To Timbuktu

Twenty years ago, when the author and his best friend, Mike Moe, were eighteen years old, they lit out from Wyoming to explore the world They washed up in Africa and without forethought or planning set off for the most remote place on earth they could imagine Timbuktu Stopped by disease and the desert, they never reached the fabled city Nonetheless, that first journey taught them the meaning of travel that to be en route is important than to arrive, that where your body has been is secondary to where your heart has gone Fifteen years later they return to Africa, determined to reach Timbuktu But this time they will do so by water, attempting the first descent of the Niger River Both men are now married, their wives pregnant, their lives irrevocably altered from their days of youth With an intuitive African guide and two companions, they search for and find the source of the Niger River high in the mountains of Guinea The river immediately bears them into the heart of Africa, the Dark Continent they are attacked by African killer bees, charged by hippos, stalked by crocodiles, borne over waterfalls They pass through villages where every female child has had a clitoridectomy stumble upon a brotherhood of blind men living alone in the bush dance by firelight with a hundred naked women And yet even after successfully navigating the headwaters of the Niger, the author still has not reached the dream of his youth He then buys a motorcycle, rides alone through the Sahara, and enters Timbuktu, the mythical city hidden in a sea of white sand Throughout, the author interweaves the tales of his own journey with the stories of the early explorers who tried to reach Timbuktu,men of unconquerable will, vanity, and perseverance, who would die beheaded, speared, or eaten alive by illness. Read To Timbuktu – kino-fada.fr Mark Jenkins, Mike Moe and their friends John Haines and Rick Smith set off to Africa with the goal of reaching the source of the Niger river something sought but never quite accomplished by other famous explorers such as Mungo Park Mark and Mike leave wives pregnant with their first children From the start of the journey, the men find themselves flying downstream on a swift current heading for a wall of brush and trees blocking their progress Mark and Mike find ways through but John and Rick...I gave this two stars meaning it was ok because there were some interesting moments, and I did actually finish the book But most of the time I was either angry, cringing, or laughing at things that weren t supposed to be funny The guy isn t shy about being top dog I would love to travel the river between the Fouta Dialon in Guinea to Bamako with a series of local guides It wouldn t have been that difficult to arrange and you wouldn t need to smuggle guns into Guinea to do it But then I I gave this two stars meaning it was ok because there were some interesting moments, and I did actually finish the book But most of the time I was either angry, cringing, or laughing at things that weren t supposed to be funny The guy isn t shy about being top dog I would love to travel the river between the Fouta Dialon in Guinea to Bamako with a series of local guides It wouldn t have been that difficult to arrange and you wouldn t need to smuggle guns into Guinea to do it But then I guess you wouldn t be able ...I liked the journey but grew irritated with the narrator Mr Jenkins had such contempt for two other fellow travelers because they didn t want to participate in the sophomoric highjinks that he and his best friend pulled It seemed that Jenkins and his friend were either thinking about their pregnant wives or trying to get themselves killed so that they could not return He puts himself in the foreground while othe...An oddly disjointed book Jenkins calls this To Timbuktu , but after a book spent kayaking the Niger, he actually gets to Timbuktu by motorbike, and only for a couple of pages.In the end, not a bad book about kayaking and about the sensations of travel, but while Jenkins is sympathetic to the Africans he encounters, he has no real grasp of culture or history He s going to Timbuktu only as an excuse to kayak the Niger the city and its setting are irrelevant.A bit too much Outside hipster An oddly disjointed book Jenkins calls this To Timbuktu , but after a book spent kayaking the Niger, he actually gets to ...A true adventure story, replete with scary moments and the inevitable contention among participants with different goals I very much enjoyed the stories of past explorers to the region, which added a heartrending historical prospective to the search for Timbuktu I admit that I will never un...When I was younger and the world was larger, I heard Timbuktu with various spellings mentioned muchoften, generally in the context of the back of beyond, the ends of the earth, a place so far away that you would have to travel into and out of the heart of darkness just to get there Now, the world is much smaller, there are fewer blank places on the map not counting a section of New Jersey and if you want to visit Timbuktu, just go to Google Earth, type in Timbuktu, Mali, hit enter, When I was younger and the world was larger, I heard Timbuktu with various spellings mentioned muchoften, generally in the context of the back of beyond, ..._To Timbukutu_ by Mark Jenkins is an enjoyable and quick read,adventure travel writing than anything though with some history and a little commentary woven through it Essentially, the book is one main narrative interspersed with two other narratives The heart of the book is the account of how the author and three of his friends reached the head of the Niger River in West Africa and were able to journey down its most dangerous sections in kayaks, starting where the river was barely large _To Timbukutu_ by Mark Jenkins is an enjoyable and quick read,adventure travel writing than anything though with some history and a little commentary woven through it Essentially, the book is one main narrative interspersed with two other narratives The heart of the book is the account of how the author and three of his friends reached the head of the Niger River in West Africa and were able to journey down its most dangerous sections in kayaks, starting where the river was barely large enough for their one man boats, contending with rapids, waterfalls, debris in the water, wild ...There are some real great moments in this book that makes me crave the kind of whole hearted adventure that Mark is known for There s a paragraph in the book that describes the youthful adventurer which I found revealing and also slightly disheartening Wondering whether I am no longer able to travel freely and spontaneously as I once did in my youth It was January 1977 Mike and I were both 18 Of course we didn t know it then, but there are only certain times in your life when you can do cer There are some real great moments in this book that makes me crave the kind of whole hearted adventure that Mark is known for There s a paragraph in the book that describes the youthful adventurer which I found revealing and also slightly disheartening Wondering whether I am no longer able to travel freely and spontaneously as I once did in my youth It was January 1977 Mike and I were both 18 Of course we didn t know it then, but there are only certain times in your life when you can do certain things If you don...Amazing It s kinda cliche, but it s all about the journey, not the destination Jenkins devoted roughly two pages to the destination , but the entire book about the joyrney Basically, he decided to lead the team to be the first to run from the headwaters of the Niger all the way to Tibuktu Crazy rebels, crocodiles, hippos, nasty diseases, and all sorts of stuff stood in their way but they made it though and learned a lot about themselves along the way As I ve written before, I can t get enou Amazing It s kinda cliche, but it s all about the journey, not the destination Jenkins devoted roughly two pages to the destination , but the entire book about the joyrney Basically, he decided to lead the team to be the first to run from the headwaters of the Niger all the way to Tibuktu Crazy rebels, crocodiles, hippos, nasty diseases, and all sorts of stuff stood in their way but they made it...This isof an adventure story than a book on the culture of Mali, despite its title While the author s goal of being the first men ever to kayak the Niger River from source to end is extremely impressive, I had a hard time liking the author himself I felt like he took some really stupid risks that would only cross the mind of a 20 year male the problem is, of course, that Jenkins is not that The writing is very fragmented, and I couldn t figure out why he kept flashbacking to any earli This isof an adventure story than a book on the culture of Mali, d...

• English
• 25 November 2017
Mark Jenkins
• Hardcover
• 224 pages
• 0688115853
• Mark Jenkins
• To Timbuktu