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The Wonder Trail: True Stories from Los Angeles to the End of the World
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About The Wonder Trail: True Stories From Los Angeles To
Product Description Steve Hely, writer for The Office and American Dad!, and recipient of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, presents a travel book about his journey through Central and South America. Part travel book, part pop history, part comic memoir, Hely's writing will make readers want to reach for their backpack and hiking boots. The Wonder Trail is the story of a trip from Los Angeles to the bottom of South America, presented in 102 short chapters. From Mexico City to Oaxaca; into ancient Mayan ruins; the jungles, coffee plantations, and remote beaches of Central America; across the Panama Canal; by sea to Colombia; to the wild Easter celebration of Popayán; to the Amazon rainforest; the Inca sites of Cuzco and Machu Picchu; to the Galápagos Islands; the Atacama Desert of Chile; and down to wind-worn Patagonia at the bottom of the Western Hemisphere; Steve traveled collecting stories, adventures, oddities, marvels, bits of history and biography, tales of weirdos, fun facts, and anything else interesting or illuminating. Steve's plan was to discover the unusual, wonderful, and absurd in Central and South America, to seek and find the incredible, delightful people and experiences that came his way. And the book that resulted is just as fun. A blend of travel writing, history, and comic memoir, The Wonder Trail will inspire, inform, and delight. Review “Full of…anecdotes, local color and touches of the cheerfully bizarre…making [it] indispensable.” -- New York Times “ The Wonder Trail may be my favorite travel book of all time. Steve Hely’s voice is casually insightful, refreshingly honest, and, most of all, amazingly funny.” --B.J. Novak, author of One More Thing “Fast-paced, informative, and funny…Hely’s hilarious descriptions of the stunning sights and quirky people he encounters along the way will delight experienced globetrotters and armchair travelers alike…Highly recommended.” -- Library Journal (starred review) "A very funny book." --Outside Magazine “As informative as it is funny.” -- Chicago Tribune “Wryly observed essays…[find] insight and humor in unexpected encounters on the road." -- The Citizen-Times About the Author Steve Hely was a writer for 30 Rock, Late Show with David Letterman and the acclaimed animated comedy American Dad! He also wrote the Thurber-winning novel How I Became a Famous Novelist, and coauthored the comic travelogue The Ridiculous Race. He's cohost of The Great Debates podcast. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. ***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof*** The Beginning / Los Angeles A Travel Book There were stories like this way before there were books. I’ll bet you the cave paintings they find in France, all those bison and horses running around, those were illustrations for tales of trips. Maybe they also served as base camp for kinds of mental or spiritual trips, shamanic trips, practice trips. What we call humans climbed out of the trees, two million years ago let’s say, in eastern Africa. We started walking and we haven’t stopped. We filled up the Earth, every crevice and corner. Now we’re poking about looking for new Earths. Campfire stories aren’t always about trips, it’s true—sometimes they’re about Hook-Hand Man, for instance—but then again you’re already camping. You’re reenacting the major activity of human history: walking the Earth. For as long as there have been books, there have been books about trips. In the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, King Gilgamesh and his grass- eating, wild-haired buddy Enkidu are off to the Cedar Forest by tablet 4. In fairness, Gilgamesh and Enkidu aren’t just going on vacation— they’re going to kill the monstrous giant Humbaba because it will make them even more famous. Gilgamesh is already famous—back in tablet 1, it’s established that he’s had sex with every single hot woman in Uruk, to the point that it’s a problem. But he feels called to go on an adventure. Maybe the first per
