“I couldn’t get that cab in Ouagadougou out of my mind. On the plane home to Amsterdam, I’d obsessed about how that car had wound up there. I imagined a Dutch aid worker who’d gotten the Mercedes from his uncle and imported it through the port in neighbouring Benin. Maybe an African immigrant to the Netherlands had bought the car and sent it to his family in Burkina Faso. Or some adventurous Dutchman had driven that Mercedes 190 straight through the Sahara to Ouagadougou to sell it there to the highest bidder. But what really happened? How did a Dutch car end up in Africa?”

Soon the seed grew into a plan of his own: buy a clunker of a car and resell it in West Africa, where a market even for jalopies still thrives. His chariot of choice ends up being a rusted-out 1988 Mercedes 190D with 220,000km on its odometer.

My Mercedes is Not for Sale tells of  Van Bergeijk’s resulting journey from Amsterdam to Ouagadougou. He finds himself facing a driving challenge akin to the Dakar Rally but encounters obstacles never dreamed of by race-car drivers: active minefields, occasional banditry – mostly by the border guards – and a teenage, chain-smoking desert guide with a fondness for rap lyrics. Food and water are scarce, sandstorms are frequent, and all he has to patch up his many car breakdowns thousands of miles from civilisation is a bar of soap, some duct tape, and a pair of women’s nylons.

The fact that his mind repeatedly turns off the adventure at hand, discussing aspects of the region’s travel history, whether the horrendous experience of shipwrecked merchants in the early 19th century or the survival of Antoine de Saint-Exupery after his Saharan plane crash in 1935, adds depth to his story. Perhaps hoping to ellicit comparisons with Robert M Pirsig’s legendary novel, he often refers to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and shapes his narrative is similar ways – his Mercedes is simply a vehicle used for a greater understanding of Africa.

While My Mercedes is Not for Sale won’t necessarily have you laughing out loud, it will have you turning the pages.

Endangered Liaisons
Don Shay,  Alarus Press hard cover, 320 pages, US$60
A finalist in National Best Books 2008 Awards for both ‘Photography in Nature’ and ‘Travel Essay’ Endangered Liaisons is the culmination of Don Shay’s experiences in Africa over the past two decades. Although there are 238 vivid photographs, Endangered Liasons is much more than a mere collection of photos  – it is a moving memoir that evokes the safari experience. Perceptive accounts of life in some of Africa’s greatest wildlife destinations – Serengeti, Masai Mara, Chobe River, Okavango Delta, Virunga volcanoes – are effortlessly juxtaposed with well-researched information on each region and its wildlife.

An ardent supporter of wildlife conservation, Shay has pledged to donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of each copy of Endangered Liaisons to the African Wildlife Foundation – a worthy organisation that he has supported for years.

Avenue Patrice Lumumba
Guy Tillim, Prestel hardback, 192 pages, £35
A photojournalist since the late 1980s, Tillim cut his teeth documenting the fall of Apartheid in his native South Africa. It wasn’t long before he was exploring the continent and capturing images of Africa’s darkest side. His photographs of war-torn regions, and the people whose lives had been shaped by years of conflict and hardship have resulted in numerous awards over the years. The eighty images in this, his most recent book, focus on decaying architecture in the Congo, Mozambique, Angola and Madagascar. Seemingly constructed with delusions of grandeur, the grandiose buildings have subsequently been left to decay. Tillim hopes Avenue Patrice Lumumba will shed light on the intersection of present-day Africa with its colonial past in countries that were forsaken in the name of progress and the perpetual quest for power. The book is as haunting as it is captivating.