Review:Dark Star Safari

Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux is a, somewhat pessemistic, travelogue recounting his overland trip through africa from Cairo to Cape Town in 2001, 35 years after he first worked as a peace corps volunteer in Malawi and Uganda.

Admittedly, the pessimism gets tiresome at times but often leads to some interesting insight, especially concerning the role of aid and development in Africa today. Refreshingly, he is fairly well read in regards to these topics during the trip, and cites several books for follow up (which I've since added to my list).

For those interested in a high level, American travelers perspective the changing Africa, or looking for a throught provoking travelogue that's slightly less humorous than those of Bill Bryson I would highly recommend this.

Some of my favorite travel oriented quotes from the book:

• "The best travel is a leap in the dark."
• "Traveling makes one modest - you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world."
• "I had no names, no contacts, just the idle wanderer's distinct confidence that having arrived here I was available for some sort of enlightenment; that I would meet the right people, that I would be fine."
• "You visit a place and peer at it closely and then move on, making a virtue of disconnection."