Dan Cruickshank’s journey around the world reaches new heights of discomfort in the heat and dust of the desert. He takes in the astonishing cave paintings of the Dogon tribe before embarking on a love affair in Egypt with the most beautiful woman in history for whom he must brave two giant jackals. In between, he witnesses the grotesque masks of Mali that connect the world of the living with the world of the dead, survives a power cut in the middle of the deepest, darkest chamber of the dead in the Great Pyramid outside Cairo, lives a day in the life of a Roman trader in Leptis Magna and identifies with Laurence of Arabia in the desert of Libya.

One amazing surprise is the biggest mud building in the world, which cools down in the African sun by means of an installation of 104 saucepan lids on its roof - possibly the simplest ventilation system in the world but also the most ingenious. Finally, as he floats into the sunset down the Nile, he contemplates how it will feel to re-enter Europe after four months away.