Paul Theroux sets off for Cape Town from Cairo - the hard way. Traveling across bush and desert, down rivers and across lakes, and through country after country, Theroux visits some of the most beautiful landscapes on earth, and some of the most dangerous. It is a journey of discovery and of rediscovery - of the unknown and the unexpected, but also of people and places he knew as a young and optimistic teacher forty years before. Safari in Swahili simply means 'journey', and this is the ultimate safari. It is Theroux in his element - a trip where chance encounter is everything, where departure and arrival times are an irrelevance, and where contentment can be found balancing on the top of a truck in the middle of nowhere.

Dark Star Safari : Overland from Cairo to Cape Town

Travel

Theroux, Paul

Africa

Penguin Books

In the travel-writing tradition that made Paul Theroux"s reputation, Dark Star Safari is a rich and insightful book whose itinerary is Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town: down the Nile, through Sudan and Ethiopia, to Kenya, Uganda, and ultimately to the tip of South Africa. Going by train, dugout canoe, "chicken bus," and cattle truck, Theroux passes through some of the most beautiful — and often life-threatening — landscapes on earth. This is travel as discovery and also, in part, a sentimental journey. Almost forty years ago, Theroux first went to Africa as a teacher in the Malawi bush. Now he stops at his old school, sees former students, revisits his African friends. He finds astonishing, devastating changes wherever he goes. "Africa is materially more decrepit than it was when I first knew it," he writes, "hungrier, poorer, less educated, more pessimistic, more corrupt, and you can"t tell the politicians from the witch doctors. Not that Africa is one place. It is an assortment of motley republics and seedy chiefdoms. I got sick, I got stranded, but I was never bored. In fact, my trip was a delight and a revelation." Seeing firsthand what is happening across Africa, Theroux is as obsessively curious and wittily observant as always, and his readers will find themselves on an epic and enlightening journey. Dark Star Safari is one of his bravest and best books.

Dark Star Safari (Popular Penguins)

Penguin

The master travel writer provides an insightful account of his odysses down the length of Africa, from Cairo to South Africa, aboard a dilapidated bus, ancient train, and rusty steamer, describing the bad food, many delays, discomforts, and dangers of his trip , along with the colorful people and places of the real Africa.

Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town

Houghton Mifflin

In Dark Star Safari the wittily observant and endearingly irascible Paul Theroux takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry, and train. In the course of his epic and enlightening journey, he endures danger, delay, and dismaying circumstances. Gauging the state of affairs, he talks to Africans, aid workers, missionaries, and tourists. What results is an insightful meditation on the history, politics, and beauty of Africa and its people, and "a vivid portrayal of the secret sweetness, the hidden vitality, and the long-patient hope that lies just beneath the surface" (Rocky Mountain News). In a new postscript, Theroux recounts the dramatic events of a return to Africa to visit Zimbabwe.

Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown

History

Mariner Books

Emblem Editions

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Theroux, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Theroux, Paul

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Theroux, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Dark Star Safari : Overland from Cairo to Cape Town

Dark Star Safari (Popular Penguins)

Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town

Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown

Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town