Okay, it's the father of my friend, but I know him well enough to plug it...
Anyway, he's just had a new book published in case anyone is interested.
TO TIMBUKTU FOR A HAIRCUT
A JOURNEY THROUGH WEST AFRICA
by Rick Antonson
Author and tourism executive, Rick Antonson, sets out on an unforgettable journey to Africa, and chronicles his adventures in TO TIMBUKTU FOR A HAIRCUT: A Journey Through West Africa, to be published by Dundurn Press on June 7, 2008.
“To Timbuktu for a Haircut is a great read - a little bit of Bill Bryson, a little bit of Michael Palin, and quite a lot of Bob Hope on the road to Timbuktu.” – Professor Geoffrey Lipman, Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations World Tourism Organization.
Historically rich, remote, and once unimaginably dangerous for travellers, Timbuktu still teases with “Find me if you can.” Rick Antonson’s encounters with entertaining train companions Ebou and Ussegnou, a mysterious cook called Nema, and intrepid guide Zak will make you want to pack up and leave for Timbuktu tomorrow.
As Antonson travels in Senegal and Mali by train, four-wheel drive, river pinasse, camel, and foot, he tells of fourteenth-century legends, eighteenth-century explorers, and today’s endangered existence of Timbuktu’s 700,000 ancient manuscripts in what scholars have described as the most important archaeological discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls.
TO TIMBUKTU FOR A HAIRCUT combines wry humour with shrewd observation to deliver an armchair experience that will linger in the mind long after the last page is read.
“I left Africa personally changed by the gentle harshness I found and a disquieting splendour that found me. Mali was the journey I needed, if not the one I envisioned. And I learned that there’s a little of Timbuktu in every traveller: the over-anticipated experience, the clash of dreams with reality.” – Rick Antonson
Rick Antonson is the president and CEO of Tourism Vancouver and a director of the Pacific Asia Travel Association. He has had adventures in Tibet and Nepal, and in Libya and North Korea, among others. The co-author of SLUMACH’S GOLD: In Search of a Legend, he lives in Vancouver.
