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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An exciting story from an intrepid traveller,
By A Customer
This review is from: In Ethiopia With a Mule (Hardcover)
Dervla Murphy has to be one of the gutsiest travel writers around. Her exploits in this book include slipping down precipitous slopes and dangerously narrow paths dragging an unwilling loaded mule behind her, sleeping in flea and rat infested hovels, being robbed by armed brigands etc etc. Armchair travellers will just love it!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A thousand-mile stroll in the Ethiopian highlands...,
By John P. Jones III (Albuquerque, NM, USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: In Ethiopia with a Mule (Paperback)
A very gutsy woman, give her that at least, and an inspiring peripatetic who took so many of the world's paths less traveled. She's written books on her travels in the Andes, Madagascar, Siberia, and other exotic locals. But she first gained fame for riding a bike, leaving her home in Ireland, starting at Dunkirk, and following one of the traditional overland routes into India - alone, in 1963. Her book on the trip is Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle. Not that long thereafter, the lure of the remoter lands of the world called again, and she undertook the subject of this book, a solo walk with a mule in Ethiopia, for 1000 miles, during the first three months of 1967.
In the Prologue, she quotes Edward Gibbon on Ethiopia: "Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the Ethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten." And that is precisely the "charm" of Ethiopia for the traveler, if not the residents. It is quite different from all the surrounding countries, and, like Burma, in many ways an immense open-air museum. In the highland area of the country, the elevation ranges between 6,000 and 15,000 ft, overall a salubrious climate. She started her journey in the Red Sea port of Massawah, in what is now Eritrea. She did take a truck up to the highlands, and supplemented her walking with a plane ride and a journey in a Land Rover. She covered all the core sites of historical interest in the highlands, which include the steles at Aksum, the former capital of Gondar, Lake Tana, which is the headwaters of the Blue Nile, and Lalibela, with their famous churches carved out of solid rock. She is a reasonably astute observer of the people and the natural world. Injara and wat (the bread and stew) are the unique culinary staples of the country. The Coptic (Christian) clergy are dominate and the author notes that there are 70,000 of them, compared to only 70 doctors. Confirming my own experience with them, Murphy says: "It is unfortunate that so many tourists get their only impression of the highland peasantry from meeting priests as such places as Aksum, Gondar and Lalibela. Donald Levine has remarked with restraint that `though there are devout and kindly men among them, the Ethiopian priests have never been particularly noted for their moral qualities.' Exercising less restraint, I would add that the highland priesthood seems to attract the worst type of highlander- or rather to breed him since the priesthood is mainly hereditary." Concerning the practice that transcends religion, but is rooted in the area of the Eastern horn of Africa, what Murphy describes as the excision of the clitoris, (now more properly referred to as female genital mutilation) she discusses that the women are generally "less responsive" than European or American women, and she drolly says: "`Ethiopian men don't know the difference, but in fact they're biting off their noses to spite their faces.' Which observation tempted me to amend the old saying, but since it seemed best to keep the conversation on a scientific level I resisted the temptation." In the Epilogue she concludes with the remark: "A traveler who does not speak their language cannot presume to claim any deep understanding of the Ethiopian highlanders." And that is part of the problem with the book: it is a travelogue, with numerous incisive anecdotes, but without an overall conceptual structure. Bluntly, she did not seem to do her homework before arriving. Furthermore, I was disturbed that she always had to rely on "the kindness of strangers"; she could never saddle up her own mule, but had to rely on some man that she just met! And she must have caused significant anxiety in officialdom: an unaccompanied white woman traveling in a fashion that is not in a culturally acceptable fashion; a whim that had to be suffered until they got her safely out of their area of responsibility. I enjoyed five days in the highlands, in 1984, visiting many of the same areas, though Aksum was off limits, and Lalibela had just fallen to the Tigre People's Liberation Front. Ethiopia IS a fascinating country, and Murphy's account is a highly recommended introduction. Due to the shortcoming above though, I'd give it only 4-stars.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing,
By
This review is from: In Ethiopia with a Mule (Paperback)
This is one of the most delightful travel books I've ever read. Ms. Murphy is a fearless and intelligent traveler with a real gift for writing, and I don't know how you could beat that combination for writing about travel. She apparently routinely does things that no sane Westerner would ever try, making her something of a Crocodile Hunter of the travel set.
I'm eagerly awaiting my chance to read the rest of her books, and I doubt there's better praise than that.
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