Coups and Cocaine

Deep love for a continent being ravaged by corruption and dictatorship is the undercurrent of this travelogue of South America. Daniels visits frenetically busy Rio de Janeiro, a city over which Brazil's spiraling foreign debt hangs like an impending cyclone. He captures the wild west atmosphere of Santa Cruz, Bolivia; evades thieves in Lima; penetrates to Iquitos, a town deep in the Peruvian Amazon where fearful Indians hide from gringos. In Quito he meets the famed Ecuadorian artist Guayasamin, a communist millionaire painter who charges up to 40,000 to do a portrait. His adventures turn up stark contrasts: on one page, kaleidoscopic clouds of butterflies; on another, the irregular mud-and-tin houses of Chile's slums. Daniels, a medical doctor, works in Tanzania. With acid wit and a cool appraising eye he captures the beauty and hope of a continent where death squads are a familiar sight. (February 15)