Product Description
Welcome to the ebook edition of Desert Travels, originally written in the mid-1990s. It’s about 99% identical to the paper edition which is now just about out of print. A few words have been added to help clarify what country or even what century we’re in, and the detailed maps on the blog linked below will be a great help in following each trip. Desert Travels adds up to a 250-page paperback, or around 70,000 words.
Currently, following nearly a decade of much increased trafficking, banditry and terrorist activities, as well as nomadic rebellions and not least the recent outflow of weaponry and disenfranchised fighters from Libya, tourism in the central Sahara has collapsed or has become severely restricted. But it wasn't always like that. The 1980s were a Golden Age of independent desert exploration; post-colonial nations hadn't yet been beset by internal strife, while the glamour of the original Dakar Rally, as well as the advent of desert-capable motorcycles and 4x4s saw adventure travel flourish in the Sahara of Niger, Algeria and Mali. It’s unlikely those days will return. For once I found myself doing the right thing in the right place at the right time.
Currently, following nearly a decade of much increased trafficking, banditry and terrorist activities, as well as nomadic rebellions and not least the recent outflow of weaponry and disenfranchised fighters from Libya, tourism in the central Sahara has collapsed or has become severely restricted. But it wasn't always like that. The 1980s were a Golden Age of independent desert exploration; post-colonial nations hadn't yet been beset by internal strife, while the glamour of the original Dakar Rally, as well as the advent of desert-capable motorcycles and 4x4s saw adventure travel flourish in the Sahara of Niger, Algeria and Mali. It’s unlikely those days will return. For once I found myself doing the right thing in the right place at the right time.
From the Author
In 1996 I was invited to write Desert Travels by the now defunct Travellers' Bookshop in Charing Cross, where I worked part time. It was a result of the popularity of my original home-produced guidebook, Desert Biking, which has evolved over the years into today's Adventure Motorcycling Handbook, now in its fifth edition - and also provided material for Sahara Overland - both also available on amazon.
The travelogue, Desert Travels - Motorcycle Journeys in the Sahara and West Africa is now finally available here and covers my first six desert biking trips, starting in 1981 with a clueless and subsequently aborted Sahara crossing on a ratty XT500 aged 21 - and winding up about a decade later with a long and fractious ride from Algeria to Mauritania via Timbuktu with 'Steve', before Algeria went down the pan in the early 1990s.
The travelogue, Desert Travels - Motorcycle Journeys in the Sahara and West Africa is now finally available here and covers my first six desert biking trips, starting in 1981 with a clueless and subsequently aborted Sahara crossing on a ratty XT500 aged 21 - and winding up about a decade later with a long and fractious ride from Algeria to Mauritania via Timbuktu with 'Steve', before Algeria went down the pan in the early 1990s.
But most of the book describes my original Sahara Motorcycle Tour of 1989 when I managed to scrape together half a dozen guys to follow me in a Landrover through the Algerian Sahara (so apart from the car, nothing's changed then!). As the back cover states - it was a tour from which only one rider returned still riding his bike...
The book is a paperback with some basic maps but you'll find 'Desert Travels; the Mis ing Pictures' on my adventure-motorcycling website.
One day I'll get around to D Travels II. There's certainly another book's worth of yarns to be spun. Enjoy the book and the pix.
Chris S
