3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better than expected, May 10, 2005
I had low expectations on reading this book and was surprised that it turned out to be so good. The photos are excellent; Palin is amusing and informative. He is self effacing and likeable rather than being a movie star on tour.
Palin and a film crew spent 99 days -- in several trips -- to travel nearly 10,000 miles in the Sahara. Their trip starts in Gibraltar and continues in a big circle through Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Libya, Algeria, and back to Morocco. The Sahara countries they missed are Egypt, Chad, and Sudan. The book is in the form of a daily diary and Palin reports hilariously on the status of his bowels as well as the more touristic daily events.
Ninety-nine days of travel in an area as large as the United States doesn't permit profound insights -- and Palin doesn't overreach. Examples of the highlights of the book include a section on Niger where for a few days Palin and his crew live in the desert by taking a camel caravan into the formidable Tenere region. In Algeria he travels to the mountain refuge of a French missionary in the Hoggar, about where one would say is the exact center of the Sahara, and follows it with a visit to an oil field and its modern technology, green lawns, and technicians, Arab and foreign. He gives a good description of obscure and unknown Western Sahara where reigns a tense cease fire between Morocco and the Polisario. His attitude throughout is good-natured.
If you would like a quick tour of the Sahara, including the landscape, the people, the problems, the politics, and the economy, this is a good book. The high-quality color photos enhance the text.
Smallchief
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A few comments, January 2, 2005
I just had a few miscelleneous comments on this book.
Not being familiar with Palin's previous travel adventures I had no expectations about this book, but I was pleasantly surprised. If it's possible to write a witty, funny, and entertaining travelogue about perhaps the most forbidding and unforgiving place on the planet, Palin does it here in this very well done book. Palin's descriptions of the Sahara are interesting, informative, and sometimes funny as well. The photos are superb and really complement the text. Being a biologist by education, I knew that the Sahara wasn't a single unremitting expanse of sand waiting to trap hapless travellers or anyone foolish enough to try to cross it unaided, but I was surprised at the diversity of habitats, plants, and animals that can be be found there, not to mention the many tribes and cultures who live in and around the Sahara itself. Palin also gives you a feel for some of these cultures and their history and I enjoyed that too. Also I enjoy architecture and the photos of the mosque at Djenna are really stunning, truly an architectural flower of the desert if there ever was one. Overall, a fine book on this vast but still misunderstood area of the world.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good but not his usual great stuff, August 13, 2004
It really pains me not to give a Palin travelogue 5 stars, I just find this to be the weakest of an otherwise excellent lot. So the rating is more because Sahara suffers by comparison, buy the others first and save this one for last. Perhaps because in this travel Palin is a bit more confined in the range of personalities and cultures he meets? Still good stuff, but not great.
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