Reading and Riding: Sliced Iguana on a bun? Anyone?

When I have a thick book or hard read to get through while riding my bike, I take occasional mental breaks by reading something that’s not such a hard slog.

At present, Sliced Iguana - Travels in Unknown Mexico fits the bill.


Though I haven’t reached the part that explains the title (iguana on a bun, on melba toast, or in a stew?) I have learned a few things about Mexico and the downside of mankind’s control-taking nature.

About seafaring Spaniards that changed the face and heart of the New World, Isabella writes:

“Everything foreign, unfamiliar or inexplicable, however beautiful and benign looking, must be regarded as suspicious and potentially life-threatening, something to be tamed and exorcized... it had to be civilized, to be made European.”

So the Spaniards worked hard at “bringing the landscape under control, making it look and work as much like Europe as possible.”

Wide swaths of environmental destruction followed, leaving me with two thoughts:

“We still put far more energy into destruction of our surroundings than reparations.”

“Surely, the iguana’s going to get sliced any minute now.”

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We still have lots to learn. Sliced Iguana, by Isabella Tree. Very interesting so far.

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