The Island that Dared, by Dervla Murphy
Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen, where the deuce can we go without Dervla Murphy getting there before us? This miracle of ubiquity has rattled from end to end of the Andes, tracked the Indus to its source, ridden a mule through Ethiopia and a bicycle across Romania. If her curiosity, stamina and resourcefulness are remarkable, so too is her modesty, a virtue not always uppermost among travel-writers. She demands no special praise from us for having endured the rigours of her various journeys and this lack of ego-preening lends a greater authenticity to the overall atmosphere.
Murphy enthusiasts should not be fooled by the opening chapters of The Island That Dared, in which the author figures as a cheery old card jaunting off for a few weeks in Cuba with her family, a tourist rather than a traveller. Plainly Nyanya, as her grandchildren call her, is taking notes during the trip, as they go hitching and bussing across the island, shaking down in tin-roofed huts among the cockroaches, scratching their mosquito bites and watching their chicken supper being caught, strangled and gutted. A month or so later, having checked out the territory and mastered at least some of its complex socio- political rhetoric, Nyanya slips back by herself for a more powerful dose of non-aligned egalitarianism Castro-style. This time ‘I wouldn’t have to worry about food supplies, landmines, staying too long in museums, travelling by train, getting lost, being arrested. As a traveller, I’d be back to normal.’ True, up to a point. Murphy treks into Cuba’s mountainous hinterland, to the consternation of the locals, to whom wandering alone seems dangerously eccentric, especially in a woman of 74.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in