Walking the Nile

December 14, 2015
Wood, a British veteran who served in Afghanistan, recounts his ambitious attempt, beginning in November 2013, to walk the entire length of the Nile River: 4,250 miles of water running through five countries. The impetus for the journey was a desire to emulate Western explorers of Africa such as Richard Burton, Henry Stanley, David Livingstone, and John Hanning Speke, whose adventures Wood admired. Wood also sought to meet people and hear their stories. Beginning in Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda, Wood travels through Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan, and Egypt before reaching the Nile Delta and the Mediterranean, following the river through forests, villages, cities, deserts, and—in South Sudan—active war zones and refugee settlements. The narration is unadorned and mostly relays the viewpoints of local guides and porters, who accompany the author through the majority of his trip, and others he meets en route. Wood does provide some history and contextual asides, but he devotes most of his book to sharing the opinions of the people he encounters, which are dynamic and at times surprising. A man in Sudan, for example, laments the end of British rule because of the prosperity that ended with it. These voices, seen through the lens of Wood’s words, make this memoir a success.