Alexandre and Sonia have undertaken to entirely walk the African continent, from south to North, from the Cape of Good Hope to the Sea of Galilea in Israel. Three years walking along the Great Rift Valley, in East Africa, to symbolically re-make the trip of the first men, the ones that left the so-called craddle of mankind. By this they wanted to walk from ape-men to modern men, revisiting the historical process of hominisation, that made us what we are.

In the first volume, their first 7000 km, from Cape to Kili, they share with us a very close and intimate Africa, amongst families, in villages off the beaten tracks. These adventurers have faced implacable sun, wild animals, thirst, malaria, tse-tse flies, deserts and jungle. Sharing the poverty of their providential hosts, they share with us the hospitality, the warmth and enthusiasm of these men and women that they met on their way. Day after day they themselves became more African.

In the second volume, their last 7000 km, from Kili to the Sea of Galilea in Israël, they cross massai land, are lost in the Suguta Valley, meet amazing people around lake Turkana. With them we enter Ethiopia through the Omo river, penetrate deeply into ethiopian countryside and culture, sweat into Sudan, follow the Nile in Egypt and reach the Mount of Beatitudes.

These took volumes will be translated in German (sept 2006) with Bastei Verlag, and in Bulgarian.

If you want to read all this in english, and if you have any contact in the publication business, in any other language, please join Benita Edzard. [bedzard@robert-laffont.fr] she will discuss any further detail with you.

We had a recent meeting in London with Random House. If you really want to read us in english after having seen our series, and if you feel that an email from you could put some weight into their decision please feel free to write to Rebecca Carter at [http://www.randomhouse.com/about/faq/index.php?ToDo=contact]

thanks in advance.

Yours sincerely Alexandre

1. Penguins and wine
2. Cranes and Philosophers
3. The Great White and the Small Coloreds
4. Happy sad Land
5. Spirits hunters and Menhunts
6. Trouts and frenzy
7. Lesotho. From Dinosaurs to cannibals
8. The veteran and the diamonds
9. Rainbow and blood-baths
10. Bones and Men
11. Horns and fangs
12. God’s Window and Brian’s Arch
13. Small Zimbabwe versus Great Zimbabwe
14. Sad Zimbabwe
15. Cataracts and Serpentine
16. Mozambique. The tiger and the Cholera
17. Malawi. Sugar Daddies and paradise
18. The Memory’s father
19. On the tomb of Oblivion
20. Makumba and the zebra’s laughter
21. The old bone and the King
22. Tanzania. Extended family and Paul the Giant
23. Walking with the lions
24. Missions and Barbaigs
25. Zanzibar. Men traders and dolphins.
26. Africa’s roof

1. Habiba, World’s treasure
2. Ngorongoro, World’s heart
3. Olduvaï. The Valley of the Walking Time
4. Back to the Rift
5. Irkong’s Masais
6. Ol Donyo Lengai. God’s Mountain
7. Natron. Hell’s lake
8. Magadi. Land of Shagreen
9. Under the Forest of the Lost Child
10. Orphans and forbidden Tuskers
11. Bwindi’s Gorillas
12. Mau Escarpment
13. A rosary of Lakes
14. Suguta. Death Valley
15. Kerio. Life-line
16. Jade Sea and Koobi Fora
17. Omo’s Dassanetch
18. Hamer’s Ukuli
19. Despair at the Empire’s doorsteps
20. Sodo Maso
    20 bis. Tourism in the Historical North (optional)
21. Lucy in Addis with diamonds
22. “Cheggir Yellem !”
23. Reconciliation with Ethiopia
24. In the Sudanese furnace
25. Robbers and Samaritans
26. Khartoum, the tricky trunk
27. Meroe and Naga
28. Doukhan and Zar, secret ceremonies
29. Bayuda Desert
30. Shimaliya’s palm groves
31. History puzzles
32. The Caravan of the Batn el Hagar
33. Civilization’s door
34. The love of Philae
35. The heart of Egypt
36. Pyramid and the Butterfly
37. Peace’s Wineyards
38. On the Mount of Beatitudes

Alexandre and Sonia left January the first 2001 from the Cape of Good Hope heading to their final destination : the Mount of Beatitudes on the lakeshore of the Sea of Galilea. 1200 days, actually walking 14000 km in Africa, meeting with 1200 families, through 11 countries : South Africa, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, and Israel.

These episodes tell their day to day discoveries and meetings. They sometimes deceided to stress some African wonders by stopping for a little while, documenting them, before hitting the road again. They where everyday invited by people that spontaneously welcomed them in their homes. Traveling slowly, with an African rhythm, gave them the opportunity to experience exceptional moments. They witness for us continent far from the sinister caricatural triptyc of guerrilla-famine-epidemy through which we often think about Africa.