Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It explains why the Congo has never settled down, and probably never will. I've always wanted to do a trip along the Congo River, but now I'm too scared.

Well written, and very readable.

I thoroughly enjoyed Butcher's book. Congo has a complicated status with elements that are both unique and all too similar to many other parts of Africa. Having spent 20 years in another African country, I could recognize the similarities while hoping that things never regress there to Congo levels. I appreciated the weaving of history with the author's travel experiences and his encounters with the the 'left overs' of earlier periods. I finished the book feeling both some sadness at the state of the country and an appreciation for those who nevertheless make their lives work there in some fashion.

Although this is not a fast paced exciting travel story it is entertaining look into what is really going on in The Congo. Read a few other books about the history of the region, like King Leopold's Ghost and In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, and the book becomes more interesting and powerful.

Wow!! This was a moving and incredible read that weaves history and current events in a tumultuous part of the world. I'd been looking for a book that tackled some of the history but ties it in with what's happening today. this is the ticket!

This is an excellent account of Tim Butcher's journey down the Congo river in the footsteps of Stanley.
allowing a much better understanding of why this part of Africa has been going backwards,since the Belgian occupation and Civil War.
V well written

Powerful journalistic account of author Butcher's trying retrace the footsteps of Stanley's 19th Century charting of the east to west slog across the very nearly impossible heart of Africa. The vivid telling of the near complete regression of what could be the wealthiest country in Africa is dumbfounding but always thrilling, even in its sometimes painful stagnancy that is the drum beat of African travel.

Tim Butcher writes extremely well: clearly, concisely, logically, yet very personally. He’s not afraid to reveal his own shortcomings and frailties, even his downright fear. And why shouldn’t he? His trip along the Congo River in the footsteps of Stanley is surely one of the most dangerous routes in Africa at the current time. And the way he shares his experiences makes you feel you are there with him.

For example, in Kisangani, he is marooned without transport. The days drag by into weeks. He describes “the nadir to my despondency” when a tanker arrives, but the captain refuses Butcher a lift. He asks, he pleads, he begs, without success. He tries to contact the owners, he spends a fortune in telephone calls, but he fails. Eventually one morning he watches the tanker unmoor and sail downstream. “I was left staring at a bare muddy riverbank, feeling lower than ever.” It’s just one of a number of harrowing experiences that you share with the author.

What I also appreciated about this book is how he puts his trip into context, not only with Stanley but with the whole colonization of the Congo by Leopold, Kind of the Belgians. After this fine book, Chasing the Devil is definitely next in line!

Tim Butcher. Brilliant.
Blood River.
This is a true story from Tim Butcher who is a journalist, and he wants to travel across the Congo, some 3000 kilometres. If like me you love Africa and all things African you will love this book.
Don't moan the next time you walk to the shops 1/2 a mile away, these folks had to walk for days on end to get anything.
One of the things I liked most of this book was the authors ability to describe all the areas in which you travel. So well described that you actually believe you are there. This book apart from being a terrific story is also very educational. I would highly recommend that you read this fantastic book, by a fantastic author.
5 stars. 01 January 2015.

"In August 2004 I booked a flight from Johannesburg to the Congo, wrote my first will and kissed Jane goodbye."

On that note, Daily Telegraph reporter Tim Butcher set off on what can only be described as one of the most quixotic expeditions imaginable. In the early years of the 21st century, he had somehow fixated on the idea that he should follow in the footsteps of a former Telegraph reporter -- 19th century explorer and colonialist Henry Stanley (he of "Dr Livingstone, I presume" fame) -- and travel overland and on water the length of the Congo river, thousands of miles to the point where this massive river finally reaches the Atlantic.

Easier said than done. To start with, there is the fact that for the last half century or so, Congo is a country that people try to get out of rather than into. (At one point, a resident of Kisangani tries to persuade Butcher to take his four-year-old son back with him to South Africa, because there is no future for him there.) Aid workers and diplomats thankfully leave the day their postings expire, while members of the UN mission (the longest-running of its kind) exist in tiny airconditioned enclaves in the equatorial jungle and similarly count down the days. Almost the only non-Congolese who seem to enjoy life in the country are those who have come to exploit its mineral assets -- cobalt, diamonds and gold, among other products. They, as Butcher shows, live in protected compounds in Kinshasa.

Indeed, it's that legacy of "asset stripping" -- which Stanley helped ignite -- that Butcher chronicles as he somehow manages to battle his way from one community to the next along his pathway. From the Arab slave traders who raided from Zanzibar in the East to the horrific Belgian colonial regime (read King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa for more of that ugly saga), and later to the excesses of Mobutu, Congo's post-colonial dictator, the scores of tribes that collectively make up what we know as the Congo have had little chance to prosper from the growth in global wealth. On the contrary, as Butcher shows repeatedly and eloquently, with every year that has passed since the first eruption of post-colonial war in the 1960s, they have less and less contact with the rest of the world. Jungles have taken over hospitals that once were leaders in tropical medicine and grown over railroad tracks so completely that it is impossible to see where they once led. Highways have become tracks that barely accomodate bicycles laden with mountainous loads of palm oil, that vendors will push for a 600 km, six-week long round trip in exchange for a $50 profit. Only imported ornamental plants show where once the comfortable villas of the Belgians once stood.

Indeed, the value of Butcher's adventorous yarn (and it's so suspenseful, it's almost impossible to put down) is to show us what happens to people that the rest of the world exploits and then ignores. The plight of the Congolese is worse than if Stanley had never mapped the Congo in his famous expedition; today, any vestiges of a rule of law (whether colonial or tribal) has vanished and anarchy rules. Even subsistence has become nearly impossible. Butcher notes the absence of animal sounds from the jungle canopy; there aren't enough animals in the jungle to satisfy the need for meat and protein, however, and the staple diet of Cassava leaves the Congolese emaciated, he notes.

The story of this starvation and abandonment of any hope; of the violence lurking just around the next bend in the river or the jungle pathway; should serve as just as much of a call to arms as did the famous reports of Morel and Casement a century ago. (Their denunciations of Belgian King Leopold's horrific regime led to public pressure forcing him to turn over what had been his personal fiefdom to the country as a formal colony.) Everyone Butcher encounters is stunned that he has been able to cover the terrain he has. "It took me a while to convince him I was not lying," he says of one such meeting. In some cases, the reader can detect, lurking just beneath the surface, a sense of astonishment at what they may view as a self-indulgent Western journalist embarking on some esoteric historical project at a time of such chaos.

Thankfully, Butcher himself is alert to the danger that his white face may mean for the aid workers and locals who help him along his way. In one town, he is ushered out even before daylight, as the priest who shelters him for a few hours tells him that the mai-mai (or armed gangs) will learn of his presence. And with this book, and its moving look at the life of a country that is actually reversing the course of progress, he has, in my opinion, transformed what may have started as just a foolhardy and self-centered expedition into something more valuable. With the publication of this book, there is no excuse for the horrors of today's Congo to continue to go unnoticed in the global community.

Terrific unique angle on the current crisis in the Congo (or it is just "Congo" now?). The author, Tim Butcher, is a foreign correspondent for a British newspaper--specifically the same newspaper (The Telegraph) that sponsored Stanley famous search for Livingstone in the same region.

He comes up with this crazy and scary plan to traverse Stanley's route from the source of the Congo River to its mouth. What, as hopefully some of you will realize, this area on our planet has seen millions die in conflicts that it would take another book to explain involving mineral wealth, age-old tribal grudges and politics that stretch back to the Belgian Congo era.

His journey (and the cover is terribly deceiving as the author doesn't paddle in a canoe/kayak) involves motorbiking along rough trails (there are really no functioning roads anymore in the heart of Africa), being priouge-d along by boats paddled by Africans, slow steamboats not headed to China and jeeps driven by aid workers.

The journey is really not the interesting part at all as not much exciting or truly dangerous happens to Butcher. Just the jawdropping amazement of how slow and frustrating his journey becomes and the stories he hears along the way from the better than average people affected by the rebel attacks, food and housing shortages and the entire mess in a region that should possibly be one of the wealthiest on the planet if it was run properly.

The journalist Tim Butcher took to cross Zaire from East to West on the traces of Stanley. To reach the Congo River he had first to travel west, through provinces that have been in a state of near-permanent rebellion for more than 40 years, and where cannibalism remains as real today as it was in the 19th century, when bearer parties refused to take explorers there for fear of being eaten. Even if he made it to the river, he would still have 2500 km of descent before reaching the place where the Congo River spews into the Atlantic. A stretch where there was no more official traffic. It turned out to be a more nerve racking journey he could have ever imagined.
One has to know that Zaire was ever more run down economically since the colonial power left the country in the sixties. The whole infrastructure broke down, railway, streets, ferries, shipping, no matter which stage of a journey you choose it will not only be adventurous but also dangerous, because marauding gangs roam the country. What the author accomplishes is daring. His journey does not so much differ from the journeys of the explorers of the 19th century.
Butcher has an unbothering style of writing. He is not inclined to exaggerations. He is not in need of that. The events speak for themselves! He underwent the process of understanding the political and economical background which made Zaire to what it is now. Nothing to gloss over. The whites exploited the country but also built it up, that the exploitation could go on. The blacks exploited the country and its people even more. The people have no perspective, their hearts are broken and vulgarizing.
The territory that Stanley staked in the name of the Belgian King Leopold witnessed what many regard as the first genocide of the modern era, when millions of Congolese were effectively worked to death trying to meet the colonialists almost insatiable demand for resources. And since independence, foreign powers have toyed with the Congo, stripping its mineral assets and exploiting its strategic position, never mindful of the suffering inflicted on its people. At every stage of its bloody history, outsiders have tended to treat Congolese as somehow sub-human, not worthy of the consideration they would expect for themselves.
The author is often meeting eye witnesses of massacres and other atrocities. The safest place for a Congolese is the forest, in which he escapes whenever marauders haunt the village. And Butcher as well finds a liking in the jungles which are so much nicer than the dismal villages and decayed cities. There are also no embarrassing fraternization scenarios or occult orgies as for example Hanlon has it. Butcher is about humanity and reason, about development aid for the Congolese that they find to a humane life.
The wars had one major effect in that there were only two ways left for the Congolese to get on with life. Before, there was a system of schools to go to paid for by the state, a transport system so that people could reach other parts of the country, a health system so that one had a chance of recovery. But then all was gone "so that you only have two real options - you join a church, the only organisation that provides an education, a way for someone to develop, or you join one of the militias and profit from the war."
The collapse of the state meant that its people either relied on the charity of outsiders or took to violence.
"But the major lesson I learned on my trek through modern central Africa was that the most valuable asset stolen from the Congo was the sovereignty of its people."
Before Stanley and the white rule, the people of the Congo had a sense for local power. The society was tribal with the authority lying in the hands of the village chiefs. No chief could ignore the will of the subjects. Decisions had to be taken, at least partly with the interest of the people in mind. The whites stripped all aspects of sovereignty from the people and they got it never back.
"One of the great fallacies about white rule in Africa was that when it ended, power was handed back to the people of Africa:"
Instead it was hijacked by elites who publicly claimed they were working for the interest of the people, but were in fact only driven by self-interest. In Zaire it was Mobutu who ignored the plight of his people. Dictators and undemocratic regimes conceal their own malicious administration and corruptness by claiming sovereignty. They cloak themselves in it to dismiss the right of any outsider to hold them to account.
I can recommend this book. It is worth reading. It closes a gap in understanding this region and the problems of the black continent. It is altogether a stunning travel book through one of the remotest places on this Earth. But do not try to walk in his footsteps!

This is a troubling, and compelling, book in several ways.
I first found this book after reading news reports of the kayaker who was killed by a crocodile December 2010 in the Lukuga River, which flows from Lake Tanganyika (at Kalemie) to the Lualaba River (upper Congo River). The surviving kayaker told about the "uncharted waters" of the Lukuga, which had "never been successfully navigated before."
The Lukuga River was roughly charted, if not descended inch by inch, by Henry Stanley in 1876. A railway line following its course was completed in 1915. Many natives travel the river, although probably not the relatively brief rapids. A river along which one can "fly" in Google Earth is not "uncharted."
Author Timothy Butcher "became obsessed" with following Henry Stanley's path from Lake Tankanyika to the Atlantic. Butcher makes reference to the tourist trip his mother took along the Congo in 1958, and the 1951 Hollywood filming of "African Queen" along the Congo, in a land which then had modern facilities, complete with scheduled steamboat and steam train transportation. However, Butcher's 2004 trip does not follow Stanley's initial apparent path along the Lukuga. Instead Butcher rides passenger on a motorbike through forest trails. Butcher is more privileged by far than the average DRC resident, or visitor. Butcher carries enough money and has the journalistic contacts to hitch boat and motorbike rides with the UN or aid groups, or even take a 400-mile UN helicopter ride shortcut when he needs to.
Butcher makes frequent, and interesting, reference to Stanley's notes from Stanley's 1876-1877 trip down the Lukuga/ Lualaba/ Congo, to the Atlantic, and occasional references to Joseph Conrad's 1889 experience as a steamship captain in the Congo. Along the way Butcher interviews and brings alive the perspectives of many current residents of the Congo.
Butcher rejoins the river at Kindu on Lualaba, noting on his map and in his book, "ferry lines abandoned 30 years ago." While there are no steam ferries at Kindu, there are multiple and large pirouge ferries, capable of carrying motorbikes, some using outboard motor propulsion, to carry traffic across the Congo River at Kindu.
Butcher repeatedly makes the point in his travels down the Congo about the huge missed opportunity of using the Congo's resources for the people's own benefit, and using the Congo River as a trade route. Unsafe travel, abandoned transportation facilities, wars, almost the utter lack of rule of law, and the inabilities of Africans to work together, have caused the Democratic Republic of the Congo to not only to fail to develop, but to dramatically regress.
In some ways, Butcher seems to angle his travel plans so that he can later reach the conclusion that he has traveled "the most dangerous, chaotic, backward country in Africa." He expects the worst, wherever he goes. This is almost Part II of Joseph Conrad's book, "Heart of Darkness."
For a refreshing contrary point of view, not overlooking the primitive infrastructure and politics, but showing what can be accomplished in the Congo today toward setting up a conservation district, with a positive attitude, check the story of John and Terese Hart at [...] (and related pages).

Tim Butcher was Africa correspondent for the UK's Daily Telegraph when he decided to follow Stanley's route of 1874-77 down the Congo from central Africa to the Atlantic. Butcher's story is both riveting and depressing. Riveting as he writes well of his travels and is able to punctuate his story with relevant historical outlines of a regions past and with well chosen and revealing interviews (he is a journalist after all) with local individuals.

However it is also a depressing tale of a country which, in Butcher's words is not underdeveloped, but is un-developing. It is clear that it's post Stanley colonial period under the Belgians was far from pleasant but even the limited gains of this period have vanished in the post-colonial chaos largely instigated not just by ex colonial powers and African neighbours keen to control the Congo's vast resources, but also by a failure of indigenous leadership which has appeared happier to exploit rather than govern the peoples of the Congo. To me it seemed, to use the parallels of the continent just across the ocean, that the Congo has resources & potential like Brazil, but the self-destructive politics of late 19th century Paraguay.

On a personal level Butcher's trip appears a unique event. The Congo no longer has cross country links - by road or river. Cities, towns and settlements survive on their own in isolation, retreating into the bush when trouble comes, as it often has. The United Nations has a tenuous presence, often providing the only sense of order, but even then this appears to be restricted to isolated key towns.

Butcher was really only able to travel because of outside agencies such as the UN from whom he hitched lifts on UN ships and aircraft. Although there is a telling remark by one UN official who describes him not as journalist, historian or tourist but as an "adventurer". The real heroes are the (very few) local aid agencies, such as Care International and International Rescue Committee, working in great danger and difficulty and who offer both lodging and transportation to Butcher across the Bush. At times I felt the "adventurer" in the author was unnecessarily endangering the lives (and work) of these people as he strove to accomplish his journey. It is noticeable that little real help was offered by those few Congolese companies and agencies in a position to assist.

It is clear that Stanley would still recognise the vast region if he were to return today - that is what ultimately is most depressing to the author, as well as the reader.

The journalist Tim Butcher took to cross Zaire from East to West on the traces of Stanley. To reach the Congo River he had first to travel west, through provinces that have been in a state of near-permanent rebellion for more than 40 years, and where cannibalism remains as real today as it was in the 19th century, when bearer parties refused to take explorers there for fear of being eaten. Even if he made it to the river, he would still have 2500 km of descent before reaching the place where the Congo River spews into the Atlantic. A stretch where there was no more official traffic. It turned out to be a more nerve racking journey he could have ever imagined.
One has to know that Zaire was ever more run down economically since the colonial power left the country in the sixties. The whole infrastructure broke down, railway, streets, ferries, shipping, no matter which stage of a journey you choose it will not only be adventurous but also dangerous, because marauding gangs roam the country. What the author accomplishes is daring. His journey does not so much differ from the journeys of the explorers of the 19th century.
Butcher has an unbothering style of writing. He is not inclined to exaggerations. He is not in need of that. The events speak for themselves! He underwent the process of understanding the political and economical background which made Zaire to what it is now. Nothing to gloss over. The whites exploited the country but also built it up, that the exploitation could go on. The blacks exploited the country and its people even more. The people have no perspective, their hearts are broken and vulgarizing.
The territory that Stanley staked in the name of the Belgian King Leopold witnessed what many regard as the first genocide of the modern era, when millions of Congolese were effectively worked to death trying to meet the colonialists almost insatiable demand for resources. And since independence, foreign powers have toyed with the Congo, stripping its mineral assets and exploiting its strategic position, never mindful of the suffering inflicted on its people. At every stage of its bloody history, outsiders have tended to treat Congolese as somehow sub-human, not worthy of the consideration they would expect for themselves.
The author is often meeting eye witnesses of massacres and other atrocities. The safest place for a Congolese is the forest, in which he escapes whenever marauders haunt the village. And Butcher as well finds a liking in the jungles which are so much nicer than the dismal villages and decayed cities. There are also no embarrassing fraternization scenarios or occult orgies as for example Hanlon has it. Butcher is about humanity and reason, about development aid for the Congolese that they find to a humane life.
The wars had one major effect in that there were only two ways left for the Congolese to get on with life. Before, there was a system of schools to go to paid for by the state, a transport system so that people could reach other parts of the country, a health system so that one had a chance of recovery. But then all was gone "so that you only have two real options - you join a church, the only organisation that provides an education, a way for someone to develop, or you join one of the militias and profit from the war."
The collapse of the state meant that its people either relied on the charity of outsiders or took to violence.
"But the major lesson I learned on my trek through modern central Africa was that the most valuable asset stolen from the Congo was the sovereignty of its people."
Before Stanley and the white rule, the people of the Congo had a sense for local power. The society was tribal with the authority lying in the hands of the village chiefs. No chief could ignore the will of the subjects. Decisions had to be taken, at least partly with the interest of the people in mind. The whites stripped all aspects of sovereignty from the people and they got it never back.
"One of the great fallacies about white rule in Africa was that when it ended, power was handed back to the people of Africa:"
Instead it was hijacked by elites who publicly claimed they were working for the interest of the people, but were in fact only driven by self-interest. In Zaire it was Mobutu who ignored the plight of his people. Dictators and undemocratic regimes conceal their own malicious administration and corruptness by claiming sovereignty. They cloak themselves in it to dismiss the right of any outsider to hold them to account.
I can recommend this book. It is worth reading. It closes a gap in understanding this region and the problems of the black continent. It is altogether a stunning travel book through one of the remotest places on this Earth. But do not try to walk in his footsteps!

Tim Butcher deserves praise for both bravery and for honest-reporting. His successful retracing, by land and river, of the route of the Stanley expedition that mapped the Congo River over 125 years ago was an act of bravery-and this tale could stand alone as a travel adventure. But it is more than that. It is a skilled portrait of the Congolese people, and the author's revelations open up a roomful of questions. Tim gives thanks and credence to the many Congolese, both black and white, who helped him complete his journey. But an elephant remains in that room full of questions provoked by this book. Why does the Congo remain so dysfunctional? What is it about the people occupying this huge area of great potential that keeps them mired in catastrophic failure and terror? To be sure, the Belgians who ruled this colony were often brutes who basically went after the riches. But they also built and left behind viable systems of communication, transport, education, and governance. Today that is all gone. In the Congo, Mobutu was one of the first and probably the most important of many kleptocratic tyrants that have ruled this land. In Mobutu's wake corruption became the norm. Tim refuses to make a blanket-judgement on the people, and points to the fine, brave inhabitants who are the heros of his narrative. They protected him and gave assistance without asking. They wanted the Congo to become stable and free from terror and despair. Tim relates in passing the musings of a Malaysian skipper of a barge he traveled on. This UN employee, who was himself a native of an ex-colony that was once considered dysfunctional, called the Congo a place of "wasted opportunity", with people who "don't want to make money for themselves-they just want to take it from others". Is this too cruel a judgement? Is there no hope for this essential heart of Africa? There is no easy answer to that question in the pages of this fine but sobering book .

If you are interested in the Congo and would like to read a book that offers some okay feedback, then by all means read Blood River. If, however, you've been daydreaming about heading off to the Congo (or similar) and need a push, you'll need to look elsewhere. I mean, here we are, in the heart of the tropics, in the Congo, yet not once did I feel any great sense of adventure. This is in part due to Butcher's matter-of-fact style of writing -- a novelist he will never be. I won't say it's drab, but, well, it just doesn't ever get the juices flowing, and I'm shocked to read that some people think it's "gripping" and that it "moves along at a rollocking pace" (are these people friends of Tim, hoping to help boost the ratings?). Even if you're not particularly bothered about an 'adventure' book having a strong narrative, it's clear that Butcher just didn't want to be there in the first place (the second half of the journey he covers by helicopter, and gives the most lame excuse for doing so -- I once read someone else's account of that section and they explained it as the easiest bit!). Conclusion: Is it interesting? Reasonably. Is it adventurous? Not really. A combination of the two would have been ideal.

Tim Butcher is to be saluted for making and recording this extraordinary trip. It was every bit as dangerous as Stanley's, if not more. He faced the same diseases and supply problems as Stanley and his men. While armed enemies haunted Stanley, Mr. Butcher is vulnerable to more powerful weapons and is traveling essentially alone.

Descriptions of the former civilization are striking, especially coupled with the author's observations of time going backwards. Mr. Butcher describes hotels, roads, functioning railroads and means of production from the colonial period and their present state of damage and decay. He has a deep sense of history and a keen eye for the present. He helps the reader imagine the plight of those who scramble to stay alive while natural and man made forces hold them back and the extraordinary qualities of those who can somehow maintain.

While this book is very good there was not enough of it for me. The author writes of bicycle traders, guides on land and river, UN and missionary workers and government officials, some of whom he spent a lot of time with. He usually described their encounters and something of their history or point of view. I wanted to know more. We don't if they live in huts or houses. Do they, and all locals are men, have a wife (wives) or kids? It is not so much that they speak English or French, but it is how did they became so good at a second language or come into their positions? While Mr. Butcher spoke with female aid workers and missionaries, there is not one interview with an African woman.

Aid programs appear to be band aids on huge problems. What do these aid agencies do? From this book, they receive supplies and their staffs live in air conditioned pre-fabs. I don't remember a single description of a clinic or the dispensing of aid.

In his discussion of what went wrong, it's clear that the need for the rule of law far transcends the need for democracy. Libertarians should take note of the consequences of a weak government. In these discussions of the African continent, the stability of Botswana and Namibia are not cited.

I'm giving this book 5 stars because of the value of the author's actually doing this and putting it down and because it is so readable that I gobbled it up.

Initially, Tim Butcher's account of his "insanely dangerous" (his words, not mine) trip through the Congo raises the question why? Why put yourself through the very real risks of being captured or killed by the numerous rebel groups that infest the country? Why endure the mind-numbing boredom of hundreds and hundreds of kilometres on the back of motorcycles negotiating stiflingly hot jungle tracks? Why bother to retrace Stanley's already well documented expedition down the Congo river? Is this man mad?... certainly most of those he meets on this very strange journey think so.

But, mad or not, what he discovers makes for fascinating reading as he and we are taken into the heart of what has become an unbelievably shocking world... one that has degenerated in 50 years from ruthlessly harsh colonial discipline & order to complete and apparently irreversible anarchy. The roads are gone, the railways are gone, the buildings have been consumed by the jungle; there is no law and little or no administrative structure; towns have no electricity, clean water or medicine; bribery, theft and casual violence are rampant; people live in constant fear of raids from rebel groups, and hundreds of thousands are killed each year simply because they are in the wrong tribe or the wrong place. Sure, there are other third world countries in such a terrible condition but few with the huge natural resources and riches of the Congo, few where this state of affairs has existed for so long, and few that receive so little attention from the rest of the world.

Critics of the book suggest that the picture he paints is over-stated and that his grasp of the Congo's history is flawed - unless you or they are mad enough to emulate his trip who knows? But he's been around in enough of the world's trouble-spots to draw a measure over what he sees and, while his writing is less than tight in places and his understandable desire to "keep in the background" means that his discussions with the people he meets on the way are often cursory, the snapshots of life he returns with are vivid enough to make you question much more than his sanity in what is, in the end, a revealing and harrowingly thought-provoking account of one man's gruelling trek through a totally lost country.

Tim Butcher, a journalist for The Daily Telegraph decides to recreate H.M. Stanley's famous expedition in the 1870's. (Stanley had been also sponsored by the same newspaper!) He was also curious to see the country that his mother had visited in the 1950's as a tourist. He was told that by just about everyone he contacted that the journey was impossible, but against the odds he manages to enlist the help of aid workers (including a pygmy human rights activist and the Malaysian commander of a vessel working for the UN) and others. Each stage of the journey is uncertain, and he's constantly in danger of his life and in great discomfort. But he does manage in the end to find the transport he needs (motorcycles, dugouts, a UN barge) and the journey continues. It's impossible not to salute his courage.

Blood River : A Journey into Africa's Broken Heart is a fascinating account, not just because it takes us into a part of the world we wouldn't normally venture into and lets us share the journey (from our comfy armchairs!), but also for the historical perspectives which are woven into the narrative.

In the space of half a century, Congo has gone completely backwards - it is not "a developing country", or an "underdeveloped country", so much as an "un-developing country", going backwards so fast that almost nothing remains of the infrastructure left under Belgian rule due to the greed and incompetence of its leaders. It's a terrifying portrait of how quickly things can unravel. You also come to realise that putting things right isn't a matter of throwing financial aid at the problems, but in establishing the rule of law.

It's impossible not to really pity the ordinary people of this failed country, but that there is such potential for economic growth (minerals, fertile land) turns this missed opportunity into a grand tragedy.

The book was chosen as one of the reads for the Richard and Judy bookclub and of course made the shortlist for this year's Samuel Johnson Prize.

"Blood River" traces the footsteps of legendary explorer Henry Morton Stanley and his journey from Tanjanika to the mouth of the Congo River. Author Tim Butcher attempts to follow this path and provides some interesting insight into the history and plight of the Congo and its people; despite this insight, not much happens as he traces Stanley's journey. In fact, the author bails out half-way through his trip and decides to take a helicopter to Kinshasa.

His writing style is a bit tacky; he ends his journey by staring at a stone that he has carried in his pocket. He says, "I looked at it for a final time. It was the colour of dried blood."

The reader gets tired of the author's continuous whining and complaining about his hardships. He obviously knew from the start that it wasn't going to be a picnic, but he can't handle it. He says:

"...I was worried about my health. I was feeling weak and nauseous after the riverboat journey, but I was still 400 kilometers short of Boma... . It was only after two days of sleeping in a bed with laundered sheets, drinking clean water, eating healthy food, and dousing myself with antibiotics in the comfort of the luxury house that I started to feel strong enough to contemplate attempting this final leg."

These luxuries were things that Stanley did not have.

At the end of his account, he comes to the realization that Stanley only had his own interests in mind and was not much different from other European imperialists. What a surprise.

Congo. Just say the name and most people think of one of the most mysterious and scariest places on the African continent. “Blood River” by Tim Butcher does little to dispel the fear and certainly heightens the mystery. The book’s subtitle, “The terrifying journey through the world’s most dangerous country,” should be ample warning of what’s inside for any who choose to pick it up.
On the surface the book is about the author’s six-week adventure as he crossed the Congo. In principle his goal was very simple ⎯ follow the route that Henry Morton Stanley took in 1874, when he first charted the waters of the Congo River. Few understood why Butcher would want to do that and no one believed it was possible. Butcher proves them wrong and brings the reader along for the harrowing 3,000-mile journey by motorcycle, canoe and river barge.
At a deeper level is a tragic story about a country moving backward. Outside influences, both European and African, have pillaged and plundered the Congo for centuries. Butcher weaves the account of his present-day trip with the history of Congo dating back to Stanley and early colonial rule. He gives the reader a glimpse into the plight of average Congolese people, which hasn’t changed for hundreds of years. He summarizes their plight in this sentence: “The failure of the Congo is so complete that its silent majority – tens of millions of people with no connections to the gangster government or the corrupt state machinery- are trapped in a fight to stay where they are and not become worse off.”
Butcher has a way of taking the reader on an emotional roller coaster that influences one’s opinion of the Congo from one extreme to the other. His account of the Italian UN airmen who were killed and eaten in the Congo in the 1960s only increases the sense of fear the Congo inspires. Fear changes to compassion and respect when he shares the story of a pygmy leader who continues to be an advocate for the rights of his own people in the face of extreme opposition.
The author gives his summary of lessons learned along the way. “But the major lesson I learned on my trek through modern central Africa was that the most valuable asset stolen from the Congo was the sovereignty of its people.” He even offers some insight into what changes need to take place. But his best analysis of the situation is his recognition that Congo’s problems are too complex to be solved in the few pages of a conclusion.
Some books are recommended for their entertainment value or because they bring hope or share a story of triumph. I recommend this book because it tells a story that the world needs to hear. A story of a people who have suffered at the hands of outsiders and tyrants for too long.

The author follows the footsteps of the explorer Henry M. Stanley across the Congo Republic and down the River to the Atlantic. What took Stanley three years, takes Butcher 45 days. That may seem like progress of sorts, but still is a very long time even for overland travel of a few thousand miles. Like Stanley before him, Butcher has to rely on a large number of friendly Africans, and is helped along the way be many capable and conscientious people whom he can offer little as reward.

Butcher describes a country which has deteriorated over the forty years since independence. Roads and railways have been reclaimed by the rain forest and rotted in the tropical weather. Schools, hotels, and government buildings are mere ruins of their former splendor. Good food and clean water are always a problem to find. Butcher describes how his mother could tourist through the Congo fifty years ago, traveling on trains, buses, and river steamers, which made their schedules on time and were comfortable and excellent. For decades nobody has traveled overland along the tracks taken by Butcher.

Butcher is a good writer, his descriptions are vivid and visible. Towards the end of the book he asks: why? Why has the Congo especially deteriorated so completely since independence? The outsiders in general, the Europeans during the colonial era were only interested in stripping the land of its assets, only in taking the ivory, rubber, copper, timber and other natural materials. Like others before him, Butcher offers some arguments in explanation. Africans have not been able to manage their sovereignty, have not been able to work together in democracy and law. I don't think he has the answer either.

After visiting Congo (DRC) in August of 2008, I decided to read Tim Butcher's book BLOOD RIVER. I found it paints a very accurate picture of conditions in this stricken country today. As the author portrays, just being in Congo is an adventure all by itself. It is dangerous, upsetting, and yet fascinating. Travel is every bit as hard as he says.

The book is exciting because you're never sure how the author is going to get from one destination to the next considering all the obstacles in his path. Yet through perseverance he somehow manages. Besides being an exciting adventure, it is an insightful visit to a hidden corner of modern day Africa.

I was particularly interested in his description of conditions on the set of Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn's 1951 movie "The African Queen" and how they have deteriorated in the 50 years since its filming. Sadly, conditions all over Congo continue to deteriorate. But for the armchair traveler who want to experience life in one of the most little travelled places in the world, read this book.

As a fan of writers like Jonathan Raban and Simon Winchester, who weave historical narrative into their own personal quests and journeys, I sent for Blood River after catching the tail end of a radio interview in which Tim Butcher described the various strands which run in parallel through his book.

I found it a compelling and satisfying read. There is the central account of the author's apparently impulsive decision to travel, against all advice, through the Republic of Congo in the first place, while it is in an on/off state of civil war; the lives of the equally intrepid Victorian adventurers who went before him; and as backdrop, the grindingly bleak and heartbreaking history of colonial, post colonial and present-day Congo. Three stories for the price of one - four if you count the heavy-hearted journey through the Congo in the late 1950's, after disappointment in love, of the author's mother.

Butcher's prose style, as you'd expect from a seasoned journalist, is crisp, economical and forward-flowing; but he is not afraid to share his vulnerabilities and his (abundantly justified) fear of what might easily have lain ahead at any point on the journey - `objective dangers', as he calls them, over which he had little control. I warmed to him for that, and for his empathy towards the ordinary Congolese he encounters: for me, they are the heroes of the story, helpless victims of an endless cycle of exploitation, violence and political bankruptcy.

Blood River is a gripping story well told; but beyond that, unlike some have-the-adventure-to-write-the-book yarns, it is highly relevant and by rights should tweak the conscience of those of us in the developed world who looked the other way.

I really enjoyed reading this book it was very interesting particularly being because I spend some time down in the Congo and was very familiar with much of its past and present history. I also read a couple of the books that he had mentioned: The Ghost of King Leopold which is excellent as well as Following the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz. Anyone interested in the Belgian Congo past and present should read these two books in addition to The Blood River.

The subject matter of this book and the journey that Mr. Butcher took on was incredible. I am not sure it was the best decision as the risks were extreme but it made for an intriguing journey that sheds light on the atrocities that have ravaged the area.
The book is a good read but the ending is somewhat lacking. I wasn't looking for a dramatic ending as it was non-fiction but I felt that the author could have tied his themes together and wrapped up his thoughts better. The book is fantastic and Mr. Butcher should be commended for taking on such an awesome journey so that his audience can re-live his experiences vicariously through his writing.

I loved reading this book. As a former resident of rural central Africa, I could visualize so many of his descriptions of people, landscapes and situations. Considering the journey this was-especially through Katanga and Maneima provinces where there is almost zero infrastructure and rebels loose in the region- this is an amazing work. No he is not the best author ever but that is beside the point. As he pointed out, he was the only person, black or white to make the journey he did through the bush of southeast DRC and he wrote to tell about it: he has done any of us who love this kind of first hand account a great service. Thank you Tim for taking such risks on a crazy idea.... The stories of men and women he meets along the way add texture and life to the bleak situation at hand.
The author does indulge in many stories of massacres which are too numerous to count which gets a little old. And there is an unfortunate lack of perspective on how things might be improved upon (which is not entirely out of the question in my view)

Tim Butcher's trip is truly amazing. It highlights the desperate straights the Congo is in. It certainly made me more thankful for all the things in my life. The strengths of this book were the portions of the narrative where Butcher described interactions with local people. I also enjoyed the historical references of past events.

I called this book limited because Butcher doesn't really describe his surroundings very often. I would have loved to hear more about the wildlife and jungle he travelled through. Butcher spends a lot of time describing how uncomfortable he was, but doesn't really describe the thousands of miles of jungle he travelled through which must have been truly amazing. More detail about the surroundings would have been interesting. In describing his several weeks in Kisangani the reader can't really tell whether it is a large city or a village.

Overall an enjoyable read but not completely satisfying.

For a man who constantly reminds us how 'obsessed' he has been by the story of Stanley and the Congo, Butcher makes an awful lot of mistakes. They begin on the first page when he compares his efforts at packing little more than a 'penknife' with Stanley's need to bring a small army to carry medicine against ebola and other fatal diseases. Butcher seems to be unaware that ebola didn't emerge until the 1970's. You get the feeling that he just hasn't read enough, certainly about Stanley, his supposed mirror image. He seems to accept wholeheartedly the concept of colonialist Stanley, shill to King Leopold rather than the more complex character, documented by biographers like Jeal, that Stanley's hopes for the Congo were benign. At least then, we can admire Butcher's efforts to force his way west through the jungle. Well, sort of. It's hard to think of a single leg of his journey that isn't aided by either an NGO (on the back of a bike) or else by the UN (in a boat or a helicopter). Compared to other Congo journeys such as Redmond O'Hanlon, this is Congo light. Butcher doesn't come across as a bad man, just unprepared. He may ask hard questions along the way, but there are few signs that the Congo and Stanley are true obsessions of his. His knowledge seems thin. No wonder when you read his slim bibliography, devoid of both Jeal and Meredith, two of the better historians who've dealt with central Africa.

This is a bad book. Journalist Tim Butcher decides to retrace Stanley's journey across the Congo. Butcher is no expert in the region and his ignorance of both history and the Congo is constantly on display. Contrary to the impressions given, its safer to travel in Congo now than has been since the 1950s. And the route taken by Butcher is one of the safest routes. He talks about the remoteness of the Congo but throughout the book NGOs and the UN are shown to be operating almost everywhere. This book is ok as an exaggerated third-rate adventure story but you will not learn anything useful about the Congo. As alternatives I would suggest Lieve Joris' "Back to the Congo" which was written about a trip during a very dangerous time and "No Mercy" by Remond O'Hanlon.

The Congolese are wonderful people. Their suffering under colonialism and endless corruption breaks my heart. This book provides a personal view of the past, but sadly, not much optimism for the foreseeable future.

BIASED PERSPECTIVES
by Robert E. Smith

1. EGO TRIP
Blood River is a real ego trip by a self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing, egotistical writer. He exaggerates his suffering to enhance his hero status. " I croaked a faint curse against the obsession that had drawn me to the most daunting, backward country on earth," he states (p. xiii). He agrees with his friend who said to him that crossing the Congo today would be more dangerous than when Stanley did it in the 1870s. "At least the natives back then didn't have Kalashnikovs." (24

He boasts "My journey through the Congo had its own unique category. It did not quite do it justice to call it adventure travel, and it certainly was not pleasure travel. My Congo journey deserved its own category: ordeal travel. At every turn I faced challenges, difficulties and threats." (213). As he nears the end of his travels on the path of Stanley, he concludes that "The fact that he [Stanley] survived the three-year trek from one side of Africa to the other taught me respect for his determination, stamina and spirit." (333) He concludes the book with a boast, "I had faced down the Congo, the most dangerous, chaotic, backward country in Africa" and a dramatic flourish of looking at a pebble and seeing "It was the colour of dried blood." (342)

2. THE TRIP
But first, what was this trip? Butcher follows the path of Henry Morton Stanley in his famous exploration of the Congo River in 1874-77, going from Zanzibar, Tanzania on the East coast of Africa to Boma, Congo on the West, floating down the Congo River when possible, and when he couldn't, carrying boats around rapids. It was an important exploit, leading to King Leopold of the Belgians taking over the Congo, with Stanley's help. Butcher's trip was in 2004, when the war was raging in Eastern Congo, as it is now. He wrote it up in 2006 and published it in 2008.

Butcher was a correspondent for the same newspaper that hired Stanley, The Daily Telegraph. His goal: "I would go back to where it all began, following Stanley's original journey of discovery through the Congo. The historical symmetry of working for the same paper as Stanley was appealing." (7) He carried around with him Stanley's narrative of his expedition, Through the Dark Continent. He flew into Lubumbashi, then flew to Kalemi on Lake Tanganyika. After a round trip to Mtowa to the north, on the lake, he hired those two motorbikemen of Care International to carry him from Kalemi to Kasongo, a trip of 500 km. He was of course crossing a war zone for this trip, and effectively for the trip all the way to Kisangani, through Katanga and Maniema Provinces.

Kasongo was on the Congo River, and Butcher took a 200-km. motorbike ride from there to Kindu, noting that the railway that used to link the regions no longer functioned. At Kindu he headed downriver on the Congo with a UN boat, for the 150 km. to Lowa. From there to Ubundu he hired a pirogue for the 200-km. distance. The famous seven cataracts of "Stanley Falls" impeded boat travel for him as it did for the Stanley expedition, and Butcher went by motorbike (as passenger as usual) and dugout canoe for the 143 km. to Kisangani, past the disused rail line of the earlier era.

From Kisangani he took a UN boat with barge the 1000 km. downriver to Mbandaka. He was disappointed not to carry on like Stanley in the river from there, but being sick and discouraged he took a UN helicopter for the 600 km. on to Kinshasa. Finally he was taken in a jeep the 350 km. from Kinshasa to Boma, thus bypassing the cataracts along that stretch of the Congo River. In all, it was a journey of 44 days and 2,500 km. Give him credit, it was a tough journey, much of it in a war zone. And he did quite carefully follow Stanley's route within the Congo.

3. HISTORICAL & POLITICAL INFORMATION
Throughout his description of his travels he interspersed the history of Congo in general, starting with the ancient Kongo Kingdom, and the Stanley expedition in particular. As that is geographically rather than chronologically oriented, it gives a disjointed presentation of the past, but that was legitimate for the purposes of his book. He also presents the recent events in Congo's tortured history in the same fashion, and in general these are accurate. He points out quite rightly how the exploitation of Congo's resources is used to pay for the wars, to the neglect of Congo's infrastructures, schools, hospitals, etc. (24)

When in Kisangani he mentions how the artisanal diamond mining in the area attracted Uganda and Rwanda, which after they left were able to keep income coming through militiamen still there. (276) The description is accurate of the bicycle-porters carrying huge loads of goods in the absence of bigger vehicles for transportation. (137). He rightly criticizes the Mobutu legacy, and points out the need for law and order in those war zones he traversed (237). And he concludes rightly that "The major lesson I learned on my trek through modern central Africa was that the most valuable asset stolen from Congo was the sovereignty of its people...The challenge for the future must be to restore some sense of sovereignty and control to all in Africa, not just the elite." (334-5)

4. INACCURACIES
There were a few slips in accuracy, however. He speaks of 19th century explorers having medicines against Ebola, a disease only brought into medical consciousness in the latter half of the 20th century.(xi). He spoke of "communist-controlled Tanzania" in the 1960s, the kind of false analyses being made during the Cold War. (86) His description of manioc processing has some inaccuracies (170). It is also wrong to say "For several years [in the 60s] the Congo's combat troops were all foreign mercenaries." (187). And to state that "The UN's Congo peacekeeping mission from 1960 to 1964 was a disaster" is patently false. (299)

5. NEGATIVITY TOWARDS CONGO AND CONGOLESE
What was most displeasing to me was Butcher's negative characterization of the Congolese and Congo. For him, there seemed to be no good Congolese except the half-dozen who helped him personally. And most of those who helped him had to leave off the charitable work they were doing so as to haul him around on their vehicles. He cites the "advice" of an old newspaper hand: "Just two things to remember in Africa--which tribe and how many dead." (4)"For me the Congo stands as a totem for the failed continent of Africa." (7) Again: "The Congo represents the sum of my African fears and the root of my outsider's shame." (8)

"I... tried to think of another country in the world where a baby born in 2004 was more at risk than one born in the same place half a century earlier...I had achieved something that many people had thought impossible by crossing overland from Lake Tanganyika all the way to the Congo River, through some of the most dangerous terrain on the planet. With my own eyes I had peered into a hidden African world where human bones too numerous to bury were left lying on the ground and where the life of villagers pulsed between grim subsistence in mud huts, unchanged from those seen by nineteenth-century explorers, and panicked flight into the forest at the approach of marauding militia." (182)

He turns what could be a beautiful scene into a repulsive one: "I looked out over the Congo River. The sun had risen, but was yet to lift the layers of sweaty mist blanketing the water. In the half-light the river looked like a motionless slick frozen by torpor--the same torpor threatening my entire journey." (203)

More on bias, as he goes downriver from Kindu: "Every so often a chink would open in the jungle to reveal a few thatched huts and some shadowy figures, but they were as cut off and remote as they had been when Stanley passed this spot in late 1876." Shades of Conrad. And obviously they are not in the least cut off, as Butcher himself points out the dangers of the marauding militias and the international pillaging of Congo's resources. (206)

Again: "The Congo had already taught me one clear lesson: towns bad, open spaces good. It is a country where gatherings of people promise not sanctuary and support, but threats and coercion." (213) "Venturing out of the shade, I faced the same dilemma that I encountered in every place I visited in the Congo. I wanted to nose around, ask questions and take photographs, but I did not want to catch the attention of the local authorities with all the attendant hassle of having to explain who I was, pay bribes and beg not to be arrested as a spy." (223)

"There is something primordial about Congolese villages...houses are at the base level of simplicity. There is not a single pane of glass, metal hinge, cement plinth or fitting that connects this place with the modern era." (223) Later, says Butcher, "I fell asleep with a grin on my face" when he was able to sleep in a house of cement floors, "the safety of a place connected to the modern world" (235) Obviously, he doesn't appreciate local architecture. Western style is good, African style is primitive. Wrong again.

Hear how he twists impressions through loaded words: Describing a drum: "When drummed on the outside, a sound as thick as treacle oozed from the slit" (236) This about an instrument about which Carrington wrote a whole book, the "talking drum" of the Congo.

"One of the Congo's chronic problems, its lack of institutional memory...I wondered what hope there can be for a place if such lessons from the past are never learned." (247-8) Does he really think Congolese are not very, very aware of the past?

As he traveled north, he states: "The scene I saw in the twenty-first century was no different from that seen by Stanley in the nineteenth century or by pygmy hunter-gatherers over earlier centuries. It was equatorial Africa at its most authentic, seemingly untouched by the outside world." (248) What baloney!

Kisangani: "I found it to be a shell, prone to spasms of brutal anarchy and chaotically administered by inept, corrupt local politicians." Really is it that bad? (255) One is inclined to think of his hero, Stanley, who wrote during his trip down the Congo River, shooting it up in dozens of battles with his 29 Snider rifles, 32 percussion-lock muskets, and 10 revolvers: "Our blood is up now. It is a murderous world, and we feel for the first time we hate the filthy, vulturous ghouls who inhabit it." (Stanley, cited in Peter Forbath, The River Congo, p. 305)

While on the boat down to Mbandaka, he meditates on Congolese thought: "thoughts of development, advancement or improvement are irrelevant when the fabric of your country is slipping backwards around you." (289) "I felt as though I saw an Africa unchanged from that which Stanley saw... Every day we passed villages that had the same design Stanley described." (301)

"Like other Congolese towns I had passed through, Mbandaka was little more than a sad collection of ruins." (315)

He does find one exception, Kinshasa! "There can be no capital city in the world more unrepresentative of its country than Kinshasa. It has tarmac roads busy with traffic, shops selling imported goods, a music scene as prolific as any in Africa, even a swanky hotel where the doors are opened by swipe-cards. After all that I had seen on my journey, Kinshasa felt as if it did not even belong in the Congo." (319). I guess if swipe-cards are your standard, then Kinshasa must be great!

He tops it all off in his conclusion: "In six harrowing weeks of travel I felt I had touched the heart of Africa and found it broken [see the title]. While the Western world moves ahead with advances in medicine and technology, the people of the Congo are falling further and further behind." (332)

Perhaps because he was mostly in the war zone of Eastern Congo, and my thirty years were in the more quiet West, I have a reverse perspective on the people of Congo. Rather than a half dozen decent, helpful people, and the rest of them bad, or at least hopeless, I would reverse the proportions, finding beside a very few nasty officials, a vast number of considerate, welcoming, friendly, helpful and generous Congolese.

6. NOSTALGIA
A major sentiment throughout the book is nostalgia. Butcher is very nostalgic about the good old days of colonial rule in Congo, as learned in part from his colonial era traveler's guide book, Travel Guide to the Belgian Congo (1951), among other sources. The former owner of the book had written in her name, Annaliesa. "In my imagination, Annaliesa used it to plan genteel trips to visit waterfalls or go on safari. Today those same journeys would be impossible." (10)

Butcher's mother had made a trip to Congo in 1958, in the Belgian Congo era. (8)
Congo then was quite wonderful, he finds. "Leopoldville...the hub of one of Africa's largest airline networks...Matadi...served by a fleet of ocean-going liners...There were bus links with Rhodesia and across Lake Tanganyika a fleet of ferries moved goods and people to the former colony of German East Africa." (9-10)

He continually compared descriptions in his colonial travel guide to situations he himself encountered, always to the disadvantage of the latter. For instance, Kalemie was once a vibrant city, with functioning trains. "I remembered seeing photographs of this place [Railwaymen's Club in Kalemie] from the 1940s and 1950s when it was full of Belgian railway employees, seated at small wooden tables draped with chequered table cloths and laden with plates of food and bottles of wine." (103) But now the train station neglected, with grass growing through the railway sleepers. Buildings were in state of ruin, with holes in roofs, and there was no electricity or running water (84-85) True no doubt, but this is, after all, a war zone. And the causes are not purely Congolese.

"The normal laws of development are inverted here in the Congo. The forest, not the town, offers the safest sanctuary and it is grandfathers who have been more exposed to modernity than their grandchildren. I can think of nowhere else on the planet where the same can be true." (141)

Photographs are often paired, showing a well functioning colonial period and a dysfunctional current period, although he does once criticize Belgian colonial attitudes (197).

He brings in several books by former writers, like Evelyn Waugh, Joseph Conrad, V.S. Naipaul, Graham Green, and Georges Simenon, as their contents relate to the places he is visiting. When he arrives in Ubundu, he points out that when it was named Ponthierville in 1951, Hepburn and Bogart were there en route to make "The African Queen." "She describes a charming railway town." (226) One of the photographs in this book is the publicity one of that movie. (232)

When in Kisangani, he conversed with a Greek man who had lived there during colonial era, and who describes all the amenities of that bygone era: spraying against mosquitoes, sprinkling on roads against dust, six cinemas, whole city electrified, etc. (286)

He points out that the fighting in the 1990s led to the river traffic being stopped by 2000, coming to the astonishing conclusion of "Plunging the Congo River basin back to the same state described by Conrad in the nineteenth century, `the blankest of blank spaces on the earth's figured surface,'" (296)

You will notice that this bright picture of colonial Congo features the dominant white class. How things were for the Congolese were quite different. One may for example read Osumaka Likaka,RURAL SOCIETY AND COTTON IN COLONIAL ZAIRE (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997) for the facts on the whippings, fines, and imprisonments of those who didn't carry out the forced labor of producing cotton for shipment to Belgium.

Things have gone badly in Eastern Congo today, that is sure. But for those wanting a more incisive and objective analysis of Congo's past, I would recommend Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People's History (NY: Zed Books, 2002), and for the present situation, Thomas Turner, The Congo wars: conflict, myth and reality. (NY: Zed Books, 2007). But do go ahead and read Butcher as well. He does write interestingly about real adventures in his saga crossing the Congo even as Stanley did.

When Tim Butcher describes a city in the modern Democratic Republic of Congo as "a sad collection of ruins," he could well have been describing the entire country, whose endless struggle over control of its rich resources during the past 100-plus years has left it mostly in shambles. This highly readable account of Butcher's attempt to follow the path of Henry Stanley's 1784 expedition to map the Congo River gives ample testimony to the difficulties of not just travel but of daily life in this sadly exploited nation.

This is a bad book. Journalist Tim Butcher decides to retrace Stanley's journey across the Congo. Butcher is no expert in the region and his ignorance of both history and the Congo is constantly on display. Contrary to the impressions given, its safer to travel in Congo now than has been since the 1950s. And the route taken by Butcher is one of the safest routes. He talks about the remoteness of the Congo but throughout the book NGOs and the UN are shown to be operating almost everywhere. This book is ok as an exaggerated third-rate adventure story but you will not learn anything useful about the Congo. As alternatives I would suggest Lieve Joris' "Back to the Congo" which was written about a trip during a very dangerous time and "No Mercy" by Remond O'Hanlon.

The Congolese are wonderful people. Their suffering under colonialism and endless corruption breaks my heart. This book provides a personal view of the past, but sadly, not much optimism for the foreseeable future.

BIASED PERSPECTIVES
by Robert E. Smith

1. EGO TRIP
Blood River is a real ego trip by a self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing, egotistical writer. He exaggerates his suffering to enhance his hero status. " I croaked a faint curse against the obsession that had drawn me to the most daunting, backward country on earth," he states (p. xiii). He agrees with his friend who said to him that crossing the Congo today would be more dangerous than when Stanley did it in the 1870s. "At least the natives back then didn't have Kalashnikovs." (24

He boasts "My journey through the Congo had its own unique category. It did not quite do it justice to call it adventure travel, and it certainly was not pleasure travel. My Congo journey deserved its own category: ordeal travel. At every turn I faced challenges, difficulties and threats." (213). As he nears the end of his travels on the path of Stanley, he concludes that "The fact that he [Stanley] survived the three-year trek from one side of Africa to the other taught me respect for his determination, stamina and spirit." (333) He concludes the book with a boast, "I had faced down the Congo, the most dangerous, chaotic, backward country in Africa" and a dramatic flourish of looking at a pebble and seeing "It was the colour of dried blood." (342)

2. THE TRIP
But first, what was this trip? Butcher follows the path of Henry Morton Stanley in his famous exploration of the Congo River in 1874-77, going from Zanzibar, Tanzania on the East coast of Africa to Boma, Congo on the West, floating down the Congo River when possible, and when he couldn't, carrying boats around rapids. It was an important exploit, leading to King Leopold of the Belgians taking over the Congo, with Stanley's help. Butcher's trip was in 2004, when the war was raging in Eastern Congo, as it is now. He wrote it up in 2006 and published it in 2008.

Butcher was a correspondent for the same newspaper that hired Stanley, The Daily Telegraph. His goal: "I would go back to where it all began, following Stanley's original journey of discovery through the Congo. The historical symmetry of working for the same paper as Stanley was appealing." (7) He carried around with him Stanley's narrative of his expedition, Through the Dark Continent. He flew into Lubumbashi, then flew to Kalemi on Lake Tanganyika. After a round trip to Mtowa to the north, on the lake, he hired those two motorbikemen of Care International to carry him from Kalemi to Kasongo, a trip of 500 km. He was of course crossing a war zone for this trip, and effectively for the trip all the way to Kisangani, through Katanga and Maniema Provinces.

Kasongo was on the Congo River, and Butcher took a 200-km. motorbike ride from there to Kindu, noting that the railway that used to link the regions no longer functioned. At Kindu he headed downriver on the Congo with a UN boat, for the 150 km. to Lowa. From there to Ubundu he hired a pirogue for the 200-km. distance. The famous seven cataracts of "Stanley Falls" impeded boat travel for him as it did for the Stanley expedition, and Butcher went by motorbike (as passenger as usual) and dugout canoe for the 143 km. to Kisangani, past the disused rail line of the earlier era.

From Kisangani he took a UN boat with barge the 1000 km. downriver to Mbandaka. He was disappointed not to carry on like Stanley in the river from there, but being sick and discouraged he took a UN helicopter for the 600 km. on to Kinshasa. Finally he was taken in a jeep the 350 km. from Kinshasa to Boma, thus bypassing the cataracts along that stretch of the Congo River. In all, it was a journey of 44 days and 2,500 km. Give him credit, it was a tough journey, much of it in a war zone. And he did quite carefully follow Stanley's route within the Congo.

3. HISTORICAL & POLITICAL INFORMATION
Throughout his description of his travels he interspersed the history of Congo in general, starting with the ancient Kongo Kingdom, and the Stanley expedition in particular. As that is geographically rather than chronologically oriented, it gives a disjointed presentation of the past, but that was legitimate for the purposes of his book. He also presents the recent events in Congo's tortured history in the same fashion, and in general these are accurate. He points out quite rightly how the exploitation of Congo's resources is used to pay for the wars, to the neglect of Congo's infrastructures, schools, hospitals, etc. (24)

When in Kisangani he mentions how the artisanal diamond mining in the area attracted Uganda and Rwanda, which after they left were able to keep income coming through militiamen still there. (276) The description is accurate of the bicycle-porters carrying huge loads of goods in the absence of bigger vehicles for transportation. (137). He rightly criticizes the Mobutu legacy, and points out the need for law and order in those war zones he traversed (237). And he concludes rightly that "The major lesson I learned on my trek through modern central Africa was that the most valuable asset stolen from Congo was the sovereignty of its people...The challenge for the future must be to restore some sense of sovereignty and control to all in Africa, not just the elite." (334-5)

4. INACCURACIES
There were a few slips in accuracy, however. He speaks of 19th century explorers having medicines against Ebola, a disease only brought into medical consciousness in the latter half of the 20th century.(xi). He spoke of "communist-controlled Tanzania" in the 1960s, the kind of false analyses being made during the Cold War. (86) His description of manioc processing has some inaccuracies (170). It is also wrong to say "For several years [in the 60s] the Congo's combat troops were all foreign mercenaries." (187). And to state that "The UN's Congo peacekeeping mission from 1960 to 1964 was a disaster" is patently false. (299)

5. NEGATIVITY TOWARDS CONGO AND CONGOLESE
What was most displeasing to me was Butcher's negative characterization of the Congolese and Congo. For him, there seemed to be no good Congolese except the half-dozen who helped him personally. And most of those who helped him had to leave off the charitable work they were doing so as to haul him around on their vehicles. He cites the "advice" of an old newspaper hand: "Just two things to remember in Africa--which tribe and how many dead." (4)"For me the Congo stands as a totem for the failed continent of Africa." (7) Again: "The Congo represents the sum of my African fears and the root of my outsider's shame." (8)

"I... tried to think of another country in the world where a baby born in 2004 was more at risk than one born in the same place half a century earlier...I had achieved something that many people had thought impossible by crossing overland from Lake Tanganyika all the way to the Congo River, through some of the most dangerous terrain on the planet. With my own eyes I had peered into a hidden African world where human bones too numerous to bury were left lying on the ground and where the life of villagers pulsed between grim subsistence in mud huts, unchanged from those seen by nineteenth-century explorers, and panicked flight into the forest at the approach of marauding militia." (182)

He turns what could be a beautiful scene into a repulsive one: "I looked out over the Congo River. The sun had risen, but was yet to lift the layers of sweaty mist blanketing the water. In the half-light the river looked like a motionless slick frozen by torpor--the same torpor threatening my entire journey." (203)

More on bias, as he goes downriver from Kindu: "Every so often a chink would open in the jungle to reveal a few thatched huts and some shadowy figures, but they were as cut off and remote as they had been when Stanley passed this spot in late 1876." Shades of Conrad. And obviously they are not in the least cut off, as Butcher himself points out the dangers of the marauding militias and the international pillaging of Congo's resources. (206)

Again: "The Congo had already taught me one clear lesson: towns bad, open spaces good. It is a country where gatherings of people promise not sanctuary and support, but threats and coercion." (213) "Venturing out of the shade, I faced the same dilemma that I encountered in every place I visited in the Congo. I wanted to nose around, ask questions and take photographs, but I did not want to catch the attention of the local authorities with all the attendant hassle of having to explain who I was, pay bribes and beg not to be arrested as a spy." (223)

"There is something primordial about Congolese villages...houses are at the base level of simplicity. There is not a single pane of glass, metal hinge, cement plinth or fitting that connects this place with the modern era." (223) Later, says Butcher, "I fell asleep with a grin on my face" when he was able to sleep in a house of cement floors, "the safety of a place connected to the modern world" (235) Obviously, he doesn't appreciate local architecture. Western style is good, African style is primitive. Wrong again.

Hear how he twists impressions through loaded words: Describing a drum: "When drummed on the outside, a sound as thick as treacle oozed from the slit" (236) This about an instrument about which Carrington wrote a whole book, the "talking drum" of the Congo.

"One of the Congo's chronic problems, its lack of institutional memory...I wondered what hope there can be for a place if such lessons from the past are never learned." (247-8) Does he really think Congolese are not very, very aware of the past?

As he traveled north, he states: "The scene I saw in the twenty-first century was no different from that seen by Stanley in the nineteenth century or by pygmy hunter-gatherers over earlier centuries. It was equatorial Africa at its most authentic, seemingly untouched by the outside world." (248) What baloney!

Kisangani: "I found it to be a shell, prone to spasms of brutal anarchy and chaotically administered by inept, corrupt local politicians." Really is it that bad? (255) One is inclined to think of his hero, Stanley, who wrote during his trip down the Congo River, shooting it up in dozens of battles with his 29 Snider rifles, 32 percussion-lock muskets, and 10 revolvers: "Our blood is up now. It is a murderous world, and we feel for the first time we hate the filthy, vulturous ghouls who inhabit it." (Stanley, cited in Peter Forbath, The River Congo, p. 305)

While on the boat down to Mbandaka, he meditates on Congolese thought: "thoughts of development, advancement or improvement are irrelevant when the fabric of your country is slipping backwards around you." (289) "I felt as though I saw an Africa unchanged from that which Stanley saw... Every day we passed villages that had the same design Stanley described." (301)

"Like other Congolese towns I had passed through, Mbandaka was little more than a sad collection of ruins." (315)

He does find one exception, Kinshasa! "There can be no capital city in the world more unrepresentative of its country than Kinshasa. It has tarmac roads busy with traffic, shops selling imported goods, a music scene as prolific as any in Africa, even a swanky hotel where the doors are opened by swipe-cards. After all that I had seen on my journey, Kinshasa felt as if it did not even belong in the Congo." (319). I guess if swipe-cards are your standard, then Kinshasa must be great!

He tops it all off in his conclusion: "In six harrowing weeks of travel I felt I had touched the heart of Africa and found it broken [see the title]. While the Western world moves ahead with advances in medicine and technology, the people of the Congo are falling further and further behind." (332)

Perhaps because he was mostly in the war zone of Eastern Congo, and my thirty years were in the more quiet West, I have a reverse perspective on the people of Congo. Rather than a half dozen decent, helpful people, and the rest of them bad, or at least hopeless, I would reverse the proportions, finding beside a very few nasty officials, a vast number of considerate, welcoming, friendly, helpful and generous Congolese.

6. NOSTALGIA
A major sentiment throughout the book is nostalgia. Butcher is very nostalgic about the good old days of colonial rule in Congo, as learned in part from his colonial era traveler's guide book, Travel Guide to the Belgian Congo (1951), among other sources. The former owner of the book had written in her name, Annaliesa. "In my imagination, Annaliesa used it to plan genteel trips to visit waterfalls or go on safari. Today those same journeys would be impossible." (10)

Butcher's mother had made a trip to Congo in 1958, in the Belgian Congo era. (8)
Congo then was quite wonderful, he finds. "Leopoldville...the hub of one of Africa's largest airline networks...Matadi...served by a fleet of ocean-going liners...There were bus links with Rhodesia and across Lake Tanganyika a fleet of ferries moved goods and people to the former colony of German East Africa." (9-10)

He continually compared descriptions in his colonial travel guide to situations he himself encountered, always to the disadvantage of the latter. For instance, Kalemie was once a vibrant city, with functioning trains. "I remembered seeing photographs of this place [Railwaymen's Club in Kalemie] from the 1940s and 1950s when it was full of Belgian railway employees, seated at small wooden tables draped with chequered table cloths and laden with plates of food and bottles of wine." (103) But now the train station neglected, with grass growing through the railway sleepers. Buildings were in state of ruin, with holes in roofs, and there was no electricity or running water (84-85) True no doubt, but this is, after all, a war zone. And the causes are not purely Congolese.

"The normal laws of development are inverted here in the Congo. The forest, not the town, offers the safest sanctuary and it is grandfathers who have been more exposed to modernity than their grandchildren. I can think of nowhere else on the planet where the same can be true." (141)

Photographs are often paired, showing a well functioning colonial period and a dysfunctional current period, although he does once criticize Belgian colonial attitudes (197).

He brings in several books by former writers, like Evelyn Waugh, Joseph Conrad, V.S. Naipaul, Graham Green, and Georges Simenon, as their contents relate to the places he is visiting. When he arrives in Ubundu, he points out that when it was named Ponthierville in 1951, Hepburn and Bogart were there en route to make "The African Queen." "She describes a charming railway town." (226) One of the photographs in this book is the publicity one of that movie. (232)

When in Kisangani, he conversed with a Greek man who had lived there during colonial era, and who describes all the amenities of that bygone era: spraying against mosquitoes, sprinkling on roads against dust, six cinemas, whole city electrified, etc. (286)

He points out that the fighting in the 1990s led to the river traffic being stopped by 2000, coming to the astonishing conclusion of "Plunging the Congo River basin back to the same state described by Conrad in the nineteenth century, `the blankest of blank spaces on the earth's figured surface,'" (296)

You will notice that this bright picture of colonial Congo features the dominant white class. How things were for the Congolese were quite different. One may for example read Osumaka Likaka,RURAL SOCIETY AND COTTON IN COLONIAL ZAIRE (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997) for the facts on the whippings, fines, and imprisonments of those who didn't carry out the forced labor of producing cotton for shipment to Belgium.

Things have gone badly in Eastern Congo today, that is sure. But for those wanting a more incisive and objective analysis of Congo's past, I would recommend Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People's History (NY: Zed Books, 2002), and for the present situation, Thomas Turner, The Congo wars: conflict, myth and reality. (NY: Zed Books, 2007). But do go ahead and read Butcher as well. He does write interestingly about real adventures in his saga crossing the Congo even as Stanley did.

When Tim Butcher describes a city in the modern Democratic Republic of Congo as "a sad collection of ruins," he could well have been describing the entire country, whose endless struggle over control of its rich resources during the past 100-plus years has left it mostly in shambles. This highly readable account of Butcher's attempt to follow the path of Henry Stanley's 1784 expedition to map the Congo River gives ample testimony to the difficulties of not just travel but of daily life in this sadly exploited nation.

Blood River
Africa has been in the US news during the recent Presidential campaign and water cooler discussions about what we should or should not be doing prompted my British co worker to suggest Blood River. The book is a recollection of a great adventure. An incredible journey retracing Stanley's journey in the Congo. The discriptions of this demanding and dangerous journey are both revealing and sad. This feat was so incredible that locals questioned his honesty when he told them he had travelled overland. Commenting on the decline of the area, the author asks why the Africans are so inept at governing themselves. It is not for the lack of foreign aid or natural resources. The answer is a lack of solvent African leadership and the a resulting breakdown from an infant civilization to a condition where the safest place to be in the bush. "City bad, bush good".

By mixing vivid accounts of the beauty of the Congo with a healthy dose of sheer wit, humour and an almost thriller-paced story of this audacious journey along the Congo River, Butcher's "Blood River" stands out as a fascinating read. Well-written, meticulously researched and a story beautifully told, it is most likely one of the most readable book about Africa that has come out for a very long time - highly recommended!

Tim Butcher's book BLOOD RIVER was recommended by the store last summer and I bought it because I am fascinated by the Congo. Having read King Leopold's Ghost,In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, Heart of Darkness as well as The Poisonwood Bible, I was intrigued by an update on the Congo, especially by someone adventurous (I did think crazy)enough to try to follow Stanley's journey across Africa from east to west in the current political/savage climate.
Mr. Butcher is a journalist, so he knows how to use words to convey a mood, or a place or a person. And in this book, he is at his best. You are tugged along almost reluctantly on his trip,knowing that he obviously survived, but wondering how he could have possibly made it all the way. Everyone told him not to try it, but somehow there were also very helpful people along the way.
The one man who begged him to take his four year old with him, the guys on the motorbikes, the pirogue pole guys and the captain of the boat are all unforgettable. I especially liked that Mr. Butcher would bring in historical asides, liked the making of the African Queen and Katherine Hepburn in the hotel that is no longer there, or the travel guide that his mother had. He brings in all the hard historical stuff also, like the Belgians and the hand cutting, as well as the slavery trade.
If you want a book that has it all, plus pictures, get this book and hop on behind Mr. Butcher as he pursues a dream/nightmare journey through Africa.

Honest presentation . . . fair, hard, accurate, fine prose, great tale. If you have a chance, compare to P. Theroux's Dark Star Safari and you will undoubtedly find this the better - far better - of the two.

Tim Butcher has written a thrilling account of his journey into Congo. It's a classic page turner - would he make it; what would happen round the next bend of the river? He writes with typical English sang-froid about some pretty hair-raising experiences that left me feeling sweaty. But I never felt I was anything other than immersed in his journey; Butcher writes powerfully and emotionally about the people he comes across and the book is very moving. It's also a fascinating insight into the collapse of an extraordinary country with a terrible history. Butcher's journey is a visceral and revealing account of how this happened. But this isn't just a book for Africa-watchers; it's a book for anyone who loves a rattling good story.

Greetings

This is a great read because of the back-drop. Tim Butcher has impeccable good taste and it is a very funny and moving account of his travels through the DRC Congo. The country acts as a prism for Tims character and judgement to really shine through -the worse the back-drop the more it resonates with his soul as he wrestles wih the moral/ethical, geo-political and logistical issues.

Key question -what does a basicaly decent guy do in a country gone to hell. Answer: Outrun the cannibals (and threaten to pee in their soup if put on the menu to be boiled and eaten). The answers are not as easy and the travel is a lot harder. The sins of the Fathers are visited upon the childen unto the 3rd and 4th generation, or something to that effect.

Here is what I enjoy about Tims great style in this book:

Discretion and diplomacy -he is the opitome of good taste (figuratively speaking)
Non judgemental
Sensitive spirit
Dream centered
Real life execution
Well researched
Factually correct
Accountable
Tell it like it is
Human
Funny
Sad and heart breaking
Spading the truth, calls a spade a spade "in the nicest possible way".

The moral of the story is that you do the best that you can with the options you have. In the DRC, that means that you dont outrun the cannibals, you just outrun the fat guy behind you, which, on a personal level, amounts to nearly the same thing.

Some thoughts that come to mind:

"Are there any nuns that have been raped recently that speak English?"

"In Congo, Put your trust in God, but keep your gunpowder dry".

A great read, highly recommended, at a medium heat, lightly salted.

Justice Malanot
South Africa

I was quite enthusiastic about this book when it was first recommended to me. However, when I started reading it, I became less and less intrigued.

The book is more of a statement of the author's reactions to being in the Congo than a real travel adventure. Furthermore, Butcher doesn't go much into the who, what, when, where, and why of the subject matter. He makes numerous observations but seldom goes beyond the surface to explain his observations. Having lived in the Dem. Rep. Congo before I can safely say that there is often much more to a situation or the people than meets the eye. To gain true perspective, one has to go several layers further. Butcher doesn't do this much. In other words, the book lacks a lot of context that I think would've made it a much better read.

Summary: If you want to learn about the DRC and understand what it's like there, this is the wrong book for that. If you want to read a travel adventure, there are also many better books on the market than this one.

Tim Butcher was the African correspondent for the London Daily Telegraph, the newspaper that sponsored two of Henry Stanley's African expeditions. Butcher got the notion to re-trace Stanley's trek across the Congo, from Lake Tanganyika to the mouth of the Congo River on the Atlantic Ocean. In 2004, during a relative lull in the bloodshed and anarchic mayhem that has convulsed the interior of the Congo for decades, Buther took six weeks to make the journey, by motor-bike, UN river boats, pirogue, helicopter, and jeep. BLOOD RIVER is his account of his trek, interspersed with history of the Congo, from the initial colonization of the Portuguese, to the brutal and greedy rule of King Leopold and the Belgians, to the post-colonial era, during which the rape and exploitation of the country, and the attendant bloodshed, has continued apace, perhaps at times even intensifying.

There undoubtedly is much of interest and value in BLOOD RIVER, but there are three overriding problems with the book. First, I have the sense that Butcher tends to be sloppy with his facts. For example, he implies that ebola was one of the tropical diseases that confronted 19th-Century European explorers and he states that Joseph Conrad, when he came to the Congo for his one mission there (the basis for Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness"), was "a professional skipper of steamboats." Minor errors, to be sure, but they force me to take all of Butcher's factual pronouncements with a grain of salt.

Second, Butcher's writing is ordinary. He is prone to needless repetition, and far too often his writing is cliched and overly melodramatic. For example: "That moment when I left the east bank of the river was special for me. I had achieved something that many people had thought impossible by crossing overland from Lake Tanganyika all the way to the Congo River, through some of the most dangerous terrain on the planet. With my own eyes I had peered into a hidden African world * * *." Or: "I sat in the darkness, thinking of my journey so far and how remote this area had become. A yachtsman on the southern seas or a climber in the Himalayas had more chance of rescue than I did."

Third, Butcher is not what you would call self-effacing. He is mightily impressed with himself and he tries mightily to make sure that we are equally impressed. Time and again, he writes about how dangerous and unprecedented, even reckless, his trip was. To be sure, for six weeks he had to endure tropical heat and insects, eat unappetizing native foods such as cassava, wait in squalid quarters while he made arrangements for the next leg of his journey, and be harassed by some officious and arrogant Congolese. But nothing life-threatening or especially painful actually happened to him.

Reading BLOOD RIVER is not a waste of time. In particular, it reinforces the principal point I have taken from other books on contemporary equatorial Africa, namely, that conditions now are worse than they were a third of a century ago and there is little reason to believe they will improve in the near future. But, whether you are interested in the Congo or the genre of adventure travel, there are other books out there that are more worth your time.

The author's premise is intriguing. A lone white man will journey through the horrific darkness of the modern Congo, tracing the steps of Henry Stanley's legendary trek recorded in 1876.

Mr. Butcher's account however falls flat with a resounding thud.

The descriptions of his journey are wooden, unedifying, and whiny. "I got bitten this morning by a mosquito!" "I became hungry after noon having gone without breakfast!"

The author bails out half-way through his mission and finishes the last 1,000 mile leg of his quest to the Atlantic virtually non-stop by freighter and helicopter, (hint: first 300 pages describe about 1,000 miles: last 20 pages describe the next 1,000 miles).

It seems that the author became bored with his own tale and journey.

Prospective readers hoping for new insights into central Africa may enjoy about twelve pages of this book. I would advise others to avoid the seductive promise of adventure here.