Looking for Lovedu - Ann Jones

The American author, a well-known and admired travel writer, set off with an English photographer named Muggleton, to drive the length of Africa from Morocco in the north to the southernmost tip to find the great rainmaking queen Modjadji of the Bantu tribe, the Lovedu. This ancient tribe and its queen were the original inspiration for H. Rider Haggard's novel, She.

The journey was amazing - in her words 'we drove through the Atlas Mountains, crossed the Sahara on our own, followed the curve of the West African coast from C^ote d'Ivoire to Cameroon, dodged roadblocks in Nigeria and plunged into the hidden heart of the continent. We ferried across a river in Central Africa on a home-made bamboo raft and slogged through the bottomless mud and revolutionary politics of eastern Zaire - while our Land Rover got smashed, scraped, dented, bashed, fractured, crumpled and very nearly sunk.' When they pause to recuperate in a posh hotel, the luxuries come between them: Jones travels on alone. From Tanzania and Zanzibar, through the Corridor of Mozambique and into South Africa, she finally achieves an audience with the Queen of the Lovedu.

A hugely entertaining book - almost as grand an adventure for the reader as it was for Ann Jones.