You just can't do a tour when you are being pampered and given security on all sides and booked into expensive hotels and made to meet United Nations hypocrites for expensive food and expect that you can tell an interesting story that doesn't make you look like a spoiled Western ruling-class hypocrite. But this is the one that made me angry the most.Īs someone who has taken long tours on a bicycle in Kenya and currently planning to do an Ethiopia-Malawi tour, I hoped that it would tell the stories about the struggles on the road that make one a tougher, better person in touch with the reality of the landscape that one passes through and the PEOPLE that are HUMAN and that inhabit that landscape. There are just two books (I think) that have returned to the shelf without finishing reading. With their trademark humor and honesty, they tell their story-the drama, the dangers, and the sheer exhilaration of riding together again through a continent filled with magic and wonder. Riding through spectacular scenery, often in extreme temperatures, they face their hardest challenges yet. They have a close encounter with a family of gorillas in Rwanda and are nearly trampled by a herd of elephants in Botswana. Along the way, from the pyramids in Egypt to Luke Skywalker’s house in Tunisia, they meet people who have triumphed over terrifying experiences-former child soldiers in Uganda and children living amidst the minefields of Ethiopia. In Long Way Down, they share their 15,000-mile journey, from the northernmost tip of Scotland to the southernmost tip of South Africa, to ride some of the toughest terrain in the world. Inspired by their UNICEF visits to Africa, they knew they had to go back and experience this extraordinary continent in more depth. Now in paperback, this second remarkable travel book from famed actor Ewan McGregor and his good friend Charley Boorman chronicles their epic adventure ride on motorbikes from Scotland to South Africa.Īfter their fantastic trip around the world in 2004, recounted to acclaim in Long Way Round, Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman couldn’t shake the travel bug.

Charley boorman long way down