THE FRUIT PALACE is the story of Charles Nicholl's attempt to penetrate "the WHO, the HOW and WHY" of Colombia's billion-dollar cocaine racket. Nicholl's nervy quest takes him from the seedy backstreets bars of Bogota' to the high hidden valleys of the Sierra Nevada, passing on the way through a kaleidoscope of Colombian towns and villages, mountains and jungles. He meets the streetboys, the fixers and smugglers, the cooks and the mules - listens to their stories, learns their recipes and pursues their leads. Packed with incident, humour and as gripping as a novel, THE FRUIT PALACE is both a vivid travel book and a cracking adventure story.

Found yesterday at St. Christopher's Hospice Charity Shop and yet to be read. Once I'm done, it will be ready to be swapped or even start a journey as a bookray...

Finished today, but I have been reading it on and off in between bookrings and rays, you know those books that manage to find your door just when you thought you were about to start one of your own books.

It is one of the most unusual pieces of travelling literature that I've read so far, because the travelling here is done not just for the sake of visiting the country and getting to know the people, but to find out how the cocaine is successfully exported into the western world. The author is asked by his editor to enter Colombia and to find ways of infiltrating the coca world in order to write an article on how this happens. Many hickhups happen to our Charlie, and his journey from North to South, from coast to mountains, of the country, is dotted with hilarious tales, incredible ones, and scary ones as well. Especially in the last half, the book kept me going on reading almost holding my breath, until the very finale with all the trimmings. I can only recommend it - not only for those who have an interest in the narcotraffic and facts (the world of cocaine in the early 80s, when Charles Nicholl was there, is completely different from today's coca empire, as the author says also in his introduction), but for those who love travel books, and know how to appreciate the difference :)

I've found also this comment of a reader on the net, which I would like to include in my JE...maybe it can trigger a debate:

This book is undoubtedly one of the most entertaining written on the Colombian contribution to the illicit drugs industry, but should be read with some caution. The book was written prior to the ascent of the Medillin and Cali Cartels and this shows clearly in the book. The book gives the distinct impression that the journalist is being funny and supposedly intrepid in his quest for the Great Cocaine Story at the expense of Colombia and the people who have to put up with having the Great Cocaine Story in their back yard and who are the real victims of the supposedly victimless crime of taking drugs. The book is also quite dated - the daring do would have been impossible in the last twenty years, and this does need to be borne in mind reading the book.
I have read this book twice. The first time was over two years ago, and the second was just a couple of weeks ago. In the interim I have moved to live in Colombia and have now lived here for two years and had to put up with the conditions that are used in the typical manner of travel books to prove how entertainingly corrupt the natives are (and by implication, inferior), by people who will be leaving the country in just a couple of weeks.
Despite the above if you treat this book as an entertaining and not particularly true picture of Colombia, ie just as a good read, the book is worthwhile even if it does fall into the usual traps of travel writing. But be warned - Colombia has changed tremendously in the least two decades.

Picture: The Indian homes in Santa Marta

Picture: Santa Marta, Rodadero Beach today

This is now a bookray! Participants are:

Caro1 (Newark, England, UK)
GlasgowGal (Glasgow, Scotland, UK)
Neuilly (South Berwick, Maine,USA)
JeSuisBelle (Makati, Philippines) <---- not replying to PMs hence cancelled from the ray
lavale (Milan, Lombardia, Italy)

Collected at the Nottingham BXers meet. There are 2 bookrings ahead of this and a reading group book, but with half-term approaching it shouldn't take me long to get to it. Thanks for sharing YowlYY.

Popayan now

The Fruit Palace reads more like an adventure story than a traditional travel book, albeit with a slightly inept hero. Although Nicholl himself describes the book as something of a nostalgia piece, he still presents a harrowing picture of the all pervasive drug trade, with drug smuggling virtually the local industry in some parts of Colombia. To begin with I did wonder whether the book treated the whole issue of drugs too light-heartedly, but it is very much of its time, and Nicholl's description of his journey as 'a bit of a hippie caper' is spot on. I did find the book thoroughly entertaining and will be interested now to read the author's newest work on Leonardo da Vinci which is sitting in my TBR pile. Thanks for sharing YowlYY.

Will pass on to GlasgowGal at the Unconvention.

*Another* ring passed to me at the Unconvention! I'll get to this ASAP and get it moving again soon!
Thanks YowlYY!

:-)

I'm not really sure what to make of this book to be honest. It is very dated, and comes across so. Being so involved in the drug trade, this datedness seems all the more obvious.

Some of the characters were interesting, and there are certainly bits in the second-half of the book that keep you on the edge of your seat, but overall I felt this was a rather average read. The writing style didn't really sit with me all that well, and the author's continued use of Spanish just started to annoy me by the end of the book. I also felt the final journey into the Sierra Nevada didn't bring anything to the book at all.

I have been a bit slack and have only just PMd Neuilly for their address. If I don't receive it before Monday it will be three weeks before I can get to the post office again. Apologies if this holds up the bookring.

:-)

RELEASE NOTES:

01.08.05 - Sent to Neuilly, airmail (paper rate)

I received this book on Saturday but didn't have a chance to log it in until today. I have a couple bookrings here already but I will try to rush through them and get to this as soon as possible! It looks really good, and even has a fun bookmark!



PMed a while ago and have gotten no response from the next on the list...

PMing Lavale now :)..and have sent off