231 mm x 152 mm, 336 pages RRP: R170, ISBN 978-1-4152-0064-3 Publication date: 28 July 2008, Category: Travel Description An entertaining account of a road journey from Chris Harvie’s home outside the Kruger National Park to the banks of the Nile in Uganda and back, traced by maps provided in every chapter. It is a journey of (many) ups and (occasional) downs. This often humorous, generally cheerful, occasionally exasperated trek through eight African countries with colonial pasts is also a journey through the characters of those countries: comparing them with one another, assessing their relative strengths and weaknesses, and looking at their post-independence histories through the sceptical yet optimistic eyes of someone born at the time that many of them achieved independence. The book is a blend of discovery and discomfort, hope and happiness, establishing finally that in Africa, a South African is, all in all, a good thing to be. From Do Not Take This Road to El-Karama, page 289 One Sunday I went for a haircut, walking the length of Diani’s beach road and understanding for the first time what a horrible place this was for the majority who travelled on foot. Taxis screamed past far too close, hooting and berating the pedestrians. I felt as if I’d walked a tightrope by the time I reached the far end of town and found an operating hairdresser. The boss was out, but Beryl (who told me that she was ‘obviously a Luo from Eldoret’) was in position and ready to cut. She stood back and assessed the sight in the mirror. What would I like done? My father was bald by the age of twenty-five and my brother by thirty and although I have a fairly severe shortage right on top of my head, I have always been secretly follicle-proud of having held on to as much as I have until the age of forty-plus. Beryl, who was evidently less impressed, was therefore looking at the three months’ worth of side-growth that tended to stick up like the devil’s horns. To read on Please visit www.christopherharvie.com for: a photo album of the journey * an index of place and other names * a glossary of terms * general advice for independent travellers in Africa * an inventory of equipment to take along * contact details of the places Chris stayed. Click here to view an interview with Chris Harvie. E-mail us a comment on this book. (Comments may be edited and used on this website.) To buy this book www.exclusivebooks.com www.kalahari.net home   writers   books   contact   buy   rights all content © Umuzi, Random House Struik this website designed and maintained by Guanaco.co.za