Books

We have been reading up on Africaaa! before the trip.  here's our recommended reading list.  rather sadly, whilst there is plenty of reading material about colonial Africa and African wildlife, there is very little written about modern African life and African cities.  Hopefully our blog will help to change that.

The Green Hills of Africa - Ernest Hemmingway
Out of Africa - Karen Blixen
The Shadow of The Sun, My African Life - Richard Kapuscinski
Another Day of Life - Richard Kapuscinski
African History, A very Short Introduction - John Parker
North of South - Shiva Naipaul
A Bend in the River - V S Naipaul
Dark Star Safari - Paul Theroux
Looking for Transwornderland - Noo Saro-Wiwa
Half of a Yellow Sun -Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela

Why oh Why?

Alex, my 21 year old son, has just finished university and announced that he's having a gap year. In the meantime I've spent a year trying to get my 1935 Buick - known as Rhubarb & Custard back on the road after an unfortunate accident in France.

It's obvious isn't it that the two were made for each other and so the idea of driving across Africa together was born - from Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania to Cape Town, taking in Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Swaziland and South Africa. A total distance of some 5,000 km in 27 days.

There are some known issues.  Alex has lived away from home for 8 years so spending all day every day together in an old car is going to be a bit of a shock.  Secondly, R&C is notoriously unreliable, it failed to complete the Peking to Paris Rally in 2016 as well as the Flying Scotsman in 2015 and the Blue Train in 2017. Thirdly, Alex has never driven R&C as it hasn't had a fuel tank or steering box for most of 2018 and now the car has been shipped and is currently in Saudi Arabia in the port of Jeddah.

Still, what could possibly go wrong! Apart from mechanical breakdown, getting lost, falling out, tropical diseases, accidents, kidnap, assault......