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Driving the full length of Africa sounds like a fantasy until you picture it the way Barry Maughan lived it: a Volkswagen Kombi bus, paper maps, no cell phones, no GPS, and a world where borders can close overnight. Barry spent decades as an international broadcast journalist focused on the African continent, and his memoir "Beneath the African Sun" captures the wild mix of history, work, and everyday survival that shaped him.

We talk through the chain of “happy accidents” that turned a simple roaming plan into a continent-spanning overland journey from Egypt toward South Africa, including the moment a Libya coup rewrote the route entirely. Barry shares what it was like to experience war-time Egypt, then stumble into an almost unbelievable Cairo welcome that unlocked once-in-a-lifetime access to culture, food, and the city itself. From there, it’s trains, boats, and improvisation to reach Ethiopia, where another stroke of timing lands him behind a microphone broadcasting news across Africa.

The practical side is just as gripping: crawling through mud where roads barely exist, carrying tools and fuel, and learning fast that “tomorrow” doesn’t always mean what you think it means. But the heart of the conversation is people, including a wordless moment between two mothers and two babies that says more than any translation app ever could. We also wrap with a real-world travel planning update on beating airline pricing with points and creative routing from Iceland back to Knoxville.

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Beneath The African Sun on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F32VZZ52

Download full-color PDFs of my book at prices below Amazon paperbacks. Visit my store at https://shop.jimsantosbooks.com

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