Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This is an account of a trip which the author took with her daughter and their horse named Egbert to the remote West African country of Cameroon, little known apart from being the shelter of six million refugees from Chad.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Veteran travel writer Murphy ( Full Tilt , LJ 10/1/65, In Ethiopia with a Mule , LJ 4/15/70) once again captivates armchair travelers in this immensely entertaining and highly readable account of her three-month trek in 1987 through the Republic of Cameroon. Accompanied by her daughter and a Fulani packhorse (affectionately renamed Egbert), she journeys over diverse terrain from challenging mountains to obscure, jungle-encroached bush paths. She brilliantly captures the charm of the congenial Cameroonian people and their culture. She demonstrates great sensitivity when traveling through the restricted zone by Lake Nyos (site of a tragic natural disaster). While encountering occasional difficulties, she maintains her delightful sense of humor (a trait for which she is well known) and optimism. Readers will appreciate and enjoy this book. Highly recommended.-- Jo- Anne Mary Benson, Osgoode, Ontario (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Irish writer Murphy ( Full Tilt ) comes here as a neophyte to West Africa, though not to world travel, having roughed it in India, Nepal, Peru and Madagascar in the past 15 years. In March of 1987 she trudged into the highlands of Cameroon on ``a bush-path from Bamenda to N'gaounderesic , via the remote and wondrously beautiful Mbabosic mountains,'' in the company of her 18-year-old daughter Rachel and Egbert, a packhorse purchased locally. Her departure from the beaten path of tourism, and her frank preference for sleeping outdoors, give Murphy a special perspective on the African interior (``a warthog or antelope, met as it were socially, is worth ten lions viewed from a Land Rover''). This also affects the Cameroonians' attitudes toward the Murphys--because there is no man traveling with them, the author is continually assumed to be Rachel's father or husband, and finally she takes to unbuttoning her shirt whenever introduced. The troupe is nothing if not doughty; Rachel's malaria delays their itinerary but does not alter their route; when Egbert stampedes, they learn they can move faster without him, although they miss his company. Murphy's sense of adventure is exhilarating, and usually her prose is a match for it. Photos. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Book Review

Travel is just not what it used to be. Contemporary travelers competing with the ubiquitous packaged tour must now come up with an angle--as veteran traveler and writer Murphy (On a Shoestring to Coorg, 1989, etc.) has done with this new, engaging book. With teen-age daughter Rachel in tow, Murphy finds a horse, Egbert, to carry baggage as the two women walk around the West African nation of Cameroon. Like her Victorian counterparts, Murphy is absolutely fearless, indifferent to comfort, somewhat eccentric, and if not exactly arrogant certainly abundantly full of confidence. She heads into jungles, up mountains, across arid plains in the noonday sun, drinks the local water, frequents the local bar in societies where women are not usually seen in public, sleeps out under the stars when no village is in sight, and simultaneously delivers a tart commentary on the local customs, history, and problems of contemporary Africa. Daughter Rachel, who isn't given much voice, is most obliging, as is wonder-horse Egbert, who must survive on the indifferent grazing of their daily resting-places. The Murphys visit the site of the recent Lake Nyos explosion, and, as they wander through the Cameroon highlands, climb the famous Gangdaba and Mbabo Mountains. The journey in itself is not that remarkable, but Murphy's comments and sympathy for Africa's problems are thoughtful, and her zest for novelty and adventure most endearing. Typical of the genre, then, but more substantive than the usual fare. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.