Books

After my random friend Chisco, and his stoned mates, stumbled home to their beds for the afternoon, I enjoyed a nice relaxing afternoon of reading in the town's lakeside park. Couldn't be bothered to do much else today, as I was fairly buggered after yesterday's climb up the volcano. The lakeside in Pucón is the perfect place to chill and unwind for an afternoon: what with the divine weather, the chirping of the birds, and the still blue waters, there's definitely so much serenity there, it's just not funny. Haven't stopped and inhaled the palpable beauty of a place this much, since my stop at a very beautiful place in Mexico, once upon a time.

Ever since I arrived in South America, it's been gnawing at me. Now, finally, I can't hold it in any longer: my Lonely Planet South America on a Shoestring guide really does leave a lot to be desired. As Agent Smith from The Matrix would say:

Hmm, Lonely Planet... you disappoint me.

It's out-of-date (it's the 2004 edition — the 2007 edition only came out in March), it's lacking in detail (everything from the "proper" individual-country LP guides has been chopped in half), and half the time it's just plain wrong. Pull your socks up, LP: you have the reputation, but you fail to deliver!

Just finished reading El Principito, and it's the first book that I've read in Spanish! Only took about 2 months — and it's a children's book, of about 130 (small) pages (some of which are illustrations) — but I persisted, and I got through it in the end. Obviously, I had the 'ol dictionary by my side the entire time, and I used it prolifically. After having read the book, I feel a lot more confident in my Spanish grammar, and my vocabulary has increased a fair bit. But I think it's time for a break from Spanish books: El Principito was very hard work; now I need a few nice, rubbishy, no-thinking-required, English-language paperbacks to breeze through.

Since there's absolutely nothing to do in Sucre, we decided to get out of here today, after only one day here. On the bus to Potosí today, there was a guy selling little stapled-together books to his fellow passengers. Chris and I weren't interested in any of his offerings; but I was in a position, smack-bang in the middle of the bus, where I ended up passing all the sold books down the bus, and passing all the money and change up and down, between salesman and buyers. As a reward for my services, the guy gave me a free little comic book of crude, raunchy Bolivian jokes. Bit more Spanish bedtime reading.

I learned a lot of Spanish during my time at Amigos, but I still have a huge thirst to learn more. And what better way to continue my learning, than to start reading some Spanish books? So, today I bought my five primeros libros en Español (lit: "first books in Spanish"). At s/10 for the five of them, total bargain. And they should certainly keep me busy for at least the next few weeks, whenever I have spare time to kill on my trip.

Saw this in a bookshop in Mérida. It wouldn't mean much to the non-geekified among thee, but to me, it looked pretty cool. Deitel's C++ How to Program is one of the more famous books on programming that's available on the market today. I never imagined that I'd see it in Spanish. But I guess that a book like this is available in pretty much any language.