It appears that a number of travel authors are a little preoccupied with death. Your death. Just browse around your local bookstore and you’ll find Getaway’s 1 001 Places to See Before You Die: Places To Go, Things To Do in Southern Africa (Struik), Michael Bright’s Natural Wonders You Must See Before You Die (Cassell Illustrated) and the godmother of all the before-you-die titles, 1Â 000 Places to See Before You Die: A Traveller’s Life List by Patricia Schultz.
Visit Amazon.com for more reminders that one day you too shall shed this mortal skin. How about 100 Things to Do Before You Die: Travel Events You Just Can’t Miss by Dave Freeman and Neil Teplica (Taylor Trade Publishing) or Unforgettable Places to See Before You Die by Steve Davey (Firefly) and Unforgettable Things to Do Before You Die by Steve Watkins and Clare Jones (also Firefly). The pressure these books place on the reader is immense and makes one want to instantly create a to-do travel list.
The nice thing about Getaway’s 1 001 Places To See Before You Die is that the book opens with their top 50 options (just in case 1 001 is a bit overwhelming). Put together by Getaway editor David Bristow and his cronies Marion Boddy Evans, Narina Exelby, Jazz Kuschke and Robyn Daly, the book is beautifully laid out, with photographs and illustrations, quirky text that gives you just enough atmosphere and information as well as a “been there done that” space for personal comments and reflections. The book is a hefty 391 pages and is a must-have for anyone serious about living in the now. There’s a quirky combination of entries, including fun stuff such as “Smell More Than the Daisies”, “Loos with Views” and “Dorps to Dwell In”. It also contains essential travel-contact listings and a mega 1 001 checklist at the end of the book.
As Bristow says on the dust jacket, “Don’t die too soon or you’ll be missing out.”
On the perhaps more earthy end of the spectrum, natural history writer Michael Bright’s 1 001 Wonders You Must See Before You Die is a combination of glorious visuals and fascinating information on the world’s most amazing natural wonders — from frozen universes to active volcanoes, ancient lakes and forgotten mountains. Places like the Hunza Valley in Pakistan, Bali’s Gunung Agung volcano (the highest and most sacred mountain in Bali) and Hawai’s Haleakala Crater are featured alongside another 998 natural phenomena.
It’s not surprising that Schultz’s book made it to number one on The New York Times bestseller list. The book offers up incredible information (where, how, why, how much it will cost) and includes on and off-the-beaten track places. Schultz’s useful before-you-die checklist is divided into different categories, such as Travel and Adventure, Ancient Worlds, Culinary Experiences, Festivals, Sacred Places, et cetera.
In addition to the concise rundown on each place, there are a number of quotes peppering the text. In the foreword she quotes Mark Twain, who once said: “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
One person certainly took Twain seriously: local adventurer Kingsley Holgate. This self-described “romantic explorer” is a larger-than-life character in every sense. He says: “The Zulus call me Nondwayiza, the African jacana or lily trotter, a bird with long legs and big ungainly feet — but nowadays I’m often referred to as the greybeard of African adventure.”
Known to some from his television documentaries, and/or his colourful books (Cape to Cairo and Capricorn: Following the Invisible Line), Holgate is not a man of the suburbs and neither is his wife Gill (aka Mashozi, “she who wears shorts”) and their son Ross.
His latest book, Africa: In the Footsteps of the Great Explorers (Struik), is a delicious Holgate family saga. Tracing the path of the early explorers (David Livingstone, James Chuma, Abdullah Susi, Frederick C Selous, Henry Morton Stanley and Samuel Teleki von Szek) the family take on Africa’s mightiest rivers (the Nile, Rovuma, Rufiji) and circumnavigate Africa’s great lakes. It’s an easy read and Holgate is a great story-teller. If you aren’t lucky enough to be sitting around a campfire with him and his family in some forgotten piece of Africa, then this book is a pretty good option (from the safety of the suburbs). As Holgate writes: “At the end of the day, we are not a bunch of gung-ho commandos. Rather, just an ordinary family who has fallen in love with Africa and has had the passion to live out its dreams.”
Two other writers not shy of exploring, dreaming and discovering are Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit. The couple have been writing for local magazines since before the rinderpest and, finally, they have jumped the fence into book publishing. A Drink of Dry Land: Journeys Through Namibia (Struik) is their first book, and it makes one wonder why they didn’t take this particular journey years ago. The book gives the trademark Marais writing style the space to breathe, an opportunity he doesn’t really have in the limited space of your average 1 500 word magazine article. And breathe he does.
A Drink of Dry Land is all about the couple’s love affair with “the great blonde land” they refer to as “the vast, dry cathedral called Namibia”. The book is filled with anecdotes and humorous stories that span more than 30 years. As the production notes of this book say, “You are invited to take the third seat in their bakkie. Sit back and enjoy the ride.” The couple recently launched the largely visual Namibia Space (also Struik) at the Tourism Indaba in Durban.
For further inspiration and something a bit different, grab a copy of Ashley Dowds’s Red Car Diaries (Struik). Dowds tells the story of the making of the Going Nowhere Slowly television programme, where the crew travelled around Southern Africa in an unpredictable Chrysler called Big Red. Dowds kept diaries of their journey and you can read about all the happenings (and mishappenings) along the way. It’s a fun, light-hearted read with great visuals. Good thing is that the book isn’t called 1001 Ways to Go Nowhere Slowly Before You Die.
Denise Slabbert often does long lunches with Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit, so her review of A Drink of Dry Land may be slightly biased<p>
Getaway’s top 10 things to do before you die
- Game-watch the length of the Kruger National Park.
- Picnic at the highest point of Table Mountain, Maclear’s Beacon.
- Go on a pilgrimage to Robben Island.
- Stand on the southernmost tip of Africa, Cape Agulhas.
- Visit Jo’burg’s Apartheid Museum.
- Slide through the Okavango Delta in a mokoro.
- Listen to the Vic Falls roaring.
- View the Rosetta Stone of rock art in the southern Drakensberg.
- Drive over the dramatic Swartberg Pass …. in a 2×4.
- Go on foot in a Big Five area.