In Trouble Again : A Journey Between Orinoco and the Amazon

by Redmond O'hanlon

Release Date: 14 April, 1990

Edition: Paperback

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Travel writing at its finest

O'Hanlon is an academic, really; the natural history editor of the Times Literary Supplement and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Furthermore, he claims to look like Benny Hill, a claim borne out by his book-jacket photographs.
He is, therefore, an entirely unlikely candidate for the outrageous adventures he gets himself into while traveling.

I have read a handful of his accounts, and they are all completely mad. But I have to conclude that this is the best of the lot.

Briefly, this is the account of his travels through Amazonia, in a small wooden boat, ultimately to the homelands of the Yanomami (the "Fierce People" in Napoleon Chagnon's memorable phrase). Everyone O'Hanlon meets is terrified of the violent, unpredictable Yanomami, and he is hard pressed to find anyone to accompany him on his journey. When he finally meets them, he loses no time before joining them in a blast or two of hallucinogenic ebene, afterwards falling into a stupor while gazing lustfully at the local chief's young daughter.

Anyone could make these adventures interesting to read. After treatment by a writer of O'Hanlon's skill and humor, the book is impossible to put down.

Amazonian lunacy: an exhausting must-read

Redmond O'Hanlon displays a tempered lunacy in his account of an extraordinary search for the infamously violent Yamamoni tribe. It all seems a little contrived at first. He deliberately searches London for a traveling companion, then selects the most inappropriate he can find - a nightclub owner. Simon, his foil among the insects, snakes and spiders of the Amazon, loses his marbles half way through the book. The strength of In Trouble Again, is that despite feeling total sympathy for the sane, you can not help but admire O'Hanlon's crazed doggedness. Everytime he has an excuse to turn back, he redoubles his efforts, dragging his guides onwards. To say that he survives is certainly not spoiling the ending, but it is an extraordinary read and enough to limit adverturous dreams to the Discovery Channel. It deserves a 10, but O'Hanlon is obsessed with birds. I, like Simon, have always thought a bird is just a bird. Which is why I'm staying at home.