Shortlisted for a 2016 Edward Standford Travel Writing Award. In 2013, three friends set off on a journey that they had been told was impossible: the north-south crossing of the Congo River Basin, from Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to Juba, in South Sudan. Traversing two & a half thousand miles of the toughest terrain on the planet in a twenty-five year old Land Rover, they faced repeated challenges, from kleptocracy & fire ants to non-existent roads & intense suspicion from local people. Through imagination & teamwork
- including building rafts & bridges to cross rivers, conducting makeshift surgery in the jungle & playing tribal politics
- they got through. But the Congo is raw, & the journey took an unexpected psychological toll on them all. Crossing the Congo is a story of friendship, what it takes to complete a great journey against tremendous odds, & an intimate look into one of the world`s least-developed & most fragile states.