Mystery of the Nile: The Epic Story of the First Descent of the World's Deadliest River - Softcover

Bangs, Richard; Scaturro, Pasquale

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451217551 ISBN 13: 9780451217554

Publisher: NAL Trade, 2006

Synopsis

An account of the first successful complete descent of the Nile River, made by renowned adventurer Pasquale Scaturro in 2004, traces his 3,250-mile kayak and raft journey between Ethiopia and Alexandria, a geographical expedition that was marked by dangerous animals, bandits, militia, sandstorms, and other violent elements. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author:

Richard Bangs won the National Book Award for Outdoor Literature for The Lost River and is co-director of the IMAX film, The Mystery of the Nile.

In 2001, Pasquale Scaturro led the National Federation of the Blind Mount Everest Expedition that broke four Himalayan climbing records and became a Time magazine cover story. In 2004, he became the first person, with Gordon Brown, to complete the full descent of the Blue Nile and Nile.

From School Library Journal:

Adult/High School–In a beautifully integrated confluence of story lines, Bangs combines a historian's reflections on the passing terrain and its ancient civilizations with a contemporary adventurer's riveting account of transiting one of the planet's most extreme environments. From a small sacred pool in the Ethiopian highlands to where the river flows into the Mediterranean over 3200 miles away, the water-borne expedition not only had to navigate Class IV to VI rapids, but also to overcome tropical disease and encounters with armed guerrillas, man-eating crocodiles, sandstorms, and political barriers. The expedition's initial stage involved an ambitious IMAX filming project, which was followed by a core team's effort to complete the record-setting descent of the Blue Nile, traveling past Khartoum, through Sudan, and ultimately to Egypt in 114 days. Scaturro, geophysicist and experienced mountaineer/river explorer who led the venture, kept a journal that forms the basis for the book, and Brown, world-class kayaker, served also as cameraman. With telling detail, this book captures many levels of drama, conveying with insight and a sense of immediacy leadership challenges, logistical crises, and split-second decision-making, as well as reflections on large-scale issues such as environmental consequences of redirecting the flow of the Nile for power-generation schemes. The volume contains two black-and-white maps and a 16-page insert of color photographs, which are key to illuminating the sheer enormity of the undertaking.–Lynn Nutwell, Fairfax City Regional Library, VA
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About this edition

• Publisher: NAL Trade
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0451217551
• ISBN 13: 9780451217554
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304