Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote his masterpiece Tarzan without ever traveling to Africa, yet his fanciful novels about an orphaned boy raised by apes has inspired millions to thump their chest in imitation of the Jungle Apeman. His armchair travels sold more books than the journals of Richard Burton, who actually tramped through the Dark Continent to find the source of the Nile, proving once more that fiction is more powerful than facts, although not in the case of a Lonely Planet writer accused of never having left his heart in San Francisco to ink a travel guide about Columbia.
Opps.
"They didn't pay me enough to make the trip worth my while," he explained to the BBC and admitted to having received his facts from a female friend from the Latin American country.
His excuse.
Not enough money.
I thought touring the world to complain about the price of rice and not wash for weeks at a time was the entire point behind Lonely Planet, which sells over 6 million books a year to their round-the-world captive audience tramping over the same Lonely Planet paths.
I had been a Rough Guide person myself, until realizing I might as well accept the advice of locals touts, who after two beers are your best friend and introduce you to the real world beyond the banana shakes and tie-dye tee-shirts.
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