The Shadow of Kilimanjaro: On Foot Across East Africa

1 more product image	By Rick Ridgeway Henry Holt and Co., 1998, Hardcover Customer Rating: 20 reviews   Recommend This product is currently not available and cannot be purchased. It means that we have no merchant offers for this product at the moment or it was discontinued by the manufacturer.

A trek in the company of the great predators.

Tim Cahill once wrote that "there was a time for all of us when we wanted to be Rick Ridgeway." Explorer, adventurer, entrepreneur, Ridgeway takes readers on an incredible journey. On foot for a month, from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, through the plains of Tsavo, to the sea, he offers a rare ground's-eye view of east Africa as it is today and how it once was before the incursion of European civilization. Ridgeway takes a hard look at the possible future facing this once-pristine landscape, its magnificent animals, and its indigenous inhabitants.

Accompanied by memorable characters, such as Danny and Bongo Woodley, sons of the legendary Tsavo warden Bill Woodley; renowned elephant biologist Joyce Poole; and the descendants of the Waliangulu — the "People of the Long Bow" — the last great hunters of the region, Ridgeway encounters lions, rhinos, and elephants in this wonderful adventure on the trail, and through interviews with luminaries such as Richard Leakey, comes face-to-face with the legacy of colonialism, in both cultural and ecological terms, here in the cradle of life.

Known for such feats as being the first climber to reach the summit of K2 without bottled oxygen, climbing Antarctica's highest mountain, and leading a team to the top of a formidable 2,000-foot granite tower in the most remote corner of the Amazon's Orinoco jungle, Rick Ridgeway, in his latest book, takes a walk. Of course, it's no ordinary stroll. Accompanied by park officers, Ridgeway treks unprotected among lions and elephants, rhinos and oryxes.

The Shadow of Kilimanjaro is as much a search for answers to an adventurer's most soul-searching questions as an account of a thrilling journey. In the introduction Ridgeway writes,

Henry David Thoreau did not write that in wilderness is the preservation of the world, as he is oft misquoted, but that "In wildness is the preservation of the world." There is a difference, and it is significant. A wildness is intact. In wildness, all the original pieces are there. My own backyard mountains in California, from the Coastal Range through the Sierras, are in many places wilderness, but none of it is wildness because the grizzly is gone. We may have the grizzly on the state flag; having it there, however, is not a celebration of our heritage but a burlesque of what we have done to the most noble patriarch ever to walk the land.

Starting at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro and ending at the Indian Ocean, Ridgeway's aim during this adventure is less to get there and more to be there. During his weeks on foot, he thoughtfully considers the effects of colonial expansion on Africa's indigenous peoples, its landscape, and its awe-inspiring animals — all the while contemplating with a conservationist's heart Africa's uncertain future. — Kathryn True

Title: The Shadow of Kilimanjaro: On Foot Across East Africa
Sales Rank: 449132 in Books
Author: Rick Ridgeway
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co., 1 edition, 1998-10-01, Hardcover, 320 pages, ISBN: 0805053891
Package Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.37 x 1.07 inches, 1.36 pounds

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