Bandit Roads

by Richard Grant

There are many ways to die in the Sierra Madre, a notorious nine-hundred-mile mountain range in northern Mexico where AK-47s are fetish objects, the law is almost non-existent and power lies in the hands of brutal drug mafias. Thousands of tons of opium and marijuana are produced there every year. Richard Grant thought it would be a good idea to travel the length of the Sierra Madre and write a book about it.

He was warned before he left that he would be killed. But driven by what he calls 'an unfortunate fascination' for this mysterious region, Grant sets off anyway. In a remarkable piece of investigative writing, he evokes a sinister, surreal landscape of lonely mesas, canyons sometimes deeper than the Grand Canyon, hostile villages and an outlaw culture where homicide is the most common cause of death and grandmothers sell cocaine. Finally his luck runs out and he finds himself fleeing for his life, pursued by men who would murder a stranger in their territory 'to please the trigger finger'.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Adventure

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Richard Grant is a freelance British travel writer based in Arizona. He was born in Malaysia, lived in Kuwait as a boy and then moved to London. He went to school in Hammersmith and received a history degree from University College, London. After graduation he worked as a security guard, a janitor, a house painter and a club DJ before moving to America where he lived a nomadic life in the American West, eventually settling in Tucson, Arizona, as a base from which to travel. He supported himself by writing articles for Men's Journal, Esquire and Details, among others.

His third book Crazy River: Exploration and Folly in East Africa (2011) is about Grant's travels in harrowing situations around East Africa, including an attempt at the first descent of the Malagarasi River in Tanzania.

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this while I was in Mexico. I recommend not reading this while you are in Mexico.

[قصي بن خليفة · Rating 3 out of 5]

رحلة غير عادية إلى أماكن مخيفة ونائية، أماكن فيها الناس رزقهم المخدرات، فيها قطاع طرق ولصوص... أماكن ليست سياحية أبداً... ماذا يفعل الكاتب هناك؟ ... يقول حلمي أن أذهب إلى جبال "سييرا مادري الغربية" الشهيرة، تلك المنطقة الشاسعة في المكسيك التي فيها القوي يحكم الضعيف
~~~~~
كتب الرحلات لها منزلة خاصة عندي... فهي رائعة كلها ولا تكاد تجد كتاباً سيئاً وبالتالي فهذا وإن لم يكن من أفضلها إلا إنه علمني الشيء الكثير عن أولئك الناس في تلك الأراضي البعيدة والمختلفة عنا تماماً

أولئك الناس الغريبين جداً عنا وفي نفس الوقت القريبين بشكل مبهر

ومن ذلك جاهليتهم والتي تشبه جاهلية العرب من سكر وعربدة وقتل وقطع طريق وأنواع المخدرات والوثنية المخلوطة بمسيحية منحرفة جداً. مصدر رزقهم زراعة أنواع المخدرات.. ويقولون شيئاً مثل "إن لم تكن ذئباً أكلتك الذئاب"... ولكن دع عنك جاهليتهم وقتلهم لبعضهم البعض والثأر والسرقة والاغتصاب، دع عنك كل ذلك ولاحظ تشابههم الغريب مع العرب... فمن ذلك لا يأكل الرجال والنساء مع بعض... ومن ذلك إكرام الغريب ولو كانوا فقراء

ومن أعجب ما قرأت أن في بعض القرى التي زارها الكاتب يتشكى الناس من الجنود الذين دمروا محاصيلهم من المخدرات ويقولون كيف نعيش وقد كان الجميع مستفيد!! من هؤلاء اللذين لا يقبلون الرشوة؟ الحكومة سيئة!... فكرتُ أن الحكومة فعلاً سيئة، لا يمكن حل مشكلة زراعة المخدرات إلا بالعناية بالإنسان نفسه... ولعلهم في انتظار نبي غير أنه لا نبي بعد محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم... فهل هم أرض خصبة للدعوة؟ ربما

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أما الكتاب فلغته فيها الكثير من الاصطلاحات الغريبة ربما بسبب المكسيك والهنود الحمر وقبائلهم وربما طريقة الكاتب؟ مع أن للكاتب صياغة حسنة وأسلوب جيد ومضحك أحياناً... وأظن أن في هذه الرحلة المجنونة لو أحدنا كَتَب لأمتع

يعيبه أن القصص غير مترابطة ولا متسلسلة وإنما كل فصل يكاد يعتبر مستقلاً... قررت أن أركز فانتبهت لأسماء المدن واستطعت الربط قليلاً بين الأشخاص والأماكن... أما رحلته نفسها لم تكن واضحة المعالم ولم يزودنا بخرائط تعيينا على فهم الأرض والانضمام إليه في تجواله كعادة هذه الكتب... وكذلك لم تكن هناك أية صور تنقل لنا بعضاً مما رآه علها تخفف من جفاف الكلمة... وتوجد أسماء شهيرة في التاريخ المكسيكي وكأن الكاتب يخشى الملل فلا يوضحها فبقول مثلاً زرت بيت فلان الشهير ولا يذكر أبداً لم هو شهير

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"'Our movement is not needed in this country.'" (quoting Andre Breton, 113)

"Machismo came to Mexico from Spain, a Spain that had been under heavy Arab influence for seven centuries when Columbus set sail. This is not to say that Native American societies weren't patriarchal or oppressive towards women, but the men weren't macho in the Spanish way. Spaniards, like Arabs, believed that women were inferior wanton creatures whose sexuality needed to be strictly controlled and firmly dominated, and that women from other cultures were fair game for rape. Octavio Paz in his analysis of Mexican machismo points to the old Spanish saying, 'A woman's place is at home, with a broken leg,' and identifies the conquistador as the model for the Mexican macho, the original chingon, the hard isolate killer who raped and seized Indian women and so brought the mestizo Mexican race into being." (268)

[Kevin Payne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author travels through the Sierra Madre to report on the culture and geography of the area. It's the center for narcotraficantes where they pray to Jesus Malverde to help them in their endeavors. This results in many towns having higher murder rates than the most violent of US cities. He thinks it meets his threshold for acceptable risk if done carefully but not going to the most violent places and using connections he has with people in the area. It's one of the few areas where you pick up hitchhikers to increase your safety (so you're not traveling alone). He pushes his luck and is hunted by a couple of malevolent characters but escapes with his life.

[Mark Baines · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent enough adventure as the author satisfies an 'obsession' with exploring the Sierra Madre.
My overall impression is that this area of Mexico has few if any redeeming features, the primary one being a 'Grand Canyon'. The rest is described as an unsafe human environment alomgisre. a pretty harsh natural environment. The production, sale and use of drugs and alcohol is laid out as the primary and most significant way of subsistence. Some individual examples of generosity in an otherwise harsh and stark climate.
Quite possibly very spectacular scenery, although little else described in this book comes across as remotely attractive.

[Adrian Fingleton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Not great, in my humble opinion. I read this because I had read - and enjoyed - the author's other book - 'Ghost Riders' - about transient people in the USA. However this excursion into the Sierra Madre never really caught my imagination. Yes, I understand there's a massive drug industry pretty much everywhere in Mexico. Yes, the landscape is severe, beautiful, overwhelming etc. But I just don't think there is enough meat in this book to carry it all through and hold this reader. I have read several books about Mexico, some fiction, some travelogue. All of them convinced me it's not a place I want to visit. This book didn't change my mind.

[Babs · Rating 2 out of 5]

I readily admit I knew very little about Mexico, apart from what my Duplo set had taught me about them all wearing ponchos and black Paul Calf-style moustaches. Therefore I was looking forward to what promised to be a rollercoaster of discovery: finding out about “the true heart of the Sierra Madre”. A lino print of Mexican Reservoir Dog-a-likes on the front, tales of drugs and guns on the back, and the first few pages describing the author running for his life, dodging circling flash lights and roaring truck engines all sounded promising, and a cursory flick through provided frequent references to fornicating goats. Ok, so I sat down prepared to be astounded and gripped.

However, about a fifth of the way through it dawned on me that this was a simple road trip, with the author being passed between a chain of local guides whose only notable feature was that they drank rather heavily. Where were the shoot-outs, the heavy panting and the surviving on wits alone? I looked more carefully at the author’s thumbnail photo on the back. Oh. That floppy beige hair and embarrassed-looking smile said only one thing: public school. Oh well.

What this book is good for it finding out about the minutae of life in the Sierra Madre, and the social aspects: for example the most interesting things for me were the descriptions of the Easter festival, and the conversations between the people there, which exhibited their patterns and rules of thinking. For example, the author points out that first and foremost everything, everything, boils down to spirits and spirituality. If you use a new crop rotation method, new seeds, additional fertilizer etc., and then reap an increased yield and higher profits, it won’t be as a result of this of these new methods, but in fact because you poured corn beer on the ground before praying at the altar of the Blessed Virgin who has Smurf stickers covering her eyes. Likewise the versions of what constitutes truth and fact in Mexico are completely different to in Europe, for example. Also, if you murder someone in the Sierra Madre while drunk, most people agree you should not go to prison as the alcohol allowed your ‘biggest’ soul to go on a kind of sabbatical, and it was actually one of your smaller, more inferior souls that committed the crime. Therefore to punish you when back in your normal self seems unfathomably illogical to them, especially when, additionally, a prison term would mean that two families are robbed of their breadwinner, rather than just one. (What happens instead is that the man who wakes up with a cracking hangover and blood on his hands then has to work extra hard for the rest of his life also supporting the second family which he has so irreparably damaged.)

So these are the strengths in the book. But really nothing all that much actually happens. It turns out the hunted author scrabbling through ditches at the beginning of the book is a bit of a damp squib, and really the most dangerous things to be passed round in the book are some rather nasty looks. If this was a novel I would criticize it for not having a plot. What could have saved this book in my eyes is if the author had let us know more of his reactions to what he was experiencing, and how these things affected him in a personal way. We know very little about him, apart from that he ends up hating this macho attitude that has so damaged the men – not to mention the women – of Mexico; and also that he is pretty Cool: he takes the coke, he keeps his bottle, bit of a dude but happy to be self-denigrating as well (there’s the old public school coming out again). I found this readiness to criticize a people in a book refreshing, in contrast with other Westerners who seem to think that because something is tribal or traditional, it is therefore worthy of respect; and to disapprove of it would somehow be racist and show a lack of profundity on their part. He ends the book by damning the whole lot of the Mexicans and sends their machismo, narrow-mindedness, stupidity, love of alcohol and hobby of casual rape to hell on a fornicating goat. The one anecdote that really got me caring about what would happen next was a tale about a puppy whose back legs got puréed by a truck on the motorway; and the reason this caught me was because the author reacted strongly, and the locals in a pretty much diametrically-opposed fashion. I was intrigued to see the author’s personality revealed, and also that this locked him in direct contrast with these other men right next to him – neither of whom could at all empathise with the other in this instance. However this was unfortunately only one page long and was an anomaly in the book.

As it was we learnt about something about the people and the country, which was interesting. However the potentially lethal aspect of the author’s trip was never realized, which I expect he was grateful for, even if his publishers were secretly disappointed that he didn’t end up with at the very least a knee-capping. But we didn’t learn much about the author, and in the end I found myself in a situation he frequently experienced himself during his travels: that of having picked up a hitchhiker who turns out to be a bit boring, and yet you feel obliged to keep on with him and give him the benefit of the doubt, just in case he ends up revealing himself to be of some use to you. Unfortunately for me, mine didn’t, and it was with mild relief that I got eventually rid of him.

[Jacquie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took about midway before I really got into this book. The journey and the people are fascinating and Richard Grant is either very brave or very stupid. I enjoyed learning more about the culture of the Sierra Madre and the varying influences that make drug trafficking a conflicting practice. Worth reading if you're interested in this region of Mexico and also helpful to understand more about the drug trade.

[Matthew Lightfoot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few books grab you from the word go like this one does. 'So this is how it feels to be hunted' is the opening limne, and you're plunged straight into the drama, which continues to unfold throughout the book in typical Grant style. A great adventure travel yarn.

[Ian Parke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t finish the book but what I read was an enjoyable read. Having lived in Mexico in the foothills of the Sierra Madre I was more than curious. Some of his encounters were familiar. The people in this part of the world are not keen on strangers. And the police they are not keen on anyone

[Eduardo Diaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author visits a region that is not very well known (including Mexicans). Very entretaining book. This guy is a true modern adventurer.

[Darcy Hoover · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun travelogue into places travellers fear to tread, a journey beyond the mundane. You are there with Mr. Grant, nervous and heart pounding in your chest.

[Kent Lundgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn't go so far as to say Richard Grant has a death wish, but he is certainly willing to tweak fate's nose.

By all accounts (and for one reason or another, I'm closer to some of this than most people) the Sierra Madre Occidental is one of the most dangerous places on earth for a stranger. It has not always been so, but the the drug culture that has developed throughout Mexico now finds its focus in the Sierra Madre.

One reviewer here says it takes place in Colombia. She apparently did not read the book, for it is clearly set in Mexico, and in an area just south of our border with that sad country. That matters. If one speaks to Border Patrolmen along the Arizona border he will discover that much of what is described in this book is being imported to the U.S. in the mountainous areas of that state along the border. Drug smugglers and bandits operate with relative impunity as far north as Phoenix and Tucson, which is a natural extension of the territory they have staked out in Mexico.

Grant walked among them and tooks notes. He says several times that he trusts his instincts for danger. They are obviously highly developed, for he came out alive, which was not a foregone conclusion. His story tells us things we need to understand about what's happening down there.

For further insights, read Down by the River, by Charles Bowden, another author who puts his neck out to get a story.

Kent Lundgren

[Ffiamma · Rating 4 out of 5]

richard grant, giornalista britannico trapiantato negli usa, decide di intraprendere un viaggio sulle bandit roads della sierra tarahumara e di andare alla scoperta del messico più pericoloso- quello che comprende i tumultuosi stati di chihuahua, durango e sinaloa (dove non arriverà mai). tra leggende e verità, perico (cocaina) e alcol a fiumi, strane tribù indie, paesaggi incontaminati e devastazioni- l'autore sfida i pericoli e si cala completamente in una realtà fatta di narcotrafficanti, polizia corrotta,miseria, machismo, violenza, eccessi ma anche umanità sfolgorante (a tratti) con le sue umanissime insofferenze e incoscienze. davvero un bel libro di viaggio- fascinoso e irritante.

[Matt Farrelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Richard Grant certainly takes his travel writing seriously(and lives dangerously in the process). His detailed account of the people and area of the Sierra Madre is not short of surprises, and some very close calls for him along the way.

As always it's interesting to get an insight on how other people live and Bandit Roads does this well, highlighting a culture of violence and alcoholism, and the tough resilience of the everyday Sierra Madre locals.

Didn't enjoy this as much as his other sojourn in Africa,Crazy River, but still an enjoyable read.

[Jeff Finder · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a frighteningly reflective look at Mexico as experienced by British writer Richard Grant, who dared venture into the lawless no-man's lands of the Sierra Madre mountains to detail the brutal realities of life there, and the insidious corruption and institutionalized power of the drug cartels. After reading this, you will never look at Mexico again the same way, or the implications of the vast migration of impoverished peasants northward across the U.S. border.

[Rod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having lived in Mexico for 3.5 years I can agree that this book portrays life in drug growing areas of rural Mexico well - absolutely f***ing wild!!! It is quite literally like the old wild west - vengeful, drunken and gun toting with the addition of "parakeet blasts' of cocaine!!

Definitely a page turner.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting read if you enjoy Cormac McCarthy's fiction about this region and indeed Roberto Bolano and others. Very evocative, and good at capturing the ever-present violence. What a scarry place.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly one of the best books I've read in a long time. Loved the authors style of writing, and the way he describes different situations. It's hilariously funny, a real captivating and interesting read, would recommend it to anyone.

[Foreign]

US title: God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre

[Maryrose]

About a man who travels through Colombia, comes highly recommended.

[Anja · Rating 2 out of 5]

I looked forward to this book and liked it a lot in the beginning, but then it became a blur of more similar areas and more similar people and more similar events, had a hard time finishing it.

[Otrillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating account of lives lived in a hazardous environment the cause of which is, not unusually, the encroachment of western consumerism and greed

[Ang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, riveting and more than a little terrifying! Hugely insightful account of travels through the darkest heart of Mexico.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Again, another great book from Richard Grant.