Tony Marinho

The Laterite Road: an African Travel Odyssey Tony Marinho

The Laterite Road is a poetic appreciation of Africa's historical journey, its triumphs and troubles set against its borderless geographical highpoints. It glorifies the tenacity of Africa's peoples, ignoring political parasites. The Laterite Road, the ubiquitous red dusty or muddy road leading from and to almost every African home, is a metaphor for community and unity, suffering and survival. The Laterite Road is the highway linking, the thread binding, Africa and Africans in play and poverty, hunger and hope. On The Laterite Road, criss-cross Africa, from the Pyramids to Kilimanjaro to Tabletop Mountain to Gorée Isle to Djibouti. Drink from the Limpopo, shower in the Victoria Falls and navigate the Nile. The Laterite Road is timeless, ancient and modern, stretching from ancestral Turkana Boy to Apartheid to today's Arab Spring. The Laterite Road clocks up 20,000Km marked by 100Km kilometre stones doubling as headstones with a name or event honouring living and dead great and unknown Africans and Africanophils. In The Laterite Road learn of 'foolball's' power and Chelsea and Arsenal football fans dying on the same losing side to the applause of coup bullets. The kilometre stones also help readers recognise, return to and recommend a favourite kilometre stone stanza.