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by piokoch 1945 days ago
Reminds me history of Kazik Nowak [0], who traveled alone on a bike through Africa. The expedition took him 5 years (between 1931-1936).

He wrote a great book about his trip, prizing amazing African nature and giving a hard time colonial powers for making this continent such a miserable living place for its natives. Book does not have English translation unfortunately.

Nowak died soon after coming back (trip was really exhausting, he got Malaria) and for many years his achievement was forgotten. In 1962 his daughter managed to publish a book her father trip, but it didn't attract much attention (communists didn't like to promote anything positive about pre-communism times achievements). Finally it was reedited in 2000 and become very popular in Poland.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz_Nowak

4 comments

Tangent: take a look on "Another day of life" from Ryszard Kapuscinski. Most unbiased look at Angola decolonization (and decolonization in general) I know.

edit: Ryszard Kapuscinski[0] style, a mix of journalism with literature, definitely worths a read. I believe his legacy is underrated even in his own country.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Kapu%C5%9Bci%C5%84ski

Here's a map of his journey, which is buried on that page:

https://kazimierznowak.pl/img/mapapodrozy.jpg

> Book does not have English translation unfortunately.

It looks like there actually is English translation: https://sorus.pl/produkt/across-the-dark-continent-bicycle-d...

It also reminds me of Tschiffely who spent 3 years riding on horseback from Buenos Aires to New York City in the mid-1920s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aim%C3%A9_F%C3%A9lix_Tschiffel...