'A master explorer… Ridgeway takes in a broad sweep of country, writing about it with keen awareness and undisguised affection. He paints colorful scenes…an entertaining and literate memoir of back country adventure.' - Kirkus Reviews
'The Shadow of Kilimanjaro is a wonderful book about a long walk?not a safari, which is a trip, but a mwendo, a true journey…I envy him his constitution and his curiosity.' -Paul Theroux
'Rick Ridgeway…is a fine writer possessed of an eye for the telling anecdote, a fully developed sense of absurd, and a need to see what is beyond the horizon…(The Shadow of Kilimanjaro) is a compulsively readable account of a long walk that seems to move at the speed of light.' - Tim Cahill
'As I think back to some of my adventures, the ones that are most memorable are those that held surprises, that brought experiences that were not anticipated, or revealed lessons that, in advance, were not considered. This walk was going to be such a journey… It would be a trip such as the Indian anthropologist and adventurer Fosco Maraini referred to when he spoke of the true kinds of travel, the journey where the signposts are unfamiliar, and where the new worlds you see reveal elements in yourself that you never knew existed.' - Rick Ridgeway
What would it be like to spend one month in the close company of animals that put you several links down on the food chain? Rick Ridgeway, adventurer and mountaineer, decided to find out by walking across East Africa from Mt. Kilimanjaro through untamed Tsavo National Park in Kenya to the shores of the Indian Ocean. The Shadow of Kilimanjaro - On Foot Across East Africa - is a vivid account of the trek, a walk tour of 8,000 square miles of wildness.
Tsavo, the largest national park in East Africa, contains a remarkable ecosystem. It is a haven for elephants, lions, buffalo, crocodiles, and numerous other small animal and plant life. Walking side by side these great beasts-and mindful of the dangers they pose - Ridgeway and his companions became attuned to the connections between man and nature that few people will ever feel in this day and age. Whether observing a sleeping lion or fleeing a charging elephant, they experienced the thrill of living fully within the natural world. Ridgeway's companions form a memorable cast of a characters - Iain Allen, an accomplished guide with a taste for luxury; Bongo and Danny Woodley, brothers and wardens in the Kenyan Wildlife Service; and Mohamed and Lokiyor, park rangers and natives of separate Kenyan tribes.
Ridgeway's explorations also lead him to a variety of scientists, conservationists, politicians, and tribesman, including David Western, the controversial director of the KWS; Richard Leaky, anti-poaching activist, former director of the KWS, and member of the renowned family of anthropologists; and the Waliangulu, or 'People of the Long Bow,' the greatest elephant hunters in East Africa. Following in the wake of generations of explorers and colonists, Ridgeway details a tortured history of appreciation for - and oppression of - the peoples and wildlife of the region. He traces the influence of such figures as Lt. Col. J.P. Patterson, an engineer who killed two man-eating lions in Tsavo (basis for the film the Ghost and the Darkness); Bill Woodley, the legendary warden of Tsavo and father to Bongo and Danny; and Denys Finch Hatton, the explorer and guide immortalized in Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa.
Ridgeway also discusses the heated battles among conservationists for the future of East Africa's national parks. A fascinating combination of adventure narrative, travelogue, and political history, The Shadow of Kilimanjaro is a sparkling evocation of the East African landscape, and an important book about the relationship between man and the natural world.
