Recently in Africa Category

Tom Sheppard's 40 years of overlanding experience make him one of the world's foremost experts on desert travel. Among the highlights, he's tackled six solo Sahara expeditions since 2001, and he led the first coast to coast crossing of the Sahara from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, which won him an award from the Royal Geographical Society. 

Sheppard's gift for writing about complex topics with simplicity and clarity has also made him a bit of a guru. The author of the highly sought after Vehicle Dependent Expedition Guide, a book that fetched as much as $500 per copy on Ebay when it went out of print, he's the most sought-after source of overland advice by those in the know. His more recent books -- Quiet for a Tuesday and "The Nobility of Wilderness" -- tell the story of his wide-ranging solo travels in Algeria, including an epic off-track army dodging adventure.

Sheppard has spent the past several years lobbying the Algerian government to create a Sahara Protected Area, preserving a unique region of the desert for future generations.

I had a chance to talk with Tom when I wrote a profile piece about him for the Sept/Oct 2010 issue of Outpost magazine. I've decided to share the interview with you in it's entirely. I hope you enjoy it.

Ryan: Please tell me a little about your childhood. Did it predict in any way the path that you would take later in life?  

Tom Sheppard: Born and raised in India till I was 12 - which included the tag-end of WW2. My father was a tea planter in north-east Assam near the Burma frontier and the constant aerial activity sparked my eventually joining the Royal Air Force as a pilot. It may even have planted the seed of my love for the desert: I found the jungle a bit claustrophobic and gasped at the deserts of Rajasthan out of the train window as we headed for Bombay when we shipped back to UK.

Ryan: Was nature a big interest? Were you adventurous? Did you exhibit early talents? 

Tom Sheppard: Some early interest in nature which has grown more rapidly in recent years so that even on country walks in the UK I am amazed and uplifted by the beauty and variety around me - the delicacy, elegance, symmetry, design, colour of wild flowers; the young leaves on the trees unfurling in spring and early summer. In the desert, of course, nature is overwhelming - the sheer scale ... and the miracle of plant and animal life. I don't think I was especially adventurous. Early talents? I was often labeled 'artistic'  - a two-edged accolade, of course, among beer-swilling, back-slapping fighter pilots! But I guess it helped with my later pursuits taking snaps and putting books together.

Ryan: What were the turning points in your life? What was the tipping point that caused you to take up exploration so wholeheartedly? What is it about you/life experiences that made you so responsive to this kind of pursuit? Did someone help you or champion you along the way? 

Tom Sheppard: The clincher, the moment from which I was permanently hooked on the desert, is touched on in Quiet for a Tuesday (QFAT) - seeing dawn break from an aircraft over Jebel Uweinat in south east Libya and the vastness of the desert emerge from the shadows beneath us (see Q.6 below also). It brought tears to my eyes. Almost surreal, such a landscape gradually appearing out of the grey beneath. Predisposition to this response? I've never been a gregarious person (beware, more cliché-labels looming!) but landscapes like that have double the impact if you're on your own without the distractions and pressures of other people. And no, there was no champion/coach in the background.

Ryan: What is the major attraction for you when it comes to travel? 

Tom Sheppard: Most of the normal constituents of 'travel' fill me with dread! Airports, the bureaucracy, crowds, jostling queues at tiny windows, flying cattle-class, insincere cabin staff, officious functionaries ... I don't have to tell you, I'm sure! Nor is it 'the people and the food and the beaches and the .... etc'. Travel, for me, only has any 'attraction' when you are free of all that, when the pressure is lifted, when you are free to take your time; free, even, of the constant low-level pressure of living in a hideously overpopulated place like the UK. Having said that I am enormously moved by, and respectful of, the genuine hospitality and kindness of people I have met in ones and twos in my desert adventures. Alas, conditioned to be suspicious, on my guard and waiting for the sting, all too often the genuineness is only apparent in retrospect - a sick reflection on our society.

Ryan: What is the greatest travel challenge for you personally? The physical, the mental?

Tom Sheppard: I think it must be the mental. Overcoming the bureaucratic barriers at the beginning, going into the endless minutiae of planning and equipment levels (that bit nonetheless enjoyable and satisfying), the en-route decision-making - monitoring supply levels and reserves, decisions on navigation; but then the reward of activating it all in the careful progression of the trip; keeping things carefully judged and safe, caring for the vehicle on which in remote desert regions on your own your safety, and life, depend absolutely. The impetus of the trip, the stimulus of the landscape, seem well able to absorb any physical stress without leaving any trace (except, perhaps the occasional bout of dehydration - QFAT pp.43-44).

Ryan: What was your most memorable experience?

Tom Sheppard: I guess it must be that time looking down at Jebel Uweinat and the dawn over the Libyan desert (back jacket flap, top quote, QFAT). Especially coming on top of the excitement and expectation of my first pilot trip in a large transport aircraft to Khartoum and Aden - exotic destinations.

Ryan: What do you know as a result of your journeys that the rest of us don't?

Tom Sheppard: Judging from my observation of those for whom it is a first experience, it would seem that the peace, tranquility, freedom and beauty conferred by the remote desert is something not yet appreciated by many.

Ryan: What impact does your work/travel have on your personal life? 

Tom Sheppard: Complete takeover! I've come to the conclusion that I am a certifiable workaholic and (unapologetic) perfectionist. I have to have (and usually have) a grand projet onto which I can focus totally. The perfectionism - or put less pejoratively, just getting things absolutely right - goes with the territory. As I say repeatedly in QFAT, ' ... life is about detail'. Pilot training (or even my day to day motorcycling) is a good place to start with this approach; if you don't 'get things right', you'll probably die, and take others with you.

Ryan: What are you most proud of? What mistakes have you made? What mistakes do you continue to make?

Tom Sheppard: I suppose it has to be the organization, team training and execution of the  coast-to-coast West-East Sahara expedition. Mistakes: too many miles in a day. After 40 years I think I'm at last getting it licked! Strange to say, until recently my record was set in 1979 in the Hoggar mountains: 12 miles and most of the time spent stopped and taking pictures! Mistakes I continue to make? Judging distance visually in the desert - notoriously difficult. (See pic and caption p.188/189, The Nobility of Wilderness.)

Ryan: What are the most significant lessons you have learned from solo desert travel? 

Tom Sheppard: 'Doucement, doucement!',  as an avuncular Algerian truckie once told me as I crouched at the side of the track mending a puncture. Take it steady. Be a granny. 'Get things right'. Life is about detail. Plan ahead. Recce on foot. Or, to put it another way ... no, I already have! And all easier to do when you're on your own.

Ryan: How has travel changed you? 

Tom Sheppard: Hard to say since the change is so gradual but looking back, say, 35 to 40 years, my passion for the beauty of desert landscapes and the magic of solitude remain unchanged. I do, however, see it now in the wider world context, appreciate its perilous rarity not just within Algeria but in relation to the whole planet. True wilderness, very precious, that must not be spoiled or desecrated; that must, with the application of a few simple rules (TNOW, p.237), be protected (TNOW p.233). Totally relevant to all this, and to the survival of our species - yes, the survival of our species - is population. World population. When is it going to stop? Read - slowly, and weigh - p.166, QFAT.

Ryan: What traits (contributing to your success) do you possess that others may lack? What characteristic are you most grateful for? Do you enjoy the most? Do you least like about yourself?

Tom Sheppard: See 7 and 8 above. I'm grateful for these traits but probably value most of all my sense of wonder - which keeps expanding. The skills of animals and birds, the extraordinary mutual rapport there seems to be between man and certain groups of species. The beauty of horses. The apparent miracles of nature, the beauty of leaves on a tree in spring and early summer, the fact the earth's axis is tilted over at 23° (without which there'd be no spring or summer); the staggering ingenuity of the human brain, the cleverness of software designers, the metallurgists who give us 150,000-mile auto engines, the extraordinary and ever-expanding capability of electronics, the teams that begat GPS and Google Earth. And the edge taken off so much of it by the dumb-ass technophobia and lack of appreciation by our opinion-makers - 'the media' - and how it rubs off on the average person. President Obama was right: 'Put science back in it's proper place.'

Most enjoyed? After the expedition itself and the photography, the huge creative treat of putting a book together to enshrine the landscapes - all here at home, taking it steady, 'getting it right' as our wonderful software and hardware allow us to do; tweaking and honing it for as long as you like.

Least liked about me? Probably my ears. Getting bigger; and noise-damaged years ago with a pronounced higher-frequencies dip in the audiogram.  But you ought to see the fancy electronic do-dads I have to lift the curve ... !

Ryan: What is your greatest achievement?

Tom Sheppard: Being so modest! (Think about it ... !)

Ryan: What is your greatest wish for yourself?

Tom Sheppard: The promise of a carte blanche visa arrangement for yearly solo Sahara trips in Algeria!

Thanks again Tom for taking the time to talk with me.

Those interested in Tom's books should visit Desert Wind Publishing. I highly recommend them!

All images copyright Tom Sheppard

A lone mud-spattered researcher in torn khaki pants and sweat-stained sleeveless t-shirt kneels in the dirt in front of a makeshift shelter, carefully injecting formalin into a toad to halt the onset of decay. Tiny sweat bees cloud around her head, crawling into her nose and ears and getting into the corners of her eyes. She's so concentrated on her work that she barely notices them. Suddenly, a man from the nearby Pygmy village bursts into camp.

"Madame, there is a snake in the village!"

She leaps to her feet, pausing only to stuff a snake bag into the waistband of her pants and grab a snake hook, and they run off through the forest in pursuit.

For herpetologist Kate Jackson that's a good day of fieldwork in the Republic of Congo. This and many more dramatic stories are recounted in her book, Mean and Lowly Things. When asked why she decided to write such a deeply personal account of the challenges and tribulations of fieldwork in remote settings, she answers with typical aplomb, "Mostly to raise money for my next expedition."

Dig deeper and you soon discover that Jackson, an assistant professor at Whitman College, passionately believes in the epigram from Aristotle that opens her book: "To understand the world, we must understand mean and lowly things." Every page of her story breathes the excitement of discovery, and she returns again and again to the message that there is indeed great value in studying toads and snakes. "Only about two percent of all the money that is contributed to wildlife organizations goes to amphibians and reptiles," she says. "People need to understand why they're important." 

Jackson has been fascinated by 'mean and lowly things' for as long as she can remember. "As a child, I originally thought I would be a vet or a zookeeper," she says, until, on a high-school career day, she was shown the collections of the herpetology department of the Royal Ontario Museum. "I'd never seen anything like it," she says, her voice still coloured with wonder. "A new world opened up before me." The experience, and subsequent undergraduate work at the Smithsonian Institution, revealed to her the importance of collecting and identifying specimens. When the bigger picture comes together, she explains, the interrelationship of all living things and the niche each species occupies in the planetary ecosystem can be understood. It is then that individual species can be protected and balance maintained. 

For someone always interested in exploration, a longing to study the real thing in the wild was inevitable. In 1997, Jackson organized her own expedition to a remote field camp deep in the forests of Congo. The skills needed on such a venture weren't taught in graduate school, they had to be discovered for oneself through trial and error. And when dealing with venomous snakes, errors can be costly. 

Her initial foray was marred by civil war and a medical evacuation, but she came away with "an altogether irrational longing to return," which she did two more times, once in 2005 and again the following year. The 2005 expedition was another rocky one, plagued by seemingly insurmountable cultural barriers. "There was no go-between person. Just me and a group of very poor, uneducated villagers who had no understanding of my culture or where I came from," she says. "I never managed to break down that barrier." Still, it was a success work-wise. She collected approximately 130 specimens of rare snakes, lizards and frogs, including at least one species that may have been previously unknown to science.

Her 2006 expedition to the same region was a very different journey. "I think I managed to breach the cultural gap this time thanks in large part to the presence of Ange and Lise," she says, speaking of the two Congolese graduate students who accompanied her. "They were scientists who understood my world, and therefore they could interpret me to the villagers. They also knew how to negotiate with the village chiefs for the supplies and the assistants we needed." Together, they collected a large number of specimens and laid a framework of good relations that Jackson says will be helpful on future trips. 

For Jackson, the lure that keeps drawing her back to Africa is that "no one has ever done any herpetology in the north [of Congo]. It's basically undiscovered territory." Her voice drops a notch and trembles with excitement. "Central Africa is sort of a black hole for herpetology," she says. "There are tons of places to go where no herpetologist has ever been and where, within a couple hundred kilometres, you find no overlap in species. It is that diverse." For the explorer, there is no more intriguing reward.

And like most explorers, Jackson's work can mean enduring physical hardship. In her Congo camp, she slept beneath a patched orange tarpaulin on a simple groundsheet, covered in a mosquito net: a situation that caused her Bantu guide to quit because the living conditions were too harsh. The food prepared by her cook was nearly inedible. In her book she describes bland manioc that tasted like "a cross between a chunk of wood and an overcooked potato," and soup that "often includes rotting fish, which they serve cold for breakfast if I don't finish it at dinner." The smoked fish had been prepared weeks before, and it was often infested with maggots. 

Her stories of insect infestations are particularly gruesome. She describes occasions when swarms of biting ants filled her clothing and covered everything in sight, and termites that ate large holes in the tarp of her meager shelter. In what is perhaps her most disgusting story, she, Lise and Ange developed large painful bumps all over their bodies, which turned out to be maggots. Flies had laid eggs in clothing that had been hung out to dry, which later hatched into tiny maggots that burrowed into their skin. "Every time the maggot moves, it feels as if a large ant is biting you, but when you turn to swat it there's nothing there, except a lump getting gradually larger and larger," Jackson writes. Treatment involved smothering the maggots with a strip of surgical tape, and then squeezing them out by force. "I keep meaning to save one," she writes. "I long to have one with wings for my collection, but it's really hard not to pick at them."

For Jackson, it was just another day in the field. "The physical discomforts never bothered me so much," she says. "I will tolerate discomfort to do important work." What could be remotely appealing about conducting work of any kind under such trying conditions? "My state of mind is different when I'm out there. I'm not worried about getting a paper done and submitted on time, or catching the next bus, or getting a reply to an email. I forget all that. I love the sheer excitement of the field, all the things there is to discover."  

Jackson dismisses the significant dangers of her occupation just as characteristically. "Everyone thinks of my fieldwork as being dangerous because of the snakes," she writes. "But I've said time and time again that mundane dangers--malaria, murder, crashes of small planes--are much more likely." Such a thing derailed her 1997 trip when a tiny scratch on her leg came into contact with swamp water while out collecting. Five days later, her temperature shot to 104 F, and nothing in her first aid kit could halt the upward progression of creeping redness and swelling. Her trip came to an end with "a medical evacuation, by small plane from a lumber company seven hours downstream by pirogue [dugout canoe]," followed by 10 days in a hospital in Cameroon.

Snakebites might not worry Jackson, but in her book she recounts a frighteningly close call with a forest cobra on her 2006 expedition. She was left her wondering if she was about to die an unpleasant death among strangers, hundreds of miles from any possible help. "People have a hard time believing that I wasn't afraid at that moment," Jackson says. "Actually, I was profoundly glad it had happened to me and not to one of the graduate students I was responsible for." 

On the topic of fear in general, she say: "I often feel fear in advance of these expeditions. While the details are being sorted out, I sometimes sit back and wonder if this will be my last one, if I could be killed on this trip. But once you're there and you're in the details of it you don't feel fear. You've been trained for this, and so you're focused on the moment and on taking action. Fear only comes before or after." She returns to the cobra experience. "Few people know that that [cobra] was almost the last snake I caught in the wild. Not just on that trip, but in my entire life. I caught one more [a venomous Night Viper] in Brazzaville just before I flew home." She pauses, reliving the moment. "I was really glad I did it. I wouldn't have wanted to come back to Canada not having done that--wondering if I still could."  

That experience would be enough to make most people rethink their career, but after sinking into a thoughtful quiet moment while retelling the tale of the cobra, Jackson shifts back to high gear. "You know about the chytrid fungus, don't you? It's a strange fungal disease that's affecting amphibians all over the world. It's already wiped out frogs and toads in Australia and South America. Well, for whatever reason, this fungus has never been tested for in Africa. Can you believe that? It may very well have originated there." She thumps her desk for emphasis, and it carries down the phone line as a dull thud. "I've already got people catching specimens and swabbing for samples, and when we go back to the forest in June..." She's off and running again, nearly breathless with excitement, any notion of danger and discomfort completely gone, eclipsed by the wonders of discovery and the thrill of the chase.

For more information, visit Kate Jackson's website, and pick up a copy of Mean and Lowly Things (Harvard University Press). 

[This profile piece was originally published in the Going Hard column of Outpost Magazine, March/April 2008]

To me, a library has always been a sacred place. I went there as a child in search of silence and reflection, just as others seek the dim solace of a church. I went there to find answers to my questions, just as others might seek a priest in times of distress. Sometimes I went there simply for the atmosphere--the smell of the books, the soft tread of shoes on worn green carpet, the weight of the silence. The smell of old books takes me back there with the same immediacy that the smell of incense and candle wax has for the Catholic.

Libraries are the accumulated storehouse of our collective memory, containing more volumes than you could ever read or even leaf through in a lifetime. The sum of all our parts: the hardcover stacks of our past, the crinkling present with its smudge of fresh periodical ink, and the paperback shelves of our most distant sci-fi future. They contain our collective consciousness; our deeds, hopes and dreams, and all that we have ever done or thought, both good and bad: nothing less than the thread of our collective growth as a species.

It is in libraries that the incredible miracle of the human race is contained, not in crumbling stones, because it is only in libraries that the story of the human race can come alive. And so, to visit the modern reincarnation of the Library of Alexandria, once the font and seat of all Western knowledge, was for me a form of Hajj, a religious duty.

Photo by Jason George