- Hardcover: 277 pages
- Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd; 1st Edition edition (27 Jun 1991)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0224027751
- ISBN-13: 978-0224027755
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14.4 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,719,034 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Trek
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Product Description
Book Description
Travel writing at its best - the gripping true story of disaster in the Sahara.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
Alan Cooper took his 1932 Morris Minor across the Sahara. The Mau Mau uprising was at its height when Cooper assembled his paying passengers at his farm outside Nairobi. The motely crew were unacquainted - a worldly field biologist of 40 who recorded the whole trip with her 8mm movie camera, a genteel schoolmistress of uncertain age in search of romance, and a 17-year-old boy whose mother had insisted the treck would make a man of him. While the strange quartet sped through equatorial Africa each sought to ignore other more sinister omens. But finally it was the desert that turned adventure into nightmare and brought British and French governments into conflict over the circumstances of rescue by the French Foreign Legion. The sequence of coincidences which led the author to uncover what actually took place is related in this story of how these four responded to each other and the appalling ordeal.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Trek is an excellent book. As well as being a factual account of a trek across Africa in the 1950's, it is a pacy thriller. Right from the start I knew something bad was going to happen to the four people who set off from Kenya to drive to London - but not what or when. We take for granted satellite navigation and mobile-phone communication - imagine travelling across the Sahara desert in a Morris traveller, using only maps, without any back-up vehicles or means of summoning help. Trek is full of carefully-researched information about the history and geography of the countries visited, which now look very different on the map. It interweaves the early 90s when Paul Stewart wrote the book, and the 50s - the information gleaned from diaries and interviews with the survivors is written as a story, so the reader is drawn into events as they unfold. I enjoyed the detail - the animals encountered along the way, the constant bugs, times when the luggage would crash down on the back-seat passengers as the car bounced across potholes. Details are also given of what happens to the body with extreme heat, and the process of dying of thirst.
Trek is a story of a disaster waiting to happen, and yet the saddest aspect of the story, the tragedy, is not that the travellers set out in the first place, but that they were so close to being rescued when disaster struck. How one person, the diary-keeper of the journey, came to be rescued, is a real tear-jerker. Trek is a fascinating read, a page turner to the end.
Trek is a story of a disaster waiting to happen, and yet the saddest aspect of the story, the tragedy, is not that the travellers set out in the first place, but that they were so close to being rescued when disaster struck. How one person, the diary-keeper of the journey, came to be rescued, is a real tear-jerker. Trek is a fascinating read, a page turner to the end.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book recounts an ill-fated trip in 1955, which is a classic example of British eccentricity which seems, very sadly, to be dying out now. The first part of the quartet's journey, leaving Kenya and then travelling through Uganda, Congo, Cameroon and Nigeria is a jolly traipse through colonial Africa, where the worst part of the journey is getting harassed by the nocturnal insects.
However, Stewart is setting us up for the downward spiral of events that occur as the little Morris leaves Nigeria and encounters the ravages of the Sahara. As the car gets repeatedly stuck in the sands, Stewart does well to convey the stiff upper lip attitude of the travellers as they refused to panic or despair in the face of the horrendous situation they found themselves in.
This is a nice little book, which benefits from Stewart's long held interest in this ill-fated escapade and the fact that he met two of the travellers at their homes in Kenya. The photos in the book (all taken by the quartet themselves) are an invaluable addition to help the reader visualise the highs and lows of this epic journey. Something that would have added to the completeness of the book, would have been some mention of what finally happened to the Morris (is it lying decrepit in some Kenyan farm building?) and also, if possible, some modern day photos or description of the area where the French Foreign Legion finally came to the rescue.
I also need to add that if you require a more compact (but much more sensationalist) account of this same journey, you should get your hands on the "The Wide World: True Adventures for Men" book, which is available elsewhere on Amazon.
However, Stewart is setting us up for the downward spiral of events that occur as the little Morris leaves Nigeria and encounters the ravages of the Sahara. As the car gets repeatedly stuck in the sands, Stewart does well to convey the stiff upper lip attitude of the travellers as they refused to panic or despair in the face of the horrendous situation they found themselves in.
This is a nice little book, which benefits from Stewart's long held interest in this ill-fated escapade and the fact that he met two of the travellers at their homes in Kenya. The photos in the book (all taken by the quartet themselves) are an invaluable addition to help the reader visualise the highs and lows of this epic journey. Something that would have added to the completeness of the book, would have been some mention of what finally happened to the Morris (is it lying decrepit in some Kenyan farm building?) and also, if possible, some modern day photos or description of the area where the French Foreign Legion finally came to the rescue.
I also need to add that if you require a more compact (but much more sensationalist) account of this same journey, you should get your hands on the "The Wide World: True Adventures for Men" book, which is available elsewhere on Amazon.
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