A tramp across Africa

 

A review of Walking the Nile by Levison Wood, Grove Atlantic, NY, 2015

 

As the title indicates this book is a travelogue. Intrepid walker Lev Wood undertook to trudge alongside the Nile, as close as paths and roads permitted, from its initial spring in the hills of Rwanda to its delta on the Mediterranean Sea. All told it was a trip of 4800 miles and took eight months. Along the way, Wood met many friendly folks, some unfriendly ones, and a host of suspicious government officials. He was feted, praised, and welcomed in some communities and viewed cautiously or even hostilely in others. All asked, why would anyone, especially a white man, walk such a distance? It was puzzling.  Wood himself had no clear answer, except that was what he was doing. It was his adventure and quest.

Wood was in Rwanda twenty years after the genocide, yet the vestiges of it lingered. He trekked through miserable heat in northern Uganda and lost a companion to heat stroke. He found an ongoing civil war in South Sudan and had to skip a most dangerous section. He crossed the deserts of Sudan and Egypt. In Egypt especially he was frustrated by excessive suspicion and bureaucracy. Finally, he made it to the sea.

All told it was indeed an epic journey and Wood recounts it well – the trials, tribulations, inner worries, interactions with those who accompanied him and with people he met along the way. I know five of the six nations he traversed so I pulled out my maps and vicariously enjoyed the journey.