My Books
Pretty much everyone thinks they have a book in them. They do if they actually write it! I did, and these three light-hearted and engaging books (in paperback, Kindle and Audible versions) will entertain and entrance you as they relate the scrapes and escapes , truths and taboos, and journeys and japes of a colourful, blessed and adventurous life.
“There is no friend as loyal as a book: Ernest Hemingway"
AFRICA BITES
“This is the best book of short stories about Africa that I have ever read.”
– Peter Allison: “Don’t run whatever you Do” & “Don’t look behind You”
Lloyd takes you on an evocative fast-paced journey through some of the wildest places of Africa as he re-lives colourful vignettes from his career as a safari guide as well as his adventurous childhood.
He tells about the formative moments that have left him and his clients amazed, frightened and delighted by the manifold surprises that bush adventures always throw up.
This is a charming, funny, thoughtful and jaw-dropping series of tales that illustrate Lloyd’s enthusiastic delight in being in the wilderness with his clients. Forthright yet light-hearted, here is a story-teller whose suspenseful narrative emphasises the courage and resilience of the Africans (and clients!) that he encounters on his African odysseys.
CONFESSIONS OF AN AFRICAN SAFARI GUIDE
SO, WHO IS THE JEEP-JOCKEY IN THE KHAKI UNIFORM AND THE SWEAT-STAINED HAT, THIS PERSON YOU ENTRUST YOUR LIFE TO WHEN YOU VENTURE INTO THE AFRICAN WILDERNESS?
What's his back-story, why is he even in this bush guiding gig. really, and what does he think of you? What secrets does he keep, what chances does he take and what lies does he tell?
And which colleagues and clients does he remember? And why?
Lloyd Camp wrote about how thrilling and addictive African wildlife safaris are in his first book, Africa Bites. In Confessions, Lloyd's thoughtful stories continue to intrigue, provoke and amuse. The enthralling and often bizarre world of safari guiding continually delivers evocative theatre: now. Lloyd reveals some of the truths and tricks that ensure a dazzling safari experience, while also underscoring the fervour, foibles and frailties of safari guides.
His stories interrogate the actions of the people he has worked with, laugh at some rondly held sararlegends told as inviolate truths, and question many of the casual life assumptions of the satan guests in his care. Loyd is not afraid to lampoon himself or to poke fun at anyone elsel This is a refreshingly forthright view -edgy, heart-warming, personal, pointed, often hilarious, sometimes dark-of the strange and compeling people, ludicrous predicaments and harsh realities that he has encountered on his Journeys through the African wilderness.
And if you think you recognise yourself in this book, you're right!
PADDLING THE DRAGON
The Dusi Canoe Marathon: a multi-day South African river race where ordinary people do something mad, memorable and magnificent. Paddling The Dragon is a true story about how a friendship is formed, tested and confirmed in the crucible of heat, humidity and high waters of a canoe race that tests physical and mental endurance to the limit.
It is a tale of battered boats and bodies, bad decisions, blisters and a fair amount of blood in the Valley of a Thousand Hills. And it is a testament to the triumph of the "Fish & Chips" – the tough sloggers who take on the race – to the history of this most famous of all canoe races, and to the people of the valley who make it happen every year.
Two naive men of the Namib desert, the Ingilsman and The Kraaldog, get quite literally out of their depth when they dare to take on the Dragon, the sinuous uMsundusi and uMngeni river system that winds from Pietermaritzburg to Durban in the gruelling annual three day Dusi Canoe Marathon.
You don't have to be a paddler to enjoy this book: you simply have to love the idea of chasing something bigger than yourself, and seeking out the raw corners of your being. And having a laugh at yourself along the way.
