Michael Jacobs, author of Andes, talks to Chris Moss about the reliable highs of South America and the predictable lows of travel writing
 

Why did you travel the entire length of the Andes? Was it because no one had packaged a travelogue in this way yet?
The fact that relatively few people have been mad enough to do such a journey (and certainly not with a book in mind) did not influence me in the slightest. Spotting gaps in the market has never motivated me as a travel writer. I have always been obsessed by snowy peaks and anything connected with the Hispanic world. I also conceived the high-flown idea that following the world’s longest mountain range from the Tropics to Antarctica would be like observing the unfolding of a human life, with all its aspirations and failed illusions.

Where did you start?
I began, like the Liberator Simón Bolívar, in the chaotic, murder-ridden Venezuelan capital of Caracas, where I read a report claiming the Venezuelans were the happiest people in the world. I proceeded over the next few weeks to savour those northern, tropical zones of the continent where the pioneering German scientist Alexander von Humboldt had located the “life force”.

Where do the Andes end?
In that labyrinth of southern Patagonian islands where Humboldt’s great pupil Charles Darwin had concluded that life barely existed at all. My own journey ended in midwinter in the world’s southernmost community, the Chilean village of Puerto Williams. On the way there from southern Argentina I uncovered numerous tales of mountaineering disasters, plane crashes and suicides, and visited the site of the ill-fated settlement of Port Famine, now marked by a grey plaque inscribed with the pathetic words “Spain was here”.

Any bad bus journey moments?
More than in all my previous travels put together. My nerves – already frayed by the continual showing on the buses of Bruce Willis films – reached almost breaking point in Peru during the rainy season. On one occasion a front tire exploded when the bus was clinging to the edge of a 2,000 metre precipice. It had to be repaired with an improvised patch. We still had another pass of over 4,000 metres to cross. Eventually we were overtaken by night, thick fog and torrential rain. There was no windscreen wiper.

Travel writing and broadcasting seem to be fields celebrities fall back into when their careers go tits up. As a ‘real’ travel writer, does that piss you off?
There is slightly more dignity in turning to travel writing and broadcasting than ending up in I’m a Celebrity… or Strictly Come Dancing. Celebrity travellers don’t piss me off as much as supposedly “real” travel writers who bask in completely unjustified acclaim. Travel writing in general abounds in oversized egos anxious to describe how a country reacts to them rather than vice versa. The experience of travelling should encourage humility, but in most cases it doesn’t.

In the 1970s, there was a mini boom in travel writing, with Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux, and their pals at Granta, popularising the genre. Where is travel writing now?
This so-called boom in travel writing largely consisted of authors trying to emulate the unique quirkiness of Chatwin, or else to become miserable old gits such as Theroux. The overall standard of travel literature is probably no worse today than it was in the 70s, though it’s not so easy to spot the current trends. As chairman for the past three years of Britain’s only literary travel book award, the Dolman, I’ve had to read absolutely everything. For a while I thought that there would be a growing number of books imitating the “nature writings” of the excellent Robert Macfarlane (Mountains of the Mind, Wild Places). But instead we continue to be swamped by “Good Life Abroad Books”, television tie-ins and unmemorably written adventure tales. There are lots of relentlessly jokey books (often with comic titles involving bad puns and animals – eg Goats from a Small Island), and numerous serious works weighed down by huge chunks from Wikipedia, English middle-class prejudices, spectacularly over-written prose (much admired by critics) and worthy musings about the destruction of the environment, often as a way of justifying their authors’ unnecessary expenditure of carbon footprints.

I guess the Andes are all about highs, so what were the lows?
I can honestly say that in six months of near continuous travelling I barely suffered a single low moment. I was certainly never bored. To travel along the Andes is to enjoy an endless succession of sublime experiences. I was so elated by the end that I could even put up with seeing High School Musical five times on the Patagonian buses.

Where next?
Back to Colombia, one of the most exhilarating countries I have ever known, and a place that reminds me of the Spain of my childhood. I envisage a travel book combining One Hundred Years of Solitude with Heart of Darkness. And no “funny” title.

Andes is published by Granta.