Stephen was making a once-in-a-lifetime trip by motorbike down through Africa, returning home from London to Johannesburg in South Africa. But in Timbuktu, he was abducted by Al Qaeda. Held hostage, he was constantly being moved around the desert while the fighting between French and Malian forces and Al Qaeda ebbed and flowed. As the months of captivity became years, Stephen was compelled to go to extraordinary lengths to survive. He made returning home alive his sole objective. Realising that he would have to do everything he could to raise his status in the eyes of his captors, he taught himself Arabic and French and converted to Islam, accepting a new name, Lot. Stephen also found solace, despite everything, in the beauty of the desert, and its resilient wildlife. Stephen holds the unenviable record of being the longest-held, surviving hostage of Al Qaeda. While he was always a prisoner, constantly at risk of death, through the long years he spent in intimate proximity to his captors, Steve got to see the Islamist militants as few other Westerners have ever seen them.