Thursday, April 4, 2013

Safari Jema by Teresa O'Kane

Title:  Safari Jema:  
A Journey of Love and Adventure from Casablanca to Cape Town
Author:  Teresa O'Kane
Published:  January 9th 2012 by CreateSpace
Page Count:  292
Genre:  Memoir
Shelf:  Giveaways
Rating:  ★★★★★

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Award winning author Teresa O’Kane had always longed to see the world. She owned scads of travel books and maps to prove it and was about to buy yet another bookcase to hold the many Lonely Planet guides and travel essays that she and her husband had accumulated over the years when she turned to her husband and said, “I’m tired of storing our dreams. Let’s live them!” Within a month, they bought one-way tickets to Morocco, leased out their home, and set out on a journey of the African Continent top to bottom, from Casablanca to Cape Town. Transiting seventeen countries in 10 months, mostly by public transport, they explored wild, exotic, and historic locations they had only dreamed of and some they had never heard of. From sandy Timbuktu, to a tiny lemur populated island in Madagascar, the author embraces Africa. She strokes the manes of lions, contracts malaria, flies a micro light over Victoria Falls, earns a level one certification as a South African safari guide, discovers that an insect has turned her foot into a nursery for hundreds of eggs, grapples with the negative effects of foreign aid, and rubs elbows with European royalty deep within the Dogon in Mali. O’Kane offers an entertaining and enlightening look into overland travel on the African continent. Filled with helpful budget minded travel tips, this inspiring book may find you yearning to take a career break of your own.

My Review:

I’m always leery when I pick up a memoir. I never know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised with Safari Jema. This story is extremely well written and keeps you coming back for more. Everything was laid out in such perfect clarity. It has a brilliant flow to it that makes for a very easy and enlightening read. I couldn’t put it down for a second.

O’Kane illustrates the cultural diversity found within the continent of Africa. She also illustrates the trials and rewards of traveling the continent. It was a real eye opener, especially since she made you feel like you were there with her. There were times when I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t see the words on the page. Honestly, laughing so hard that my dogs curled up with me trying to comfort me because they thought that something was wrong. The worst part? It would have been horrendous to live through some of these things, but absolutely hilarious to read about and would have created the memories of a lifetime.

This story made me laugh, it made me think, and it made me envious because the author was brave enough to live my bucket list and come back to write about it in a work more captivating than many fictional novels. I am so grateful that the author decided to share her adventures in this manner.


Buy your copy online here today!


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