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Cruelest Journey: Six Hundred Miles To Timbuktu | 
 enlarge | Author: Kira Salak
Publisher: National Geographic
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 156279
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1
ISBN: 0792274571
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.4
EAN: 9780792274575
ASIN: 0792274571
Publication Date: November 1, 2004
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Shipping: International shipping available
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Book Description
Kira Salak is a young woman with a history of seeking impossible challenges. She grew up relishing the exploits of the great Scottish explorer Mungo Park and set herself the daunting goal of retracing his fatal journey down West Africa's Niger river for 600 miles to Timbuktu. In so doing she became the first person to travel alone from Mali's Old Segou to "the golden city of the Middle Ages," and, legend has it, the doorway to the end of the world. In the face of the hardships she knew were to come, it is amazing that she could have been so sanguine about her journey's beginning: "I have the peace and silence of the wide river, the sun on me, a breeze licking my toes, the current as negligible as a faint breath. Timbuktu seems distant and unimaginable." Enduring tropical storms, hippos, rapids, the unrelenting heat of the Sahara desert and the mercurial moods of this notorious river, she traveled solo through one of the most desolate regions in Africa where little had changed since Mungo Park was taken captive by Moors in 1797. Dependent on locals for food and shelter, each night she came ashore to stay in remote mud-hut villages on the banks of the Niger, meeting Dogan sorceresses and tribes who alternately revered and reviled her- so remarkable was the sight of an unaccompanied white woman paddling all the way to Timbuktu. Indeed, on one harrowing stretch she barely escaped harm from men who chased her in wooden canoes, but she finally arrived, weak with dysentery, but triumphant, at her destination. There, she fulfilled her ultimate goal by buying the freedom of two Bella slaves with gold. This unputdownable story is also a meditation on self-mastery by a young adventuress without equal, whose writing is as thrilling as her life.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 A kayak and a big river August 5, 2008
Following in the footsteps of Scottish explorer Mungo Park, who traversed the land and the river in the eighteenth century, Salak sets out to kayak down the Niger River in the west African country of Mali. Unlike Park's ill-fated -and ultimately fatal- journey, Salak makes it to Timbuktu, the ancient "city of gold" right below the Saharan desert. Her journey was funded by the National Geographic Society, and she often runs into the hired photographer who is documenting her travels at stops along the river. She sets out from Old Segou with only a few vocabulary words of local tribal languages and a working knowledge of French. She has her inflatable red canoe, and a backpack of supplies.
Salak's writing style is very engaging - her strength and her fortitude come across in her writing, though never with a tone of arrogance. Each trial or trouble she encounters (and they are many: ripping a bicep muscle on the first day, hostile tribes, hippopatomi, dysentery) is documented clearly and unbiased. Any other person would have called it quits - but Salak finds courage and prevails in all of the circumstances.
Interwoven throughout her own narrative, Salak recounts Park's journey, over two hundred years before her own. Park was taken hostage, many of his crew members died, and he eventually died, although the circumstances surrounding his death are unclear. Salak relies on Park's diaries and determines that while they are from centuries ago, many of the stories hold true: other places have changed, but this region of Africa has largely remained the same.
My only criticism of the book is that this incredible journey is condensed into a rather small book. I would have enjoyed more passages about the river itself, describing the geography, the biology, and the life of this body of water. The river is undoubtedly a character in the book, but it is largely unknown to the reader - a looming figure that is left a mystery. Perhaps this was done consciously, showing that the river cannot be understood or predicted. The other complaint comes from the last chapter: when Salak arrives in Timbuktu, she makes it her mission to free two "slave" women (they work without compensation and are fully abused by their masters, yet the Malian government refuses to call it "slavery", despite this whole caste of people - the Bella - being continuously subjugated) from their Tuareg masters. She describes how this has been one of the missions of the whole trip. Then why did she mention it for the first time in the last 10 pages of the book? As a reader, I felt a little cheated for not knowing this earlier... that should have been something talked about at the beginning of the account. Her work is admirable, without a doubt, and she does "free" two women and gives them gold coins in order to start their own business. This whole encounter is discussed so quickly, that it almost seems like a gloss-over of the whole practice. Salak has to know that giving these women a gold coin is not going to make their life better; that being said, I am not discounting her action. One woman cannot go up against hundreds of years of the "peculiar institution" in a slowly developing country. I do wonder what happened to those two women after Salak left them in Timbuktu, only minutes after "freeing" them.
Salak's amazing journey left me hungry for more adventure - luckily she has a few more books on her other travels. She is a strikingly brave and courageous person, and a good writer too. I look forward to more.
 Plus ca change.... January 14, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Salak does a beautiful job of meshing her on-the-spot adventures with those of her mentor, Mungo Park. Although he died mysteriously on the journey after passing Timbuktu, the power of his experiences call to her out of the gap of 400 years through his writings. After reading this excellent travel account, I see that many things too often remain the same along the Niger: hatred by the Moor towards the non-Muslim to the point of physical torture and robbery, clitorodectomy for 90% of the women, slavery in Mali (where it is officially outlawed). Of course the Niger itself remains the same, too, and Salak has to contend with its gods the way Park did: they send unbearable heat, rain unlike any she has experienced, hunger....Because of her extraordinary sensitivity, the reader learns to absorb it all. Caroline Alexander's account of her retracing of Mary Kingsley's W. African journey in "One Dry Season" would be a good book to follow this account on one's bedside table.
VERY interesting journey through Mali, Africa by kayak October 17, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book was very interesting and hard to put down because I was anxious to see what adventures lie ahead on the Niger River. The only thing I was disappointed in is that the author continued to hand out money perpetuating the problem of the locals thinking they can beg for money from anyone white. I just returned from South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe and, after reading this book, I can say I am EXTREMELY glad I did not travel to Mali! The hostilities, extreme poverty, slavery, and human mutilation she witnessed in Mali would've been depressing but at the same time I think it's something we should all learn about. I enjoyed the book so much I'm ordering her "Four Corners" book today. There are no photos in the book except for a small one of the author on the book cover. If you want to see the photos of her journey, you'll have to go onto the National Geographic site or do an internet search for Kira Salak.
I Couldn't Put It Down, March 25, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book is many things. It's an adventure story. It's a geography lesson. It's a study in anthropology. It's an exposition on the mindset of an explorer.
Mostly, it's a well-written tale of an American woman, Kira Salak, and her quest to continue living an extraordinary life. "If a journey doesn't have something to teach you about yourself, then what kind of journey is it?" she writes. This book takes us along for the ride. The tone is conversational, very readable, honest, and refreshing.
The Cruelest Journey is aptly named. Indeed, Salak recounts a grueling journey inside an inflatable red kyak, 600 miles along the Niger River in the West African country, Mali. She encounters both friendly and hostile villagers, calm and stormy weather, hunger, injury, sickness, potentially dangerous hippos, and incredible uncertainty. Using the Scottish explorer, Mungo Park, as a mentor of sorts, she attempts to reenact his adventure some 200 years earlier. She finds that not a lot has changed from what she read in his memoirs, which she holds close throughout the trip and quotes often.
Before I picked up this book, I didn't know where to point on a map to tell anyone the location of Timbuktu. It's a mysterious place, often used to describe the outskirts of the world. Salak's journey doesn't dispel this myth.
I found this story fascinating and highly recommend it.
Michele Cozzens, Author of A Line Between Friends and The Things I Wish I'd Said.
In a kayak! March 17, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Salak not only takes the reader on a journey into the interior of Africa, but also into the jungles of the mind as she deals with her own feelings and impressions of what she sees and experiences during these many miles. Such writing - and sharing - is what makes for a travelogue more revealing and pleasurable than just words and pictures.
While in this instance, the publisher chose not to include pictures, photos were taken and can be found at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0301/photo_1.html
The National Geographic photographer, Remi Benali, had this to say about the experience:
"Kira and I made a deal that I would not interfere with her adventure-I had a big boat, with a crew. She had to experience Africa by herself. So we would only meet for a few hours every four days.
"As you can see, everybody's on the banks of the river, looking at her leaving. It's so interesting for them-it's the first time they've seen such a kayak. The first time I saw it, I thought, She's not going to make it! It's too small, like a toy."
*********
I'm glad Kira Salak made it.
And I'm glad National Geographic at least made those photos available on-line, if not in the book. It was nice to be able to glimpse some of the scenes she described in her compelling writing.
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