» And Knowing is Half the Battle!
  September 9th, 2006

Before a big trip, I veraciously read as much as I can about the area I plan on visiting. And not just guidebooks, either. I've got history books, geography books, nature books, websites... anything I can get my hands... er... eyes on that will help me better understand the country before I get there and inspire interest in possible locations to visit. My first stop is usually to Google Alerts, where I can ask Google to send me a daily e-mail with all the news stories involving Nicaragua.

I've devoured two books and I'm just starting my third book involving Nicaragua in some way. My favorite topics right now are The Panama Canal and it's history (Nicaragua was runner up in having a surgical cut through the Central American isthmus), jungle adventures, and the volcanoes of Nicaragua (there are at least 18 major ones in the country). If you don't plan on making it to Nicaragua anytime soon, here are some of the books I'd recommend to an armchair traveler:

• Jungle: A Harrowing True Story of Survival by Yossi Ghinsberg
• The Darkest Jungle: The True Story of the Darien Expedition and America's Ill-Fated Race to Connect the Seas by Todd Balf
• The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914 by David McCullough
• Canals for a Nation: The Canal Era in the United States, 1790-1860 by Ronald E. Shaw
• The Naturalist in Nicaragua by Thomas Belt
• Notes On The Nicaragua Canal by Henry I Sheldon, hard to find book last published in 1902.
• The Volcano Adventure Guide by Rosaly Lopes
• The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
• Jungle Travel & Survival by John Walden

I've finished a few on the list already and I am just starting McCullough's The Path Between the Seas. It's thicker than a Webster's so I'm sure I'll have some interesting things to share here in the near future. I know... I'm such as geek.

~K