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Yanko

by Yanko

350 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-1117; ISBN 1-4120-3290-3; US$28.00, C$33.00, EUR23.00, £16.50

A young cattle rancher's experience during Allende's communist regime in Chile. His exile. An adventurer at heart. From a prisoner in Spain to a top model in Europe. A true story of rags and riches of struggles and survival.

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book This is not a book for those seeking profound words or thought-out phrases and dialogues. No, it is mainly a story, my story with its many sad, happy, humorous moments, from a short and specific part of my life. A life somehow different to most others, for I was born at a certain time in Chile, South America, where things happened, political events which uprooted me and made me go elsewhere in search of a safer and better life. Instead, I found adventure, friends, lovers and all kinds of interesting people and places. Life itself did not get any better or worse, but fuller, richer and more interesting. I chose to write about those specific seven years of my life, for I believe that in that short period of time, I lived life in full, from riches to rags and again from rags to riches. From a cattle rancher's life in South America, to a top international male model's life in Europe, from a jet setter, to a prisoner in Carabanchel, Spain. Travelling, living and working, in a never ending search for happiness. Always finding an excuse to keep on moving, the country, the work, the people. Different circumstances deciding for me, urging me on, to look elsewhere, in search of that perfect place, the right person, my longed for "Querencia." A home.

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About the Author Yanko was born in 1943 in Chile. An airplane pilot, ex-karate instructor, restaurant owner and a successful cattle rancher, in 1972 at the early age of 28 had his ranch expropriated during Salvador Allende's Communist regime. Having lost everything, he was forced to leave family, friends and country and became a nomad who travelled, lived and worked in over 40 countries on the five continents. During this period of time he ventured into the advertising and fashion world in Europe and became one of the leading international male models. He returned to Chile in the eighties to start Rancho Rio Sol, a horseback riding adventure ranch, with survival-type 15-day expeditions into the very heart of the Andes Mountains. In the nineties he started YMT, (Yanko Moto Tours), motorcycle adventure tours across the Bolivian Amazon, the Patagonia in Argentina and the south of Chile, and the Atacama -- the driest desert in the world, in the north of Chile. Married four times, he now lives with his fourth wife and his 3-year-old baby twin daughters, in the south of Chile.

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Excerpts

Excerpt from Chapter 8

I collected my few personal belongings, drove away heading for Holland and the Ferry to England where I planned to sell my car and fly via South Africa, on my way back home to Chile, going home the long way round.

In London I called Janet an ex of mine, now a very good friend.
"Hi Janet, it's me."
"Yanko?"
"Yep."
"How nice when did you arrive?"
"This very minute, long time no see, huh?"
"Long time, you bet, how long will you be staying this time?"
"Oh, a day or two, time enough to get rid of my car, buy a ticket and fly away. What are you doing? Mind if I drop by? Like I said, I'm fresh out of the Ferry."
"Sure, come along, you know my Pad."

I knew her Pad, not just a Pad, but quite a nice flat on a very nice recidential area in London.

Janet had been a funny case, a very special girl; different to most of the other girls I'd met. They were all basically different, some for the better, others for...she was different for the better, a very nice English girl I had met on my first time ever in London, fresh from Spain where I had been dating an American model, Alice, who knew this English girl.

Anyhow, to make the story short, Alice the American girl, had given me Janet's phone number in London.
"Call her when you get to London" she'd told me "she's a good friend of mine a nice girl not a typical model, she's got brains."

I had called Janet.

So had Alice.

Janet had been expecting my call; she accepted my invitation to go out for dinner the night I arrived. She would pick me up.

"Steaks?" she'd asked, "I know the right place." I knew bugger all about London.

My blind date had turned out to be a stunning 5 foot 9 blonde girl. I was happily impressed, mighty interested on our night out. She was super friendly, had a fine sense of humor, and had chosen the perfect place. We ate, went back to her "Pad" for a coffee, a late drink or what ever, the "what ever" strong on my dirty mind.

Why I say Janet had been a funny case is because of what I had once told Alice back in Spain, when we had first met.

The owner of her Model Agency in Barcelona, not my Agency, the competition, had invited Alice, with some other models, for a night out. I didn't know Alice at the time.

As I stood by the Bar of the Metamorfosis Disco, drinking a Coke next to the dance floor, I observed the Spanish play boys trying do their thing, get the girls. It reminded me of Cita 2000, the Disco in Tenerife.

I didn't like them or their attitude. Neither here. Nor there, then in Tenerife.

I thought, bugger you mate, went to their table and asked the tall red head girl for a dance.

She turned round, looked up at me, and with a smile said, "yes thanks." Long faces on the Spanish opposition.
"Do you like your friends?" I asked her pointing in the general direction of their table as we danced. She made a face, grinned, we laughed.
"Neither do I," we danced some more.
"What's your name?"
"Alice, and yours?"
"Yanko, dear Alice like in wonderland." We danced some more.
"Want to come with me?" I asked her two dances later.
"Where too?"
"To my flat, where else?" I replied.
"Don't you think you are going a bit too fast" and added, "I hardly know you" faint smile on her cute face.
"You are wrong. You don't. You don't know me at all."
"Well, there you are," and she did a full spin red hair swinging with her.
"There's no way you'll ever know me, unless we end in bed tonight," as I pulled her to me, and added with her now tight in my arms. "Ofcourse if you believe in all that crap of holding hands for the next two weeks, kissing at your doorstep, as I leave you at night, etc etc, then I agree with you, but, I don't belive in it. I believe that you only get to know someone you like, after, not before you've been to bed. Before it's all just pretend, be nice, look pretty, act coy and flirt. While on the other hand, going to bed now, waking up with you tomorrow, we either like each other or we don't. If we don't, we say goodbye and nice meeting you, part like good friends. But if we do, a whole new world awaits us; from then on we start knwoing each other. I might sound cold to you, but I'm not, it's reality, us models, never know where we'll be tomorrow, we have no time, we blink we loose. Don't you agree?"
She looked up at me and laughed.
"I believe I do," she'd said, and we walked out of the Disco.

She said "Chao" to her Agent. I bowed in the general direction of their table.

So had started an affaire, which ended on the day I had left for London. This she had told Janet. In other words, that if she, Janet, liked me, and I did her, it would either happen on our first night out, or probably never. Janet had liked me, and had tried her best to make it happen on our first night out.

Of course it had happened, but I had been puzzled, never had I ever met such an eager straightforward girl.

Some time later when we'd known each other better, I'd asked her about our first night out, and she had told me, what Alice had told her about me on the phone.

We laughed and laughed. Some joke. I rang her bell.

The door was opened. Janet flung herself into my arms, a long hug and kiss on the cheek.

"Nice to see you woman," as I swung her around, set her down looking at her. Time had not changed her a bit. "You look fine, the same old Janet."
"You don't look too bad yourself" as she inspected me, "the hair a little longer, a bit whiter in the face, but, you'll do." She hugged me one more time. She smelled of Janet, memories coming back to me.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapters: One/Two/ Three.

Salvador Allende's communist regime in Chile, as seen from a young cattle rancher's point of view, as he rides up into the Andes Mountains for one last time, before leaving behind his country friends and loved ones. Forced to go elsewhere in search of a new life, a new country a home. He bids a sad goodbye to his mother and Daska his three year old baby daughter, on the day he finaly leaves.

Chapters: Four/ Five.

Passionate sex and true love on a paradisiac island, Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands where he spends the next two years, but, where an unfortunate car accident together with the first fuel crisis the world ever knew in the seventies, ruin him and he is forced to move once more; this time to Germany.

Chapter Six

Spain, Carabanchel prison, life inside this hell hole during Generalisimo Franco's regime. A city within a city with it's own rules and laws, a dangerous inner world, something only those who have experienced similar situations can comprehend.

Chapter Seven

Modelling, a male model's point of view of this tough profession. His struggles to reach the top in this cold and impersonal fast moving world, where only a handful make it, where most never do.

Chapter Eight

East Africa in the seventies, travelling by land on a one man Safari, a touch of adventure as he travels across Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, and war torn Rhodesia (Zimbabwe today) to end 10.000 Kms later, in the city of Cape Town on the Southern tip of South Africa.

Chapter Nine and last

A farewell to friends in South Africa before embarking on a new life. Love at long last.

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Catalogue Information

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