---
product_id: 1696380
title: "Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge (Vintage Departures) Paperback – Illustrated, June 12, 2012"
brand: "john gimlette"
price: "€ 43.83"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 9
url: https://www.desertcart.hr/products/1696380-wild-coast-travels-on-south-americas-untamed-edge-vintage-departures
store_origin: HR
region: Croatia
---

# Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge (Vintage Departures) Paperback – Illustrated, June 12, 2012

**Brand:** john gimlette
**Price:** € 43.83
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge (Vintage Departures) Paperback – Illustrated, June 12, 2012 by john gimlette
- **How much does it cost?** € 43.83 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.hr](https://www.desertcart.hr/products/1696380-wild-coast-travels-on-south-americas-untamed-edge-vintage-departures)

## Best For

- john gimlette enthusiasts

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- Trusted john gimlette brand quality
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## Description

Full description not available

## Images

![Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge (Vintage Departures) Paperback – Illustrated, June 12, 2012 - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/615yV+0HDyL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Last a Long Time
  

*by R***I on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 28, 2022*

These last a very long time. Don't buy many extras.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Dante's Places: One might visit briefly, but they blur together under the horrors of their pasts
  

*by M***T on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 20, 2021*

Wish I could give this a 4.5 star review, but I can't.This fascinating work isn't quite as interesting or current as was his work on Paraguay (At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig). It certainly has the same wicked sense of humor and wonderful detailed descriptions of so many mundane and fascinating people, places and events...however...so much of the historical perspective is from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Almost more of a "history" book tied to the horrors of slavery and colonialism, by way of ruins and places that can no longer be seen. We often get just the perspective of some dead person from places that are now just overrun by jungle. So much of that which was is now gone and most of what little is left is run down 3rd and 4th world decay and neglect.About the only place that seems "timely" is French Guiana, the shortest part of the book, by way of the penal colony and the film Papillon. As well as the French/EU Space Center. But Surinam is all but about lost places and old events by way of accounts centuries old. And Guyana, a better mix of the old and newer, often comes across in fits and shadows of the absurd and the obscure.Sadly, I never really feel like I understand real people in the cities. So many times even he mentions how little of them he could see or find, as if they disappear into the night or in secret places he isn't allowed to visit. The far more interesting places are usually deep in the jungle, the flora & fauna and indigenous people that make so little sense to us moderns.The maps are welcome and usually, though not always, allow you to find the place he's at in the text. The pictures and drawings are also appreciated, however I do wish he'd have printed more pictures of places in the cities. He forces you to use your imagination for the buildings, parks, and streets of Georgetown, Paramaribo and Cayenne. He took over 1,000 pictures but couldn't give us some of the hotels he stayed at, museums he visited, or streets & parks he wandered?I wanted to love this work like I did Paraguay, but I just came away enjoying it a lot and am glad I'm done, probably never to pick up again or visit. (NOTE: I am going to Paraguay in 2022 for 2 weeks!)

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    One of the Last Wild Destinations
  

*by K***A on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 5, 2011*

I've been waiting for this one.  We've been on John Gimlette's adventures before.  He's hauled us along over muddy wartime roads (Panther Soup: Travels Through Europe in War and Peace), through unforgiving territory (Theatre of Fish: Travels Through Newfoundland and Labrador) and into a mysterious country that is not Uruguay (The Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels Through Paraguay).  Now we're in the Guianas and this time. . . Wow, what a trip!The Wild Coast is not to be taken lightly.  But Mr Gimlette is an eternal optimist and is fascinated by residents and boat captains, hangers-on and roomers, wanderers and dangerous characters who tell him their stories, take him to ghastly sites, uncover long-hidden relics or (after considerable soul-searching) decide they cannot talk about what they have seen.  Yet despite setbacks and eternal waits in the rain or days wandering down endless rivers that are either "huge and spectacularly violent" or "thin and slinky, carnivorous and black", he never loses his sense of wonder.Mr Gimlette's descriptive powers are boundless.  "Lizards held the stage.  They were usually tegus--each four feet long--and would spend all day on the lawns, taxiing up and down like little airliners, waiting for their wings.  Along one wall of my hut was a beautiful toga, behind which lived a colony of bats."  He considers everything worth asking about ("How had [the city of Parmaribo] ended up with square coins and a banknote for 2 1/2 dollars?") or describing ("We were five miles down the Essequibo [River], and half-way up Turtle Mountain. . . .We were now surrounded by giant amber crabs and vines as fat and smooth as transatlantic cables.  Meanwhile, up in the canopy, there were balls of mud, assembled by the ants, the size of cars. . . .Everything here seemed to cackle and scream."And we never know what to expect next.  We see Jonestown through the eyes of Guyana's residents, including a single soldier's story of the aftermath.  We reach Guyana's golden savannahs, something like the Wild West, only . . . wilder.  A cattle roundup is done bareback and barefoot by the "ponytails":  vaqueros with "long knives, El Greco faces and leather gaiters--they were like some ancient barefoot cavalry".  And we keep going through Suriname and French Guiana, up and down treacherous river highways and nearly non-existent roads, in search of whatever is there.Throughout the trip Mr Gimlette makes us acutely aware of the pervasive misery caused by centuries of slavery.  It is overarching, omnipresent, shameful, shocking, brutal, immoral and unforgettable.  It affected not only its victims--Africans, Amerindians and Javanese--but also their descendants, many of whom (as offspring of runaway slaves) were forced to learn to survive by hiding deep in the forests, far out of sight of even the most insignificant river, some to the present day.  This is the Wild Coast we see through Mr Gimlette's eyes, and we are privileged to be along on such a remarkable trip. So put on your boots, take a deep breath, and get on board!

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*Product available on Desertcart Croatia*
*Store origin: HR*
*Last updated: 2026-02-24*