Two Centuries of Travel Through Mayan Lands

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN CENTRAL AMERICA, CHIAPAS, AND YUCATAN by John Lloyd Stephens, new edition by Karl Ackerman (Smithsonian Institution Press, $33 hardcover, $11.95 paper) and LOST KINGDOMS OF THE MAYA by Gene S. Stuart and George E. Stuart (National Geographic Society, $34.95 hardcover).

John Lloyd Stephens has been called America’s first best-selling travel writer. A New Jersey-born lawyer turned amateur archeologist, he journeyed extensively in the first half of the 19th Century throughout the eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and, most famously, the Mayan country of eastern Mexico (including the states of Chiapas and Yucatan) and the northern part of Central America. He wrote lengthy and immensely popular books about all these trips, but is best remembered today for “Incidents of Travel” (first published in two volumes in 1841) and the subsequent “Travel in Yucatan” (1843), widely credited with awakening modern-day interest in the Mayan civilization.

This new, seamlessly abridged edition of “Incidents” enhances Stephens’ colorful and well-told tales with drawings and lithographs by British artist Frederick Catherwood, who accompanied Stephens on his muleback trek, and with photographs both modern and antique (including, in the latter case, the work of Eadweard Muybridge, better known for his landmark sequential-motion studies). Stephens, who more than once denounces the “monkish fanaticism” which caused so many Mayan artifacts to be destroyed, seems to have been the perfect explorer--thorough and rational but also wide-eyed and open-minded. He writes clearly and recounts the kinds of adventures that most travel writers today can only dream about.

Stephens is mentioned--and some of Catherwood’s work is reproduced--in “Lost Kingdoms of the Maya,” a handsome collection of contemporary photographs and documentary illustration with thoughtful accompanying text by the husband-and-wife Stuarts, both of whom are author/editors for National Geographic. For its overview of Mayan history and culture and its brief portrait of the Mayans of today, as well as for its visual wealth, this is a perfect companion volume to “Incidents of Travel.” (Included is an unbound historical map of the Mayan lands, up to the usual National Geographic standards.)

EIGER DREAMS: Ventures Among Men and Mountains by Jon Krakauer (Laurel Expedition/Dell, $5.99 paper).

More about the men (and to some extent women) who climb mountains than about mountains themselves, this readable little paperback--a real, drugstore-rack kind of paperback, about the size of a pulp mystery novel--is set on slopes and peaks and sheer ice walls from Chamonix to Yosemite to K2 (the second-highest mountain in the world, in northern Pakistan). “Mountain climbing is comprehended dimly, if at all, by most of the nonclimbing world,” writes Krakauer. “ . . . The activity is wrapped in tales of audacity and disaster that make other sports out to be trivial games by comparison. . . . “ His intention, he continues, is to “prune away some of this overgrown mystique” and to prove that “Most climbers aren’t in fact deranged.” Unfortunately, his compelling stories of real-life climbing tragedies and triumphs don’t really accomplish his aims: These guys are crazy, the (nonclimbing) reader is left thinking, and the mystique of their sport is as thick as Alpine fog--and they know it.

THE MAINE READER, edited by Charles and Samuella Shain (Houghton Mifflin, $14.95 paper. )

“Nothing is or can be more wildly, peculiarly beautiful.” “There’s something sort of eternal about it.” “Force, just here, rolls up/pomaded into vast blue curls/fit for the Sun King, then crumples/to a stuff of ruffs and kerchiefs/over ruined doorposts. . . . “ The subject is Maine, and the authors are, respectively, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sinclair Lewis (through the words of his most famous character, George F. Babbitt) and poet Amy Clampitt. Also represented in this splendid anthology of short bits and pieces about the state are Hawthorne, Longfellow, Thoreau, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Jean Stafford, Rachel Carson, artists Rockwell Kent and Marsden Hartley and more. Like Alaska, California, Texas and maybe one or two other states, Maine has a mythic, symbolic value to Americans. This is in no sense a travel book--but the sum of these fragments will give the reader a pretty good look at the Maine behind the myth.

Quick Trips:

SEATTLE CHEAP EATS, edited by Kathryn Robinson and Stephanie Irving (Sasquatch Books, $9.95 paper). A varied collection of mini-reviews, 300 in all, that will be of great interest to any budget-minded visitor to (or resident of) the Emerald City. It is unfortunate only that at least some of the 17 or so contributors are given to precious turns of phrase and to infelicitous observations. (Of the menu at an Ethiopian place, it is said that the “amazing typos add an unexpected degree of authenticity”--meaning what? That authentic Ethiopians are poor spellers?)

CAMP THE U.S. FOR $5.00 OR LESS: Western States by Mary Helen and Shuford Smith (Globe Pequot Press, $12.95 paper). A directory to campsites in 13 western states, for RV users and tent-campers both. Lots of detail is packed into the short listings for each place.

WILDERNESS BASICS: The Complete Handbook for Hikers and Backpackers by the San Diego Chapter of the Sierra Club, second edition (The Mountaineers, $14.95 paper). Trip preparation, outfitting, weather considerations, children in the wilderness and more--basics indeed, but good, solid, clearly presented advice that even the experienced can probably learn from.

OUTLET BOUND: Guide to the Nation’s Best Outlets, 1993 edition, edited by Randy Marks (Outlet Marketing Group, $6.95 paper). Maps, directions, hours, store names, etc., for nearly 350 factory-outlet shopping centers around the United States, with discount coupons thrown in as a bonus--indispensible for anyone whose idea of fun while traveling is to load up on bargain-priced Anne Klein, Jordache, Panasonic and Villeroy & Boch.

BIKING THROUGH EUROPE, newly revised, by Dennis and Tina Jaffe (Williamson Publishing, $13.95 paper). Detailed chart-style route information, maps and various background information for biking tours of eight European countries, with shorter notes on pedaling through five more nations.

THE BEER DRINKER’S GUIDE TO MUNICH, revised edition, by Larry Hawthorne (Freizeit Publishers, $8.95 paper). Notes on history, ambience, clientele, specialty brews, etc., at some 40 of this beer-fueled city’s best beer gardens, beer halls and pubs--plus a guide to 20 discos, bars and night clubs (where beer, among other things, is served). There’s also a chapter on the city’s famed annual Oktoberfest and other beer-related festivities.

FODOR’S EURO DISNEY (Fodor’s Travel Publications, Inc., $10 paper). Forty-two pages of material about this controversial, money-losing theme park (including listings and ratings of rides and other attractions as well as of hotels and restaurants), sandwiched between 160 pages or so of basic guidebook stuff on Paris. In what is perhaps the best Disney theme park tradition, there are also several pages of ads, mostly for American Express.

FODOR’S SHORT ESCAPES IN BRITAIN and FODOR’S SHORT ESCAPES IN FRANCE, both by Bruce Bolger and Gary Stoller (Fodor’s Travel Publications, $13 each). These are nicely annotated walking tours (with maps)--25 per volume--through “villages, landscapes, and historic places tourists never see.” For instance: Robin Hood and Bronte country and the ancient harbor of Boscastle in Britain; Omaha Beach and the hills above Giverny in France.