An intrepid traveller had an adventure for the price of a holiday. ROBERT FISK finds out how.

SUMMER holiday brochures are packed full of resorts where you can have your fill of sun, sand and sangria and then come home looking like an overdone lobster.

This type of holiday attracts thousands of Brits to foreign climes every year but Richard Williams chose something else, he chose an adventure.

News Shopper: Richard Williams had an adventure in Mali

After spending some time trekking with a guide in Mali last year he decided to go back again this year.

But rather than flying back to the west African country he decided to buy an old Toyota Previa and drive it from his home in Woodhurst Avenue, Petts Wood, to Bamako where his guide’s family live.

He wanted to give the car to his trekking guide Abdoulaye Keita so the Malian could use it as a taxi so he would have a regular income when not guiding tourists.

Mr Williams said: “You need a bit of money to make a bit of money and I was very impressed that he was honest and hard working.

“He is totally honest, absolutely devoted to his wife, very intelligent and can manage five European languages as well as five local languages.

“He’s an exemplary man but I wasn’t planning to do anything until this idea jumped into my mind.

“[When I told him] in swift succession he felt incredulous disbelief then he adopted me as his father and he said he would name his next child after me.”

News Shopper: Abdoulaye Keita with his extended family

This journey of more than 4,000 miles took Mr Williams from Petts Wood to Tilbury Docks then a car ferry to Dakar in Senegal, via Belgium, before an eight day drive down to Mali.

And adventures on his journey to meet Mr Keita’s family included almost agreeing to get married to four Senegalese women who said they wanted to come back to England.

He said: “They were nice people the Senegalese, and the Malianese were even nicer.

“I did not give the car because of Christian principles, I enjoyed the adventure of it.

“It was hard work but ultimately I’m immensely proud of the fact that I did it.

“I got an adventure for the price of a holiday.”

His act of generosity has allowed Mr Keita to have a regular income as a taxi driver and he plans to use some of this money to help others in Mali.