Rating: 
Summary: I'm glad I wasn't with him!
Review: What a trip! What experiences! The things O'Hanlon saw! The things he ate.... The things he drank.... The things he did that were really, truly disgusting.... This is a funny, intimate look at an exhilarating, sometimes frightening, sometimes despairing visit to a country that most people would have no wish to see, told in a lively voice by a naturalist who is all too human. I liked it so much that I typed a particularly amazing and funny scene from it into an e-mail to my friends so they could laugh at it, too. O'Hanlon's experiences traveling with his (rightfully) nervous companion Lary (an American biologist) and wildly womanizing guide Marcellin (a Minister for the Conservation of Water and Forests) make for a great read. As I pored through the book, I was awfully grateful to be an armchair explorer, and not out there, hip-deep in a swamp of bees and flies and malaria-carrying mosquitoes (not to mention leopards, gorillas, crocodiles, and swarms of ants that can devour a chicken in a matter of minutes), wondering if I'd ever make it out again.Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Breathtakingly Brilliant !
Review: Words fail me in praising this extraordinary account of a westerner's encounter with the central congo. O'Hanlon is an international treasure and I hope his passion, his stamina, and his health permit him to continue to enlighten us about the world we live in. READ THIS BOOK. You will not regret it.
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