Dervla Murphy: The Ukimwi Road

by Murphy, Dervla

ISBN: 9780719552502

Published: 1993-01-01

Dervla Murphy often recalled these words while pedalling or pushing her bicycle over some of the roughest roads in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet the beauty of the contrasting landscapes along her 3,000-mile route from Kenya through Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia to Zimbabwe more than compensated for the hazardous and the unexpected.;Dervla had been naively looking forward to a few carefree months of fresh air and exercise free from the stress of the last few years. Soon, however, she realized that for travellers who wish to remain carefree, Africa is the wrong continent. Inevitably she was caught up in the harrowing problems of the peoples amongst whom she travelled: on the one hand the devastating effects of AIDS, drought and economic collapse and on the other the scepticism of the Africans about Western 'development projects' and 'aid schemes' which promise so much but deliver so little except to the administrators.;By day Dervla enjoyed the space and solitude of rural Africa;...