cover image To Timbuktu: A Journey Down the Niger

To Timbuktu: A Journey Down the Niger

Mark Jenkins. William Morrow & Company, $25 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-688-11585-2

Mark and Mike are friends, both skilled climbers, swimmers, boaters and explorers, who one day decide to find the headwaters of the Niger River and make their way to Timbuktu. So little is known about this river that it is still uncertain whether it runs east or west, but the dangers of the expedition are attested to by records of many who did not survive starvation, fevers, crocodiles, hostile tribes, heat. With two other friends and mountains of gear, including tents, medical supplies, guns and collapsible kayaks, they set out, leaving their pregnant wives, both of whom were about to go into labor back home in Wyoming. A skeptical but knowledgeable guide safely shepherds them through desert, jungle and native villages where tribal chieftains are hospitable. They join tribal dances, survive exhaustion, blistered feet and attacks from insects and bees and at last stumble on the tiny subsurface pool where the Niger begins. Following it to where they can launch their kayaks, they paddle for days down treacherous, crocodile-infested waters. Eventually bored and exhausted, they decide they've had enough, but rather than abandon their ultimate goal, the author motorcycles across the Sahara to Timbuktu. This is a gripping adventure filled with the ambiance of still-wild Africa, its villages and people, all elegantly described by Jenkins, an editor for Backpacker. Photos. (June)