Dervla Murphy tends to focus so much on the territory around her when she travels that we learn a lot about it, but not much about her - which is a pity, since such details provide much of the colour that travel books need if they're not to cave in under the weight of facts. Cameroon With Egbert is one of her best books, however, since it's one in which her daughter Rachel, then 18, travelled with her. There's a lightness of tone here, combined with a sharp eye, about the Murphy duo's three-month trek together through rural Cameroon in 1987. Egbert, a stout-hearted horse, is pretty much the third character in the book, so fond of him is Mammy Murphy, whom you suspect is really a softie at heart despite the remarkable challenges she confronts on each trip. There's a sense of a missed opportunity here, though: Dervla Murphy quotes the odd bit from Rachel's diary - tantalising and funny samples of a different perspective on the same trek. A book with alternate chapters, or with some sort of creative input from Rachel, would surely have made for an exceptional co-op travel book.
