Travel
George Tardios’s idea of retracing the route of Stanley’s 1,200-mile expedition of 1871 across Central Africa to find Dr Livingstone originated with his boyhood reading of Stanley’s famous account. Stanley’s team was nearly 200 men and 27 donkeys; Tardios’s an outdoor survival trainee, his wife, four donkeys and himself.
The journey was accomplished 40 years ago, but writing about it had to wait until long after the two years of concentrated effort to stay alive; further time in Tanzania freelancing and writing reports for the government; and finally self-reinvention in a changed England. The result is a rare time-capsule of east-central African life in the early era of independence – and a full-on survival story, with a near all-consuming camp fire, the death of one of the donkeys, and night attack from lions only prevented thanks to a villager’s passing advice.
Besides the daily grind through varied terrain and animal life, we share the close contact of the Swahili-speaking author and his team with the people encountered, from frightened children seeing white faces for the first time to great-grandparents with family memories of the Victorian explorers. The author’s feelings, from exasperation to heartfelt warmth, are uninhibitedly expressed towards all, including his companions – and the donkeys, who had minds of their own.
No reviews yet. Be the first to write a review
