South from the Limpopo: Travels Through South Africa

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Summary: South African Journeys (1993-1995) on Bicycle.
Review: Dervla bikes down and up South Africa before, during and after the 1994 vote for majority rule. Her physical perseverance energized me, and her observations were fascinating. As in most of her other works, Dervla has the courage to be inconsistent in her views, and reveals her own positive and negative aspects with refreshing honesty. -- Dervla Addict.

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Summary: Murphy describes one of the greatest events of the 20th cent
Review: I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of this book while in South Africa last summer. I've read Murphy's books before, but this is my favorite.

In her own nonjudgemental, trusting, and humorous style, Murphy travels to South Africa twice in the book. I will never forget the section of the book where she describes the first all-race elections in the history of the country. Since I was traveling in South Africa at the time, the book took on even greater significance. Ms. Murphy, as always, traveled places where no one expected her to go, and her description of her experience is priceless. Want to read two books about South Africa? Read "A Long Walk To Freedom," by Nelson Mandela, and this book. What a fantastic trip you'll take, whether you visit South Africa or not.

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Summary: A flawed insight
Review: South Africa is a wonderful country and I had the great fortune to live and work there for two years. During this time I travelled thousands of miles, saw much of the country, and met a great many people from all backgrounds. It is a complex country full of contradictions that can assault one's sensibilities. There can be few other countries in the world where the destiny of its citizens is so intricately linked to its immediate history.

The author of this book recognises that the only way to understand a country is to see it for oneself. Bravely she set out to find the answers to some of the questions that South Africa poses by travelling around it on a bicycle. To some extent she succeeds, her reportage surrounding the assassination of Chris Hani has some merit, but overall I was left with a sense of great unease. She establishes her credentials as an admirer of the ANC early on and is named Comrade Noxolo (which means peace in Khosa) by her 'minders'; a gesture which she describes as marking her 'acceptance as a reliable friend, a person with the right attitude'. At no time, however, does she question the role of her minders as her journey continues and how she may have been manipulated in crucial sections of this book.

Her views about the redistribution of clothes from a hijacked laundry van are disappointing (failing 'to see it as either criminal or immoral') and her Robin Hood like attitude to this incident is not extended to the theft of her own property later in the book in the form of her beloved bicycle. Her trip to prison to visit those on remand awaiting trial for the possession of automatic weapons is disturbing. The closest she comes to condemning the possession of these unlawful weapons is to inform us that she has another view that is 'beside the present point' from agreeing with her minders that they should be retained for future possible use.

Later in the book her attitude begins to change. She becomes more cynical about her associates' intentions, but by then her personal opinions have long ago clouded the objectivity of her observations. Maybe a travelogue is allowed to be subjective but I can't help thinking that if it is then it should avoid dubious political observations and concentrate on describing the journey itself. It is this which seriously detracts from the overall value of the book. 'South From The Limpopo' goes some way to describing this most interesting of countries but fails to find the real South Africa.