Tales from the Sharp End

Chile is 4,300 kilometers long but never more than 350 kilometers wide, lined by the Andes to the east and the Pacific to the west, with the Pan-American Highway giving you just two choices: north or south. Traveling along that dusty road takes you to both the driest desert on earth and to impenetrable cloud forests barring the way to Patagonian ice fields. Here is the true magnet of this jagged knife-edge of a country: the unique landscape born of its geography and the gorgeous plant and animal life. Few things are more thrilling than climbing the coastal mountains to see both the Andes and the Pacific at the same time.

Natascha Scott-Stokes's remarkable travelogue is based on fifteen years of living and exploring this South American California. Tales from the Sharp End: A Portrait of Chile offers both a love letter to Chile and a heartfelt lament for a country living at the sharp end of human folly and climate change.