Dark Star safari.Part 1

read this book a while back, Dark Star Safari- Paul Theroux, found it interesting thought I would give a short review.

Dark Star Safari is a book on Paul Theroux's travels from Cairo to Cape Town mostly overland (something I would like to do). He gives interesting insight of his view on Africa and Africans after almost 40 years of having lived and worked there both as an educator in Malawi (where he was thrown out after being accused of trying to help dissidents overthrow the increasingly dictatorial Kamuzu Banda) to Uganda where he met V.S Naipul and with whom he later fell out with.
The book takes to some very interesting parts of Africa where even most city born Africans have no idea exists. He also takes the reader on a journey through ancient Nubia whose cities are still being uncovered and people there are relearning their history.
He goes through Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya (where he almost got shot), Uganda, Tanzania,Malawi, Canoes (I thought that was really cool) into Mozambique and heads into South Africa.

Egypt.
Cairo is the first stop. He visits the Pyramids and meets/see and gives an interesting account of the diverse people that make Egypt from a Prince of Turkish descent,to Expatriate Europeans and Americans who always ask what he is going to do in Africa( forgetting, like a lot of people do,he notes, that Egypt is in continental Africa). He details his encounters with local intelligentsia, to the Nubians who mostly populate the Southern part.

Sudan

He goes to Khartoum where he meets and talks to the descendant of 'the Maahdi'. The Maahdi gave the Brits a hard time in Sudan when they were in the process of fulfilling their 'manifest destiny of empire'. He gives a vivid account of a Sufi ceremony on the outskirts of Khartoum, before he goes up North to what was Ancient Nubia.He comes across anti-George Bush sentiments and the yearning to come to America juxtaposed almost everywhere he goes in Sudan. He details interesting conversation on Sudan, Africa, USA with the Sudan literati and a Sudanese man who immigrated to the USA but comes to Sudan once in a while for business.

Ethiopia

Here he gives a most interesting account of the walled city of Harrar, where life seems to have stayed as it was during medieval
ages. Almost makes you want to go there and see it yourself. He gives some interesting stories of meeting with missionaries and making friend with an Ethiopian driver and his young son who drive with him all the way Moyale, Ethiopia.

Part 2 later



Author Profile
http://www.paultheroux.com/biography/index.htm

Book Synposis
http://www.paultheroux.com/nonfictio...tar.safari.htm