Paul Enright was born and raised in Ireland but lives in Kenya. In the eighties he undertook solo expeditions to Venezuela (twice), Brazil and Irian Jaya (Indonesia). The cancellation of a deal to publish his first book coinciding with distressed finances encouraged Paul to accept work with Concern as a humanitarian for six months in Somalia in late 1992. Since then he has remained in Africa.

With a wealth of experience working in some of the remotest, poorest and conflict-suppressed countries in the world as a conflict risk manager/security advisor.

Travelling Native: A story of adventure through the rivers of South America is his first book which is now available on Amazon.com.

This is scheduled to be followed by Sleepless in Somalia, his first book on Somalia, The Naked Khawaja, of his time in South Sudan and It Only Hurts Me When I Laugh, his second book on Somalia.

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Travelling Native

Available on Amazon

Image: First night on the Casiquiare River.

Image: On the Rio Negro.

Travelling Native is a captivating story of extreme adventure and survival along some of the wildest and remotest rivers of South America in 1985. Travelling the Orinoco upriver in a large dugout canoe manned by mestizos working for the Venezuelan Ministry of Indian Affairs, Paul unintentionally learns the rudiments of basic jungle survival.

Barred from travelling further up the Orinoco at the remote missionary outpost of Tama Tama, Paul purchases a small dugout canoe from a local Maquiritare Indian, and decides to paddle alone down the largely unexplored Casiquiare River into the vast headwaters of the Rio Negro in northern Brazil. It is then he realises how totally unprepared he is for the journey through the Wilds of both countries. Sleeping in foxholes beside his fire at night he survives being stalked by mobs of alligators, hunted by a jaguar, traversing angry rapids, surviving the poison and pain of a stingray wound, enduring tropical rainstorms and sudden river squalls, sleeping on boulders in the river, and collapsing in an Indian village before eventually arriving in Manaus. Returning to the Orinoco Delta he becomes embroiled in a smuggling operation where common sense eventually prevails.

One of the unique travel memoirs of modern times, the Council of the Royal Geographical Society elected Paul as a Fellow of the society in 1987 for the success of this solo expedition.

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