A Dead Bat In Paraguay: One Man’s Peculiar Journey Through South America
A Dead Bat In Paraguay is a true adventure story about a 28-year-old man who decided that the best way he could deal with his existential crisis was to sell his possessions, quit his professional career as a scientist, and hop on a one-way flight to Quito, Ecuador in order to visit every country in South America. He sincerely believed the trip would put him on a track towards a more fulfilling life of excitement, intrigue, and exotic women, away from his soulless corporate job in a Washington D.C. suburb. Instead, he humorously falls from one country to the next, striking out repeatedly with the local women, getting robbed, having dreams that became reality, self-diagnosing himself with a host of diseases, and suffering repeated bouts of stomach illness that made marathon bus rides superhuman feats of bodily strength. Along the journey he chronicles the friendships, the women, and the struggles, including one fateful night in Paraguay that he thought would lead to his end.
Rating: 
(out of 12 reviews)
List Price: $ 15.97
Price: $ 15.97
Paraguay Grounded Adapter Plug – GUB
- Voltage Adapters
- Grounded adapter plugs allow electrical connections up to 240 volts
- A Grounded Adapter plug does NOT change the current or voltage (this requires a converter) unless your appliance is dual voltage
- This grounded adapter supports 3 pronged as well as 2 pronged appliances
Grounded Adaptor plug changes your appliance plug to fit Paraguay outlets…
Rating: 
(out of reviews)
List Price:
Price: $ 7.00
June 14th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Review by doriangray for A Dead Bat In Paraguay: One Man’s Peculiar Journey Through South America
Rating:
I really liked the book because it gave advice on travel and getting girls in the sack, but that was not the main point. The writing was also very honest. The downside was that not all the time something interesting happened (I kinda got a bit bored at the Chile section) and the toilet humour was kinda low, but these were only minor flaws. I got very excited as reading about your Cordoba gaming and really felt for you in the Rio de Janeiro episode.
Also, the writer was honest with his initial intentions and plans and how they changed, how he changed and how he perceived the traveller culture around him when travelling. I could agree with the writer on many things here and liked the witty remarks about people looking for authenticity and a higher meaning.. The book also revealed a new side of the writer (who is a a well-known blogger), a more sensitive one. The side that we already knew about, the sarcastic and witty, was there as well, of course. Self criticism is a good trait..
“The lie was so
good even I believed it. I liked Sofia more all along. We were always at
war with Eastasia, not Eurasia.”
Absolutely my favourite one.
Thanks for a great read!
June 14th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Review by Ferdinand Bardamu for A Dead Bat In Paraguay: One Man’s Peculiar Journey Through South America
Rating:
If I had a loonie for every cubicle jockey I’ve known who’s huffed and puffed about quitting their office slave job and going on an trip abroad, I’d have enough money to do it myself. Roosh Vörek is one of the few men who had the brains and balls to follow through. After ditching his career as an industrial microbiologist and finishing his first book, Bang, Roosh took a trip through South America that lasted six months and took him to eight countries. Now, he has transcribed the events of his trip into a travel memoir. Don’t be dissuaded by his cliché-laden description of A Dead Bat in Paraguay as being about “suffering and pain and hardship and darkness” – Roosh’s book is a glorious triumph of low comedy and high adventure, a breezy and worthwhile read.
Unfortunately, as this is Roosh’s first foray into literary writing, his inexperience shines through at regular intervals. While he narrates his misadventures with a wry tone that readers of his blog ought to be familiar with, every so often he breaks voice to go on a sentimental missive. Take for instance, this snippet in which Roosh tries really, really hard to convince us that he cares about the plight of poor miners in Bolivia:
“Until the output of the Potosí mines cease to be profitable–and it is a matter of when, not if–these men and future generations who follow will die miners, much younger than is fair…I felt small for complaining about my relatively easy job at home that paid me a salary the miners could only dream of. How did I come to the conclusion that a professional job with fair pay in a modern building was actually torture?”
My god, someone has it worse off than you! What an original observation! Please, shut up and spare me the bathos.
But aside from these trite diversions, A Dead Bat in Paraguay maintains a breakneck pace from beginning to end. The story begins in Washington, DC, where Roosh relates the story of his life and the factors that led to him giving the bird to the 9-to-5 life and heading to South America. The sequence of events will be familiar to longtime Roosh readers, both of his current blog and his previous incarnation as DC Bachelor, but Roosh fills in details about his career and family life that are new and interesting. In particular, his description of his close relationship with his sister is moving, showing a side of Roosh that we don’t see in his other writings.
An important part of any book is its diction, and on this front, A Dead Bat in Paraguay is as smooth and pleasing to read as a good wine is to drink. An acolyte of the Hemingway school of literary writing, Roosh shies away from flowery descriptions and overblown metaphors, relaying his story with an understatement that conveys imagery and emotion in its own way. His bone-dry sense of humor pervades his prose at almost all times, with lines like “I made love with the toilet.” Roosh is awfully fond of toilet humor in the literal sense – a lot of the laughs come from his loving descriptions of the painful, explosive bowel movements he had while on the road. No mere clown, though, he also retells the struggles of his journey with a bluntness that gets the reader invested emotionally. A large part of the narrative is Roosh’s attempts to hook up with the local women in the various places he visits, only to be met with repeated failure. His constant battle to adapt his game to the cultural idiosyncrasies of the women who he tries to bed is so compelling that when he finally meets success, you’ll want to cheer.
The frankness and honesty of A Dead Bat in Paraguay is a refreshing change from the fake, phony, and fraudulent memoirs that have flooded the book world in recent years, but it also hurts the book in some ways. Any good storyteller has the ability to BS with aplomb, and Roosh isn’t quite there yet. His emphasis on relaying the details of his trip has too much of a “just the facts, ma’am” feel to it, as if he was writing a college paper and not a commercial book. The weakness of this approach culminates in the book’s ending, which just sucks. In fact, it isn’t really an “ending” – the book just sort of stops.
In pointing out these issues, I don’t want come off as being too critical. In a literary world full of flotsam, jetsam, and other varieties of garbage, Roosh Vörek has produced something remarkable and memorable. Feel free to give him your greenbacks – he’s earned them.
June 14th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Review by Ian for A Dead Bat In Paraguay: One Man’s Peculiar Journey Through South America
Rating:
Roosh really told a true story. I was laughing out loud all through the book. I cheered when he got his first flag, and had tears when he decided to end his trip. And Mariana sounded beautiful. I would have stayed in Brazil an extra few months and stay with her a few nights a week at least. At least invite her back to DC! Definitely turned out to be way better than I expected.
June 14th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Review by Christopher M. Wall for A Dead Bat In Paraguay: One Man’s Peculiar Journey Through South America
Rating:
Roosh writes in a clear conversational style free of the gimmicky writing that plagues many new travel writers. But more importantly he writes about the truth of travel, which is that it varies between utter boredom, discomfort, superficiality, occasional exhilaration or bliss, an entire range of emotions. As someone who has done long trips in Central American and Eastern Europe, I could distinctly remember so many of the vignettes in the book.
It is an excellent book to read if you are young and questioning the path your life and career are taking. So many talk about just jumping outside the corporate framework and doing something else, whether it’s traveling or following another passion. So few do it. Roosh did, and he finds that the dream of long-term travel is saddled with a far different reality from his idealized view. It’s the disillusionment, and the subsequent recognition of what he finds valuable in travel (seeking romance, attempting to live authentically within a place) that adds real value to the work. Along the way he intersperses the book with tips on how to woo foreign women and a dose of scatological humor.
June 14th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Review by Ross for A Dead Bat In Paraguay: One Man’s Peculiar Journey Through South America
Rating:
Roosh tells it like it is, describing his adventures through South America in a page-turner.
I couldn’t put this book down — it’s a serious score for anyone feeling adventurous. I have immense respect for Roosh for putting himself out there like that — success and failure alike. It felt like a piece of me was in South America with him.
Enjoy!
June 15th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Привет!! carlos@onlylcd.ru” rel=”nofollow”>……
С уважением,…
July 15th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Buy:Zyban.Arimidex.Valtrex.Zovirax.Mega Hoodia.Accutane.100% Pure Okinawan Coral Calcium.Lumigan.Prednisolone.Synthroid.Actos.Petcam (Metacam) Oral Suspension.Human Growth Hormone.Nexium.Retin-A.Prevacid….