Buy or borrow this book! Support your local independent bookseller
Find it in a WorldCat library
Compare prices at major online bookstores
|
|
Langewiesche, a foreign correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, casts a sympathetic but unsentimental gaze upon the rapidly changing world of the Sahara: "Do not regret the passing of the camel and the caravan. The Sahara has changed, but it remains a desert without compromise, the world in its extreme. There is no place as dry and hot and hostile. There are few places as huge and as wild. You will not diminish it by admitting that its inhabitants can drive, and that they are neither wiser nor purer nor stronger than you. It is fairer to judge them squarely as modern people and your equals. They were born by chance in a hard land, at a hard time in its history. You will do them no justice by pretending otherwise. Do not worry that their world, or yours, has grown too small. Despite its roads, its trucks, its televisions, the Sahara remains unsubdued."
Langewiesche is a traveler after my own heart, eschewing the comforts of the beaten path in search of the authentic adventure. All you need, he suggests, is ". . . a suitcase, a bit of cash, an occasional bus ticket, the intention to move on. Such simplicity appeals to me."
Wandering ever southward, Langewiesche follows ancient caravan routes to exotic-sounding oases: Ghardaia, El Golea, In Salah. Mixing in history, folklore, and personal observations, he spins a compelling tale of life in these remote lands.
To the south of the Sahara lies the Sahel, the drought-ravaged savanna of Niger, Burkina Faso, and southern Mali. To get there, you must first run the corruption gauntlet at each border crossing: "Those soldiers . . . rummaged through our personal luggage. They did not steal. When they found something that pleased them, they had the manners to ask for it as a gift. . . . From me they took the small stuff-pens, batteries, rolls of film. We spent the night. The search continued the following day."
Cross into Niger, and you will find the first highways you have seen in weeks. The emotions are varied and contradictory: relief at having survived, giddy anticipation of a real hotel with a (gasp!) hot shower, the exhilaration of having completed a marathon, the poignancy accompanying the end of an odyssey.
When my Sahara sojourn was finished, I was more than ready to come home to the land of the familiar. When Sahara Unveiled ended, I wanted to keep on reading.
P.S. We still haven't made it to Japan.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.