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Men of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold
In fact, there was no road at all, just an endless stretch of desert sand called "The Land of Terror" by the nomads who cross it, and described by author Michael Benanav with humor and startling insight in this compelling narrative.
Benanav joined what is known as the Caravan of White Gold—so-called because the salt was once literally worth its weight in gold—on its mission into the deadly heart of the Sahara to haul back gleaming slabs of solid salt for sale at market. He'd been seized by the idea after coming across an article about the dying days of the "It was that feeling known by those of us who don't so much take journeys as are taken by hearing the call of a particular place for a particular purpose that will not be denied. It was the kind of trip I was born to take."
Following his amused guide, Walid, Benanav lived for weeks among the camel drivers as they traveled eighteen hours a day for nearly a thousand miles without a map or landmark in sight, through sandstorms and searing heat. Along the way, he learned how to care for and ride camels, became a medic to injured salt miners, and grappled with the dilemmas of cultural extinction created by the ever-widening impact of globalization.
MEN OF SALT is a revelation, introducing an important new voice to the tradition of travel literature.
Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" Seasonal Pick
Benanav joined what is known as the Caravan of White Gold—so-called because the salt was once literally worth its weight in gold—on its mission into the deadly heart of the Sahara to haul back gleaming slabs of solid salt for sale at market. He'd been seized by the idea after coming across an article about the dying days of the "It was that feeling known by those of us who don't so much take journeys as are taken by hearing the call of a particular place for a particular purpose that will not be denied. It was the kind of trip I was born to take."
Following his amused guide, Walid, Benanav lived for weeks among the camel drivers as they traveled eighteen hours a day for nearly a thousand miles without a map or landmark in sight, through sandstorms and searing heat. Along the way, he learned how to care for and ride camels, became a medic to injured salt miners, and grappled with the dilemmas of cultural extinction created by the ever-widening impact of globalization.
MEN OF SALT is a revelation, introducing an important new voice to the tradition of travel literature.
Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" Seasonal Pick
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
12 people are currently reading
304 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
December 2, 2016
This book is amazing! Men of Salt is a role model of what every travel book should be, an exotic fairy tale, but real.
This book is amazing! I know I said it before, but I need to say it again - AMAZING! Men of Salt is informative without being overwhelming, imaginative without being falsifying, descriptive but not overly so, and so deliciously perfect it hurts. I learned so much about the Sahara from this book. It's all I've been talking about for days. I've gone over every sentence of this book verbally with my Mom, coworkers, complete strangers, and my indifferent cat, ( who has no interest in camels or deserts.)
I've never heard of the salt mines in Africa and had no interest in any deserts before this book. Now, I have the urge to run off to Timbuktu and join a caravan of camels to dig up a kind salt that I'm sure I've never tasted before in my life. O, what power the written word holds.
This book is a reread for sure.
This book is amazing! I know I said it before, but I need to say it again - AMAZING! Men of Salt is informative without being overwhelming, imaginative without being falsifying, descriptive but not overly so, and so deliciously perfect it hurts. I learned so much about the Sahara from this book. It's all I've been talking about for days. I've gone over every sentence of this book verbally with my Mom, coworkers, complete strangers, and my indifferent cat, ( who has no interest in camels or deserts.)
I've never heard of the salt mines in Africa and had no interest in any deserts before this book. Now, I have the urge to run off to Timbuktu and join a caravan of camels to dig up a kind salt that I'm sure I've never tasted before in my life. O, what power the written word holds.
This book is a reread for sure.
January 25, 2012
I love this book. love love love. The author portrays the Malians he meets with such candor and subtle love, which is exactly how everyone who ever spends time in Mali feels. His description of the trek across the desert, peppered with descriptions of the dunes to reflections on his meals, dreams, relationships, goals is so well done I am transported back to Mali (Peace Corps) and both thankful that I've been to Timbuktu so I have a sense of what he's talking about and that I will never, ever have to endure a caravan 2 weeks north of Timbuktu to know what it's like. I stop myself from finishing the book every night so I can look forward to one more day of the journey.
September 17, 2013
This is one of the best travel+adventure narratives I have read. A very enjoyable book to read.
Books of this sort ideally have a number of ingredients, ideally balanced so that the shifting back and forth between them isn't distracting (or even annoying). While the main focus is typically on the description of the travel in a narrative, the author needs to provide enough background about himself to provide the narrative context and to provide some historical and other description of where the travel is taking place (again, for context).
The trick is getting the balance right - many such books (in my view) provide too much historical background for the relevant region which often feels like it was copied out of other sources - you almost feel like you are reading a different book. This is not a problem here; Benanav takes a minimalist, but I think sufficient, approach. (I suppose it possible that some readers who are not at all familiar with this part of the world might want a bit more . . . )
In the narrative, ideally you have description of what happened in the different places along the way, and the people the author interacts with, plus some description of what the author learned, both practical and personal - that is all well done in this book. You get to share Benanav's distinct impressions of the people he met and spent time with in particular and his thinking about how they live.
It helps that Benanav writes well.
Towards the very end there are several pages where the author gets expansive in his musings about the significance more globally (literally) of some of what he has encountered that feels a bit overdone - I realized that it was jarring mostly because it confirmed that I was coming to the end of a book that I had enjoyed - one can't really fault an author for two high-flown pages out of 200+.
Books of this sort ideally have a number of ingredients, ideally balanced so that the shifting back and forth between them isn't distracting (or even annoying). While the main focus is typically on the description of the travel in a narrative, the author needs to provide enough background about himself to provide the narrative context and to provide some historical and other description of where the travel is taking place (again, for context).
The trick is getting the balance right - many such books (in my view) provide too much historical background for the relevant region which often feels like it was copied out of other sources - you almost feel like you are reading a different book. This is not a problem here; Benanav takes a minimalist, but I think sufficient, approach. (I suppose it possible that some readers who are not at all familiar with this part of the world might want a bit more . . . )
In the narrative, ideally you have description of what happened in the different places along the way, and the people the author interacts with, plus some description of what the author learned, both practical and personal - that is all well done in this book. You get to share Benanav's distinct impressions of the people he met and spent time with in particular and his thinking about how they live.
It helps that Benanav writes well.
Towards the very end there are several pages where the author gets expansive in his musings about the significance more globally (literally) of some of what he has encountered that feels a bit overdone - I realized that it was jarring mostly because it confirmed that I was coming to the end of a book that I had enjoyed - one can't really fault an author for two high-flown pages out of 200+.
Read
July 5, 2012"As though we'd entered a different room in the desert, the scenery changed dramatically. Here, rows of red sand ridges poured like ribs from both sides of a spine of ancient black rock. A few flat-topped mesas abruptly broke the northern horizon line, jutting more than a thousand feet from the desert floor....
".... Since we were in the midst of the most stunning terrain we had yet crossed, I asked Walid and Baba if they, too, thought it was beautiful.
"They each grimaced involuntarily, looked at me as if I were crazy, and simultaneously said 'No.'
"I'm sure I looked at them as if they were crazy, and Walid asked, 'Why? Do you?'
"'Yes,' I said, 'it's very beautiful. It's my favorite place so far.'
"Walid shook his head in befuddlement and the three of us laughed in mutual disbelief at the vast discrepancy between our impressions. For them, the most beautiful places in the Sahara are those where enough vegetation grows to support herds of goats and sheep and camels. Everywhere else is the region of death, too terrible to be beautiful. This was as profound as any other cultural difference between us, for I thought that the landscape surrounding us made a powerful case for the objective nature of beauty, which nobody could deny. We grew to appreciate this difference in each other, and it became the source of a comedy routine we'd enact when Walid wanted to make other people laugh: He'd mention this place and ask me what I thought of it. Happy to play my part, I'd praise it in the most poetic terms I could muster. Without fail, our audience would widen their eyes in surprise, then crack up at the fool ideas of a foreigner." pp. 113-114
"The next five days and nights [of travel with the caravan] were a grueling exercise in endurance....
"There were times when thinking about the rest of the day, the rest of the journey, became overwhelming. As I fought to put one weary foot in front of the other, to bear the sun staring me in the face, or to stay seated atop Lachmar [the camel] when ready to drop from exhaustion, it was impossible to imagine making it to the next camp, let alone all the way back to Timbuktu. In order to slip from beneath the crushing weight of future thoughts, I adopted a technique of focusing solely on the moment I was living. In itself, removed from the time line that stretched forward and backward from the present, no single moment was that bad. Perhaps I was walking under a starry sky at 2 AM; forgetting that we'd already been on the move for five hours, and probably had another twelve to go, I could find pleasure in being exactly where I was, right then. Maybe because I was so tired it was easy to achieve an altered state of consciousness; with a little focus I was able to travel through the desert as though in a temporal bubble, totally immersed in the present, as though past and future no longer existed. It became something of a spiritual practice - the transcendence of suffering by meditating on 'the now' - and I nearly signed on wholeheartedly to the cliched mantra of 'Live the moment.' Then I realized that, while I spent half my time doing just that, I spent the other half of the time escaping the moment - distracting myself with mind games, reading while I rode - and that that was just as crucial to maintaining my sanity." pp.164-165
".... Since we were in the midst of the most stunning terrain we had yet crossed, I asked Walid and Baba if they, too, thought it was beautiful.
"They each grimaced involuntarily, looked at me as if I were crazy, and simultaneously said 'No.'
"I'm sure I looked at them as if they were crazy, and Walid asked, 'Why? Do you?'
"'Yes,' I said, 'it's very beautiful. It's my favorite place so far.'
"Walid shook his head in befuddlement and the three of us laughed in mutual disbelief at the vast discrepancy between our impressions. For them, the most beautiful places in the Sahara are those where enough vegetation grows to support herds of goats and sheep and camels. Everywhere else is the region of death, too terrible to be beautiful. This was as profound as any other cultural difference between us, for I thought that the landscape surrounding us made a powerful case for the objective nature of beauty, which nobody could deny. We grew to appreciate this difference in each other, and it became the source of a comedy routine we'd enact when Walid wanted to make other people laugh: He'd mention this place and ask me what I thought of it. Happy to play my part, I'd praise it in the most poetic terms I could muster. Without fail, our audience would widen their eyes in surprise, then crack up at the fool ideas of a foreigner." pp. 113-114
"The next five days and nights [of travel with the caravan] were a grueling exercise in endurance....
"There were times when thinking about the rest of the day, the rest of the journey, became overwhelming. As I fought to put one weary foot in front of the other, to bear the sun staring me in the face, or to stay seated atop Lachmar [the camel] when ready to drop from exhaustion, it was impossible to imagine making it to the next camp, let alone all the way back to Timbuktu. In order to slip from beneath the crushing weight of future thoughts, I adopted a technique of focusing solely on the moment I was living. In itself, removed from the time line that stretched forward and backward from the present, no single moment was that bad. Perhaps I was walking under a starry sky at 2 AM; forgetting that we'd already been on the move for five hours, and probably had another twelve to go, I could find pleasure in being exactly where I was, right then. Maybe because I was so tired it was easy to achieve an altered state of consciousness; with a little focus I was able to travel through the desert as though in a temporal bubble, totally immersed in the present, as though past and future no longer existed. It became something of a spiritual practice - the transcendence of suffering by meditating on 'the now' - and I nearly signed on wholeheartedly to the cliched mantra of 'Live the moment.' Then I realized that, while I spent half my time doing just that, I spent the other half of the time escaping the moment - distracting myself with mind games, reading while I rode - and that that was just as crucial to maintaining my sanity." pp.164-165
July 21, 2011
There’s something so empowering about seeing the extraordinary in the everyday. Salt is something we so readily take for granted. Doctors advise us to limit it for the sake of our hearts, restaurants feel pressured to overuse it in a depressing attempt to please the ravenous appetites of over-consumption and greed, while artisans still rely on it to cure the meats and salt the fish that we nostalgically consume in a futile attempt to reconnect to a world of handcrafted dishes and face-to-face conversations.
I’ve never had a very good relationship with salt, so I thought that perhaps learning about part of its history would help me appreciate its place in my life. Although I must admit, I find it incredibly ironic that I’m starting my journey with Benanav shortly after deciding to eliminate added salt from my diet. In any case, thanks to Sherna Khambatta for recommending the book.
(To read the complete review, see http://www.uncustomarybookreview.com/...).
I’ve never had a very good relationship with salt, so I thought that perhaps learning about part of its history would help me appreciate its place in my life. Although I must admit, I find it incredibly ironic that I’m starting my journey with Benanav shortly after deciding to eliminate added salt from my diet. In any case, thanks to Sherna Khambatta for recommending the book.
(To read the complete review, see http://www.uncustomarybookreview.com/...).
March 17, 2010
I saw this book on display at the library and was intrigued by it. The author travels by camel across about 500 miles of open desert to a working salt mine. I was amazed at the skills of the guide, the serviceability of the camels, the know-how of the nomadic people. There is wonderful description of the desert, a bit of humor, and interesting cultural and historical information about that part of the world. Very readable, very enlightening.
July 15, 2016
Fast read for me! A good sign since I'm such a slow reader. A glimpse into a place I will never visit. Michael very respectful of all he encountered - people, environment, camels. Have discovered his photos on the web. Beautiful.
February 22, 2022
i read this to get a better understanding of my ap human geography class and i didn't like reading it at first, but i ended up liking the story a lot, although i would never take on that challenge myself.
June 26, 2016
Really fascinating. I missed my subway stop both ways because I was so engrossed. Particularly good background on Tuareg culture.
August 22, 2013
Con una carovana di cammelli da Timbuctu alle miniere di sale di Taoudenni.
August 1, 2019
Interesting, but not quite as riveting as I expected. The author came off a tad arrogant, and at one point immature with a bit of a rant as to how he was bored with his girlfriend of 4 years and would probably not go back to her. redeemed himself at the end with a humble conclusion.
Learned some really interesting facts about camels. Water is stored in their body tissues (not the hump, which is fat) and when faced with dehydration they tap this. Other mammals draw water from their bloodstreams which leads to death by volume shock. A camel can lose a third of its body weight with no ill effects, and then quickly replenish it by drinking up to 40 gallons in a single watering! All other mammals have round red blood cells which would burst if forced to absorb so much water. The canal has oval red cells which can expand as needed. It's amazing to me how animals have evolved in such diverse ways.
Saharans are masters of survival in their environments. They have an awareness of balanced consumption of natural resources, something which we have lost. "Unlike the Saharans, who know the need for balance with the natural world because they live in it, we live as though we're separate from it, immune to the repercussions of overusing it. . . If their ethic of mutual sustainability is a survival strategy, then ours is a suicidal strategy. If survival is the most hardwired biological impulse of all, we've got a short in our system. Our craving to consume, which in healthy amounts is critical to sustaining life, has hit pathological proportions." p. 73
I could really relate to this: the author says "I think back on the period of my life (age 19)
as a time when I was my most pure self, with both a solid sense of my core nature and a yet-untrammeled spirit of idealism."
And guess what; camels are far more profitable than trucks! Looks like the caravans will survive, yet I like when the author realized, he doesn't want the miners and traders to suffer and not enjoy the fruits of a modern world. They should be able to enjoy education, health care and not have to toil so hard.
I LOVE the ending where the author gets deeply philosophical on the fate of indigenous peoples, the loss of culture and language and the beautiful diversity that exists. He sounded a lot like a Baha'i and even wondered if there might be a divine plan to the path we are on; might speaking fewer languages help increase cross-cultural understanding? Etc, etc. Good stuff! p. 204
In conclusion, I learned a lot!
Learned some really interesting facts about camels. Water is stored in their body tissues (not the hump, which is fat) and when faced with dehydration they tap this. Other mammals draw water from their bloodstreams which leads to death by volume shock. A camel can lose a third of its body weight with no ill effects, and then quickly replenish it by drinking up to 40 gallons in a single watering! All other mammals have round red blood cells which would burst if forced to absorb so much water. The canal has oval red cells which can expand as needed. It's amazing to me how animals have evolved in such diverse ways.
Saharans are masters of survival in their environments. They have an awareness of balanced consumption of natural resources, something which we have lost. "Unlike the Saharans, who know the need for balance with the natural world because they live in it, we live as though we're separate from it, immune to the repercussions of overusing it. . . If their ethic of mutual sustainability is a survival strategy, then ours is a suicidal strategy. If survival is the most hardwired biological impulse of all, we've got a short in our system. Our craving to consume, which in healthy amounts is critical to sustaining life, has hit pathological proportions." p. 73
I could really relate to this: the author says "I think back on the period of my life (age 19)
as a time when I was my most pure self, with both a solid sense of my core nature and a yet-untrammeled spirit of idealism."
And guess what; camels are far more profitable than trucks! Looks like the caravans will survive, yet I like when the author realized, he doesn't want the miners and traders to suffer and not enjoy the fruits of a modern world. They should be able to enjoy education, health care and not have to toil so hard.
I LOVE the ending where the author gets deeply philosophical on the fate of indigenous peoples, the loss of culture and language and the beautiful diversity that exists. He sounded a lot like a Baha'i and even wondered if there might be a divine plan to the path we are on; might speaking fewer languages help increase cross-cultural understanding? Etc, etc. Good stuff! p. 204
In conclusion, I learned a lot!
June 10, 2020
I would rate this higher except for two elements: the author's worldview clashed with mine significantly on several points (for example, global warming worries weren't needed here [p. 73 & others]) and secondly, this book is NOT fitting for youth to read. The latter point is only a concern because it was recommended to me when I asked for literature recommendations for a year of geography studies. The theme goes very well with week 19 MFW ECC, as the prayer focus that week is on the "Tal-Kamashaq" people, the Saharan nomads who are called by their French name here, the Tuareg. The writing was very good for much of the book as far as a travelogue interweaved with history. But the author is an immoral, secular man who includes some crude language, body language, and s*x talk. In fact, after having prayed for these Saharans in our Bible classes, I felt a pang in my heart that a true Christian hadn't gone there and suffered for the sake of Christ at least as much as Benanav did to make Christ known to these people, that they might find a settled home in heaven and a joyful hope in their Savior. The author discusses at times their superstitions. Toward the end when a nomadic father puts a Spiderman shirt on his baby, the people believe perhaps the shirt will help protect the child from disease and death, partially through the author's misleading explanation of Spiderman. (p. 180)
For parents:
crude cursing 111
hell etc. 118, 127, 208
ass and the like 4-letter words 26, 32, 61-62, 202
genitalia or married life talk 35, 64, 101, 134, 145, 160, 187, 195-197
and I think I missed a few pages, I apologize. That's the blacking out I did in order to put it in the "book basket" for the kids' studies. Plus the mentions that he's been divorced, living with a girlfriend he's planning to break up with after this trip that I didn't black out. And the mentions of body functions, like relieving himself in the desert, etc.
For parents:
crude cursing 111
hell etc. 118, 127, 208
ass and the like 4-letter words 26, 32, 61-62, 202
genitalia or married life talk 35, 64, 101, 134, 145, 160, 187, 195-197
and I think I missed a few pages, I apologize. That's the blacking out I did in order to put it in the "book basket" for the kids' studies. Plus the mentions that he's been divorced, living with a girlfriend he's planning to break up with after this trip that I didn't black out. And the mentions of body functions, like relieving himself in the desert, etc.
September 7, 2019
An adventurous trek through the desert via camel. I enjoyed reading of the author’s experience, and even though I personally am not fit enough (or am too happy with an 8-hr night’s sleep and not certain to be as resigned as he to sand infiltrating every bite of food for 5 weeks) to make the journey as he did, I feel disappointed that I would never be welcome on a trip like this because I’m a woman and this sort of guided experience is only open to men. I rarely find myself completely barred from something because of my sex, so perhaps the uniqueness of that itself has elevated my disappointment more than is warranted for missing out on a month of sunburn and weary camel riding and drinking camel-spit water and eating goat offal. I did enjoy his tale, anyway.
The reason this isn’t a 5 for me is author’s attempt to rationalize the differences for men and women in the desert culture of Mali. Though I could see what he was getting at, understanding a ‘why’ of a very different culture, I lost a bit of respect for his narrative because he didn’t include any counter thoughts (I just cannot go all in on the idea of child brides even if an argument ‘for’ is that the 9yr old has the power to decline the match [yeah, right] and that it’s even necessary to wed 30 yr olds to 13 yr old in order to combat the country’s high infant death rates [but perhaps babies would live longer if their mothers were educated and older vs 13]?!).
Overall, romance (in the form of desert beauty) and discomfort and fortitude combine, allowing us entrance to a people and way of life very few of us will ever see first hand.
The reason this isn’t a 5 for me is author’s attempt to rationalize the differences for men and women in the desert culture of Mali. Though I could see what he was getting at, understanding a ‘why’ of a very different culture, I lost a bit of respect for his narrative because he didn’t include any counter thoughts (I just cannot go all in on the idea of child brides even if an argument ‘for’ is that the 9yr old has the power to decline the match [yeah, right] and that it’s even necessary to wed 30 yr olds to 13 yr old in order to combat the country’s high infant death rates [but perhaps babies would live longer if their mothers were educated and older vs 13]?!).
Overall, romance (in the form of desert beauty) and discomfort and fortitude combine, allowing us entrance to a people and way of life very few of us will ever see first hand.
July 6, 2017
An excellent account of an adventurous trip across the Sahara, by an American traveler fulfilling a dream. You feel his awkwardness and pain from the camel riding, sense his frustration at his limited ability to communicate and being kept in the dark about changing plans, and also see through him the beauty of the desert and an ancient lifestyle that, although not on the endangered list quite yet, can hardly survive more than a few decades. He mulls the dilemma of wanting to preserve the deep roots and incredible skills involved in running a camel caravan, but also recognizing that children of these in-tune-with-nature nomads are drawn to the cities and an entirely different lifestyle -- and that is their right to choose.
November 20, 2023
This was so interesting. A look inside a life completely foreign to mine. I especially liked the insights the author gleaned from his time in the desert: the commonality of people everywhere, the loss of historic culture vs. cultures coming together, thoughts on the changing world and why/if/how it matters. I can't imagine embarking on such an adventure. I love that he went all in vs. other journalists mentioned who visit, stay just a few days, make their opinions on perhaps too little information, leave and then write with not as great an understanding as someone who lived and traveled with a caravan for six weeks.
January 1, 2019
Benanav recounts a 5-week camel round trip from Timbuktu to salt mines in the middle of the Sahara, on which he was accompanied by his guide, Walid, and various other "azalai" (salt traders).
Saharan salt caravans not being anything resembling an area of personal expertise, the novelty of this story and setting were the primary appeal to me. Still, there's only so much story to be milked from slogging through dune after dune with stone agers you can barely understand. Not a trip I'd ever consider but I'm happy I read about it.
Saharan salt caravans not being anything resembling an area of personal expertise, the novelty of this story and setting were the primary appeal to me. Still, there's only so much story to be milked from slogging through dune after dune with stone agers you can barely understand. Not a trip I'd ever consider but I'm happy I read about it.
July 11, 2022
Michael had an opportunity to travel in Mali along the route covered by the caravans transporting blocks of salt from the mine at Taoudenni back to Timbuktu. A portion of his journey was actually with the caravans. It was an enlightening but arduous trip.
Well written telling of the highs and lows of the weeks in the Sahara trusting the guise to know the way when there were seemingly no landmarks to serve as reference points. I'm interested now to read of some of his other travel adventures.
Well written telling of the highs and lows of the weeks in the Sahara trusting the guise to know the way when there were seemingly no landmarks to serve as reference points. I'm interested now to read of some of his other travel adventures.
October 19, 2024
I read this book to put my mind into the Sahara ahead of my trip to Morocco. So it doesn’t take place in Morocco, the Saharan culture spans wide. The author does a wonderful job of representing culture, prejudices of the west, and challenges to an agent way of life. It’s an engulfing and enjoyable read!
May 9, 2018
An enjoyable and educational look at the salt caravans crossing the Sahara. Benanav's descriptions of the sunrises, sunsets and surrounding landscapes as he crosses a truly inhospitable place are breathtaking.
May 16, 2020
Fascinating account by a Jewish author who journeys to a Muslim country to experience first-hand the grueling life of traditional salt miners. Reads almost like a novel, with just enough background and history to flesh out the story without bogging down in details.
May 29, 2017
This was the first book I felt I couldn't put down for at least one year. I enjoyed the author's sense of humor. His writing style made me feel like I was taking the journey with him.
March 9, 2018
Finished this book in about 24 hours. It fit perfectly with the unit I am currently teaching my kids, about ancient Mali, built around the salt/gold trade.
March 18, 2019
Fascinating story of a man joining a camel caravan across the Sahara desert. It’s a great look of a unique way of living. A quick read.
August 27, 2019
This is an account of the author's trip beyond Timbuktu in Mali in the Sahara Desert with a camel caravan of salt miners. Excellent.
October 15, 2019
A real adventure, one that I would not personally want to undertake but very fun to read about.
May 3, 2020
I bought this book for my father and he visited Timbuktu. Now that I read it I wonder how he and my mom traveled to that out of the way place. Very interesting read
July 3, 2020
I really liked the descriptions of the desert. I did not like the descriptions of animal slaughter.
Read
September 22, 2020Fantastic swashbuckling adventure. Took me back to when I myself camped in the Sahara desert and experience the vast expanse that is the Sahara desert
October 16, 2020
I really liked this book.
June 17, 2021
This was an excellent read. I thought it was especially valuable for the cultural insights and the way that a misconception that the author had was corrected during the journey.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews