Wow! eBook
Riding with Ghosts 2nd Edition
Author(s): Gwen Maka (Author)
- Publisher: Eye Books
- Publication Date: 23 Aug. 2010
- Edition: 2nd
- Language: English
- Print length: 288 pages
- ISBN-10: 1903070775
- ISBN-13: 9781903070772
Book Description
One day, as I returned from the shops on my bike, laden down with six precariously wobbling carrier bags of food for my three teenage sons, an idea began sneaking into my mind. It was like a virus which had lain dormant for years, and suddenly it burst forth into a fully fledged outbreak…. I would go cycling! Gwen Maka, a forty-something Englishwoman, was told by everyone that her dream of cycling from Seattle to Costa Rica, across the deserts, over the Rocky Mountains, and into the sub-tropics of Central America, was impossible. Riding with Ghosts is Gwen s frank but never too serious account of her epic 7,500 mile cycling tour. She handles exhaustion, climatic extremes, lechers and a permanently saddle-sore bum in a gutsy, hilarious way. Her journey, intertwined with the legends of past events, is a testimony to the power of determination.
Editorial Reviews
Review
A beautifully written book which achieves the delicate balance between poetic description, gritty humour and well-paced storytelling. –Manchester Evening News
Riding With Ghosts is written in a fluid and beautifully descriptive way. –London Cyclist
A fantastic read –Cycling World
About the Author
Born in England in 1948, Gwen Maka’s love affair with America and low budget travel began when she stepped off a plane at JFK airport in 1982 with 100pounds in her pocket, on her way to study underdevelopment on a Sioux reservation. Ten years later she abandoned her three grown up sons to their fate when a pin stuck in a map took her to Istanbul where she taught English for eighteen months. Prior to this her lack of long-term strategic planning (and need for cash) led her through dozens of jobs, including potato picking, cleaning, nursing, tree surgery, research assistant, development worker, to obtaining first and postgraduate degrees from the University of East Anglia, and Edinburgh University. She is currently living and painting in Holland.
