Reddit reviews To Timbuktu: A Journey Down the Niger

87 year old hitcher I picked up: He said he has gone across every continent, except antarctica, in every direction, starting in 1962.
In Sudan, in the 70s, he gave the last of his sandwich to a dark skinned boy. He was arrested, beaten, kangaroo courted, and put before a firing squad, by light skinned North Africans not happy about him giving the bite of food to the dark skinned kid. . Ready Aim FIRE. All blanks. He told me he pissed himself, with serious thousand mile stare eye contact. They were ''just scaring him''. They put him in a van and dropped him off with his pants, and nothing else, no passport, shoes, money, nothing, in some very shitty town with no phones or cars or decent water, and told him to get his ass across the border and get out.
And here is an amazing, nail biting book about some random wandering in Africa, a true story. https://www.amazon.com/Timbuktu-Journey-Down-Niger/dp/1594867658
Well off people pack luxuriously, with a comfortable budget, planning meticulously, and end up beyond fucked with no help or hope in sight. I loved that book.
The scene with the kid and the camel skull has haunted me for 20 years.