Book Review - Sacred Ground & Holy Water by Lyn Fuchs

by Matt Scott Dec 27, 2010
Sacred Ground & Holy Water is a collection of travel stories, significant events and memorable experiences during the extensive travels of the author, Lyn Fuchs.

It seems there has never been a dull moment in Fuchs’ travels: from encounters with bears in Yosemite, enduring bone rattling bus journeys in Central America, paddling with orcas, taking part in the Day of the Dead in Mexico, experiencing Samurai in Japan, or simply reflecting on a cockroach that shares his morning shower or a beetle he discovers in his navel.

Sacred Ground and Holy Water mixes humor and irony into experiences that can only come from spending a significant part of one’s life traveling the world.

There are over a dozen “Tales of Enlightenment” ranging from the unique, to the mundane, to the simply bizarre or unlucky, all told in memorable humorous prose.

This is not classic travel nonfiction where you get lost in detailed descriptions of people or place.

It reads more like a narrative equivalent of channel surfing – simply skipping to the most memorable parts of someone’s personal memoirs.

Most of its chapters last less than a dozen pages, which is disappointing as the settings themselves could lead to more extensive narratives and descriptions of place and cultural interactions.

However, expanding on “place” doesn’t seem to be the point of the book.

Rather than take on the traditional travel story, Fuchs has simply selected significant moments of his travels and shared them in a series of short, witty anecdotes, made all the more enjoyable as many travelers might be able to sympathize with many situations (already mentioned above) that Fuchs writes about  

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