![]() Theroux gets into some hairy situations, and he ventures to inhospitable places – the real Africa, off the tourists’ well-beaten path. Why read a travelogue like this? For me, it’s an easy way to dip into the experience of travel (the good, the bad, the ugly) without any of the hassle or risk. Three of those four countries were on Theroux’s route south (see map below). I’ve taken three trips to Africa in my life: Namibia in winter of 1996-7, Tanzania and Kenya in summer 2002, and then South Africa most recently in the winter of 2011-2012. ![]() ![]() But this one has been on my shelf for a while, and I’ve been meaning to read it since it was published nine years ago. I’ve been reading a lot lately, but most of it has been for book reviews that will be published in upcoming issues of Earth magazine. I’ve enjoyed Theroux’s traveling writing very much over the years, and although he’s written some great novels (I’m thinking of Mosquito Coast), most of them don’t appeal to me as much as the travelogues do. The week before last, on the flight home from Texas, I finished reading Dark Star Safari, Paul Theroux’s 2004 account of traveling overland through Africa from Cairo to Cape Town. ![]()
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