A woman’s journey through North Africa

Christy Henchie, from African Hoofprints, has spent the last 5 years travelling on horseback through North Africa with her partner Billy Brenchley. She tells of her experience as a woman, travelling through culturally-conservative Africa.

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are I admit that the main reason I started this horseback journey from the most northern point to the most southern

point of Africa, was not my lifelong love of horses or my desire to see more of the world but the thought that if I didn’t go, I would never see him again. Him being Billy, boyfriend for the last six years and avid horseman and adventurer!

On embarking on the journey at the end of 2005 in Tunisia, I thought little more about the trip other than, this should be fun… and I haven’t let this one get away! I had no idea of the lessons I would learn, the amazing experiences I would have and the inner strength I would discover.

The first lesson I had to learn, and admittedly one that after all this time I am still trying to get to grips with, was to accept that, as a woman, my journey would be completely different to Billy’s, even though we are in the same places, seeing the same things and talking to the same people all at the same time!

Spending years in North Africa gave us a chance to learn about the Arabic people, their cultures and traditions and of course Islam, their religion, which dictates a moral way of life. It was refreshing to realize that the portrayal by the West of the Muslim people as terrorists and fundamentalists is so far away from the truth as to be purely fictional. It did not take us long to

Christy and Billy arrive in Libya 100 Management Today | August 2011

A woman’s journey through North Africa Christy Henchie, from African Hoofprints, has spent the last 5 years travelling on horseback through