Carlo Saio is a writer and artist, born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya. He studied English Literature and Creative writing at the University of East Anglia before completing his Master’s degree in Poetry at the same University.
He has published one poetry and illustration collection entitled Araali; One Hundred Years of Road in Nairobi. After completing his walk to South Africa, he compiled a second poetry and illustration collection based on the journey called but the tracks of an ant, which is currently in the process of publication.
Walking your own river follows a man with a complex medical history hoping to reconcile with a body, mind and world he once thought broken as he embarks on a solo-walk down sub-Saharan Africa. A journey of 7500 kilometres that begins in Entebbe, Uganda and meanders down 6 countries to end at the southernmost tip of Africa.
Along the way he befriends an untrained and mischievous donkey, lives with diviners, gets accepted by stowaways, is made ‘Undesirable’ by authorities, and is forced to return home to teach his mother how to walk again – before returning to finish the walk.
Walking being our first and most honest means of travel, the book is both an exploration of the wilderness of the human will and the diversity of the land, the people and the animals that so vividly bring this continent to life.