From Library Journal
The Niger River in West Africa is 2500 miles long?longer than the Danube or the Volga. Jenkins, a writer for Backpacker who ran the Niger from its source to Timbuktu, offers here a first-person account of his journey. Starting from the source, he and a close friend and acquaintances kayak past crocodiles, hippos, and somnolent villages as they go from jungle to desert. The look at village life forms the most intriguing part of the book. Jenkins weaves in vignettes of early explorations of West Africa that are of some interest but might better have been used to offer more information about the people and places along the Niger. Still, he has spun an excellent travel yarn about an area little considered in the West. Recommended for public libraries.?David Schau, Kanawha Cty. P.L., Charleston, W. Va.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The New York Times Book Review, Richard Bernstein
Jenkins gives the impression of being a reliable narrator, so that when, stuck on endless stretches of the Niger, paddling day after day, he is not afraid to admit that he is bored and dissatisfied.... But it is just that touch of melancholy, of regret, of the hopelessness of the quest that gives To Timbuktu its resonance.

From Booklist
Jenkins and his buddy, Mike, outdoorsmen and explorers from Wyoming with wanderlust in their blood, leave their wives back in the States (six months pregnant) for West Africa and the Niger River. With two companions, they set out to kayak from the source of the river to the sea, a feat never before accomplished; they intend to be guided by the specter and myth of Timbukto. Interweaving his tale with the adventures of Mungo Park, Rene Caillie, and other explorers who paved the way, Jenkins portrays himself as a modern-day adventurer on a rapidly domesticated planet, a Zen Hemingway--macho yet sensitive, respectful yet indignant. He feels guilty about leaving his wife back home but is not willing to shorten his trip; he argues with a distinguished African chief regarding the ancient ritual of female circumcision. "Destiny is the coincidence of the random with the inevitable," he writes, waxing poetic with that familiar brand of road wisdom and traveler's koans. Jenkins evocatively conjures encounters with bees, crocodiles, hippos, waterfalls, corrupt officials, mercenaries, and soldiers. Benjamin Segedin

From Kirkus Reviews
Some intrepid young men become the first outsiders to boat down the fearsome upper reaches of the Niger River. In the early 19th century, most of the Europeans exploring the remote reaches of this 3,000-mile-long African river perished as from disease or accident, or at the hands of hostile natives, and while Jenkins (Off the Map, 1993) and his three mates face those same challenges to only a slightly lesser degree, their expedition is ultimately done in by a mixture of ennui and anger. Still, before the Niger flattens out and the narrative follows suit, the expedition has its moments. After climbing in the wet, heavily forested mountains of Guinea to locate the river's headwaters, the fellows launch their frail kayaks into the fast-moving stream; running into nearly impenetrable walls of vegetation, they are forced to flee from swarms of bees, to retreat in the face of an angry hippo, and to constantly scan the water for malevolent crocodiles. John and Rick, the two less experienced kayakers, develop grudges against Jenkins and his buddy, Mike, who shares the author's lust for risk-taking adventures. As the river settles into its broad floodplain and slows, Jenkins and Mike begin to think of their wives at home in Wyoming, both seven months pregnant. Short of their original destination, Timbuktu, the pair disembark, leaving John and Rick--who eventually kayak the entire length of the river--to go it alone. But after Mike flies home, Jenkins decides he wants to reach Timbuktu after all and buys passage on a packed steamer. Interspersed are flashbacks to an earlier, rambling trip to North Africa when Jenkins was a teenager, and far more interesting tales of the early and mostly tragic adventures of the foursome's predecessors. While the narrative's occasional sluggishness and sometimes boastful prose can be heavy wading, the subject matter ought to hold the interest of like-minded adventurers. (20 color photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Book Description
Traveling with Mark Jenkins is a mixture of the daring and the dangerous, the dramatic and the absurd. Here, he and three friends, with the aid of a remarkably intuitive African guide, set out to attempt the first descent of the Niger River, the legendary city of Timbuktu their final goal. Along the way, they are attacked by killer bees, charged by hippos, stalked by crocodiles. They pass through villages where every female child has undergone a clitorectomy, stumble upon a group of completely blind men living in the bush, dance with a hundred naked women. That Jenkins reaches his goal, riding alone across the Sahara on a motorcycle, stands in sharp contrast to what befell those who first tried to find Timbuktu and whose fates the author interweaves with the narrative of his own adventures.

About the Author
Mark Jenkins lives in Laramie, Wyoming, where he is Rocky Mountain editor for Backpacker and an investigative reporter for Men's Health. His work has appeared in numerous newspapers and many magazines, including < I>GQ, Playboy, and Reader's Digest.

Excerpted from To Timbuktu by Mark Jenkins. (c)reprinted by permission, all rights reserved.
I am moving but can't see where I'm going. The river is bearing me. The prow of my boat cleaves folds of whiteness and pulls me through. My course is invisible but I keep paddling, steadily dipping the blades side to side. The cadence keeps me balanced.

The fog came in the night, dampening the thirsty earth, stilling the howling cicadas. We were too tired to notice it. Dead atop our sleeping bags, insects gnawing at the netting, sweating in our sleep, dreaming murky, disjointed parables as all white people dream here. In the morning we crawled out of our tents and the river was gone. We squatted silently in the mud like the Africans and ate the last of our food. Then we broke camp, loaded our boats, and pressed them like scalpels into the flesh of the river.

At first we tried to paddle in formation--single file down the middle of the river, gunboats staggered. Me in front as point man, on the lookout for crocs and hippos, sidearm on my lap; Rick next, then Mike with his gun, John taking up the rear. But the mist was too thick. One by one we were swallowed.

No matter. We are all going down the same river together even if we are lost to each other.

There are no rapids in this section, only arcing ribs of current disappearing into the ghostly void. It is deceptive. The surface of a river is only the skin, the muscle is underneath. You can't know this from shore. You must be out in a small boat; then you know it because you feel it. We are in kayaks, the smallest of vessels. In a kayak you are not above the river, you are inside it, part of it. Water envelops you and carries you on your voyage.