6, Bitter Lemons. Lawrence Durrell A warm and anguished emotional depth that allows him not only Mediterranean 8. Down and Outin Paris and London, George Orwell Two gleaming capitals seen rom the seedy side by a brilliant and un sentimental observer ITINER 1, A Timeof Gifts, to interpret but te 7. Whenthe Going Was Good, Evelyn Waugh. A collection of some of the funniest travel ac counts ever written. 8. Old Glory, Jonathan Raban. Sailing downthe Mississippi, Ra $s perceptiveatraveler as ban he isa renter Patrick OPEN 24 HOURS ie PERCREDS Pata) ecm raearses fe meeoad W. Valley. Mon. & Weds AM: Fri & Sat P.M ry URANGO Hebe ROEa &Mead Seew a $11 CASH BACK June 8 $20 mi 3. 3.0 KEND MESQUITE ear June 7 & July 6 § DAYS § BUFFETS $118 June 25. July 30, 3 DAYS, MEAL 5 CASH $59 Primadonna, Laughlin/ Mesquite Leee UT June 5, 10 days. 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