 LOST
OASIS; In Search of Paradise ~
Robert Twigger (W&N, 2007)
Robert
Twigger packs it all into a
container and moves the family
to his wife's native Cairo where
the money will go further. With previous
adventures and books to his credit
he soon acquaints himself with the
historical and geographical treasures
to be found in the Libyan Desert and
sets about a new project; to track
down the lost oasis of Zerzura. As
a motive it may have helped hook
his publishers and accounts for the
corny title (here's another
'Lost Oasis' book
on Zerzura) but it's really about the
author's more tangible discovery of
the Sahara, and as such is
much more interesting.
Our man
is a candid correspondent which makes
it easy to criticise him as being sometimes
naive in Cairo's shark infested streets,
but this quality also draws you into
the book. He tries to drum up like-minded
explorers but mostly ends up with shysters
who shaft him with a smile. Averse
to noisy, polluting cars and the complexities
of camel handling, he builds the trolley
pictured on the front cover to explore
the desert independently
and at a natural pace. Unsure how far
that will get him he also joins a tour
led by the
notorious Colonel Mestekawi (pseudonymed
in the book) to the New Cave in the Gilf,
a discovery Twigger seems oddly unimpressed
by. During the trip he vividly describes
the illicit satisfaction in finding Stone
Age artifacts (outlawed on Mestekawi
tours, along with much less controversial
activities) and on a later tour neatly
segues finding a long sought after fossilised
shark's tooth with 'power objects' and
a failed attempt at networking at
a literary launch in London.
Following
the tour he
recognises the advantage for a decent
4WD while acknowledging they can 'get
between you and the desert'. A clapped-out
Toyota takes him on a weekend's dune-bashing
with some ex-pats, and later to the Djara
Cave where he quickly learns the realities
of desert driving.
As illuminating
as his desert travels (which actually
are not that far reaching but follow
closely what most beginners go through)
are the mind-boggling frustrations of
simply dealing with life in Cairo, such
as independently buying a flat (expect
the place to be stripped down to the
doorframes), getting a car or even just
driving solo around town when
you are not part of the pampered ex-pat
'petroleum' elite. A couple of days there
must make the peace of the Western Desert
all the more rewarding.
He may
not have got have travelled far and long
but with a boyish
enthusiasm he certainly gets to the nub
of the desert's appeal while front-pointing
up a steep learning curve. The whole
thing comes across with a refreshing
authenticity you can't ascribe to all
travelogues. The book winds up with a
checkpoint-dodging test run of the water-portaging
trolley out of Dakhla. After all the
frustrations and false starts he answers
his companion's idle query about finding
the elusive 'Zerzura': ~"We already
have." Well
worth a read this one when it comes out
in paperback.
|
 DESERT
DIVERS ~ Sven
Lindqvist (GRANTA, 2000)
As
a young boy Sven is captivated by a
rare Swedish travelogue describing
the well diggers of Touggourt in Algeria.
Later on he becomes influenced by the
writings of André Gide and other
literary types who also spent time in
North Africa. And so it seems a rather
lame deal is struck with his publisher:
go to North Africa, retrace the
travels of some of these writers and
cook up a polemical Sahara travelogue
on the way.
As a
selective literary colonial history of
North Africa the book is OK. After skimming
over St Exupery (which proves the author
does not get the desert) he finds himself
to Smara in the midst of the Polisario
war while following Michel Vieuchange
who arrived after much hardship and increasing
self delusion in 1930, disguised as a
woman. The quest for Smara matched Timbuktu
or Mecca at that time and Vieuchange
spent just three hours there before dying
on the way back to Europe. Lindqvist
seems no more impressed with the place
after a less strenuous journey, tellingly
quoting Vieuchange "Decisions
are made in Paris. They
are carried out in the Sahara" Perhaps
this was his conclusion on the Desert
Divers project?
The Western
Sahara may not be the most inspiring
destination and to the author it's as
ugly and wretched as the romantic motives
of the nineteenth-century intellectuals
he catalogues. To underline their vanity
he details the mind-boggling cruelty
and atrocities committed by the French
across northern Algeria which occurred
right under the noses of the wandering
writers like Gide. The curious fantasist
Pierre Loti is ticked off and a couple
of chapters of this short book seem to
paraphrase Andre Gide's The
Immoralist.
Why? Probably because the author liked
him and the subject matter. We also get
a graveside visit followed by the received
text on the self-destructive life of
Isabelle Eberhardt. Adopting local male
dress and having turned native and Moslem
with a fanatical compulsion, she at least
gets off lightly in the author's critique,
being aware and rightly hostile to the
vicious colonial enterprise around her.
But
as a wilderness the Sahara really never
gets a look in. His travels in Algeria
get no further south than El Golea (another
dump, IHO). Worse still, some chapters
are separated by interminable short dream
or magical realist sequences - surely
the naffest literary device of all -
while important questions like "How many
muscles are there in a life?" are
pondered over with thankful brevity.
And the autobiographer in him can't resist
recounting a lame childhood anecdote
about how he was once lowered into a
well to retrieve a ball. He didn't nearly
drown but he could have done and it was
dead scary.
As a
description of the Sahara this book barely
bothers to scrape the surface - and as
a selective study of Saharan writers
it's lightweight and self indulgent.
I
wanted to be Saint-Ex, the flyer who
does not abandon a friend in distress
in the desert. I became Vieuchange,
the desert wanderer who lies his way
into continuing his journey, because
he 'had wanted it in Paris'.
|
 MEN OF SALT - Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold
Michael Benanav ~
The Lyons Press, 2006
There are few camel trading routes in the world. One of them is in Mali, and it stretches about 750km north from Timbuktu as far as salt mines of Taoudenni. A few western travellers have made the journey in the company of the salt caravans. Michael Benanav's book is a wonderful account of such a journey made in late 2003.
While there seems to be little shortage of slightly crazed travellers making their way to some extraordinary places, on this earth, it does not necessarily mean that the book produced is worth reading. Michael Benanav is a journalist with a flair for the descriptive, and for ensuring that his book holds the readers interest from beginning to end. He successfully blends some of the history of the route and the salt trade, some of his thoughts on the philosophy of travel, and provides an account of the trials, frustrations, enjoyment and the wonder of taking such a journey. He meets and travels with many people on the way - his guide, another traveller, the men who operate the caravan, the people of Arouane, the miners of Taoudenni itself and the nomadic people of the desert.
Michael Benanav makes a concious effort to travel with the camelliers and his guide, without any concessions to his western background, in the form of GPS, satellite telephone or special food. He takes the risks to get as close as possible to the genuine experience of travelling in the same way people have for hundreds of years. The difficulties of such travel, and the rewards of doing so are reflected in his account.
The author writes -"Despite all I had seen thus far, and all I had imagined, I was unprepared for the untempered desolation of Taoudenni. It is situated on utterly lifeless desert flats; not a single leaf, or even thorn, grows from the parched, crusty dirt, which was so sharp it bit into the soles of my bare feet."
Having travelled that way myself by camel, I can attest to the accuracy of the descriptions provided in his book of the scenery and people, which are true and evocative, without any hint of exaggeration. Whilst the description of the scenery is wonderful, it is really the interest Michael Benanav expresses in the people of this landscape that make the book such a strong account of his journey.
Benanav observes "I'd been deeply affected by my contact with the miners, not only because of their kindness, but because they'd taken this potentially hellish place and made it, if not heaven, at least human ..."
The reader is introduced to people whose way of life is so different from ours. People who rely exclusively on word-of-mouth for communication. People who dance and sing after a day's hard work in a salt mine at the end of the earth. People for whom an arranged marriage is normal. People who can navigate unaided across what appears to be featureless harsh landscape for days, and arrive at their destination as planned. All are beautifully described in this book.
Sensibly the book includes a two maps to illustrate the route and while the photographs in the book are interesting (both the colour plates, and monochrome chapter heading images), and add value to the book, the strength of the book lies in the writing.
The book is an excellent account of the author's journey, as well as being very enjoyable to read from beginning to end.
Alistair Bestow contributes to the 'Travelling by Camel' section of Sahara Overland II
|
 SAHARA
Michael Palin, 2004
Like 'Everest' and 'Yukon', the word 'Sahara' is a good selling tool for Jeeps, hotels, boots, you name it. Palin's book carries the name but, as anyone who saw the BBC series will agree, he spent little time in the desert, failed to get under its skin and instead concentrated on the less arduous and more social and photogenic aspects of West and North Africa. Fair enough, the product is MP not where he happens to be or who he's talking to (the book, not much deeper than the TV series, is packed with pics of MP here, MP there, MP gazing winsomely).
He
writes well (he got a cool mil for
the book alone), but for me this
sort of heavily planned faux travel
faintly pretending to be continuous,
missing key links and with paper
thin spontaneous encounters (like
Tom Sheppard) is for undemanding
Sunday night armchairs; Saharans
will be disappointed. There are plenty
of truly Saharan books below and
above and round the back but of course
'Sahara' was in the best sellers
for months. That's
show business.
|
 MYSTERIOUS SAHARA
Byron Khun de Prorok. Narrative Press
Byron Khun the What? I'd never heard of this guy in the annals of Saharan exploration, and a suspicion with some exaggerated and surely fabricated descriptions got me to search through my library and on the web.
Turns out he was an American with a Polish title who dedicated his early life to the exploration of 'mysteries of the ancient world', following an life-changing encounter with Shackleton as a youth. Prorok's African expeditions in the 1920s and early 30s (notably ancient Carthage) became the subject of several books which Narrative Press also publish, as well as a series of popular lecture tours, films and articles back home.
Mysterious is clearly written for a market hungry for more ancient treasures following Howard Carter's sensational discovery of Tutankamun's tomb in 1922. It starts off by reminding us how deadly the Sahara is in any number of ways, followed by an over-the-top description of the cave-dwellers of Matmata where the hyperbole starts to froth.
He then sets off south for the Hoggar, no mean feat in 1925 but nevertheless embellishing the landscape and events to Victorian literary levels. By chance he learns of the location of Queen Tin Hinan's tomb - the legendary ancestral mother figure of the Tuareg (that's Tuareg, not Taureg, as is irritatingly repeated in the no less lurid back cover blurb).
What follows can only be described as the looting of an ancient and deeply significant burial site, rather than an archaeological excavation, for Prorok's motivation errs distinctly towards gold, emeralds and glory in the Carteresque mold. (Interestingly Narrative have published a parallel account of the excavation by one Alonzo Pond, which the blurb says differs greatly from Prorok).
With
Tin Hinan crated up, we're then treated
to more impressions of the gruelling
desert and a fruitless rummage around
Siwa whose natives appear even more
degraded than Matmatan troglodytes.
Several near disasters, ambushes
and discoveries occur in between.
Note they are always 'near disasters…'.
A deadly and very rare lizard that
attacks him one night but luckily
is blasted to mincemeat by a shotgun:
sadly no remains for the esteemed
taxidermy dept. They go off to find
a legendary 'Temple of Doom' out
in the sands, can't find it but "we
know it's there". But what you can't
take away is that Prorok was out
there and doing it and in 1926 was
indeed the first to ransack Tin Hinan's
tomb at Abalessa, even if his partner
Maurice Reygasse may have been the
more archaeological of the two (Reygasse
went on to work with EF Gautier in
the 1930s).
Strange
then that Prorok (unlike his
contemporary, Richard
Halliburton)
seems so little known despite his
abundant energy for exploration,
publicity and self-promotion. According
to Lonely
Planet: Algeria our man was no
less than "...one
of the most intrepid Saharan travellers
of the 20th century". He
may have been more toff (in name
at least) with a romantic imagination
than a trained archaeologist, but
his knowledge of the great European
Saharan explorers' is more than skin
deep. The odd mistake is acceptable
and some lurid theories are of their
time, while the embellishment of
adventurous exploits is nothing new
of course. The mystery here is
as much Prorok as the enigmatic Sahara.
|
 SHADOWS ACROSS THE SAHARA,
John Hare
Possibly of pensionable age but with experience with Bactrian camels as well as living in Africa and speaking Hausa, John Hare sets off to traverse the great trade route from former Borno Kanem (northern Nigeria) to Tripoli. With him are his chums: an even older Kenyan farmer, a Chinese academic and the relatively young Johnny to do the chores, plus Tubu and Tuareg cameleers and two dozen camels.
The
organisation and permission for this
trip goes unerringly
smoothly - even the intractable Libyans
are up for it and so the guides and
camels turn up on time and the crew
sets off reversing the camel prints
of Hanns Vischer's 1906 trek (the
author's inspiration), if not Denham,
Clapperton and Oudney's 1822 expedition.
So far so good. But what should have
been a stirring account of a historic
trans Sahara trek plods along without
enough engagement. Interminable quotes
from Denham and Vischer fill the
gaps, but there is barely a conversation
recorded between the protagonists
(a Brit upper lip was stiffly maintained,
perhaps) while the local guides come
across as customary grumps.
Anticipated
highlights like the Bilma Erg slip
by in a couple of paragraphs while
the dreary Hamada el Hamra is built
up to epic proportions. One fails
to get an impression of what the
undoubtedly arduous three month trek
along a little-known Saharan axis
was really like, even on a practical
level. It all comes across as too
easy and repetitive - perhaps it
was, although it's interesting to
learn about the history of this trade
route and why it became depopulated.
It's on this level that the book
has something to offer, rather than
using camels as a mode of travel
in the Sahara.
|
TRAVELS IN MAURITANIA
Peter Hudson. Virgin 1999?
The only English-language travelogue to focus exclusively on Mauritania, this is a very enjoyable account of a journey through the Republic in 1988. His pace of travel is slow and absorbent, giving him plenty of time for wry but sensitive observations of the characters he meets, from the habitués at his Nouakchott hotel to the flirtatious daughters of the Governor of Tidjikja who also crops up in Desert Travels (see above)! From Chinguetti he takes a camel across the desert to Rachid, a 300km walk, "perhaps the hardest eight days I had experienced in my, up till then, not very hard life." Accompanied by his silent local guide and just two guerbas of water, Hudson has plenty of time to hallucinate and test his powers of endurance.
|
 THE FORGOTTEN PATH
David Newman, 1965 (o/p)
In 1959, with the French Sahara convulsed with wars of independence, Newman, an engineer who'd failed to launch "a product two years ahead of its time" jacks it all in to visit a friend in Nigeria. But unlike his friend, Newman decides to drive all the way across the desert - "the sort of adventure that had my nerve endings tingling". And to make matters harder he choses to do it in his new Ford Zephyr.
"In a saloon car it's impossible" his Nigerian friend urges him, having struggled there from Dakar in a Landrover. "I'll see you in six weeks" was Newman's firm reply. Trouble was he'd spent £3000 preparing the car, was running out on the HP, and was skint.
He belts sown to Agadir where his mind was set on taking the Piste de Mauritania (a little used overland route). Agadir had been destroyed by an earthquake a few months earlier and the stench of 10,000 still-buried corpses still filled the air. Here he takes a shine to an English relief worker and hangs around for visas.
The romance sours and he's turned back at the border near Foum el Hisn by the Moroccans where the FLN (sheltering in newly independent Morocco) and the French (clinging on to Algeria) were still battling it out. Infuriated by this reversal and convinced that his sheer determination and self-importance will win the day, he tries to bully people into overruling the decision, but eventually has to storm off to Oujda on the opposite side of the country. Here again he's repelled and so decides to charge illegally into Algeria "To hell with them. It was impossible was it? I'd show them whether it was!" And so he and his Swiss hitcher muddle overnight through machine-gun fire into French/Algerian territory.
He gets interrogated at Bechar, loses his suspicious companion and eventually gets permission to go west to Tindouf, alone. But it's August so he has a hard time of it; gets repeatedly stuck, gets lost, gets desperate and at times flips out. He shoots his soup can with his '45 and chases gazelles to exhaustion though the night - but then fondles them livingly. Arriving at Tindouf (then a military base) he's treated as a hero, given much free hospitality, admiration and a guide to Bir Mogrein ("my big worry - that he would smell - was completely unfounded"). Then the poor old Zephyr begins to break up: first the drive shaft, then the clutch, he gets one shipped up from Dakar but then the rally-spec engine blows up too. He flies to Dakar expecting the embassy or the Ford agents to bail him out, but merely gets repatriated 'on bail'. Back home, he borrows some money from his mother, flies back out with a new companion and engine bits, gets the engine rebuilt to then stagger down to Dakar, on the way exhausting his welcome with the French who now see him as an irresponsible scrounger.
His bad reputation rolls ahead of him like a bow wave and in the Gambia he's been forced to stay in natives' lodgings. The climate turns on them and at one point he threatens to shoot a ferryman who - of all things -requests payment to barge him across the Faleme river into Mali. Penniless and with his companion now struck down with fever, they lurch from village to lorry, scrounging fuel, tow starts and food. After Bamako it's relatively plain sailing to Nigeria (another engine in Ghana). but his friend has long since left. With his car a wreck the book ends with Newman boasting that he'll return north via the Hoggar route in summer. It's impossible, after all! If he did, there is not record of a book about it, The Forgotten Piste was published five years later when he was 35.
Even allowing for the era, Newman puts himself across bluntly like some arrogant rich-boy student thinking the world owed him and his 'impossible' undertaking, making even Geoffrey 'Fearful Void' Moorhouse look reasonable Time and again he boils over when friends, strangers, hotel staff or - for pity's sake! - his Britannic embassy refuse bail him out, and yet he obviously started the trip nearly broke with plans of 'selling film rights' while bouncing cheques wherever he could. It's this breathtaking arrogance and the lively 'what-on-earth-could-happen-next' pace that drives you through this short book. One admires adventurousness of course, but the guy comes across as the most obnoxious twat that deserves everything he gets. On another level it is a good warning on what to expect of the Sahara in a 2WD saloon in summer. Available on the web for a couple of quid used.
|
 GRAINS OF SAND
Michael Buckley
Starting in Chad, a former BBC journalist alluding to a mid-life crisis, travels on and off for two years, tracing the bands of desert which ring the globe around each hemisphere. Leaving N'Djamena at the height of summer, he struggles up to Bardai in the company of war-grizzled Tubu, and then through the Air to Iferouane with similarly combat-fatigued Tuaregs, returning to Agadez to stagger around with a camel for a few days. Timbuktu is reached aboard a pinasse from Mopti, and in Mauritania he claims to climb Guelb er Richat with his newly-wed wife, though it reads like they never got out of St Louis. The Guelb account is either invented or exaggerated for literary effect (the reality as some of us may know, is rather disappointing). Other deserts in southern Africa, Chile, Mexico and southwest America. Australia, China, India and the Middle East see the book finish up in Israel. What must have sounded like a cracking proposal to a publisher largely fails to satisfy desert lovers. Over a third of the book covers Chad and Niger, and in the Air one learns much about the disastrous failure of the Tuareg rebellion. However Timbuktu is reached but not described by a single word, while an extraordinary country like Mauritania spans just three paragraphs! (OK, it was his honeymoon but it would have been better deleted). Confessing to disapproval with materialist Western ways, the sanitised New World deserts are briefly, dutifully and at times scornfully described, and yet there is no doubt these places are as beautiful and alluring as the "quintessential" Sahara.
One gets the impression that, after burning himself out in Chad and Niger, the author loses enthusiasm and energy for the whole idea and, with a brief recovery in China and the Indian subcontinent, just does what it takes to complete his ambitious assignment. The result is another white middle-class romantic's travelogue, cataloguing the familiar range of encounters with locals, sun-fried ex-pats and fellow travellers we know so well. Roll on the 'Glasgow School' of British travel writing!
Most of his visits are at the height of summer. The reasons for this timing are not fully explained, but one suspects a "narcissistic masochism" was at play, along with a belief that the full power (if not appreciation) of a desert must be experienced at it's most extreme. What bollocks. I look forward to Ranulph Fiennes' next book about walking to the South Pole in winter! We also get the familiar plea for the futures of beleaguered nomadic tribal peoples - but as Michael Asher puts it in conversation with the author, this is "a rich man telling poor people they are better off poor".
But one thing Michael Buckley has a good crack at (improving greatly on Geoff Nicholson's limp 'Day Trips in the Desert' which came before) is unravelling the desert's paradoxical fascination on our skewed western imaginations, the "instinctive discomfort and fear alongside exhilaration, aesthetic ecstasy and awe." Here, over a couple pages, he succeeds in getting to the heart of the matter.
In the end any travelogue relies greatly on the reader's empathy with the narrator, but also on their diligence, at best offering an expansion of the reader's understanding of an exotic or familiar environment. After a promising start the ambitious concept of 'Grains of Sand' quickly looses steam.
|
 LIBYAN SANDS
Ralph Bagnold (IMMEL 1993)
Ralph Bagnold really was quite an exceptional guy and Libyan Sands must be the best Saharan yarn written by a Brit (although he did not consider it the Sahara - see Warm Deserts, below). It describes his motor-car adventures and explorations in the Libyan Desert while stationed in Egypt in the 1920s and early 30s. Using Model T Fords loaded down at times with 150 gallons of fuel, Ralph and his chums spent every spare moment of leave exploring the Libyan Desert of Egypt and northern Sudan. His enthusiasm for (often literally) pushing the spindly, steaming Fords across uncharted ergs helped develop today's desert driving techniques such as sand ladders and low tyre pressures.
What is striking is that his passionate attraction for the desert is most contemporary, while his energy and curiosity led, among other things, to The Physics of Blown Sand, the definitive account of sand formations and features - for geology graduates only. Bagnold comes across in the much-admired mould of the self-effacing Brit hero, never complaining or boasting while enacting extraordinary feats of exploration. The book includes his potted history of the exploration of the Libyan Desert up to that time, as well as a prescient spin on the enduring Zerzura legend. An underrated classic.
|
 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL DESERT OF ALL
Philippe Diole, 1959 (o/p)
Philippe Diolé, a close friend and associate of Cousteau, made a solo camel and lorry journey to the Tassili N'Ajjer and the Fezzan in the early fifties. This was not a journey of science or exploration, it was made for sheer personal enjoyment. The book conveys this beautifully, recalling the impressions, exciting moments and deep moving personal thoughts encountered during the month long camel trek through the Tassili (including Wadi Djerat), accompanied by a single Tourareg guide. In the second part of the book, Diolé recounts one of the earliest visits to the amazing engravings of Wadi Mathendous.
The book's main appeal will be to those already having been to the deep desert. It is a beautiful clear distillation of the emotions experienced by true desert addicts, that many of us are aware of, but so few of us have the ability to express in words. It remains one of my all time favourite desert classics.
Andras Zboray |
 FROM LIBYAN SANDS TO CHAD
Nigel Heseltine, 1960 (o/p)
Of the same era but less petulant than Newman, the author sets off on what turns out to be a vexatious journey across the Sahara through Libya to Lake Chad via the Tubu lands of the Tibesti and Ennedi. What makes this book so unusual in the era of unreviweably lame Travel Book Club adventures, is that the author is no fluffy travel writer, but a well-read if rather stroppy Theroux-esque character who does not spare those who irritate him.
His Jeep blows its gearbox south of El Gatrun and he is forced to travel on in a lorry and the chirppy M. Gautier in his Landrover. Having studied his Nachitgal and other material, the author explores the rarely-seen Tibesti Ounianga and the Ennedi and the customs of the wily Tubu. It a credit to the author's detailed research that its was used in the Saharan turkey Sahara , The Life of a Great Desert. Libyan Sands is about the best book available on the little known Sahara of Chad.
|
WIND, SAND AND STARS by
Antoine de Saint Exupery (Penguin)
Rather insulting to categorise this with the travelogues, this is an existential adventure classic based on the author's semi-autobiographical escapades in the early days of commercial aviation. This included flying mail across the dreaded Terres des Hommes (the Western Sahara) where you saved the last bullet for yourself. It features the almost obligatory near-death experience after crashing in the Libyan Desert. Along with Thesiger and possibly Monod (as yet untranslated in English - any offers?), Exupery remains one of the few writers who adequately describes the enigma of the desert's appeal. Heroic and philosophically poetic Man's Stuff: Hemingway with propellers and one of the best you'll read to capture the spirit of the desert.
To be reviewed one of these days: The Citadel - St Ex's posthumous oeuvre.
|
 DESERT TRAVELS, Motorcycle Journeys in the Sahar and West Africa
Chris Scott (Travellers Bookshop. 1997)
Always fancied taking your [bike] for that Saharan adventure? If so, this little volume is essential reading. In fact, it's plain good reading anyway, even if you hate motorcycling, because it is that rare and best sort of travel book, where the journey is one of growth and personal development. It would be easy to claim that the bikes are incidental, but that's not true; long-haul riders are a breed apart. Their best books offer history, adventure and a growth of understanding - as well as some daunting rides. Chris Scott's Desert Travels come high up on our list of Best Books.
Classic Bike Magazine
Desert Travels - The Mis sing Pictures...... Buy signed copies of D.Travels
|
THE UNKNOWN SAHARA
Laszlo Almasy. Bootleg translation by Andras Zboray. 40 euro. 109pp pdf.
The eastern Sahara's Libyan Desert (covering Egypt, Libya, Sudan), was one of the last corners of the desert to be explored and still remains wild and barely visited. In the late 1920 and early 30s - the Hungarian Almasy (a contemporary of Bagnold and Clayton and fictionalised as the 'English Patient') criss-crossed this region in then newfangled motorcars which enabled systematic exploration of this hyper-arid quarter.
The book tells the stories of his many feats in the region: the first drive to Kufra from the west, the clarification of the Zarzura legend, the discovery of countless rock art sites including the famous Cave of the Swimmers, were some of his achievements.
Almasy's enthusiasm and courage is inspiring. To be bombing around the most desolate corner of the Sahara in tinny Fords (2WD of course), dropping fuel and water here and there is quite a feat. You'll also pick up some interesting Sahara lore that is not found elsewhere - in English at least. The book could use a sketch map to point out his wanderings - even with three maps on the go I found it hard to work out where he was - especially around the Gilf.
That said, 'Unknown Sahara' is a desert classic finally available in English. Like Bagnold's Libyan Sands (see below), it reveals the very earliest days of Saharan motoring. Highly recommended. |
|
 IMPOSSIBLE JOURNEY
Michael Asher (Penguin)
Asher is a modern day Thesiger (Asher wrote Thesiger's biography), with a similar distrust of cars and a lov for the desert and its people. In 1986, accompanied by newly-wed wife, Marianetta (who photographed their journey), they succeeded in completing Geoffrey Moorhouse's failed attempt to cross the Sahara from Mauritania to the Nile. Unlike Moorhouse, the Ashers had worked in the desert for some years and the author was familiar with nomadic customs, selection of guides and the all-important purchase and care of camels.
Once underway they set a gruelling pace that even some of the guides found tough. The mentally disorientating ego loss and intolerable stress they experienced towards the end of their trek comes close to some of the eSheltering Sky's themes. It's as well to remember that countless Moors and other pilgrims may have completed the same crossing over the last thousand years. As one perplexed Nigeran border official ruefully observed: "What will you westerners think of next?".
|
SAHARA UNVEILED by
 William Langewiesche (Vintage, US only)
Having got to know Algeria as a commercial pilot (or so one presumes, we learn nothing about the author apart from the existence of a wife and son) William Langewiesche travels from Algiers to Dakar in the early 1990s, as Islamic revolution and Tuareg unrest spread paranoia along trans-Saharan Highway.
He revisits old friends, including the neglected and now destitute wife of a once respected Mr Fixit who suffered brain damage following a car crash with his mistress. Along the way we learn about former visits to the oasis of Adrar and Mauritania, cautionary parables à la Paul Bowles and deserty topics like dunes, rock art, Tuaregs (including the late Mano Dayak) and good old Foucauld.
Langewiesche's local connections provide him with a unique insight into the bitter unravelling of Algerian society. In Tamanrasset he takes an excursion east to explore some remote art, but is used as an unwitting decoy to enable his truly odious guide to smuggle in Libyan arms for the Tuareg cause. The festering acrimony between the two is laid bare after Langewiesche is abandoned in a canyon for a couple of days where he is forced to confront his own death.
Mirroring local attitudes, he writes without sentimentality about the Sahara and its inhabitants: wily opportunists, smug entrepreneurs, mendacious braggarts, 'Camel commercial' adventurers and sun-fried ex-pats. There's a lip-smacking 'I-told-you-so' sensationalism used to recount several tales of travellers perishing in the desert, embellishing the deadly glamour of the cruel Sahara.
Having crossed the Sahara and now without the privilege of local friends, the mood grows gloomier and possibly resentful as the author has to fend for himself and becomes preoccupied with the incompetence and corruption of the desiccated Sahel region south of the Sahara. Weakened by illness, the books speeds towards a quick end in Dakar. A back cover quote from Newsweek suggests the book "makes the desert's exoticism bloom…", it's a nice idea but incorrect. Langewiesche writes unsentimentally and with a sparse, gritty realism whether describing the futility of the Tuareg rebellion and overseas aid, the short-sighted 'Inshallah-syndrome' and, ultimately, the desert's relentless indifference.
Readers familiar with the Sahara will become easily absorbed with the many familiar characters and situations described during this unhappy episode of Saharan history and having travelled in the same area, I can testify to the authenticity of his observations. While Langewiesche prefers to remain studiously enigmatic and, at his worst, comes across as patronising and condescending (other tourists become an easy target as they did in Quentin Crewe's In Search of the Sahara) the book is true to its title and will be a compelling addition of any Saharophile's library.
Interview with the author |
