Book Review: Seeking the Solo Adventure
November/December 2008
By Tara Dugan Kusumoto
Getting out early on a powder day, just you and your iPod. Stepping foot on foreign soil, in a country where 
you don’t speak the language. Eking out one more trail ride before the trees shed their autumn leaves. Every day, we seek our own adventures.
For Rosemary Mahoney, the adventure is in rowing. In Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff, Mahoney details her pursuit of solitude and independence on the river during her 1999 trip to Egypt.
Despite its deceptive title (much of the narrative takes place on land, between Aswan and Qena), Down the Nile is travel writing at its best, combining personal observation and honest self-inspection with historical and cultural context.
Well-placed journal entries from Gustave Flaubert and Florence Nightingale who, like “Miss Rose,” sought the allure of the Nile, bridge time, connecting the past with the author’s present day journey. In contrast to the extravagant riverboats that marked nineteenth century river travel and the cruises that appeal to today’s tourists, Mahoney’s tastes are simple: a basic skiff.
However, acquiring such a vessel proves nearly impossible. When she expresses her wish to purchase a boat, the Egyptian men question: “Why?” Why would an American woman choose to row, all by herself, when she could hire any of the scores of men along the shore to do it for her?
Mahoney shares with the reader how, back in her home state of Rhode Island, she often rows to the middle of Narragansett Bay, ships her oars and lets the current take her: “I do this, I know, not because it’s peaceful but because there’s an edge to it – it can be peaceful, yes, but it is never truly relaxing.”
To the Egyptian men, this desire for both adventure and solace is implausible. The boat is for her husband, she tells them: one of the only scenarios they can fathom. For on the Nile, rowing is not for pleasure; it’s work. Man’s work.
This is part of the draw. Mahoney welcomes the blisters, raw hands and sun burn after a full day pulling on the oars. She accepts the challenge and longs for freedom on the water.
She writes: “I had the water and the sky, the sun and the palm trees. That was enough. I lifted the oars and rowed on a little slower to make my trip last longer.”
Just as Mahoney prolongs her journey on the Nile, readers, too, crave more time with this trustworthy guide, whose love of adventure and informed perspective on Egyptian culture transport them riverside.
Tara lives, reads and writes in Breckenridge, Colo.
