Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston

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I first heard about a jungle covered ancient city in Honduras on Kraig Becker’s Adventure Blog.

In 2017, Douglas Preston wrote the book about a project headed by documentary filmmaker Steve Elkins that used lidar to search for archaeological sites in the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve of the Gracias a Dios Department in the Mosquitia region of eastern Honduras.

The Lost City of the Monkey God

After a privately funded lidar survey revealed complex archaeological sites under the rainforest cover, Preston accompanied a joint Honduran-American expedition to do ground truthing of the lidar results.

They were able to confirm the presence of large abandoned prehispanic settlements and to document plazas, terracing, canals, roads, earthen structures including a pyramid, and concentrations of artifacts, among them decorated cylindrical stone vessels and metates, confirming the existence of an ancient city.

The official name of the principal archaeological site that was mapped has been changed to the City of the Jaguar. …

The book is very well written. A fascinating story.

My main takeaway — however — was that nearly every person in their exploration party was exposed to leishmaniasis, a disease caused by parasites that are transmitted by the bite of sandflies.

What a horrible disease.

Between 4 – 12 million people are currently infected in some 98 countries.

DO NOT GET BITTEN BY SANDFLIES.

There’s no vaccine for humans.

The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie

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I liked The A.B.C. Murders because it departed from the usual Christie assembly of likely killers all in one room. In some ways.

AND it gave Hercule Poirot more trouble than usual.

By the end of the book I was disappointed in the A.B.C. killer. Surprised he lasted as long as he did.

London – Notting Hill Carnival 2022

On By Rick McIn food, music, travelLeave a comment

I happened to be in London during the Notting Hill Carnival, which had been cancelled the previous 2 years due to Covid.

Fun. Loud. Fragrant with the smells of cooking barbecue.

Dancing. Drinking.

I particularly like how ANYONE with any kind of body and any kind of costume is welcome to join in the parade. Very body positive.

Saturday is the family friendly parade. Plenty of activities for kids.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

No anger or violence that I could see. Of course there’s a large police presence — all very friendly.

… an annual Caribbean festival event that has taken place in London since 1965 … each August over two days (the August bank holiday Monday and the preceding Sunday).

It is led by members of the British Caribbean community, and attracts around two and a half million people annually, making it one of the world’s largest street festivals, and a significant event in British African Caribbean and British Indo-Caribbean culture. …

Everyone welcome. If I’d put on my make-up, costume and peacock headdress, I’d have fit right in. 😀

My only previous experience with Carnival was in Colonia, Uruguay in 2018.

related – Notting Hill carnival 2022 – in pictures

Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny

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Quite an amazing plot. Based on a true story. A mammoth missile launcher, hidden in the woods and aimed at the US.

Hardly a day goes by when nine-year-old Laurent Lepage doesn’t cry wolf. His boundless sense of adventure and vivid imagination mean he has a tendency to concoct stories so extraordinary and so far-fetched that no one can possibly believe him.

But when Laurent disappears, former Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might have been true.

So begins a frantic search for the boy and the truth. And what Gamache uncovers deep in the forest leads back to crimes of the past, betrayal and murder, with more sinister consequences than anyone could have possibly imagined . . .

Google Books

Bruno Chief of Police by Martin Walker

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I’d never heard of this popular murder mystery series set in rural France.

This 1st novel in a long series was first published 2008.

Martin Walker is a journalist, having worked for The Guardian for 28 years. A Brit, he now lives in the Périgord/Dordogne in Southern France.

Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges, a passionate cook and former soldier who was wounded on a peacekeeping mission in the Balkans, who never carries his official gun and who has “long since lost the key to his handcuffs” is the village policeman in sleepy St. Denis.

Like Three Pines in Quebec, astonishing things keep happening in this tiny rural village.

The book is an easy read. Bruno an entertaining and enjoyable character.

I’ll try more in the series.

Amazon

My Food in Norway

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EVERYTHING is expensive in Norway. 😕

For the most part, I ate supermarket food. Cooked in a hostel or on my camping stove. SPAR was by far my favourite chain. They have grocery stores in 48 nations.

SPAR is the only chain that always has hot deli food, often discounted by 50% late in the day. As everywhere, rotisserie chicken is the best value food in Norway. At least for me.

SPAR sells a low-cost brand called “First Price“ which is often WAY cheaper than name brand alternatives.

The most recommended (lower priced) seafood in Tromsø was the Dragoy Fish and Chips restaurant. I tried both these two meals for about US $21 each. OK — not great. And not worth the price.

Cod Burger
Crab Burger

I asked for something local, traditional at another restaurant — and got this … something like meatloaf with an egg on top.

My favourite restaurant meal was reindeer stew. This glass of wine was the only booze I had in Norway. Beer is everywhere, including grocery stores. Wine not all that popular.

To be fair, I don’t like restaurants anywhere unless I’m socializing with other people.

Happily, Diet Coca-cola is not expensive in Norway, IF you buy 4 bottles at a time. And I’m OK with that. 😀

Weirdly, many hostels did not have a toaster. Gourmands of my class only require kettle, microwave … and a toaster.

Malice by Keigo Higashino

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According to the back of this book, Keigo Higashino is the “ bestselling and most widely read novelist in Japan.”

Only SOME of his books have been translated into English, however.

Malice is the first book in the Detective Kaga series.

Famous novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is brutally murdered days before he is relocating from Japan to Vancouver.

He is found in a locked room of his home by his wife and best friend, Osamu Nonoguchi.

Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga sets out to solve the baffling case, playing cat and mouse with an always present and cunning killer.

It’s slow paced. Thoughtful. Very Japanese.

The murderer is revealed early. Most of the book is Kaga methodically revealing the truth.

Recommended.

The Jailhouse Lawyer by Patterson & Allen

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James Patterson loves to write with other authors.

This time it’s Nancy Allen, who practiced law for 15 years in Missouri.

Jailhouse Lawyer is a 2-book series, unrelated from one another. And both quite entertaining.

What ties them together is a revealing look at how small town law in the southern U.S. is still backwards. And unjust.

Happily, the female protagonists in each tale win in the end. Both stories are uplifting.

NOTE – It’s easy to tell which book webpage summary writer has actually read the books by seeing whether or not they mention that Jailhouse Lawyer is 2 books — not many. 😀

My bicycle is BACK in Canada

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Whew.

I feared SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) would pretend they LOST my bike box at Heathrow airport — and offer me less compensation than the value of the rig.

Travel insurance? 🤔

Though SAS didn’t once contact me over the 27 days it sat in Heathrow, some human managed to reroute it back to Vancouver Island as I requested.

My cycling trip through Norway was ruined — yet I’m feeling relieved that it wasn’t worse ruined.

I’ll now apply for compensation for both my lost bags.