Dark star safari : overland from Cairo to Cape Town

Paul Theroux sets off for Cape Town from Cairo - the hard way.

Travelling across bush and desert, down rivers and across lakes, and through country after country, he visits some of the most beautiful and dangerous landscapes on earth.

It is a journey of discovery and of rediscovery - charting both unexpected places those visited as a young teacher 40 years before.

In the Swahili language, the word 'safari' simply means 'journey', and this - to Theroux - is the ultimate journey.

It is a trip where chance encounter is everything, where departure and arrival time are an irrelevance and where contentment can be found balancing on top of a truck in the middle of nowhere.