Peter Allison – författare

On his nineteenth birthday, Peter Allison flipped a coin. One side would take him to Africa and the other to South America, the two places he wanted to explore before he died. He recounted his time spent as a safari guide in Africa to much acclaim in Whatever You Do, Don’t Run and Don’t Look Behind You. Sixteen years later, he makes his way to Santiago, Chile, ready to seek out the continent’s best, weirdest, and wildest adventures, and to chase the elusive jaguar.

In just the first six months, Allison is bitten by a puma (several times), knocked on his head by a bad empanada, and surrounded by piranhas while rafting down a Bolivian river—all because of his unusual fear of refrigerators and of staying in any one place for too long. Ever the gifted storyteller and cultural observer, Allison makes many observations about life in humid climes, the nature of nomadism, and exactly what it is like to be nearly blasted off a mountain by the famous Patagonia wind. Allison’s self-deprecating humor is as delightful as his crazy stunts, and his love for animals—even when they bite—is infectious.

 Peter Allison is originally from Sydney, Australia. His safaris have been featured in National Geographic, Conde Nast Traveler, and on television programs such as Jack Hanna’s Animal Adventures. He travels frequently to speaking appearances, and splits most of his time between Botswana, Sydney, and San Francisco.

A new and expanded edition of Peter Allison’s hilarious, highly original collection of essays based on the Botswana truism: “Only food runs!”

With biting wit and tales of outrageous adventure, Peter Allison gives us a safari guide’s first-hand account of working in the African bush. Allison regales us with stories about confronting the world’s fiercest terrain of wild animals and most, terrifying of all, managing herds of gaping tourists run amok. His humor is exceeded only by his love and respect for the animals of the Kalahari. As a top safari guide, he knows he serves the whims of his wealthy clients, yet he often has to stop the impulse to run as far away from them as he can. When this isn’t possible, his goal is to limit any negative exposure to humans by planning trips that are minimally invasive—unfortunately it doesn’t always work out that way. With much good-natured scorn for himself, no one but Peter Allison could make up these outrageous-but-true tales!

The Okavango Delta, Botswana: a lush wetland in the middle of the Kalahari desert. Aged 19, Peter Allison thought he would visit for a short holiday before going home to get a ''proper job''. But Peter fell in love with southern Africa and its wildlife and before long had risen to become a top safari guide.In Don''t Run, Whatever You Do, you''ll hear outrageous-but-true tales from the most exciting safaris. You''ll find out when an elephant is really going to charge, what different monkey calls mean and what do in a face off with lions. Sometimes the tourists are even wilder than the animals, from the half-naked missing member of the British royal family to the Japanese amateur photographer who ignores all the rules to get the perfect shot.Don''t Run, Whatever You Do is a glimpse of what the life of an expert safari guide is really like.