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The Ukimwi Road: From Kenya to Zimbabwe
Three thousand miles by bicycle through Africa. In January 1992, Dervla Murphy prescribed herself several carefree months and embarked on a cycle tour (pedaling and pushing) from Kenya to Zimbabwe via Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia on the cyclist’s equivalent of a Rolls Royce called Lear. Before long, she realized that for travelers who wish to remain stress-free, Africa is the wrong continent. Inevitably she was caught up in the harrowing problems of the peoples she met; the devastating effects of AIDS (ukimwi is Swahili for AIDS), drought and economic collapse; skepticism about Western “aid schemes”; and corruption and incompetence, both white and black.
288 pages, Paperback
First published October 24, 1994
15 people are currently reading
573 people want to read
About the author
Dervla Murphy
52 books278 followersDervla Murphy’s first book, Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, was published in 1965. Over twenty travel books followed including her highly acclaimed autobiography, Wheels Within Wheels.
Dervla won worldwide praise for her writing and many awards, including the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing and the Royal Geographical Award for the popularisation of geography.
Few of the epithets used to describe her – ‘travel legend’, ‘intrepid’ or ‘the first lady of Irish cycling’ – quite do justice to her extraordinary achievement.
She was born in 1931 and remained passionate about travel, writing, politics, Palestine, conservation, bicycling and beer until her death in 2022.
Dervla won worldwide praise for her writing and many awards, including the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing and the Royal Geographical Award for the popularisation of geography.
Few of the epithets used to describe her – ‘travel legend’, ‘intrepid’ or ‘the first lady of Irish cycling’ – quite do justice to her extraordinary achievement.
She was born in 1931 and remained passionate about travel, writing, politics, Palestine, conservation, bicycling and beer until her death in 2022.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
November 4, 2021
While this is classic 'Dervla', for me it was much less enjoyable reading than I have come to expect from her.
This is purely down to the time and the place - Southern Africa - Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia - in 1992. Aids really was reaching epidemic proportions, and yet the lack of understanding or acceptance by everyday Africans was an all time low. Basically denial.
In this book, Dervla, on her trusty bicycle follows a trail from one country to the next, interacting as Derlva does with all walks of life. She really is a brave woman, who puts herself in situations not always in her favour, and yet finds a way to see herself safely onwards.
I found this book pretty hard going. The Ukimwi Road means quite literally The AIDS Road, (in Swahili) and this book is 90% aids, and the effects of aids on people, community and country. It was a sad, demoralising read. It was an educating read, but not a pleasant one, not an enjoyable read, where most of the other Dervla Murphy books I have read have been uplifting and generally hilarious, this one was certainly not, except in very small doses.
We are however treated to some Dervla ranting about the NGOs and aid organisations (shiny new land rovers) and backpacking / overlanding tourists. She also shares many tips on successfully obtaining beer in the least likely of places, including Christian boarding houses, and very small villages.
I salvaged a short quote which fit the Dervla mould much better than the balance of the book:
P42: Dervla has just had a conversation with a doctor lamenting the local men 'didn't want to know' about aids.
"Certainly nobody in the large grubby restaurant 'wanted to know'. My two fellow-diners were truck drivers being eyed hopefully by five adolescent girls in tawdry attire, clustered around the courtyard doorway. 'Two into five doesn't go,' I reflected. But perhaps these two would go into five if their charges were low enough."
Sadly only 3 stars for this one, purely based on the repetitive nature of the aids problems.
This is purely down to the time and the place - Southern Africa - Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia - in 1992. Aids really was reaching epidemic proportions, and yet the lack of understanding or acceptance by everyday Africans was an all time low. Basically denial.
In this book, Dervla, on her trusty bicycle follows a trail from one country to the next, interacting as Derlva does with all walks of life. She really is a brave woman, who puts herself in situations not always in her favour, and yet finds a way to see herself safely onwards.
I found this book pretty hard going. The Ukimwi Road means quite literally The AIDS Road, (in Swahili) and this book is 90% aids, and the effects of aids on people, community and country. It was a sad, demoralising read. It was an educating read, but not a pleasant one, not an enjoyable read, where most of the other Dervla Murphy books I have read have been uplifting and generally hilarious, this one was certainly not, except in very small doses.
We are however treated to some Dervla ranting about the NGOs and aid organisations (shiny new land rovers) and backpacking / overlanding tourists. She also shares many tips on successfully obtaining beer in the least likely of places, including Christian boarding houses, and very small villages.
I salvaged a short quote which fit the Dervla mould much better than the balance of the book:
P42: Dervla has just had a conversation with a doctor lamenting the local men 'didn't want to know' about aids.
"Certainly nobody in the large grubby restaurant 'wanted to know'. My two fellow-diners were truck drivers being eyed hopefully by five adolescent girls in tawdry attire, clustered around the courtyard doorway. 'Two into five doesn't go,' I reflected. But perhaps these two would go into five if their charges were low enough."
Sadly only 3 stars for this one, purely based on the repetitive nature of the aids problems.
October 25, 2018
My first book by Dervla Murphy and what an incredible woman she is, completely blown away by what she achieves in this book. A woman who may be physically old, but does not feel that one bit, cycles across sub-Saharan Africa, during summer, on her own, no back up team, just relying on her wits and the kindness of strangers.
No amount of preparation would have got Dervla ready for what she was going to experience on this journey, the devastation left by white rulers, malaria, tsetse and AIDS makes for some hard reading. Dervla doesn't shy away from the topic of AIDS, she tells it how it is, she expresses her feelings well and scolds herself when she thinks western thoughts. She faces many challenges, meets some incredible people who are fighting the AIDS outbreak and for women's rights in Africa. The generosity of those who have so little really hits you hard and Dervla does handle her emotions well in this book, so easily a situation could have grown into a full blown rant.
You can really see why Dervla is such a renowned writer, her fearless writing gives the journey an epic feel. I'm really looking forward to getting another of her books.
Blog review is here> https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2018...
No amount of preparation would have got Dervla ready for what she was going to experience on this journey, the devastation left by white rulers, malaria, tsetse and AIDS makes for some hard reading. Dervla doesn't shy away from the topic of AIDS, she tells it how it is, she expresses her feelings well and scolds herself when she thinks western thoughts. She faces many challenges, meets some incredible people who are fighting the AIDS outbreak and for women's rights in Africa. The generosity of those who have so little really hits you hard and Dervla does handle her emotions well in this book, so easily a situation could have grown into a full blown rant.
You can really see why Dervla is such a renowned writer, her fearless writing gives the journey an epic feel. I'm really looking forward to getting another of her books.
Blog review is here> https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2018...
February 16, 2014
Ms. Dervla Murphy, an intrepid and brave woman, takes us on a bicycle journey in Southeastern Africa (Kenya to Uganda to Tanzania to Malawi to Zambia and finally Zimbabwe). We experience these countries via her bicycle and her opinionated eyes.
I did some cycling in North America when I was much younger; Ms. Murphy is doing this at the age of sixty on roads that are far tougher than anything here in North America – many of her roads were unpaved. She definitely has an iron constitution!
The vitality of this book is the many different encounters the author has with groups of people – many of them very poor. Her trajectory, which she did in the early ‘90’s, takes her through AIDS ravaged areas. She did not know at the beginning of her journey that AIDS was to dominate every conversation she had. There are remarkable discussions which ensue revolving around the epidemic, the role of women, the use (or non-use) of condoms, polygamy, and Africa’s growing role in the world. Some of the people she meets have had their entire families lost (or in the process of) to the AIDS epidemic.
Because she is cycling and a woman, she is anomaly. The cycling puts her on an eye-level contact with everyone.
What is very reassuring is the needed and unsolicited assistance she gets, now and then, from the most destitute of people – male and female.
It is sad to think that since this book was written over twenty years ago, most of the people she met have likely died.
This is a very worthwhile book for the diversity of encounters and the energy of Ms. Murphy. She must be high octane!
Page 235-36 (my book)
Outside, the schoolboys came crowding around the window above the sink... to observe me sitting on the draining board – the only space available.
“They are amazed”, said the Chief, “because we talk together socially. Our tradition condemns this mixed-sex talking, we say it leads only to misbehaviour. Men and women have nothing in common to discuss, they live in different worlds. But we know you have another tradition.”
I did some cycling in North America when I was much younger; Ms. Murphy is doing this at the age of sixty on roads that are far tougher than anything here in North America – many of her roads were unpaved. She definitely has an iron constitution!
The vitality of this book is the many different encounters the author has with groups of people – many of them very poor. Her trajectory, which she did in the early ‘90’s, takes her through AIDS ravaged areas. She did not know at the beginning of her journey that AIDS was to dominate every conversation she had. There are remarkable discussions which ensue revolving around the epidemic, the role of women, the use (or non-use) of condoms, polygamy, and Africa’s growing role in the world. Some of the people she meets have had their entire families lost (or in the process of) to the AIDS epidemic.
Because she is cycling and a woman, she is anomaly. The cycling puts her on an eye-level contact with everyone.
What is very reassuring is the needed and unsolicited assistance she gets, now and then, from the most destitute of people – male and female.
It is sad to think that since this book was written over twenty years ago, most of the people she met have likely died.
This is a very worthwhile book for the diversity of encounters and the energy of Ms. Murphy. She must be high octane!
Page 235-36 (my book)
Outside, the schoolboys came crowding around the window above the sink... to observe me sitting on the draining board – the only space available.
“They are amazed”, said the Chief, “because we talk together socially. Our tradition condemns this mixed-sex talking, we say it leads only to misbehaviour. Men and women have nothing in common to discuss, they live in different worlds. But we know you have another tradition.”
Read
October 8, 2024A re-read. This time I focused more on the cycling. Quite incredible what she could do!
June 13, 2012
This was a fun book to read. Murphy's observations are amusing and well-written, and presented in a matter-of-fact way that (generally) avoids excessive romanticism about Africa and Africans.
The AIDS narrative running through the book was also interesting to me, as I'd just read 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa (written in the mid 2000s) a few weeks earlier. Murphy's book provided a trip further back in time to the early 90s, before treatment was an option in Africa, and while many countries were still finding their bearings on the epidemic.
I think this was also the first travel book I've read that wasn't written by an 18-34 male: it was nice to see travel through the eyes of someone who isn't young (age garnered her fast respect and attention) or male (no underlying narrative about girlfriends or the need to get laid, hurray!).
Finally (and this may be the only downside to this book), while Murphy's experience exemplifies many of the complexities of a visit to sub-Saharan Africa, she often comes across as a touch hypocritical or selective in her judgments:
- She struggles with the 'white liberal guilt' and wishes others would do more, while acknowledging that NGOs and aid programs aren't as helpful as the West wants them to be.
- She is critical of the wealthy expat life, while herself enjoying the privileges of being able to travel freely, visit private hospitals, and overnight with expat friends.
- She scoffs at the backpackers and overland tours travelling a well-rutted path through Africa, though she, too, is only seeing slices of African life (and she ends up in many of the same places anyway, only staying in cheaper accommodations).
- She tries hard to see the "real" Africa, and really wants you to believe she is, but she too is just another visitor to the continent. (She's a mzungu, after all - doesn't matter how far off the tourist track she goes, she'll still experience life differently from the locals.)
The AIDS narrative running through the book was also interesting to me, as I'd just read 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa (written in the mid 2000s) a few weeks earlier. Murphy's book provided a trip further back in time to the early 90s, before treatment was an option in Africa, and while many countries were still finding their bearings on the epidemic.
I think this was also the first travel book I've read that wasn't written by an 18-34 male: it was nice to see travel through the eyes of someone who isn't young (age garnered her fast respect and attention) or male (no underlying narrative about girlfriends or the need to get laid, hurray!).
Finally (and this may be the only downside to this book), while Murphy's experience exemplifies many of the complexities of a visit to sub-Saharan Africa, she often comes across as a touch hypocritical or selective in her judgments:
- She struggles with the 'white liberal guilt' and wishes others would do more, while acknowledging that NGOs and aid programs aren't as helpful as the West wants them to be.
- She is critical of the wealthy expat life, while herself enjoying the privileges of being able to travel freely, visit private hospitals, and overnight with expat friends.
- She scoffs at the backpackers and overland tours travelling a well-rutted path through Africa, though she, too, is only seeing slices of African life (and she ends up in many of the same places anyway, only staying in cheaper accommodations).
- She tries hard to see the "real" Africa, and really wants you to believe she is, but she too is just another visitor to the continent. (She's a mzungu, after all - doesn't matter how far off the tourist track she goes, she'll still experience life differently from the locals.)
March 14, 2018
This is actually my second time reading this book. I noticed several reviews that pan Murphy's insane trip by bike through forbidding territory and I feel these people just didn't "get" her. Therefore, I'd like to copy out my favorite line from the book which sums her up for me, and it's on p. 125 of the hardback from a scene in Uganda where she is trying to buy milk. "I noticed Bushenyi's little milk depot and rejoiced, fresh milk being my No.2 addiction (the attentive reader will by now have discerned No.1)." The attentive reader knows by p. 125 that Murphy's first order of business when arriving at a stopping point is to get hold of a beer and this makes for some unique encounters above and beyond the fact that she's a lone middle-aged Irishwoman on a bicycle from Kenya to Zimbabwe. She's so very human with her foibles and this makes her forgive and forgive and forgive.
October 22, 2012
Reading it in 2012 I found myself viewing it more as a historical travel book. I found the writing to be disjointed - some excellent descriptions of the landscape followed by long winded historical information often quoted rather than summarized. I would also say that I found Murphy to be very judgemental maybe even cynical about many of the people she encountered along the way as well as the various situations the villages and towns found themselves in. I plowed through to the end because every now and then there was a decent pearl of wisdom or an interesting person that she met. There are many other books to read about Africa though that could also provide you with what Murphy does.
June 28, 2009
Murphy takes this bike ride across Africa when she is sixty years old, certainly an inspiration. This book also seems a little more thoughtful and less given to large generalizations about people and cultures than the other book I read by her, Cameroon with Egbert. A good travel/mild adventure book.
April 21, 2022
Good old Dervla. I do love her travel writing. And I do like the slow travel experience, be it by foot or by bike. I suppose this may be classed as historical travel now, as it was written in the early nineties, and sees Dervla peddling her way through central Africa at a time when the AIDs crisis was really devastating families and communities. To think that anyone she meets who had AIDS or was HIV positive is most probably dead now. I feel so clueless, but I am not sure what the situation is looking like 30 years later. It's also interesting to see the impact (or lack thereof) of different organisations and charities coming in to help - some going with the attitude, that if they're going to save people from starvation, they'd better save them from hell as well (ie our charitable help comes with strings attached) or the AIDs researchers who come in their plush jeeps, take lots of blood samples, don't feel it pertinent to tell individuals if they have HIV, or even the stats for the community. As if the people are just bugs under a microscope. Oh, there are also good people working out in Africa and helping, she does meet all types on her travels. But you do come to question some of the value of some of these charitable movements.
It's not a part of the world I'm likely to ever travel to - time/money/lack of adventurous spirit - so I do enjoy these travel books that allow a little armchair exploration and adventure. There's plenty about the ups and downs (literally) of the cycling itself through some very varying terrain, as well as the places she goes, the people she meets, and also some history and background information so that you feel as though you can learn a little of the countries and the communities - which is really what travel should be about. In this volume, she flies out to Kenya with Lear, the trusty mountain bike, then cycles her way through Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and very briefly Zimbabwe, although there is a reason why things get a bit short and rushed towards the end.
It's not a part of the world I'm likely to ever travel to - time/money/lack of adventurous spirit - so I do enjoy these travel books that allow a little armchair exploration and adventure. There's plenty about the ups and downs (literally) of the cycling itself through some very varying terrain, as well as the places she goes, the people she meets, and also some history and background information so that you feel as though you can learn a little of the countries and the communities - which is really what travel should be about. In this volume, she flies out to Kenya with Lear, the trusty mountain bike, then cycles her way through Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and very briefly Zimbabwe, although there is a reason why things get a bit short and rushed towards the end.
June 13, 2017
60 year old Waterford writer, Dervla Murphy cycles from Nairobi to Zimbadwe in 1992 and finds the journey dominated by the AIDS epidemic - ukimwi being the KiSwhaili word for AIDS. The author encounters extreme continuous poverty and suffering and struggles with feminism and racial equality as many of those she encounters do not accept either - though they suffer from them. The up-sides are the people themselves, being largely kind and generous, and the scenary. Violence and political unrest are regular events and overall picture, similar to that painted by Ryszard Kapusinski, is of the devastation laid upon Africa by the European colonists and missionaries - even where they occasionally tried to do good the results were were almost inevitably negative - such as introducing a hut tax, i.e. a tax on their home, in order to force the natives into paid, very poorly paid, work. Dervla Murphy paints a negative picture of the 4-wheel drive aid providers who flock the country but provide few noticable gains.
September 18, 2025
Travel writing at its best. The journey was undertaken when AIDS was taking hold. Declared travelled through and stayed within communities it was having a massive impact on. Although it's now a historical account it still gives excellent insight and is challenging in some of it's opinions particularly to this white European reader. Brilliant!
February 18, 2023
Dervla is no wimp indeed. She endures the hardships so she can connect with the majority of people who live in poverty and she shares her observations and conversations. I doubt there will ever be another Dervla.
April 25, 2022
Complex book more around HIV/AIDS, cultural difference, colonialism, sex work and more than cycling but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
July 27, 2022
Dervla's books are always a great read. This one covers her 60 year old self journeying through aids-stricken africa in early 90's
April 6, 2024
This was a more political book than I expected from Ms. Murphy. The focus was less on the the traveling, what she was seeing and doing. It was more about AIDS and politics.
October 8, 2014
Ukimwi, AIDS, the "slim disease." The epidemic permeated everywhere Dervla Murphy went and in every conversation she had along her four month bike ride through sub-saharan and southern Africa in the early 1990s. It was actually written a bit drily for how dire the subject matter was. It was tough to read the descriptions of the havoc this epidemic had wreaked on the African population. After AIDS, the next most common topic of conversation was Western Aid--equally interesting, equally drily written. I feel like I know the skeleton of the issue from various classes I took in college, but couldn't speak intelligently about it. Suffice it to say, Colonialism is obviously still such a powerful force across Africa. (That sounds like the most sheepish thesis statement of a thousand college term papers.)
By the way, this woman is totally, totally insane. The very notion of going on a four month cycling trip through deserts, mountains, unfriendly terrain and villages and cities with terribly poor infrastructure sounds like a death wish. Especially when she crosses the border into Malawi, and everyone is like "You're going to die on that road." She didn't! She also seemed totally ok with going days and days without speaking to a single soul, as she did that in the middle of the African wilderness between villages. She also DIDN'T TELL HER FAMILY OR FRIENDS WHEN SHE'D BE BACK because she DIDN'T WANT TO DEAL WITH EMAIL. Truly a bicycle maniac.
Anyway, it was a fairly interesting read, but kind of dragged a bit, which is a shame because it has the foundation to be a really gripping work of non-fiction.
By the way, this woman is totally, totally insane. The very notion of going on a four month cycling trip through deserts, mountains, unfriendly terrain and villages and cities with terribly poor infrastructure sounds like a death wish. Especially when she crosses the border into Malawi, and everyone is like "You're going to die on that road." She didn't! She also seemed totally ok with going days and days without speaking to a single soul, as she did that in the middle of the African wilderness between villages. She also DIDN'T TELL HER FAMILY OR FRIENDS WHEN SHE'D BE BACK because she DIDN'T WANT TO DEAL WITH EMAIL. Truly a bicycle maniac.
Anyway, it was a fairly interesting read, but kind of dragged a bit, which is a shame because it has the foundation to be a really gripping work of non-fiction.
November 14, 2012
Readable but quite boring, a bit like digesting a series of lengthy emails from your eccentric elderly aunt about her recent bicycle trip in Africa. I suspect this is the intended effect anyway - despite her reputation for self-effacement, Dervla Murphy spends the greater part of the book cultivating an image of herself as doughty adventurer with a thoroughly clear-sighted understanding of the world's problems. This begins to grate after a while. Less so when she is documenting yet another jolly close shave with her bicycle, or telling us how little the evening's hotel or dinner costs (which she does unfailingly throughout). More when she cannot resist embroidering most of what she describes with her saloon-bar opinions of the state of the countries she is travelling through ("Sisal and tobacco...export crops on all those fertile acres, Africa still providing what the West needs at prices decided in the West - a generation after Independence").
That said, much like a series of lengthy emails from your eccentric elderly aunt, you will want to keep dipping into it. It IS rambling, but at least she moves along quite a brisk pace, and the accounts of the spread of AIDS (ukimwe) through the various people she meets (ministers, truckers, girls turning to prostitution) are grim but fascinating.
That said, much like a series of lengthy emails from your eccentric elderly aunt, you will want to keep dipping into it. It IS rambling, but at least she moves along quite a brisk pace, and the accounts of the spread of AIDS (ukimwe) through the various people she meets (ministers, truckers, girls turning to prostitution) are grim but fascinating.
April 14, 2010
Appalling. I browsed this while waiting for an appointment with my dentist. I managed to plough through 2 chapters before deciding that going ahead with the dental appointment was a better idea. The writing is so poor that I imagined myself seeing Dervla Murphy pushing that miserable bicycle down the road and immediately running her over. I cannot get myself to give it even a single star.
July 22, 2007
So it is pretty hardcore to bike from Kenya to Zimbabwe when yr 60, and Dervla Murphy is as responsible and informed as tourists get, but I still can't help be annoyed at travel writers who seem to think that they are the only ones who have been responsible tourists in the places that they go.
December 23, 2007
This is a carefully observed and fascinating account of a bicycle ride through East Africa, along what has become the first to AIDS Trail. I have done more travelling and then reading of travel writing, but now I'm really enjoying travelling the easy way, in my armchair!
January 21, 2012
A great book by an inspiring, intrepid travel writer. Africa leaps of the page at you and her perceptive commentary on colonialism are excellent. rWritten some time ago-in early 1990s, it is salutary to think how unlikely is that things have improved since then.
May 10, 2012
Dervla examines the aids epidemic in a telling way with lots of human stories. Like the truckdriver whose three wives always make sure one of them is travelling with him so that they don't all catch aids.
November 30, 2007
Too many times we ask "why" not really caring to understand the true difference between our culture and theirs...this book answers those questions...an excellent read..
Read
August 12, 2008Fascinating account of her travels through Africa, with the spectre of AIDS looming large at every turn. Excellent.
July 19, 2009
I would have given it five stars except it was a spiritually difficult read- but certainly an inspiration for the possibilites in store for age 60.
November 21, 2010
60-year-old Irishwoman cycling across East Africa in 1992 as AIDS is emerging --
May 20, 2015
I found it a bit hard going
September 20, 2022
One of my favourite in a way how strongly it hits you and stays with you... can be very raw.
March 20, 2024
Dervla Murphy
March 5, 2025
Travel writting as it should be, warts and all, and asking difficult questions.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews