Travels in Africa: A Year by Land Rover Through the Great Continent

In 1987 Fred Abramowitz woke up and realized life was inexorably passing by. So the young lawyer did the dramatic thing: he left his job, flew to London, and bought an old Land Rover. He set off through Europe toward Morocco to traverse the Great Continent with little idea of what he was getting into. Short on cash, he imagined sleeping in tents and huts and eating from the local markets. Instead, what he encountered over the next year was a land of sand, mud, smoldering heat and humidity, and corrupt officials. But he also met a world of kindness, hope, and breathtaking beauty. The journey of a lifetime took Abramowitz across the Sahara to the Niger River and the West African coast, through the middle of the continent along the Congo River and then to East Africa and the birthplace of humankind. What emerged from these travels is a work of literature at once both absorbing and enlightening. "Fred Abramowitz joins a fearless sense of adventure with a genuine and kind way to interact with the people he meets on the road—if what he drove on can be called a road (and often it can’t). His keen powers of observation make this book a splendid tale, and his detailed and thorough research creates a rich unfolding of the history of the Great Continent; Travels in Africa will resonate with anyone who has ever felt compelled to truly explore an unknown part of the world." —Adam Robinson, editor & publisher, Publishing Genius Press “In this odyssey—part saga, part epic—Fred Abramowitz travels by Land Rover, on roads that he describes as devilish quagmires of mud and sand, from Morocco to Algeria, across the Sahara, to the bulge of Africa, then east, through territory evocative of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, to Tanzania. This marathon account (which actually begins in London), captures the day-after-day relentlessness of such an endeavor, while being shot through with vivid portraits of the motley array of Africans and Europeans he encounters, and his visceral response to the frustration and terror, the tragedy and wonder of this alluring, enigmatic continent.” —Judith Krummeck, author of Old New Worlds Read more