Dreams of a Vanishing Africa: A 1970s Transcontinental TrekWhen Craig Harrison spent a year traveling on a shoestring within the fabric of African societies in 1971 1972, he avoided safe, well trodden routes. Instead, he depended on decrepit trains, cargo trucks, rattletrap buses, jammed bush taxis, dugout canoes, and ferries. Arriving in Spanish Sahara on a cargo ship from the Canary Islands, he trekked through Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Upper Volta, and Ghana. From Accra, he took a freighter to the