Cruelest Journey: Six Hundred Miles To Timbuktu

At the age of thirty-two, Kira Salak is already an adventurer with a long history of seeking impossible challenges. Here she documents her most ambitious journey yet: six hundred unforgiving miles on the Niger River through Mali, from Old Segou to Timbuktu - a feat inspired by the legendary Scottish explorer Mungo Park.With lyrical evocations and breathtaking suspense, Salak relates the tale of her seemingly impossible trip. Enduring tropical storms, enraged hippos, unrelenting desert heat, and the mercurial moods of the treacherous Niger, she traveled solo through one of the most desolate regions of Africa. Dependent on locals for much of her food and shelter, she came ashore each night to remote mud hut villages on the banks of the river, meeting Dogon sorceresses and tribesmen who alternately revered and reviled her. As she soldiered on toward Timbuktu, weak - but unbowed - from a virulent bout of dysentery, she focused on her ultimate challenge: to buy the freedom of two Bella slave girls.