Blood River: A Journey to Africa's broken

Written by Tim Butcher

Narrated by Tim Butcher

When "Daily Telegraph" correspondent Tim Butcher was sent to cover Africa in 2000 he quickly became obsessed with the idea of recreating H M Stanley's famous expedition - but travelling alone. Despite warnings that his plan was 'suicidal', Butcher set out for the Congo's eastern border with just a rucksack and a few thousand dollars hidden in his boots. Making his way in an assortment of vessels including a motorbike and a dugout canoe, helped along by a cast of characters from UN aid workers to a campaigning pygmy, he followed in the footsteps of the great Victorian adventurers. Butcher's journey was a remarkable feat, but the story of the Congo, told expertly and vividly in this book, is more remarkable still.

• Language: English
• Publisher: W. F. Howes Ltd
• Release date: Feb 1, 2008
• ISBN: 9781407417592

Reviews for Blood River

[millata_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An account of Butcher's long term dream to recreate H.M. Stanley's 1870's adventure through the Congo. The book describes his journey and the country in comparison to the original. The story is captivating and, at the same time, horrifying, as Butcher accounts the bloody history of the country based on interviews and old documentation. Some of the individual tales are simply heartbreaking. In the end, Butcher summarises his impression of the collective memory of the people in one simple sentence: "And we fled into the bush." After I finished the book, I thought that this is the type of a historical account that I would like to see read in schools. Something to make one think instead of memorising.

[Jean Bosco · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Tim Butcher describes an infuriating and discouraging state of affairs in a country endowed with much potential. He does not offer an explanation for why the country, like many others in the neighborhood, has failed to pick up the pieces of its history and start succeeding. But there was never going to be an easy explanation. I feel the author did succumb to afro pessimism too easily. Surely he is aware of the relative success story of Botswana and nowadays Ghana and even Rwanda? Still, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the book

[rustyboone · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A superb book - the tale of an amazing adventure combined with a highly readable distillation of Congo history. I'm very glad someone would want to undertake such a journey and lived to tell the tale.

[David Young · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well written and engaging narration by the author. I thoroughly enjoyed his journey.

[theonearmedcrab · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have always wanted to travel down the Congo River, from deep in the Congo to the Atlantic coast. But never dared doing so, through a country completely bankrupt and lawless. Tim Butcher did, in 2004, and wrote a fascinating book about it, “Blood River” (2006). Maybe he really wanted to travel the route the explorer Henry Morton Stanley took, in 1877, when he became the first Westerner to travel from the east to the west coast of the continent, and especially, discovered the Congo River, hitherto unknown to Western map makers. Or maybe he wanted to see where his mother travelled in colonial luxury in the 1950. But I think he just had the same obsession as I had, go down that river. He quickly establishes that his is not adventure travel, no, he calls it ordeal travel. Every part is a major challenge, firstly organising transport in a country where there is none, and then actually moving from one to the next place. The first part is a gruelling couple of days on the back of a motor bike, but he also travels by UN patrol boat, by canoe, by another UN chartered barge. None of the travel is fun, but at least on the road, or the river, he feels slightly safer than in the towns. What he encounters on the way is a country totally lawless, ruled by local strongmen and gangs, vaguely linked to political entities but mostly after their own, immediate and uncontrolled interest, in the process terrorising everybody else. And what he describes is a country going backwards, from a relatively well developed infrastructure under Belgian colonial rule to a place not unlike the one encountered by Stanley: the roads have disappeared again, have been reduced to narrow tracks; the only remnant of the railway is an overgrown sleeper; rusty metal hulls are all that is left of ships that used to sail up and down the river frequently. In the jungle there is nothing that reminds one of what we would consider normal life. One of his most poignant observations is that the older generations have, in fact, been exposed to more modernity that the younger ones – the inverse of what is considered normal in the rest of the world.Throughout his journey Mr Butcher lives in constant fear. And you wonder what for, in the end. You know, apart from the occasional character he finds – a Belgian priest who arrived in the 1940s, or a British spinster, who has spent her entire life in the Congo, or some extremely helpful aid workers, both expatriate and local – apart from those people, there is really nothing to see, apart from green jungle and muddy river, and the occasional dilapidated town. That he manages to reach the Atlantic coast, alive and in less than two months, is a major achievement, for which I have the utmost respect, never mind that during reading the book I often referred to Mr Butcher as the lunatic. The other thing he achieved is that I don’t need to make that trip anymore, myself.

[castlelass · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In 2004, British journalist Tim Butcher took his life in his hands and traveled the interior of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He followed the approximate path of Henry Morton Stanley, the explorer that found David Livingstone in 1871 and went back in 1874 to map the Congo River. Between descriptions of his journey, Butcher tells the history of the country, including Stanley’s expedition, colonial rule by the Belgians, post-colonial political upheaval, and uprisings that have brought regular bouts of violence to the region.

He was also inspired by his mother, who, in 1958, crossed the Congo by train. That train and its infrastructure have since been reclaimed by the jungle. Butcher explains how a country so rich in natural resources –diamonds, cobalt, copper, oil, palm products, rubber – can remain underdeveloped and the bulk of its people living in deprivation. This country is one of the few that had gone backwards from fifty years before, primarily due to corruption, exploitation, lack of leadership, and lawlessness.

It is a description of an amazing 44-day journey through close to 3000 kilometers of jungle on foot, motorbike, pirogue, and riverboat, not knowing exactly where he would stay the night and relying on a network of contacts he had made before the trip. He connects with United Nations employees, humanitarian workers, and missionaries. He sees and describes how the people live, both in the bush and the decaying cities. He dodges militia carrying AK47s, survives on cassava, and suffers disease. He also meets caring Congolese that offer hospitality despite possessing few resources.

Tim Butcher writes in a direct style and does not shy away from expressing his opinions. This book is so much more than a travelogue. It provides an informative history of the DRC, while documenting an extremely challenging journey, offering perspective on the immense issues facing the country, and providing thoughts on the outlook for the Congolese people. It is eye-opening and inspired me to look up the recent history of the DRC to find out what has happened since 2007, when this book was published.

[breic-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very interesting travel story. Butcher weaves the history of the Congo with his own trip to and along the river. The main weakness is that he does not have enough interactions with people along the way. He explains this himself: > Venturing out of the shade, I faced the same dilemma that I encountered in every place I visited in the Congo. I wanted to nose around, ask questions and take photographs, but I did not want to catch the attention of the local authorities with all the attendant hassle of having to explain who I was, pay bribes and beg not to be arrested as a spy. Also, I was feeling so enervated that I was happy to skulk into the same hut where the crew were restoking and simply avoid the midday heat.Even still, I found the book useful. While I had heard the history before, the travel grounded it for me. And it is quite a surprise to have a trip like this in the 21st century. Some quotes: > Several of the walkers had large African snails stuck to the side of their leaf bundles. The snails did not have to be tied on, as their gooey, muscular foot kept them firmly attached until the moment when they were taken off and cooked. The only other food we saw was cassava paste tied in small rectangular leaf packets.> 'I think the last time I saw a vehicle near here was 1985, but I cannot be sure. All these children you see around you now are staring because I have told them about cars and motorbikes that I saw as a child, but they have never seen one before you arrived.' He carried on talking, but I was still computing what he had just said. The normal laws of development are inverted here in the Congo. The forest, not the town, offers the safest sanctuary and it is grandfathers who have been more exposed to modernity than their grandchildren.> By 1949 the colonial authorities boasted 111,971 kilometres of road across the Congo. By 2004 I doubt if there were more than 1,000 kilometres left in the entire country.> My mother told me of large pods of hippos she saw from her river boat in 1958, sending up jets of water as they shifted their bulk out of the way of the boat. But the Congo's collapse has led to nearly all river life being shot out by starving riverside villagers desperate for protein. Our crocodile sighting was a rare treat.> while Swahili had just one word for forest, the tribal language of Maniema had four special words - Mohuru, Mwitu, Mtambani and Msitu - for jungle of increasing impenetrability.> This region is one of the rare places in the world that fails what I called the Coca-Cola test. The test is simple: can you buy a Coke?> Just as campaigners today use the term Blood Diamonds to discredit gems produced in Africa's war zones, so their predecessors from a hundred years ago spoke of Red Rubber, publishing dramatic accounts of villagers being murdered or having their hands cut off to terrify their neighbours into harvesting more rubber. … Among the earliest campaigners was George Washington Williams, a pioneering African American who travelled by boat as far as the Stanley Falls in 1890 and did something nobody had ever thought to do before; he recorded the testimony of the Congolese themselves. His writings contained eye-witness accounts of the first genocide of the modern era, inspiring him to coin a term that is now used widely, 'crimes against humanity'.> While maintaining the illusion of handing over a single country to the black Congolese, the authorities in Brussels secretly backed the secession of Katanga from the Congo, financing, arming and protecting the pro-Belgian Katangan leader, Moise Tshombe, in return for a promise that the Belgian mining interests in Katanga would be protected. It was one of the most blatant acts of foreign manipulation in Africa's chaotic independence period, and it culminated in one of the cruellest acts of twentieth-century political assassination, when Patrice Lumumba, the first Congolese national figure to win an election, was handed over by Belgian stooges to be murdered by Tshombe's regime. Lumumba's mistake was to hint at pro-Soviet sympathies.

[oberon_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

[Blood River by Tim ButcherA significant number of the review on LT are pretty negative about the book. I disagree and found Blood River to be one of the better books I have read this year.The book is an account by the author of an attempt to retrace the route of Henry Morton Stanley following the Congo river. Having recently read Explorers of the Nile by Tim Jeal, Stanley's story was pretty fresh in my recollection but for purposes of the review a thumbnail sketch of Stanley seems to be in order. Stanley started as a journalist and is most remembered for successfully leading an expedition to locate David Livingstone, an early explorer of the African great lakes and Nile river, near Lake Tanganyika. For most people, the line of "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" is the some total of Stanley's place in the history books. However, after his meeting with Livingstone, Stanley engaged in his own explorations of Africa that were every bit as impressive as Livingstone's and the other Victorian explorers searching for the Nile. Stanley initially set out to follow a river identified as the Lualaba. Tracing the river was one of Livingstone's goals that he failed to accomplish. The belief at the time was that the Lualaba was a major tributary of the Nile as it was a northern flowing river of considerable volume when first discovered hence it was supposed to be the true start of the Nile. Stanley's expedition proved otherwise as the Lualaba turns west and is in actuality, a major source of the Congo. Butcher sets out to retrace Stanley's initial trip along the Congo. What makes the book so interesting is the state of modern Congo (called today the Democratic Republic of Congo). Congo is a failed state. Butcher traces the history of Congo and how it got to the state it was in when Butcher set out on his expedition. It is an ugly story of decay, corruption and civil war. Congo was consumed by the same conflict that resulted in the Rwandan genocide. That conflict spilled across Congo's borders and collapsed an already rickety state. The ensuing conflicts (sometimes known as the First and Second Congo War) has resulted in a massive death tolls. One of the great ironies of the conflicts is that no one can agree on how many people have died with estimates ranging from 5.4 million people to about a million. If the conflict is so opaque that you can have a causality rate that varies by 4 million people it is fair to say that there are a lot of unknowns.Butcher's travel took place shortly after the conclusion the Second Congo War in a period of prolonged instability and low level conflict where there were serious questions about the stability of the accords that ended the Second Congo War.What Butcher finds on his trip is that the infrastructure of Congo is all but gone. Where once there were highways, railways, bridges and steamships, almost nothing is left. Some has been destroyed by conflict but much has simply been wiped away by the relentless jungle. As a result, Congo has been reduced to a collection towns and cities that are cut off from each other and the broader world. The little bit of civilization present is in the form of the UN or a few aid groups that are supplied largely by air as all other infrastructure is gone. Butcher contrasts this present reality with the state of Congo in the late 50s when it was still a Belgium colony. At that time, there were roads, cars, police and so on and travelers could crisscross the country if they so chose. The other element of the book that stood out was the level of personal risk that Butcher undertook in making the trip. Here, I had trouble relating to Butcher. The level of risk he took by going into essentially lawless areas was extraordinary. I would characterize it as fool hardy. The fact that he largely succeeded on his trek along the river seems more the result of fortune than anything else and he clearly put himself at significant risk for the project. There is not much to be cheerful about in a book about Congo but it is a gripping story and a warning that the veneer of civilization can peel away very rapidly. Highly recommended.

[kaitanya64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Butcher sets out to retrace Stanley's descent of the Congo River. While I had a few quibble early in the book about some of Butcher's claims that King Leopold's acquisition of Congo territory started the "scramble for Africa," the rest of the book is spectacular. Butcher's narrative is compelling, but also his history and social context are sensitive and clear. He alludes often to Stanley, but doesn't make the mistake of many "retracers" of getting too caught up in the "quest" to forget the real people and places around him. Fantastic.

[tcarter_77 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Having visited Lubambashi and Kalemie a few years after the author, in a period of relative peace, I recognised the places and people he was writing about. I was heart broken for the people I met, that they had had to live through this, and astounded at the amount of progress that had been made in those few years. A really well written, up close and personal insight into one of the most depressing conflicts of global history.

[nero56 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A travelogue based on retracing Stanley's trip down the Congo River which subsequently opened up the Congo to colonization by the King of Belgium. Instead of the entourage that accompanied Stanley, the author was generally accompanied by only a few people; however, he had the benefit of motorbikes and UN boat as transportation at various times. While it wasn't a realistic following in the footsteps of Stanley, not least because he skipped part of the journey, it may have been the best that could have been accomplished during the time he was there. The book did a creditable job rehashing the history of the Congo and its current political crises.

[tony2704 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good read and a reminder that there are still countries where corruption is rife. Would have preferred more about the trip and less about Stanley

[staffreads · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an amazing travelogue, with history interspersed, of a journalist following the path of the infamous Stanley into the heart of the Congo. It is a real eye opener on the extreme consequences of decades of lawlessness.SRH

[st5croixsue · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an amazing travelogue, with history interspersed, of a journalist following the path of the infamous Stanley into the heart of the Congo. It is a real eye opener on the extreme consequences of decades of lawlessness.

[eyejaybee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Even before he was posted to Africa by the Daily Telegraph Tim Butcher had dreamt of travelling along the Congo, sub-Saharan Africa's grandest, if darkest, river. His mother had travelled across the greater part of Congo in 1958 when it was still a Belgian dependency, and Butcher's own imagination had been fired by Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and tales of Stanley's late nineteenth century expedition.Butcher's book paints a fascinating picture of his journey in 2004, setting off from Lake Tanganyika at the eastern extremity of the Congo and then following the course of the river for 1,734 kilometres until it enters the Atlantic at Boma. Congo in the early twenty-first century is a completely broken country. After having been ravaged by a cruel colonial regime under the Belgians until 1960 (indeed, for most of the period from Belgian colonisation until 1960 the country was actually considered as the personal property of the Belgian crown), the battered remains were then ripped apart by brutal tribal differences actively encouraged by the inhuman dictatorships of Mobutu and then Kabila. As if those problems weren't enough, much of the eastern half of this vast country has suffered ceaseless bloody figting between Tutsis and Hutus as the genocide in Rwanda spilled over the border.Butcher demonstrates the irony that in the fifty years following Independence the country has collapsed from a potentially rich source of copper,cobalt, tin, rubber and a range of other mineral (even after the Belgians had relaxed their vice-like grasp) to being one of the poorest countries on the planet. There is no infrastructure left - the roads and railway coneections that the Belgians formed have just been left to be reclaimed by the rain forest. At one point he arrived in a village rifing pillion on a small motorbike to the amazement of the local children - they had heard tales of motor vehicles from their grandparents, but had never witnessed on themselves. For so much of the Congo's population any contact with what might even vaguely represent the modern world is by word of mouth from their elders, and consequently imbued with the characteristics of legend.Butcher travels light, and covers his route in an intriguing section of modes of transport - motorbike, pirogues (dug-out canoes), UN Jeep, barge and helicopter, as well as walking a fair part of the way. En route he encounters great kindness and honesty from those who help him, but he also runs into more than his fair share of ignorance, violence and, it seems, non-stop terror. In one of the saddest episodes a man whom he had only met an hour before pleads with Butcher to take his young son with him - the father knows that his son faces a life of unremitting tragedy and strife in Congo, and he would rather trust him to a stranger than watch his fall prey to illness and the slow death through poverty that would inevitably befall him if he stays.There may be no infrastructure but it seems clear that there is a mindless, burgeoning bureaucracy - whenever Butcher makes it to a new town, he has to see the local self-appointed governor, or one of his apparatchiks, in order to get a new pass entitling him to travel on to the next zone.Butcher has clearly researched the history of the Congo in great detail, and he strives to emulate the historic trek undertaken by Stanley, as commissioned by Leopold of Belgium. However, he never loses sight of the abject cruelty with which Stanley pursued his quest. From Stanley's expedition onwards, the history of the Congo has been written in blood, and Butcher illuminates it with his text. This was a subject about which I knew I was lamentably ignorant, and Butcher has certainly gone some way to redressing that.However, I wouldn't want anyone to imagine that this is a dry history book - throughout his story Butcher keeps the reader engaged in his own adventure, fretting over his setbacks and joining in with his successes.This was one of the finest travel books I have read for a long time.

[travelledguy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very interesting book about how a country in Africa can advance back in time. In some places in the Congo grandparents knew what a car looked like but the children did not. Makes you wonder if the world has the ability to advance backward too.

[ruby_barnes_3 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

How to get very quickly up an unpleasant river surrounded by awful foreigners.An unremarkable account of a geographically remarkable journey. Amazon web reviews are good but, having read other books on Africa, this one is very poor. Bloody River would be a better title as the author seems personally offended by the Congo river while he races along it as fast as possible. If there had been a motorway he would have done the whole trip as a motorbike pillion passenger, shouting anecdotes from books he has read into the slipstream. Nothing interesting happens to him personally. Butcher has very little originality in his African commentary except in the running account of his own insipid mental and physical state. First-comers to books on Africa might be impressed. If you want to know about Africa there are many better books than this one. State of Africa by Martin Meredith is heavyweight but far superior. Michael Palin's Sahara is funnier. Even Geldof in Africa is better than Bloody River.

[karenweyant · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Tim Butcher follows the Congo River through the darkest parts of Africa. A great book that not only explores culture, but history of the world once known as the "Dark Continent".

[mumineurope · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

True story, a trip down the Congo following in Stanley's footsteps

[danawl_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An amazing account of travel through the Congo and the difficulties its people face in living in the jungle.

[samsheep_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A superb book - the tale of an amazing adventure combined with a highly readable distillation of Congo history. I cannot comprehend why someone would want to undertake such a journey but I'm very glad he did, and lived to tell the tale.

[dickcraig · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Tim Butcher follows the Congo River through the Democratic Republic of Congo detailing the steady decline of the country to the point it resembles more the times when it was first explored. Without the assistance of the various aid agencies he would not have been able to complete his trip. The country is so rich in natural resources and is so wracked by wars and corruption that one wonders if it will be ever a functioning state. After spending time in Uganda I have come to love the continent and would love to travel to the Congo, but after reading the author's experience I think I will just read about it.

[gooneruk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I finished Blood River by Tim Butcher the other day, in a continuation of my recent trend towards reading about sub-Saharan Africa. It’s an account of Butcher’s attempt to recreate the first mapping of the River Congo by Stanley (of “Dr Livingstone, I presume” fame) in the 19th century, along with a potted history of the eponymous country.I think the beauty of this book is not just the actual journey itself, but the way in which Butcher’s enthusiasm for the whole project sadly fades throughout, in the face of a country which has seemingly gone backwards whilst the rest of the world has advanced.Countless people tell him that whenever any threat to them occurs, from whatever source (government, militias, rebels, foreigners), they run into the bush to hide. Whenever they come back out, inevitably their homes and businesses have been ransacked and/or burnt, and so begins again the cycle of semi-permanent rebuilding and sustenance living.In a similar manner to when I read The State of Africa, which also covered the Congo, I couldn’t help but feel depressed by the end of reading this book. The continent of Africa as a whole (with exceptions, of course) just seems to be getting left further and further behind, and there is very little impetus from within or without towards improving the situation.

[mwhel_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This very engrossing travelogue of the author's journey down the Congo River is told against a backdrop of the recorded history of many other explorers, adventurers, missionaries, mercenaries, native peoples, profiteers, international aid workers, government officials, revolutionaries, movie stars(!) and others who have left their impact on the country throughout the last two centuries. The historical references alone would have made this an interesting read.In 2004, the Democratic Republic of Congo had declined to a state that was in many ways worse than the pre-colonial era when Henry Morton Stanley first made the voyage that this author attempted to duplicate here. Conditions were deplorable everywhere and the voyage was full of potential hazard. His motto, "cities bad, open good" serves him well. It is heart-sickening to read of the corruption, greed and ruthlessness that is routine is a country of such vast natural resources.Like Jeffrey Tayler in "Facing the Congo" and Peter Stark in "At the Mercy of the River", the author is eventually brought down by sickness. I am left with the impression that without his connections with UN personnel stationed in remote areas and cash reserves, the author would not likely have gotten far along this jouney.

[ashmolean1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't read a lot of non fiction but this is one of those that reads like fiction. Butcher's journey to follow the path of Stanley up the Congo was fascinating. He gives you background history about the Congo as well as details of his own perilous journey in an easy to read narrative style. Well worth reading.

[richardgarside · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brings to life all the ills of Africa under Africans

[bibliobibuli_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Tim Butcher, a journalist for The Daily Telegraph decides to recreate H.M. Stanley's famous expedition in the 1870's. (Stanley had been also sponsored by the same newspaper!) He was also curious to see the country that his mother had visited in the 1950's as a tourist. He was told that by just about everyone he contacted that the journey was impossible, but against the odds he manages to enlist the help of aid workers (including a pygmy human rights activist and the Malaysian commander of a vessel working for the UN) and others. Each stage of the journey is uncertain, and he's constantly in danger of his life and in great discomfort. But he does manage in the end to find the transport he needs (motorcycles, dugouts, a UN barge) and the journey continues. It's impossible not to salute his courage.Blood River : A Journey into Africa's Broken Heart is a fascinating account, not just because it takes us into a part of the world we wouldn't normally venture into and lets us share the journey (from our comfy armchairs!), but also for the historical perspectives which are woven into the narrative.In the space of half a century, Congo has gone completely backwards - it is not "a developing country", or an "underdeveloped country", so much as an "un-developing country", going backwards so fast that almost nothing remains of the infrastructure left under Belgian rule due to the greed and incompetence of its leaders. It's a terrifying portrait of how quickly things can unravel. You also come to realise that putting things right isn't a matter of throwing financial aid at the problems, but in establishing the rule of law.It's impossible not to really pity the ordinary people of this failed country, but that there is such potential for economic growth (minerals, fertile land) turns this missed opportunity into a grand tragedy. The book was chosen as one of the reads for the Richard and Judy bookclub and of course made the shortlist for this year's Samuel Johnson Prize.

[rynooo_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Whilst it was great to learn about the Congo's colourful history, the book tends to be over-sentimental and repetitive, particularly towards the end. Additionally, the author's journey was surprisingly uneventful and relatively drama free.

[bibliophial · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An engrossing, informative, often terrifying travel book about a journalist's retracing of the steps of Stanley along the river Congo, "the broken heart of Africa". Compelling.