Riding the Desert Trail

This travel book offers a description of a lone bicycle journey along the River Nile from the Mediterranean to the heartlands of Africa. Bettina Selby is a grandmother in her fifties who took up long-distance bicycling after her children had left home. Travelling alone on her "all-terrain bicycle", she met a wide variety of people, from Western aid officials and hospitable Arabs to warring Sudanese. She tells of the adventures which befall a solitary traveller in remote and war-torn countries. Her journey covers many different sights, including the temples of Ancient Egypt, General Gordon's Khartoum, the Nubian desert, Lake Victoria and the eternal snows of the Mountains of the Moon.