This book is featured on the Exclusive Books' 2003 Publishers' Choice list.

?I am growing weary of life in this jungle. This savage hunting for money and things. This relentless gathering in plastic supermarket packets. This drumming on dark disco floors. Perhaps it is time to walk again.?

Against this feeling of discontent with life in urban Johannesburg, Adam Levin introduces us to the reasons for his wandering travels. Drowning in a ?sea of convenience,? his writing eloquently implies the growing feeling of almost manic frustration building within him as he loses his sense of wonder in the sanitised urban environment. As a remedy for this and in an attempt to reawaken his soul to the miracles all around him, his travels into Africa have brought him into contact with some fascinating places and intriguing people. Hence, 'The Wonder Safaris'.

Apart from a means of escaping the urban morasse he finds himself in, Levin?s travels are also an attempt to shed some light on the eternal white conundrum of what it means to be African, particularly in South Africa

?Nowhere on this continent had I been more aware of my whiteness?a white boy in a black land. And all along the way the richness of these journeys has been written on my body ? so that even if I never was an African, my journeys have made me one.?

After introducing himself and some of his reasons for setting out on his ?wonder safaris,? the book is divided into three sections, according to his various experiences.

?Narratives and travelogues? describes nine of his journeys through Africa, from the medina of Dakar in Senegal, where he manages to get defrauded by the same con-artist twice, to the fetid slave dungeons of old in Accra. With writing refreshingly free of the florid descriptions so characteristic of travel writing, he tells us of the people he meets and the friends he makes. From Xhi, the Malagasy sorcerer who tells him Madagascar is the foot of God to Dona Maria, who remained in Maputo after independence, Levin introduces some captivating, yet all incredibly human, characters.

'Fawlty Towers' in Swahili
It is undoubtedly the people he meets that makes Levin?s stories stand out from the run of the mill travel books, and he tells us more of the fascinating characters he has encountered in the second section of the book, ?Portraits.? My absolute favourites in this section were the two stories on the delightfully bohemian Emerson Skeens of the now famous ?Emerson & Green?s? hotel in Zanzibar, a place described by one ex-employee as ?Fawlty Towers dubbed into Swahili.?

The final section of the book deals with some of the ?Traditions? he has encountered along the way. Whether it?s the bizarre rituals of voodoo priestesses in Benin, the veils of East African Islam or the annual movie night in Zanzibar, the book sheds light on some of Africa?s most intriguing and curious traditions.

With the book divided up into these collections of short narratives (each story takes up about eight pages on average) the book is easy to read in short bursts, which makes it perfect holiday reading when you don?t want to plough through a long novel. A useful glossary at the back explains some of the lesser-known words and phrases used throughout the book.

Levin writes in a wonderfully engaging and personal style, and the relaxed manner of his prose makes it seem as if he?s telling you these stories from the armchair opposite. This charmingly honest account of his travels is an entertaining, humorous and at times uplifting collage of the wealth of experiences Africa has to offer travellers who are willing to make the effort to go on their own wonder safari.