The Pam-African Queen

It's a Minefield Out Here

2011-07-04T07:58:00.000-07:00

Literally.

One overland leg and one more African immigration post to go. I’m up at dawn to catch a four-seat taxi to Dakhla, the first town over in Morocco—some 250 miles away. This time my prissy I-want-the-front-seat scene I plead with the driver is that I’ll get violently sick in the back, and yes, I will pay extra for this seat. My driver and I take off and pick up a few passengers around Nouadhibou. First stop is at a solid metal door down a dirt lane, and a serious looking Muslim dude steps out (I think we woke him up). It seems we’re picking his women up around town. These two women are believers of the forced feeding cult, and I'm immediately grateful I'm the front-seat queen of the day. I can’t figure out the relationships or why they’re going to Dakhla, but I assume they are his wives. Next, a Senegalese guy gets in; he's on his way to Marrakesh.

Off we go, and an hour later, we clear Mauritanian immigration. Now the fun begins. There’s an interesting three-kilometer stretch of no-man’s land between Mauritanian immigration and Moroccan immigration, with landmines on either side of the dirt track—1000s of them. This is not the place for a toilet break in nature. I ask my driver what his nationality is, and he answered “Sahrawi—Polisario.” He swerves left and right, following a well-worn path. With one hand, he’s trying to find some Sahrawi music to play for me. One of the songs is in Spanish, with lyrics that go something like “hand to hand, in the streets of Laayoune, we repeat the story, the history, the victory…” I read somewhere that some Bangladeshis were stuck between these two customs posts for months and had to live on food and water handed out by passersby because neither country would let them enter. I look for them, but there’s nobody out here.

Moroccan customs: this takes 2 1/2 hours because of the Senegalese guy. The women in the car need help filling out the form because they can’t read. The taxi also has to go into a special hanger-like building to be scanned for bombs and whatnot. Passports are checked at least six times. We stop for lunch, for prayers, for peeing, for more passport checks, and for some random conversational exchanges with other drivers--obviously buds of my driver .

And if anybody wonders what can equal the decibels of a Who concert, the tinny speakers of any Mauritanian taxi can blow them away.

Anyway, here I am in Dakhla, southern Morocco, and as Huck Finn would say: back in “siviliaztion.” Well, kinda. This is all there is for Africa this time around—until the next trip…

I don't think this Mauritanian tourist office container on the border does a lot of business.

Lot's of camels out in this desert

I have a mosque on the way to my room at this hotel in Dakhla.

Nouakchott to Nouadhibou

2011-07-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

Today's leg is a five-hour run across the desert from Nouakchott to Nouadhibou, the latter being pronounced something like Noddy-boo or Naughty-boo. Take your pick. In Mauritania, I've learned that on these long-distance, how-many-people-can-you-stuff-in-a-taxi runs, the seat in the front next to the driver is prime real estate and something worth haggling over. Normally, they fit two people in this seat, with one person sitting on the emergency brake. The procedure is they quote the price for two seats. Several people start yelling all at once. I do a little yelling too. Numbers are drawn out in the dirt. Eventually we all agree on a price after much dramatics and several bouts of walking off with my hands thrown in the air. The seat is mine. Hat pulled down, bandanna over my mouth and nose, and iPod in my ears, I'm ready for hours of mind-numbing boredom.

Crossing Mauritania means endless police checkpoints--out in the middle of nowhere, but I'm glad they're there--very glad, since this isn't the most secure place in the world. The procedure is the taxi stops some distance down the road and waits for the guard to signal to approach. No funny business. Everybody is very polite. Yesterday, I had to produce my passport four times. Today, I show it seven times. In one place I have to get out of the car and go to the shed for registration. I hear things like Obama, Hotel California, I have a cousin in Kentooky. Welcome to Mauritania, they tell me.

There is nothing out here, and only three colors: beige, bluish beige, and the dark gray of the tarmac. This is the smoothest road I've ever been on in Africa. It's brand new and makes what used to be a two-day trip doable in about 4 1/2 hours. Some sand dunes, some camels, some squalid huts. During one break, a very pretty young woman brings something to the driver, and she looks like she's never had a hard-scrabble day in her life. Her teeth are perfect. How on earth do they survive out here? This is an intense country. What can you say about a place where slavery still exists, female genital mutilation goes on (although there's a new fatwa out banning it), and young girls are sent to fat farms where they are force-fed 16,000 calories a day to make them attractive to potential suitors? Don't eat? You'll be hit with a stick. Girls often marry between 12-14 years of age. Charming.

In Nouadhibou, I hire a taxi for an hour to take me out to the abandoned ships. At one time, this graveyard of ships (some 300 of them) was the biggest collection in the world, but the Chinese have come in and carried off the pieces. A guard says one of the bigger ones was just hauled off by some Dutch last Sunday. What's left is rather disappointing, and there isn't the dramatic impact like the abandoned ships at the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan. Maybe they figure there wasn't the money to made in tourism here.

People actually live in this bleakness.

The blue robes billowing out from the wind gives the scenery an exotic look.

The famous iron ore train--said to be the longest in the world.

One of the shipwrecks of Nouadhibou

Another shipwreck

And another

Border Crossing Fun

2011-07-01T23:29:00.000-07:00

Today's adventure has been playing on my mind for some weeks. This border crossing from Senegal to Mauritania has a bad reputation, and the town of Rosso has been called everything on the Internet from quite messy with corrupt police, touts, and hustlers, to an absolute shit hole. Like passing through airport security with the TSA, it's "let's just get this over with."

To add to my paranoia, the Mauritanian immigration is only open for a few hours a day in the morning and in late afternoon, and it's a good three-hour drive from there to Nouakchott, the capital, so it's no place you want to pass the day or night in. I'm up at dawn.

It's only a two-hour cramped ride from Saint Louis to Rosso, on the Senegalese side. I hire a fixer at the Gare Routiere to negotiate me through the morning's procedure. He's OK--only tries to scam mildly--and has a name that sounds something like Schwur. No cars maneuver through the back streets of Rosso, but carriages do (see picture below).

Next Schwur takes me through a doorway into a backroom to meet the money changer. I know my rates, and the haggling begins. The longer this takes the more of an audience piles in. I take every one of the bills and throw back any that are too worn, too torn or too old. Done, my fixer and I go back out in the dirt street and plow through all sorts of nationalities, such as Senegalese, Mauritanian, Malian, bedlam in general, and humping donkeys.

Now we have to get across the river to the Mauritanian side. We climb down the river bank and step into a pirogue, which looks like some old boards nailed together in the vague shape of a long canoe. The guy can't get the motor started and starts paddling with an oar, but the current isn't helping matters. He's working up a sweat, which is not hard to do in this climate, and when we nearly reach the other side and down the river a bit, he finally gets it going.

Mauritanian immigration is in a little building with some cutout squares in front where people throw their passport through. My fixer scrums at the window. I wait and wait and wait, and nothing happens. I work my way to the window, which one person can look through at a time and see four guys in there. They kind of look like they're doing something, but they're really not; they're just swirling around. Schwur pleads over and over with Ahmed, one of the immigration men, to stamp my bloody passport, but still nothing happens. About 45 minutes into this, finally a hand thrusts it out the window.

Next up, negotiating the transportation to Nouakchott. The language on this side of the river has now changed from Wolof to some dialect of Arabic, which cannot be spoken in a normal tone of voice--only shouted. I find myself shouting right with them. Schwur takes leave; he was well worth his tip. The car takes an hour to fill, but finally it's done, and after some bleak desert driving, I reach Nouakchott.

From the Gare Routiere in Rosso, you must ride this to the river.

My fixer. We try to cross the river by pirogue, but the guy can't start the motor.

He still can't get it going. "Hey friend, it looks like you're gonna have to start paddling!"

Saint-Louis

2011-06-30T10:39:00.001-07:00

I start the morning out with a pink torso behind me in the bush taxi. The problem with these seven-seater cars is that you have to wait for a passenger in every seat before they'll leave. We're down to one person left, and we wait and we wait. I volunteer to pay for the extra seat so we can leave, but I want the two dollars back I paid for my backpack to ride with the torso in the rear. This logic confounds the driver and about a dozen other people. "The pack will ride in the empty seat next to me--consider it a person." This is in bad French, mind you. Negotiations are quite frenzied, but they won't budge over returning the luggage fee, and I tell them to forget it. Finally, a huge Senegalese woman arrives, and she will fill the last seat. Lordy is it cramped in here!

Today is only five hours, and after a while I fall asleep because roadside Senegal is full of dead cars, occasional dead animals, and some stretches of spectacular trash on the side of the road. Please, people, any Senegalese reading this, don't trash your country; have a little respect for it.

We arrive in Saint Louis--just a short distance from the Mauritanian border. This, by far, is one of the more interesting places in Senegal. Founded in 1673, it was the capital of the French colony of Senegal for nearly 300 years. Now a UNESCO World Heritage site, it's got a weather-beaten, dilapidated look, like something you'd see in Cuba or Haiti, but there's a hip vibe to it with an arts scene and even a yearly jazz festival. Best of all, you can walk around without crafts touts dogging you.

I'm riding with a torso behind me.

A street in Saint Louis

More Saint Louis

I have a very cool room at the Louisiane Hotel. Its owner, Marcel, is one of the nicest men in Senegal.

The Long Slog North

2011-06-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

The Long Slog North

Part I

Guinea-Bissau marks the southernmost point on this particular trip, so now I turn around and head north. The car I’m riding in today is so dilapidated—no door handles, mirrors, padding—it gives me encouragement that I can get another twenty years out of my Miata. It’s amazing that these cars over here run. Well, maybe they don’t because you see constant breakdowns, especially with the buses, on the side of the road.

Today’s leg is only the 3-hour bush taxi repeat back to Ziguinchor, but this time I have much more colorful characters in the car. Noteworthy is an Arabic speaking man dressed in what looks like pale blue hospital scrubs with long, white filmy yards of fabric hanging off him. Well nothing stays white for long around here. And he’s got a black scarf on and a black beard. For the first few hours, he recites surahs from the Koran. Then he starts singing them at full voiced throttle up, and this clearly annoys the driver and a few of the passengers. They turn and give him hard stares, but this only motivates him to really go at it. He carries prayer beads and a mobile phone, which plays the Nutcracker Suite as its ring tone. About every half hour, the police, immigration, and assorted officials rummage through his suitcase. And behind me, someone’s mobile phone is a source of constant entertainment. This couple started laughing so hard, I have to turn around and see what it is. They show me a video of the belly of a pig or an iguana that’s getting poked, or tickled, or tormented in some way. This causes just crazy laughing, donkey laughing, and it goes on for hours.

Part II

I set out for the Gare Routiere at 6:30am to find a bush taxi for Dakar. These places are usually bedlam, and it’s worth an extra dollar to hire a fixer to push and bully me into a car. My guy takes his job seriously and deputizes two other passengers to look after me all the way to Dakar. He even rides his bike part of the way as follow up, or perhaps to ask for a little extra money for a drink. Nobody knows how long the day will be; all inquiries are answered with “ça depend” it depends—on the Gambian border. It’s hard to imagine, but there’s another country smack in the way.

What’s called the “Trans-Gambian Highway” is a little deceptive—unless you call a one-lane, rutted, dusty track a highway. I’ve read terrible things on the Internet about the corruption of the Gambian border, but I experience no such thing. Immigration could not have been nicer, and they did not even charge me the couple of dollars for the passport stamp—as they did to some Senegalese who were traveling on French passports. Maybe it’s Obama goodwill. Who knows?

Crossing the Gambia is a mess, because you have to cross the Gambia River. Two ferries go back and forth, and trucks and cars and people are lined up for some distance. And it’s hot and dusty. My fellow car passengers and I walk on down to the ferry, intending to wait for our car and driver on the other side. An enormous truck heaping with mangoes tries to drive onto the ferry but begins to tip over before sinking into the mud. This is a problem. No more cars or trucks can get on the ferry, nor can a second ferry unload. An hour goes by. Then into the second hour, a chain is produced and the mango truck is pulled onto the ferry by a truck that was already on board. We’re back in business.

Twelve hours later, we arrive in Dakar. True to their word, the deputized passengers since the morning make sure I’m in a taxi at a fair price to my hotel. It seems, too, I've missed some more rioting in the streets of Dakar. Yesterday, people took to the streets and burned cars and buildings because they're fed up with all the electricity cuts. Can't say I blame them. The military was called out, and helicopters flew around that god-awful African Renaissance statue to protect it.

The staff at my hotel take one look at me and suggest I sit and have a drink, but I tell them I am far too filthy to be in their lobby, and I head straight into a shower with my clothes on and scrub down.

Down to Guinea-Bissau

2011-06-28T06:45:00.000-07:00

First thing in the morning at the Guinea-Bissau consulate, I’m experiencing one of the nicer visa applications ever. “No, you needn’t stand at the window. Sit down and relax over there, and I’ll bring the paperwork to you!” Not only that, but I hear an old-fashioned typewriter in the background. Ten minutes—I’m done.

I go out to the Gare Routiere, which is where all the taxis and mini-buses leave for everywhere. I’m in a bush taxi called a sept-place, or a Pegeot that holds a maximum of seven passengers, well more if you don’t count children. The road to Bissau is pretty good, and the ride is actually pleasant, once the wind tamps down the humidity. About every half hour or so, I have to get out for passport stamps, passport scrutiny, and seemingly for no reason at all.

Guinea-Bissau is quite a country! A failed state some people call it. Like other African colonies Portugal made a mess of (try Angola and Mozambique), years of a violent and bloody independence movement, civil war, assassinations, failed Marxism, more civil war, military coups, more assassinations, and just when everyone is exhausted, another civil war, coups, and another assassination or two. You get the idea. And one thing I didn’t know, South American drug lords have overrun Guinea-Bissau, since this is the main entry point of hard drugs coming from the Americas to Europe. The legitimate export is cashews. On the up side, the Bijagos Archipelago just off the coast is supposed to be stunning, but it’s very expensive to get out there.

You would think that having lived for decades in such turmoil, the people would be surly and unfriendly. Not at all. They’re extremely nice and helpful, and the touts are not nearly as aggressive as the Senegalese ones on the other side of the river. Most of Bissau is pretty run down and weathered and with garbage all over the place, and you can see totally trashed buildings—such as the presidential palace, but there’s some new construction going up and nice houses here and there, so perhaps there’s hope.

I settle into my overpriced hotel room (everything is overpriced here), and it doesn’t take long for the electricity to cut. Perhaps plugging in my laptop overloaded the grid. The humidity here is insane. I stand in the shower and sweat at the same time.

The shell of the former presidential palace

The hotel starts its generator and my Mac fires up.

In Ziguinchor

2011-06-26T14:15:00.001-07:00

To travel from the north end of Senegal to its south end is no easy task; the country of Gambia gets in the way. The civilized way of doing it is by the twice-weekly ferry--a 14-hour overnight cruise that costs $33. For an extra $7, you get a bed--a worthwhile investment since big flat-screen TVs throughout the ship blast god-awful TV shows at full volume. The ship is actually pretty nice with a lot of security, and it replaces the one that sank on this route back in 2002 with nearly 2000 deaths, making it one of the top maritime disasters in history.

By morning, we're heading up the Casamance River to a town called Ziguinchor and the end of the line. This place has a Graham Greene vibe to it; you expect lots of French expat intrigue going on. For me, I sit it out until Monday, waiting for the Guinea-Bissau consulate to open so I can get a visa. There's not much to do here (well, yes there is: my clothes stink something awful) except walk around and see how much liquid I can sweat off. I go down by the river to take some pictures and notice later on when I upload the photos to my laptop that one of the boat guys is giving me the finger.

The streets of Ziguinchor

Along the Casamance River

Waiting for the Guinea-Bissau consulate to open on Monday

A Day in Dakar

2011-06-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

Dakar is a big, sprawling, unwieldy city, smack on Africa's most western point. Next stop: the Caribbean or Mexico.

The first thing you can't miss from the plane window is this colossal statue called the "African Renaissance." At 160-feet in length and perched on a 330-foot hill, it's gotta be the most butt ugly civic monument--ever. If you're guessing that this looks like something out of Stalinist Soviet Union, you're not far off. This thing was built by the North Koreans. Unveiled just a year ago to great fanfare with dozens of African leaders, the North Koreans, and America's own Jesse Jackson "this renaissance statue is a powerful idea from a powerful mind" in attendance, it seems the Senegalese people don't like it either: Muslims are offended, most people thought the money could be better used to improve the electric grid, tackle sewage problems, etc. Riot police had to be called out to control the angry crowds.

This public works boondoggle cost over $27 million--just what a country with a failed electricity grid needs. It kind of looks like the guy is throwing the baby and the woman into the ocean.

The president of Senegal has also said he owns the "intellectual property rights" of the statue and wants to collect a portion of the admittance from those who pay to climb up into the head of the male figure.

Today I go to the Embassy of Mauritania to apply for a transit visa. This process takes quite a bit of time. The guy behind the desk moves at about the speed of an old Dell computer with a 28.8 modem in a hot room. He examines every page of my passport and can't find my entry stamp into Senegal. "You have too many stamps," he says. The two-page form involves lengthy questions that delve into my parentage. And then there's a box where I have to list every country I've been to in the last ten years. This is hilarious! I look up at the consular officer, and he nods yes, I must fill this out. OK! I feel like one of those Ripley Believe it or Not freaks who can inscribe the entire Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin. I did leave out the really long names, like Trinidad and Tobago and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

I spend the afternoon out at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Ile de Gorée. The island is interesting, with some period architecture that's fixed up and some that is still in ruins, but in all it's more of a tourist excursion straight into the ranks of the crafts touts. Touts generally leave me alone, but just about everybody off the boat has somebody latched on to them around the island, which is very wearying. Gorée is supposed to be symbolic of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but very few slaves were shipped out of here; it was more of an administrative center.

More interesting is a mass demonstration today in Dakar against the government. It seems the president wants to change the re-election laws to his favor (and his son's favor), so he can be re-elected for a third term. I see all sorts of smoke plumes rising over Dakar from burnt out cars or buildings or whatever. Riot police are out with tear gas. When I come back to Dakar from Gorée, the demonstration is finished, but it takes some doing for my taxi to find a way around streets that aren't barricaded with all sorts of rocks and chunks of concrete.

The approach to the Ile de Gorée

More Ile de Gorée

And more...

A Day in Entebbe

2011-06-21T07:17:00.000-07:00

Entebbe bursts with brilliant vegetation and flowers. It's clean and non-fumey--everything that Kampala is not. And to you Internet strangers who may be reading this, unless you have a bus to catch or visas to obtain, come here when you stagger off that plane.

Anyway, so once again, it's "so you're in Africa where are the animals?" Not far from my hostel is the Uganda Wildlife Education center, an animal refuge that rescues animals either injured or recovered from poachers. You always learn so much in these places. For example, a lion copulates 2000 times before producing a lion cub that survives one year. The lions here look pretty knackered, so I move on down to the white rhinos. I watch two of them fight it out over a patch of grass one wants to feed on exclusively. The info board says their horns are made of densely matted hair. Just imagine, these horns are prized by poachers, who in turn sell them to the Chinese so they can copulate 2000 times. A forest walk takes me to an area so dense with creepy crawlers, I can go no farther. Suddenly all hell breaks loose, but it's just the monkeys screaming. A gray parrot looks down at me and says, "Hello. How are you?" This place is great.

Next stop Dakar.

$20 a night gets me this villa to sleep in.

The guy on the right won the grass feeding wars. The one of the left sulked off.

Creepy crawlers are everywhere.

Monkeys have it hard.

Exotic bird life is everywhere.

Hanging out on Lake Victoria

The World's Newest Country

2011-06-20T17:06:00.000-07:00

I stagger from the bus, and surprisingly there are no transportation touts anywhere. I find a guy with a cart that's been modified from a motorcycle. I don't know where the heck I am, and I might need an ally to help me find somewhere to sleep in case everything is full. I tell him I want to go to the Episcopal Church because they also operate a guest house. I'm in luck, and this is a great place to stay (thank you Jorge:-), and about half the price of all the other accommodations, which run well over $100 for a pre-fab. I settle in, and the power in the neighborhood goes out and stays out for days. And it's so hot and humid, I must go into the bathroom with a flashlight every few hours to wet down.

In the morning I go on a walkabout of Juba. It's Sunday, and the markets are closed, but I like it this way. Juba is considered one of the fastest growing "cities" in the world--thanks to the influx of workers and NGOs. Five years ago, there was probably not much infrastructure because of the war and a century of neglect from the northern government, but things are now booming. The city is sprawled out with all the usual ministries, housing, a university, a few hospitals, and a stadium. The main roads are paved, but everything else is rutted dirt--or mud. In the corners here and there are squatters in abysmal shanties and refugees in the more structured edifices. People are exceptionally friendly and helpful. No one bothers me as I walk from one end of town to the other. Near the Bedouin restaurant and the goat market, I notice a woman in a pair of high heels, and I'm thinking "how the hell does she walk through the dirt and the mud with those on?" and then it strikes me she's a hooker. However, the real hub of activity today is at the churches--especially the episcopal church--where the singing and hallelujahs go on for twelve hours straight.

Over the days I am in Juba, the most interesting part is the other people at my guest house. Singular is Daniel, a Sudanese guy who always wears a full suit despite the humidity. He has lived for ten years in Denver, Colorado. Recently, he has been involved with the building of four schools in South Sudan. He finally told me the morning I left that he was one of the famous "Lost Boys of the Sudan." And in case you don't know the story, during the war with the North, thousands of orphaned boys--from toddlers to teenagers--banded together and walked a 1000 miles into Ethiopia, seeking refuge. And when they had to flee that country, they walked back into the Sudan and then into Kenya, where they languished until their story became known. Shortly before 9/11, Daniel was sent to Denver. He described this to me as like "the heavens opening up and an unimaginable miracle" was bestowed on him. Now he's finished a degree and is applying for a masters program--and building schools.

I decide to fly back to Uganda since I've seen what I wanted to see, and I hate backtracking. The airport is more chaotic than any bus station. People politely help you where you need to go, and all goes well until the immigration desk. They demand 90 Sudanese pounds ($45) for a "registration." I know what this is. If you enter the Sudan--and until July 9, this is still the Sudan--you have 72 hours to register with the police and pay this fee. I go into my best stupid, middle-age woman persona: "I don't understand; what am I registering for?" "I'm leaving, not coming." "This is so confusing." "What do you guys do with this money?" "Why didn't anyone tell me this at Nimule?" "If I left by bus do the border people charge this" "Tell me again where this money goes?" "Well, what are people supposed to do who spent the last of their money?" I keep this up until I catch the guys smiling at my patheticness. Then, I knew I had them. They stamped me out free of charge.

The plane to Entebbe takes off over the White Nile, and although I can't see through the clouds, we follow the river as it become the Albert Nile, the Victoria Nile, and we land along the shores of its source: Lake Victoria.

Quién es más macho?

The goat market

If you're really bored, you can spend an evening with Dr. Hilder Man.

The White Nile. This boat was sunk during the war.

Most back streets are walled compounds belonging to the gazillions of NGOs here.

Entry to my guest house, it's safe and friendly.

The birth of a nation

Every new country needs its anthem

The Road to Juba

2011-06-20T17:04:00.000-07:00

"I need a bodyguard," I announce at the hotel reception desk. It's after midnight, and I want someone to walk with me the few blocks through one of Kampala's dodgier neighborhoods to the departure location of the bus to Juba. My guy works well since there's the usual assortment of annoying bus yard riffraff who try to be overly "helpful." I sit at the bus line's restaurant, which is full of activity in the middle of the night, with Ugandans, Kenyans, and Sudanese coming and going and mostly sleeping--kinda since the disco next door is pounding out non-stop African electronica.

I'm on Kampala Coach--supposedly one of the nicer buses that makes the 14-hour trek north to Juba. Right on the ticket, their mision [sic] statement declares: "to exceed customer expectations all the time and every time," and if that doesn't convince you, there's a vision statement too: "to improve unparallel [sic] service and to be the truely [sic] East African Company of choice and beyond."

At 2am, the bus arrives and it clearly is not the top of the fleet. Most seats seem to be broken, and there's nowhere for people's bags except the aisle. It's OK though; my seat is more comfortable and with more leg room than the flight(s) over. My fellow passengers are all polite, quiet, and look out for each other. I make friends with Martha, a Kenyan woman who is returning to Juba, after a three-month leave to attend her father's funeral, to resume work as a pharmacist. There are many Kenyans working in Juba because there are no jobs in Kenya.

For the first six hours to Gulu, the ride is smooth, although windy since the window seals are hanging down in strips on my side. The driver is safe and cautious.

Periodically, we stop for pee breaks, which range from regular "facilities," where you roll up your pant legs, take a deep breath, and don't look down with your glasses or keep a passport of anything important in a pocket, to just stopping by the side of the road. I dehydrate myself and avoid the situation.

From Gulu to the border and all the way to Juba, the dust kicks up, and aside from putting a bandanna over my mouth and nose to prevent dust sickness, there's nothing you can do about it, and it's just easier to accept that you're going to turn the same coppery red color of the soil.

Ugandan and Sudanese border formalities are straightforward and not too chaotic, and there's time to walk around Nimule, the border town.

It's another 3-4 hours to Juba, and this is by far the more interesting part of the trip. For the most part, nothing looks like it's changed from the time General Gordon was the governor of Sudan, or when Samuel Baker staged his Nile expeditions from Gondokoro in the 19th century. People still live in the traditional, circular huts with the thatched roofs. The only hints of the modern age are the hand pumps at the wells and perhaps some concrete work. That's about it. There are lots of exotic birds and butterflies, and I saw an unusual brown-colored baboon walking about. As far as you can see, it's nature in the raw, untouched, and how it's always been.

The road to Juba is hard-packed dirt, but this will soon change, as they're out there grading and improving, and then there will be even more overturned car/truck/bus carcasses on the roadside. Since this road to Uganda is one of South Sudan's major lifelines, I wonder how different some of this will look in five years

By 4:30pm, we cross over the White Nile and enter Juba, the capital of the soon-to-be newest country: South Sudan.

Typical village on way to Juba from Nimule

Africa 2.0

2011-06-16T23:59:00.000-07:00

Hello from Kampala, Uganda! Let's see, where did I leave off...

Last summer it was Africa, and well, here's some more. Sadly, this won't be a grand, sweeping, trans-continental journey, but rather some random travels here and there, and this blog is as good a place to post whatever is in my head. And it's Africa, which means guaranteed color.

Starting with the street below my room (count 'em: 107 steps up or down), teeming and steaming masses of humanity swarm around bales and bundles of stuff, plastic jerry cans, recycled clothes, piles of mattresses, tires, mounds of old bus seats. Squads of motorcycles whiz by trucks spewing ungodly fumes (see post below for last year's description of the toxic shroud of pollution that hangs over Kampala). And this is before I reach the main street. One cannot walk in a straight line in this city. One dodges, twists, balances, teeters, ducks, and scoots to get from point A to B. It's a great way to get over a 10-hour jet lag. Um, sure.

Book titles piled over the sidewalks are an endless source of fascination. There are hundreds of books about financial and personal success: Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Secrets of Wealth, When Times get Tough, the Tough Get Going, Who Moved My Cheese. Makes me wonder who made this executive decision to unload publishers remainders in Uganda. Do they think the poor wretch selling this on the sidewalk might read this stuff? And my favorite lurid headline of the day: "I Carried Brenda's Body to the Septic Tank" !!

So here's the plan for the next few weeks. Tonight I take the bus to Juba, Southern Sudan (no worries, Juba is fine), and I am told that once you cross the border, there are wonderful sights to see. Then it's back to Uganda, then over to Dakar, Senegal.

A fun travel vignette to share: Upon staggering off the plane in Milan to connect to Cairo and to Entebbe, Uganda, I was told that because of the Eritrean ash cloud, all flights past Cairo were cancelled. I went into the office of Egypt Air's station manager for more information (and to use his Internet connection), and he asked me to compose in proper English the "bad news" sheet to be given the passengers as they arrived for the flight. I typed this with gusto and later watched the sheets being handed out. People did not react well. Better to be stuck in Cairo than Milan. I went anyway, and surprise, surprise, the flight was reinstated, and here I am, excited and happy for a new adventure!

This is my permit for Southern Sudan. They misspelled my name and my hair isn't black, but that's ok.

Cape Town!

2010-08-24T01:53:00.001-07:00

Travelers who are reading this well know what it's like to re-enter "civilization." I call it re-entry, like a space shuttle plummeting back to earth.

Early morning Maputo, I scurry onto the bus and start to cram my pack in the overhead rack. A man tells me calmly that I don't have to do this. I look around and there are only eight people sitting on a 53-pax bus. And this bus is so clean I feel ashamed because the shirt I'm wearing is the dirtiest thing on it. I must hide my utterly filthy tote bag under the seat.

The last border to cross is between Mozambique and South Africa. Illegal immigration into South Africa is a major issue, and here I walk through a no-man's land of razor wire, klieg lights, and barriers that resemble Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin during the Cold War. It's awesome and there are no money changers to block my way.

Once in South Africa, the road now feels like silk under the bus, and at a food stop, instead of a swarm of vendors pounding on the windows, there are fast food outlets and a mini-mart. No dust; no belching black smoke.

I stay in a guest house in Pretoria, and for the first time in months, I cannot find a flaw in the bathroom such as: water flooding the floor from the toilet/shower/sink; no hot water; no cold water--only scalding; no water pressure; no water; no light bulbs. I marvel at the plumbing here. I take a walk on broad sidewalks where I can hold my head up without fear of breaking a leg by falling in a huge hole or tripping over a random piece of rebar or concrete sticking up. However, I still can't quite command a entire line of cars to come to a screeching stop when I step off the curb like in California; but crossing the street here is slightly better than cars/motorcycles/bicycles accelerating into me as I run across the street like a hunted gazelle, which has been typical of the entire continent.

Fortress America in Pretoria. Next door is the Indian embassy built of brick with an open veranda.

And then there's the food: I can find things that aren't soaked and cooked in a gallon of cooking oil. If cornflakes were a wonder yesterday, today I'm eating muesli with yogurt, honey, and fruit.

After 2 1/2 months of African travel, you can imagine what it's like to eat a breakfast like this. And there are four kinds of sugar in the cup.

Suddenly this all saddens me because it represents the end of the journey, and this is a depressing thought. Immediately I start to think of the next trip and a new itinerary to return to this fantastic continent with its kind and gracious people.This trip has barely scratched the surface. I see a world map with so many more pieces of the puzzle that need fitting in.

The World Cup is still everywhere in South Africa.

In Cape Town I spend the first two nights at a wonderful and utterly charming guesthouse (La Rose) around the corner from this street in Bo Kaap, the Malay/Muslim district. It's fantastic.

And then for the final splurge, two nights across town in this bed with a bottle of wine. This is not Africa; this is another planet.

It's over :-(

From Tete to Maputo

2010-08-18T05:56:00.000-07:00

I walk to the middle of a monumental suspension bridge to take a look at Tete. The Zambezi River, of course, is the setting for one of Dr. Livingstone's most famous expeditions. He was convinced that bringing commerce up the river into the interior would also bring Christianity to the Africans, thereby ending slavery and superstition. In the books, historians call him a failure on many accounts. I dunno, but maybe these academics should put on some dirty clothes, leave the file cards at home, and come stand on this bridge. The commerce is sure going on: trucks are lined up for miles on end waiting to cross the river with goods for Zambia and Malawi (and I would say Zimbabwe except it all goes to Mugabe there). And go up the road to Malawi and check out the Christianity effect there; it's huge. It just all didn't happen in Livingstone's lifetime, that's all.

Surreptitious photo of Tete taken from suspension bridge over the Zambezi.
An even more surreptitious picture of the bridge. Shhh, police aren't looking.

As for superstition, that's still a whole other layer of culture. On BBC Radio this evening, I hear of a Tanzanian sting operation that arrested a Kenyan for smuggling an albino into the country to sell to the witch doctors for body parts. Albino murders are a big problem the Tanzanian government has been somewhat successful in stopping. And back in Rwanda, I read reports in the newspapers about young children found dead in Uganda with their tongues missing--attributed to the witch doctors.

So here in Tete I consider my options. I can either take a bus to Johannesburg through Zimbabwe and Botswana for 24+ hours, retracing a route I've already mostly done in the 1990s, or take the bus to Maputo, Mozambique's capital, which takes up to three days done in stages with early morning departures at between 3-6am. And the chapa drivers tell me, while smirking and shaking their heads: "road is very bad." I'm not that much of a masochist and decide to just get the hell out of here and fly to Maputo.

In Maputo I try one backpackers hostel for a bed but it's full (why is it half the backpackers in these places lie around looking like they're on Quaaludes?), but across the street is the Hotel-Escola Andalucia with decent rooms, a reading lamp next to the bed, a full length mirror (horrors! major renovation needed once home), and corn flakes (!) at breakfast. The staff actually makes up my room--another first I haven't seen in over two months.

The school is on the corner of Patrice Lumumba and Salvador Allende, and nearby streets in the city are named Mao Tse Tung, Ho Chi Minh, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. Oh, and there's Kim il-Sung! And even a Robert Mugabe, destroyer of Zimbabwe, plaza. I'm looking for Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, or perhaps a Pol Pot to complete the pantheon. Along with the AK47 on the national flag, you would imagine a public relations challenge, but I think eventually the names will have a sort of retro hipness, and the newer generation will have no idea who any of these people are. Meanwhile, commerce is thriving on these streets.

Mozambique, so far in my very superficial visit, is worthy of a far longer stay and a road trip up the coast to Mozambique Island to do it justice. The blending of African, Swahili, and Portuguese culture here is fascinating and unlike anything I've seen on this trip. In Maputo, the food is good and the music a huge improvement. Leafy trees, outdoor cafes, and a great gelato place make me hate to leave.

The 100-year-old train station in Maputo

Malawi to Mozambique

2010-08-16T01:19:00.000-07:00

Lilongwe is not a bad place for a day or two to catch up, but I press on. Six hours on a bus take me to Blantyre, a city named after Dr. Livingstone's home town in Scotland. The most interesting part of the day is that the road runs right along the Mozambique border. In one town, one side of the street is Malawi and the other side Mozambique, with no barrier, barbed wire, or immigration post.

Blantyre, although the setting is pretty, has a vibe of not being safe, plus it's freezing. I put on all the clothes from my backpack to sleep. Lake Malawi and the odd game reserve are the reasons people come to this country (unless you're Madonna adopting another baby), but really, not when you can see your breath.

I head to Mozambique and the town of Tete, located on the map toward the Zimbabwe side. Tete has the fame of Mozambique's hottest town. It's also supposed to be such a hardship post that even the missionaries didn't want to come here.

I show up at Blantyre's bus station at 7am and score the front seat next to the driver of a van going to the border. This is ideal because a) I don't have people squeezing past me every minute and b) I can control the volume of the radio when the driver's not looking. Today's selection is full on Christian music since it's Sunday. I also, for once, get a good view of what's ahead. There aren't that many cars in Malawi, so the chances of being in the front line of a head-on collision are minimal. Driving along, it's not unusual to see coffin builders along the roadside, a cottage industry that probably sprang up when AIDS hit Malawi. I also see very few older people, but babies are all over the place. My guidebook says life expectancy here is 43 years.

For three hours we drop and pick up passengers--always kicking up dust in the process. I've started wearing a bandanna over my mouth and nose, looking like a cowboy driving 50,000 head of steer across western Texas. This helps from getting dust sickness. And today's produce that's being stuffed in the van is tomatoes. One guys comes in with heads of lettuce, another with spring onions, and together the van has a pleasant salad smell.

I'm finally dropped at the border, and here come the money changers. I talk to one guy who quotes me something ridiculous, and I walk off to the Malawi immigration. The officers in this country could certainly learn some social skills from Dickson back in Tanzania; the woman here throws my passport back at me after flipping through a few pages and tells me to find the entry stamp myself (yeah, OK, I do have a lot of stamps).

Finally processed, there is a five-kilometer no-man's land to cross. Really decrepit cars ply the route. And here's the classic African scene: Five guys escort me to the next taxi leaving, but the front and back seats are full. I point this out to them, and frenzied discussion breaks out with everyone. And here comes the money changer guy, offering me more money. I yell at him: "you tried to cheat me back there and you know it. I have no confidence in you and for all I know, your money is fake. Goodbye."And in the next breath to the driver: "Look, there's no room. None. And obviously, these passengers don't want me in there because no one is squeezing together, and I know they can do it. I will wait for the next car."More frenzied discussion, and some people are pulled out. Now there's room in the front. The other guys get in the--and I'm not kidding--in the trunk. It has occurred to me more than once while traveling in Africa that the barbaric ways they used to pack the human cargo on the slave ships isn't that far off from how they pack the matatus, dalla-dallas, buses, and whatever else transports people here. They're good at it.

Anyway, on the Mozambique side, immigration is polite, and another pack of money changers closes in like hyenas with their wads of money and calculators. Too late--I changed money with the immigration officer.

Welcome to Mozambique. A matatu here is called a chapa. This one has a dirty looking Bugs Bunny in an athletic outfit hanging by one ear off the rear view mirror. We stop every few minutes and it's the usual vendors of ears of corn, bananas, peanuts, and Coca Cola pounding on the windows. Notable though, is one kid with skewers of some grayish stuff to eat. I can make out eyes, surrounded by wisps of either feathers or fur. I have no idea what these are and thankfully no one buys any to bring inside the van.

A few hours later I'm in Tete. Bad news is that the few hotels are completely full. "Tete is growing; many people come!" One place makes a call and finds me a place. I'm not sure if it's a hotel or has a name, but it's run by an Indian family and my accommodations are immense. The father even has his son drive me around to do my errands. Gotta love the weirdness of travel.

Making Tracks Across Africa

2010-08-13T03:09:00.001-07:00

A look at the calendar makes my heart pound. Only two weeks to hurry down to Cape Town, and there is some serious distance to cover. The whole concept of "hurry" is laughable here in Africa. You just do the best you can and good luck.

Back in Dar es Salaam the Tazara railway, built by the Chinese in a year unknown to me, slices a path across southwestern Tanzania and all the way into Zambia. No cheetah express this, twenty hours take me to Mbeya, not too far north of Malawi, and it's not too bad a ride. The train staff do their best to keep the train tidy; a chicken and rice dinner in the buffet car is one of the best I've had in months, and the waiter even comes by with a bowl of hot water and nice liquid soap with which I wash my hands. The train groans and lurches, and people come and go in my four-berth compartment throughout the night. The weather has changed, too, from the hot and sweaty coast to freezing cold. I spend the morning chatting with some Zambian girls who are studying nursing in Tanzania.

Speeding across Tanzania

I overnight in Mbeya with yet another chicken and rice dinner that requires a hacksaw to get through. The hotel registration form asks me what my "tribe"is. I think about this for a while and decide the next time I see this I'll write down Californian. That's the closest, I think I am to a tribe. At 7:30 I catch a decrepit mini-bus to Kyela, which is right on the Malawi border. This takes over three hours. The road climbs up and up and up--into fog and freezing rain. People keep packing inside, and if there's any space left over, why the guys can heft in some humongous sack of onions or potatoes or apples or anything else they feel like moving down the road. At a town halfway along, most people get off, but there's a new crowd who wants on. I hear increasingly frenzied yelling going on outside. It seems some guys don't want a few others to board. They pick one guy up in the air and throw him so he hits the ground in a hard thud--literally. We speed away. The bus stops at the border, which is still a good three kilometers away. A hundred money changers meet me off the bus, and the only "taxis" are bicycles. I hire two: one guy to ride with my pack and another to carry me down the road.

My bicycle taxi (the other "driver" is off changing money for me).

Another border crossing, and by chance I meet an Irish NGO who needs to backtrack into Malawi to find dollars for a Tanzanian visa. He gives me a ride to the next town where I find a bus ready to leave for Lilongwe, Malawi's capital. I hop on for a twelve-hour jaunt down the length of the country. Essential equipment for any African bus traveler is a set of ear plugs to help drown out the non-stop, earsplitting music and videos (ear plugs also work when you have a particularly noisy group of touts to maneuver past. I never see people complain here; they just take it. The drive along Lake Malawi is beautiful, but soon it becomes dark and cold. I find a hotel in Lilongwe at 1am and pass out.

Lake Malawi taken from a dirty window on a speeding bus.

More roadside Malawi. They're selling French fries.

To Zanzibar

2010-08-09T03:06:00.001-07:00

I take the ferry to Zanzibar, surely one of the most evocative names on the east coast of Africa. Its rich history of trade, Omani sultans, and the jumping off point for the great 19th-century expeditions against a backdrop of Swahili culture deserves its UNESCO World Heritage status. In many respects, the historic center of Stone Town is a fantastic place, but I must look past the neglect, trash, and dereliction to imagine what must have been. Like parts of Havana, Cuba, incredible architecture is turning to rot. Some restoration efforts are going on, but not all will survive. In the 1970s the government, during its failed socialization experiment, redistributed many of the structures to people with no vested interest in protecting anything, increasing the downhill slide into deterioration.

The shell of the old courthouse looks ready to fall over.

View from my hotel rooftop.

Now, Zanzibar has made a pact with the tourism devil, and this has brought prosperity at a cultural cost. Package tourists fill the beach resorts, and I see hoards of western college types, with boobs bursting out of tank tops, cracks showing, and who are loud and foul. What must the deeply Islamic Zanzibaris think? And neither of these groups of tourists are particularly friendly.

To compare with Lamu up in Kenya, here you flop on the beach and swim in the divine Indian Ocean. In Lamu, which is smaller and more intimate, you stay and write a book.

Tourists are swarming about and rooms are tight. Because I've spent little during the last month and I face a few weeks of hard travel ahead, I splurge on my last day. For the same price as a Travelodge in San Francisco, I end up in the presidential suite in a former palace. There's no reason to go out the door.

This is just one of my rooms.

Before I leave the country in a few days, I must comment on the extraordinary kindness of the Tanzanians. A case in point, the immigration officer back on the border between Burundi and Tanzania sent me an e-mail a week later, saying: "hi! madam it's me Dickson Mwanyasi an immigration officer at manyovu land boarder,i would like to extend ma warm greetings!where are you now?have you already departed to zanzibar? have a nice tour enjoy a lot, happy"

Can you imagine that happening in Europe or the US?

A Few Days in Dar es Salaam

2010-08-09T02:47:00.000-07:00

En route to Dar es Salaam I meet an American girl who tells me that she's staying at the Free Pentecoste Church of Tanzania Center, and she thinks accommodations are open to anybody. This is great because I have no idea of where I'm staying. Everywhere is booked and way overpriced. I luck: I get a huge room with hot water and breakfast for $13.

Dar es Salaam isn't all that bad. Much of the old Indian/African architecture remains from my 1973 visit, and life appears to be thriving. I wander around for hours. The occasional plonker approaches me on the street, but I shake them off with little trouble.

The center where I'm staying attracts missionaries who are coming from/going to/or revisiting sites around the country, and they all offer fascinating insights into aid efforts in Africa. They pretty much confirm my suspicions about what I've seen the last few months. The NGOs have developed into a multi-billion dollar industry with fat salaries and not-too-shabby lifestyles for the administrators. Their overwhelming presence in some areas serve to drive prices up, which hurts the local people they purport to help. You can always spot the NGOs: they nearly knock you down in the street as they scream past in their shiny Toyota Land Cruisers. In Kigoma, where there aren't that many streets, I start to recognize several of them that just go back and forth.

I like the missionaries. The doctors spend several months a year with hands-on work in the villages (childbirth complications are big) and fight an uphill battle against deeply ingrained superstitions and witch doctors. A German missionary couple I meet have spent nearly thirty years in community development, encouraging the Africans to come up with ideas to dig the latrines or patch the roofs themselves instead of waiting for someone from the outside to do it. Money is not the answer, they say, but a change in attitude. For example, jealousy: parents often resent their children if they reach a higher level of education; or a nearby village or petty government administrator is jealous if a village improves its prosperity. That kind of thing. And then there is the problem of corruption which exists at every level.

Related are the squads of first-time Africa and terribly naive volunteers who pour into Africa like a wildebeest migration during the summer. I've talked to dozens of them. Usually college or high school students from the UK, US, or Canada, many tell me they've come because it looks good on a resume or college application. After a few weeks--followed by a safari or beach vacation--they return home with everybody feeling good about themselves. No impact is left on the Africans because the fundamental problems still exist. One student from the UK arrived with 1500 condoms. His task was to train teachers, who would in turn teach how to use them. His training in this was minimal, he said. And my favorite for the Darwin award was a Canadian guy who craves that "Africa scar him in some way," so he's not taking any anti-malarials. I ask him why he can't go out and mugged instead.

Killing Time in Kigoma

2010-08-02T04:27:00.001-07:00

No meeting is more famous between travelers than that of Stanley and Livingstone in Ujiji, not far from the shore of Lake Tanganyika. Ujiji is just south of Kigoma, with any dalla-dalla (Tanzania's version of the collective mini-van stuffed to the gills with people) passing by. A fifteen-minute walk from the highway takes me to a barb-wire-topped fence surrounding a stone monument. A plaque, donated in 1927 by the Royal Geographic Society, marks the spot. Nearby a mango tree said to be graphed from the original of Livingstone's time, completes the scene. Another plaque across the way designates that captain Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke passed this way, too, during their expedition to determine if Lake Tanganyika was the source of the Nile. Note, to get in the fenced area, you must pay the "museum" across the way.

Mission accomplished. The next task is figuring out how to get out of Kigoma. My original intention was the train to Dodoma. It runs once a week, and I'm in luck that it runs today. However, they've done away with the sleeping cars and 50,000 people have pressed into the station to board the third-class only cars. Um, I pass on this. The bus takes some days through dust (only 25% of Tanzania's roads are paved, but they say they're getting better all the time) to get across to Dar es Salaam. This passes through the Serengeti National Park, but I'll have to pay a hefty entrance fee, and this is not exactly how I'd like to see the Park. I pass on this, too. I look for an airline office, but the electricity is off. And since Africa hasn't made the complete leap into the electronic world, I am issue a handwritten ticket.

The power goes off in Kigoma regularly, or the water doesn't turn on, so it's important to take advantage of electricity or water when you've got it. Power goes on--start charging your iPod. Here comes the water--shower immediately. I found an Internet cafe here with the fastest connections since leaving California. And with really nice laptops!! (This is a big deal for the traveler in Africa).

Kigoma

Blitzing through Burundi

2010-08-02T04:02:00.000-07:00

Rwanda probably has the nicest people I've met yet on the trip, and hardly a walk out the door doesn't result in people approaching me just out of kindness, but onward I must go. Most people from here back track through Uganda and Kenya to get to Tanzania. I'm on the bus south to Bujumbura.

Burundi is not many years coming out of its own Hutu/Tutsi civil war. All reports say the country is somewhat stable but to be careful. Burundi also enjoys the title of the most corrupt country of East Africa. And sure enough, at the border I meet my first corrupt border guard. It's nothing too unpleasant though--more a case of a stupid, barely literate moron. I'm out less than 50 cents. I should say every border official I've encountered so far has been extremely kind and welcoming.

So, Burundi. For the first hour I think: "Call up the heavy equipment operators. This place needs some serious bulldozing." A Rwandan tells me this is how Rwanda looked before the genocide. Any truck we pass usually has several bicyclists sitting on the cross bar, while hanging on the truck with one hand--like remoras--black fumes belching out over them. Women, on the other hand, look like they've stepped off the pages of National Geographic. And everywhere I see the flag of some political party: a bird with a machete in its claws.

We descend out of the mountains and see Lake Tanganyika in the distance. I doubt Bujumbura sees many tourists these days. I lodge for the night in what must originally have been intended as a honeymoon suite (embroidered sheets, bathtub on a platform) in an atmospheric town hotel. Restaurant service reminds me of a 28.8 modem: wait and wait and wait, and then maybe a fork appears and then a glass--only to get something you don't really want. Step out in the streets however, and whoa. Casualties of the war come honing in around my legs. Missing limbs, missing hands, missing feet--some on children. Intense stuff here.

Anyway, years ago the best way to travel between here and Kigoma in Tanzania was to take a boat. Those days are gone. Now it's good luck even finding information on how to travel south on public transportation. I think it's possible, but it means waiting out the weekend, and the trip is dicey at that So I hire a driver. A Canadian girl on my bus is traveling with a Rwandan, who has a Burundian friend, who has a friend, and so on. The evening turns into a council meeting, discussing my situation. The thread goes from Emily, to Yannick, to Kevin, to David, and voila (!) Modeste arrives in the morning to drive me to the Tanzanian border. The new problem is we can't leave until nearly 11am because the government has designated the last Saturday of every month as community service day. Rwanda has the same where everybody has to sweep or paint or do something. Most, I suspect, sleep in. It's forbidden to open your business, cruise around.

The drive along the shore of Lake Tanzania is gorgeous. The lake looks more like an ocean; water is clear. And mountains drop right to the shore. David and Modeste really like American country-western music, and they've brought their tapes. They even know the lyrics.

Lake Tanganyika whizzing by the car window.

After three hours we end up in some little town at an unmarked building. This is immigration where I get my exit stamp. I never, ever, would have found this. And then it's another hour up and down a rutted, dirt road--no signs, nothing. Yes, you need a Toyota Land Cruiser. Now, it's the Burundian frontier post. So I don't have to walk some kilometers through no-man's land, we bribe the guards to let us pass to the Tanzanian gate, where I'm dropped. The day isn't cheap because of horrendous gas prices, but the job is done.

Pumping gas. David with the water bottle, Modeste in the glasses behind him. Please, nobody light a cigarette.

The Tanzanian immigration post is fun and efficient. The officer welcomes me and makes sure the taxi driver who takes me to Kigoma is charging the correct price. After another hour plus of driving through dust so thick the driver has to occasionally stop or put on the headlights. We arrive in Kigoma. The sun has set.

More summer fun in Goma, DRC

2010-07-29T07:50:00.000-07:00

It's not always gorillas that attract the hardcore traveler to Rwanda. Goma, that thriving, vibrant metropolis of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, sure brings them in. Um, maybe not. Gorilla viewing takes more money and time (both which are running low), so I opt to take a mini-bus to Gisenyi, Rwanda's own "beach" resort on Lake Kivu and just a few kilometers from Goma.

My guide, Emmanuel, meets me on the Rwanda side. He's very tiny and looks about twelve years old, but no, he's a married adult and extremely personable and bursting with enthusiasm. I feel sorry for him because Goma is a friggin' dump and he's got his work cut out. God almighty, what a place.

Six years ago a nearby volcano blew and combined with an underground burst of lava in a place no one expected, the lava flow took out half the city. Goma is slowly being rebuilt, but everywhere you look is broken up lava rock with not a lick of green anywhere. And the dust is so thick, you can hardly see a block away.

Main Street, Goma.

Typical lava street.

Emmanuel takes me climbing over lava flow and to the market where piles and piles of clothes--the kind of stuff you see in those mammoth-sized bales in the warehouse yards in south Los Angeles--are resold. Looking for that brown and white, Hawaiian-print polo shirt? It's here.

Goma market.

A belt for sale: only 1 US$

We drive past the airport, past UN troops, through main streets and back streets, and then down to the Congolese side of Lake Kivu where the NGOs have their mansions. I could easily do a blog post on these NGOs, but I'll think I'll save up my rant. There are over 200 different NGOs in Goma alone. They live really well.

One of the "mid-size" NGO houses in Goma.

All these photos were taken somewhat on the sly, no surprise. No problem with border crossings in either direction. And for one of those serendipitous travel moments...Back in Ethiopia at the Blue Nile falls, Rob from Oregon--an excellent traveler and photographer--and I spent a pleasant evening chatting about the more obscure places in the world, as travelers who meet up in the hostels do. In a complete coincidence we ran into each other a week later in the Ethiopian Airlines office in Djibouti, and if that isn't enough, he had just arrived in Rwanda from Goma as I was going over--over a month later and in the middle of Africa. Too funny!! One is never alone. His photography is exceptional, and here is a link to his site: http://www.so-sophoto.com/

Roaming across Rwanda

2010-07-29T06:53:00.000-07:00

Unless I want to visit another park, it's time to move on from Uganda. Some of you might be wondering what, if any, security measures are taking place in view of the bombings in Kampala during the World Cup. The only thing that affects the traveler is the constant "wanding" every time you enter a hotel, a restaurant, or even a bus. Gotta coin tucked down your backpack? Odds are you're going to have to take it out for examination--that kind of thing.

OK, off I go on a 9-hour bus ride through bumps and dust to Rwanda. I like this country! And not just because of the welcoming free visa for US passport holders. It's beautiful: mountainous with terraced, cultivated hillsides much like Peru or Nepal. People are exceptionally friendly and helpful. And in one of the best government decisions--ever--plastic bags are banned. I had heard about this back in Uganda and ditched one bag I use for my laundry down into the depths of my backpack. Sure enough, at the border officials rooted around a tote bag and confiscated a plastic bag my water bottle was in. The result is a virtually litter-free country (Somalilanders please come here and take notes!) Another policy is that they're very fussy about people with cameras. Pictures of buildings, government stuff, and whatever is banned and your camera will be confiscated. So, no pictures for this blog post!

Fumes and dust are minimal with fewer cars than Uganda. And since this is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, huge, long lines of people simply walk along the sides of the road and up and down the hills, carrying unbelievable loads of stuff on their heads and large water containers in each hand. And everyone appears industrious with little idle slacking.

I visit the Genocide Memorial in Kigali, which commemorates the slaughter in 1994 of one million people in only a hundred days. Despite the finger pointing of why this happened, you gotta wonder about when it comes down to a person standing there with a machete in his/her hand ready to whack a baby into pieces with whom does the ultimate responsibility lie? The Memorial is tasteful, but there are memorials in Rwanda that require a really strong stomach.
I've asked a few people where they were during those hundred days: my driver told me he and his mother and two sisters hid in a bus for two months; the rest of his family didn't make it. Another grew up an orphan. Everyone now says the country looks forward and has abolished tribalism. I hope they make it.

Murchison Falls

2010-07-25T08:58:00.000-07:00

Some of you are probably wondering where the hell are the animals in this whole saga. After all, it's Africa. That's what you do here: chase around game reserves like something out of Hatari. OK, so here it comes...

About two hundred miles north of Kampala is Murchison Falls, a place not only in the lore of the search for the Nile, but once one of Africa's premier game reserves--until the massive slaughter of animals under that psycho of the ages Idi Amin, or his successor Obote, or the Lords Resistance Army. For much of the last forty years, Murchison Falls has been off limits, but presently it's calm and the animals are back. Before the troubles began, the park was used, in part, for the filming of the African Queen, and since I've shamelessly ripped off the movie poster for this blog, the least I can do is visit and pay my respects. And as a side note, it was here that Ernest Hemingway suffered the two back-to-back plane crashes--with the last one nearly killing him.

So, off I go with seven more-than-congenial English, German, and American companions. A backpackers hostel in Kampala offers a three-day safari for only $240--an absolute bargain.

Murchison Falls may not be the highest or widest falls in the world, but it has the distinction of being the most powerful. The Nile River at this point in its journey north squeezes from a width of fifty meters through a six-meter gorge in an unbelievable burst of fury. We hike to the top and then to the bottom.

Murchison Falls

The next morning I go on a game drive through the reserve, and the complete assortment of animals are at work, standing about looking photogenic. I've got a ton of pictures, but here are a few that don't need to be blown up...

And if that isn't enough, we follow this with a cruise for some hours up the Nile toward the falls where there is an elephant and hippos and crocodiles galore. This is the jungle boat cruise for real...

Some kind of water buffalo.

Jinja

2010-07-22T02:52:00.000-07:00

Anyone who can walk around an African city for more than a day must have fake lungs. The amount of black fumes, white fumes, and just plain filthy fumes belching at full force from all exhaust pipes can asphyxiate all but a 5-pack a day smoker. And this does not count the dust. Often I cannot see across the street. Nairobi is really bad in the fume department, so I flee on a (incredibly comfortable) bus for a 12-hour ride to Kampala, Uganda. I find no relief from chronic headaches, coughing, and blowing black out of my nose. I leave Kampala for Jinja, an hour back up the road.

Jinja, for readers of African exploration, holds a special place as the source of the Nile. And one of the greatest tales of the 19th century is the competition amongst adventurers and geographers to be the first to find the "spot." No more classic a story may be found as that of Captain Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke. Egos and a fractured friendship caused them to part ways in the middle of one of their expeditions. Speke headed out solo and half-delirious to a spot on Lake Victoria that he conjectured was where the Nile began its journey north. He was right, of course, but never lived to receive his glory, as he died in a shooting accident hours before his presentation before the Royal Geographic Society.

What would Speke think today? A small plaque and monument marks the "spot," but his name is now on a hotel, a street, and various random things around Kampala. There's even a street named after Burton. Both are probably rolling over in their graves to know the headwaters of the Nile are now a headquarters for such "adventurous" pursuits such as white-water rafting and bungee jumping. However, the site of Speke's discovery is a beautiful park--quiet and filled with bird life. Unlike the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, here the water is clean, not muddy. With a visible, strong current, I think the beach ball tossed in here would be the clear winner in reaching Cairo first.

Next stop for me: Murchison Falls

From Lake Victoria the Nile begins its journey.

This neglected plaque marks where John Speke first viewed the source of the Nile.

The Swahili Coast

2010-07-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

Places such as Mombasa, Malindi, and Lamu--Kenya's Swahili coast--have long resonated with me, and finally I bring the fantasy to reality. Some quick background: Swahili is a form of an Arabic word meaning "coast," and culturally, it's Africa, Arabia, and India all mixed together. Trade routes linking these regions of the world have existed for over a thousand years, and by the time the Portuguese arrived in the 16th century, the Swahili world extended from Somalia to Mozambique.

Mombasa, despite the cachet of the name, has succumbed to urban blight, fumes, and traffic and is worth only a small stop. I head to Malindi up the coast in a matatu (a collective taxi). The romantic coastline I envisage has the vibe of a 1970s style Mexican Riviera with the bougainvillea-covered white-washed buildings, red-tiled and thatched roofs, and the overall sultry air. Malindi has now become a resort destination for Italians behaving badly. Despite this, there is a monument dedicated to Vasco da Gama, the first European to set eyes on this coast, and the awesome Swahili ruins of Gede, a once rich and mysterious coastal town that remains undocumented in history; however Chinese porcelain and pottery from India have been found there. The ruins are extensive, and just the butterflies and I have them all to ourselves.

Swahili ruins of Gede. Nobody knows its origins.

But let's get to the good stuff. It's Lamu, a four-hour butt-bruising, buckin' bronco bus ride, followed by twenty-minutes in a boat that's the crown jewel on the coast. Holy smokin' swahili--it's love at first sight. The entire island is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it's stunning. My hotel is a restored, 16th-century Swahili house, and if I'm not careful, there's no reason to leave.

No reason to get out of bed at my hotel.

Part of the Swahili "style" is its carved doors.

No cars exist on Lamu. Donkeys are the only way to get around.

You can meander on these narrow streets for hours. Around every corner is a surprise.

Lamu street scene

The 19:00 to Mombasa

2010-07-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

In different odd spots around the world are historical trains lines, built under massive human endeavor to open up new continents to trade and settlement. In East Africa, there's the Djibouti to Addis Ababa train, now barely functioning just over the Ethiopian border and approaching scrap heap status, and the Nairobi to Mombasa line in Kenya--ready for business three times a week. Built in 1903, the line once ran all the way to Uganda, and Nairobi was founded halfway along as a result. It may be a little tattered around the edges, but this train has heart.

At the station I must check in at a special counter where a woman welcomes me and gives me an already prepared card with my name on it for the first meal service seating. This is a beautiful and graceful touch from how people used to travel, and it's not like they're being nostaligic; they're still doing it this way. My first-class cabin boasts leather seats that look like 1950s vintage. I share accommodations with a Dutch woman.

Hot, sweaty, and happy.

We pull out of the station and the train manager comes by dressed in a full suit and tie and introduces himself. He warns us to keep our door and window locked during the night. Next a steward comes down the corridor, ringing a bell to summon us for dinner. The restaurant staff have choreographed an excellent meal served on a white table cloth of soup, chicken, vegetables, rice, and fruit. People from France, Spain, Britain, and Kenya sit at the tables around me, and we all chat as fellow travelers.

The dining car--note the overhead fans.

Sometime during the night the train stops and stays stopped--for hours. What should be a fifteen-hour run will turn out to be twenty-one hours. "Not to worry," the train manager announces over breakfast, "passengers will be served lunch!" (All meals are included with the fare.) This is great news. Lying about all day on a train crossing Africa is my idea of a perfect day. As luck would have it, because of the delay, we cross through the middle of Tsavo National Park during the day. I stare out the window for hours and spot elephants in the distance.

We stop at Voi--about halfway to Mombasa.

Inside Voi's station.

Still at Voi.

Jubba Airways, the Happy Way to Fly

2010-07-11T06:32:00.000-07:00

Mogadishu is one of those places sure to strike a chord of absolute terror in anyone's heart. While booking my ticket from Djibouti to Nairobi, I am told that the plane will stop briefly there, but not to worry, that it's perfectly safe; al-Shaabab will not storm the plane and carry off western women travelers who are kicking and screaming. I ponder this information for some days.

On my return from Hargeisa, Somaliland, to Djibouti, I fly with Jubba on yet another former Soviet piece of dereliction, but at least on this plane the seats match, although the seat belt has not been used since a few planes before. A family of five pile in the three seats across the aisle. Through the scarcely contained chaos at the airport, the flight proves a triumph thanks to the charming company of a retired French military commando/paratrooper now doing security assessments of the world's hot spots for a private corporation. The stories are fantastic and in exchange I give a small lesson in written Arabic grammar. The flight finally arrives in Djibouti, but the plane port hole windows are so fogged up, we can't tell if the plane is still in the air or taxiing on the runway.

Anyway, I don't have much hope for the Jubba flight on the next day to Nairobi, and I spend a restive night staring up at the black cloud of doom hanging over my bed at the hotel. I should point out that the pirates operate out of Puntland (another part of Somalia) and are a different crowd of riffraff than the hard-line al-Shaabab Islamist nutcases who hang around Mogadishu.

At the airport there are only five Somalis and me checking on. Some airport guy with a badge comes up and asks for my passport number with no explanation. We are screened and re-screened, and now our plane escort comes. The plane is exactly on time. I walk out on the tarmac to face a shiny Boeing 737-200. Huh? The smartly dressed cabin crew welcome me. The plane is filled with Somalis, also nicely dressed. The seat belt works. We are served a hot meal.

Looking toward the terminal

The plane is positioned to get the hell out of there.

Something wrecked on the runway.

Two hours later we approach the Mogadishu airport from over the water. I can see parts of a spread out, low-lying town, but not much else. We land, and the crew thank everyone for flying Jubba, and for those passengers disembarking, it's: "Enjoy your stay in Mogadishu or wherever your final destination may be. Hope to see you again soon." This is beyond surreal. It's Mogadishu, for god's sake. I ask the crew if photos are permitted, and they say of course, I could come off the plane for clearer shots. Well, why not? I do notice on the entire perimeter of the airport are white SUVs keeping watch. Our plane does not pull up in front of the terminal and positions itself to head straight out to the runway. In barely half an hour, we discharge passengers and pick up a new batch (who look decidedly happy), including a few westerners (who look like they have been living hard), and off we go. We are served another meal, and the crew address me as Miss Pamela.

The next stop is Wajir, just over the Kenyan border, where everyone piles off for immigration and screening. Back up in the plane, we finally arrive in Nairobi, to yet another check and screening. The perimeter of this airport, in contrast, is full of armed soldiers. I am met by a driver who takes me to the backpackers hostel. By the second night, people know I just came through Somaliland and Somalia, and everyone goes quiet. "No big deal," I tell them, "the Somalis are great."

Fantastic Las Geel

2010-07-08T05:35:00.001-07:00

Imagine Neolithic cave art--some of it over 5000 years old--just sitting out in the middle of the nowhere. Las Geel was discovered by French archaeologists only in 2003, and it surely ranks as one of the world's most amazing sites, with some people saying it deserves World Heritage status if not for the political situation. Slowly its existence is becoming known (try a YouTube search), but for now these superb stylistic representations of cattle, hunters with bows, cows bearing milk, etc., receive few visitors. And they say there is more out there yet undiscovered.

To get there is neither easy nor cheap. Las Geel is about 60 km from Hargeisa, and the Somalilanders take one's safety very seriously (one incident would cause a huge setback in the government's efforts to seek support from the international community). I must hire a 4-wheel drive car with a driver and then two soldiers (Shede and Abdulrahman) armed with AK47s. With permits in hand to get past the roadblocks, my private militia and I set off. I am a kind general, and while on maneuvers I only require them to help me scramble up and down cliff sides. The day is utterly fantastic.

My private militia

Summer Fun in Somaliland

2010-07-08T05:06:00.000-07:00

Somaliland is a country that does not exist. It should; it really, really should, and this little scrap of land is doing everything right to prove to the world that it deserves to be severed once and for all from its failed brother state of Somalia. Law and order exist here, and there's a representative government, its own currency, flag, and free press. They just held a peaceful presidential election. Tourists are welcome! Yet the outside world ignores this place.

Daallo Airlines is back up and running, using its finest ex-Soviet flying heap for the 35-minute flight from Djibouti to Hargeisa. I get the business class section in the back with tons of legroom to throw my stuff around. No one bothers stowing anything, and yes, you can bring on your water bottles. The seats on my side of the plane look like they may have come from an old Braniff plane. The message on the seat back to keep my seat belt fastened in English and Spanish is this plane's only safety feature. Big porthole windows are fogged up so I see nothing. The flight is extraordinarily smooth.

We stop on the tarmac in Hargeisa, and everyone walks to the terminal since there is no other way. No cars are allowed to drive near the terminal, so porters carry every one's stuff out into the street. I splurge on the best hotel in town: the Ambassador. The taxi zigzags through road barriers of cement-filled drums to reach the gate where guards then check the car's bottom with mirrors. I get out and enter a special women's room where my stuff is checked and I am wanded. The hotel is great: satellite TV, room service, Internet, and a bedside light.

A driver takes me around Hargeisa in the afternoon. Wow, I am speechless. I wish it didn't take so long to upload pictures or I would post tons. Here is a friendly city trying to recover from a decades-long catastrophe. Streets are lively, store shelves are stocked. I wander around to take pictures, and because there are so few tourists in this place, you're treated like a rock star when you step out of the car. It's a very hard scrabble sort of place, but through the poverty and the shreds of blue plastic that the wind has spread across the city and beyond, there's an underlying artistic flair that is brilliant.

Soon a dollar will be worth only this.

Djibouti is a wonderful surprise

2010-07-07T02:25:00.000-07:00

I walk the streets without hassle. The high prices are not even worrisome because they are not ripoff ferenghi prices. And everything works. And the money is clean. And there are clean, well-stocked supermarches. And the Internet works. And I'm not having to step around guys peeing on the sidewalk. And there's a gelateria where someone is cleaning a speck of dirt off the linoleum. I recover in two days. I meet a man from the Organization of African States who tells me illegal immigration from Ethiopia is a big problem in Djibouti. He commends the state of Arizona. A woman from Kenya who works for the UN is here to train people about the immigration problem. And this is Africa.

The center of Djibouti city is vaguely cosmopolitan--if you stretch it--with pastel-painted Moorish architecture. And against this backdrop, you've got tribesmen and brilliantly dressed women as amazing touches of exotica. Everything shuts down in the afternoon when the men fall into a qat-chewing stupor.

Unfortunately, it's July, and the heat and humidity are crippling. But I always believe you need to leave something to come back to, and for Djibouti, it's Lac Abbe, a plain where 100s of giant limestone chimneys blow out steam (a great backdrop for the movie Planet of the Apes). And then there's Lac Asal where volcanoes surround a crater lake, which is the lowest point on the African continent. I would love to see these places, which take a few days I'm told. I like it here.

Pictures coming when the Internet permits...

A few more words about Ethiopia...

2010-07-07T02:17:00.000-07:00

Stomach issues oblige me to fly from Lalibela to Djibouti--a journey that feels like traveling through silk compared to the last few weeks. Although Ethiopia holds many wonders and most people are quite lovely, based on the regions I've seen, the World Health Organization needs to step in and shut this place down--immediately. Let's take the money. Most of it is so unspeakably filthy, the smell permeates through my wallet and then through my money pouch, and finally it makes my shirt stink to the point where it needs to be destroyed. At the end of one pre-dawn taxi ride, the driver has to pull out a flashlight so we can both try to figure out a mass of brown paper. "What do you think this one is?" as I hold one up. I learn to recognize size. I pose to my traveler friends reading this blog: Have any of you seen worse? And then there are basic sanitation problems, far, far too gross to enumerate on the blog. Rant over.

Anyway, a new country beckons!!

Lalibela

2010-07-04T02:15:00.000-07:00

Even in 1973, the name Lalibela held one of those mystical cachets that promised a wonder of the world--if you could only get there. Now I wasn't holding too high of expectations because often these places can disappoint, but what magic there is here! In a nutshell, there are three sites of churches in all. Over 1000 years old, the complex is attributed to one King Lalibela, whose jealous half-brother tried to poison him. He fell into a coma, journeyed to heaven or Jerusalem or wherever and was told by God to come back and start building. No matter what you believe, the truth is someone went to a heck of a lot of trouble in the middle of nowhere. Groupings of churches don't sound that awesome, but consider climbing up and down stairs chiseled into rock, and squat walking through pitch-black tunnels and secret passage ways to get from one section to another. One church is the largest rock-hewn church in the world; another (the one you see in the tourist brochures) was hewn from the top down--and they didn't have jackhammers back then.

I spend the day climbing and descending, stooping and twisting. And every time I enter anything, the shoes must come off with the strictness of a TSA edict. Impossibly photogenic priests stand about--doing I'm not sure what--in dark interiors, which hold a few chairs, not-so-ancient paintings of religious subjects propped against a wall, and some empty and dusty plastic water bottles on the floor.

Since I'm only a blundering ferenghi tourist, I pay for a guide to navigate me through the day. And there are the Spanish girls! We hug and kiss like old friends.

Back to Lalibela, I think what makes the place so evocative is that it's a glimpse of how Christianity must have been practised in its most ancient form. Fascinating.

The Ethiopian Bus Station at 5am

2010-07-04T01:58:00.000-07:00

Airfares are prohibitive in this country, leaving the next best option: the bus. All buses leave around 5:30am, and I am told to report to Gonder's "bus station" at 5. Not a problem. It's pitch-black outside, and I can see through the locked chain-link fence dozens of buses dimly lit by some florescent lights in the distance. Hundreds of people are kept outside in the street, dodging the incoming buses that are also waiting for someone to unlock the gate. Suddenly, noise, fumes, glaring headlights, smoke, and stampeding people mark the beginning of the transport day. It's a mad scrum to find my bus, grab a window seat, and try to ignore or insult the various scam artists who clamber on. I put my head down until they go away. When the buses get going, all is mellow, and my fellow passengers are interesting to chat to, and they look out after you.

Today's challenge is to get from Gonder to Lalibela. I'm told, if I'm really lucky, I might make it in one day, and if not, I will have to stay the night in Gashena--a town that's not even on my map. All goes well, and we only have one flat tire, but the driver is careful. My fellow passenger tells me that we are now passing through Gashena and yells at the driver to stop: Gashena looks as miserable and windswept as anything off the I-80 in Wyoming. I jump off the bus and walk along the road and spot a minibus, parked facing the direction I want to go. I point and ask some people along the road: "Lalibela?" and they nod: Cool! People pack on the bus, standing room only. The driver comes, and I plead my case. Ferenghi prices mean there's always room, and I even score a seat for the two-hour drive up a gravel road: Again, everyone is very helpful and seems to be fascinated that I come from a place where Arnold Schwarzenegger is governor.

Gone to Gonder

2010-07-04T01:41:00.000-07:00

Admittedly, I know nothing about ancient Ethiopian history, nor do most people since it's not taught in the schools and you're not likely to find an engrossing book on the tables at Barnes and Noble: Yet, if you get past the blur of names and dynasties, Ethiopia offers up some great historical visuals.

I leave Bahir Dar for Gonder--a name suitable for some kind of fantasy video game--a mere 3-4 hours away in a stuffed mini-bus: As long as I sit next to a window, I can create my own personal space, and the run is tolerable. At least the music is not too obnoxious, and the countryside is marginally more prosperous than that between here and Addis. Had the Sudan worked out, I would have entered Ethiopia in Gonder.

Anyway, why come here? First there's the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Fasil Gebbi, better known as the Royal Enclosure--a 17th-century complex of castles and palaces. It was here that Scottish explorer James Bruce wrote about a bacchanalia of raw-meat feasting where women, sitting on either side of a man, would place large cubes of steak into the men's mouths, it being beneath male dignity to touch the meat themselves. After everyone is thus sated, couples would retire behind a screen to make noisy love. 18th-century English society was shocked by these reports and dismissed Bruce's entire work as unbelievable: The dining halls are now empty, but it doesn't take much to imagine what went on in the place.

To the other extreme, Gonder has one of the most interesting churches in Ethiopia. It is a survivor of 19th-century Mahdist/Islamist fanatics who burst out of the Sudan and laid waste to the city. Not too astounding on the outside, the interiors of Debre Birhan Selassie offer a marvel of frescos, topped by at least a hundred faces of angels--Ethiopian style. It's utterly charming.

The Blue Nile Falls

2010-06-27T22:45:00.000-07:00

Tis Isat (the Water that Smokes) may not be the biggest, the highest, or the mightiest waterfall in Africa, but it has played no less a dramatic role in one of the world's most famous rivers. Initially discovered by the Portuguese (history seldom gives credit to real discovers), Scotsman James Bruce attempted to present his version of the true source of the Nile to 18th-century England. A dilettante, who at his own expense, spent ten years in the region, suffering unimaginable hardships, returned to England only to have no one take him seriously. He returned to his estate, grew obese, and stiffed the ghost writer of his books. People were more horrified at his accounts of the natives eating raw meat than his premise that Lake Tana and the Tis Isat was the source of the Nile. Later he was to be proven halfway right; this was one of the sources, but not the only one.

For a few dollars I join a ferenghi bus (ferenghi being a foreigner) with a few Americans, a French guy, and three girls from Madrid to drive out to the falls. I highly recommend this because the driver employs a "guide" to walk you up to the falls. My guidebook says: "Independent groups are not obliged to pay extra to hire a guide, but the alternative is pretty gruesome--a train of children demanding money, yelling, hurling stones and generally doing their utmost to ensure they spoil the experience." Lovely.

On the climb up the hill, dozens of these kids circle around you, pushing gourds and scarves in your face. "My name is Marta. Marta. Remember only me when you come back. I will be here, waiting." And there are about fifty Martas. But the day is beautiful and the climb is pleasant. Since it's been so rainy, the falls indeed deliver--cascades of muddy water crashing and plunging wildly over the precipice. I wonder if someone threw a beach ball in how long would it take to reach Cairo.

On the way back down the path, those cute, polite little children morph into howling, shrieking banshees. The guide whacks a stick into the ground, and they turn in unison and thunder out of there, much like sheep or some sort of hoofed animals stampeding in the face of danger. But they come back. I'm almost left alone, but the Spanish girls are doomed. The kids start screaming for pens, sweets, anything. It's insane. We pull away in the van through the gauntlet, and one little boy runs for all he's worth, sticks his head in the window, and yells: "PAY!!" Take any of these kids, clean them up a bit, and put them to work at the Limited Express or the Gap at the mall, and they'd make a killing.

Spanish girl mobbed

Roadside Ethiopia

2010-06-27T05:44:00.000-07:00

No pictures for a while since connections are agonizingly slow here. Will put them up asap.

I arrive in Addis Ababa at 3am, so I find a quiet corner of the airport and sleep until morning. Since I was here last in 1973 during the days of Haile Selassie, I think I want to remember it from then and not the teeming, impoverished mass of a city it is today. Visas are fast and easy to come by though, and I buy a bus ticket to head out of town.

Buses to anywhere leave before dark, and since it's the rainy season here, you can bet on a torrential downpour and lots of mud to begin a journey. The bus is full, but everyone is polite, and a guy even serves snacks and water. Two hours in though, the Ethiopian music and videos jolt me awake. It wouldn't be so bad except this music is hypnotic and frenzied, and it doesn't stop for the remaining nine hours.

My journey goes from Addis to Bahir Dar to the northwest, climbing down hairpin turn after hairpin turn from off a plateau and through some spectacular canyonland. Ethiopia has never been seriously invaded--except by the Italians for a while. And so did the British, who launched an expedition in the 1800s to rescue some Servants of the Queen. These poor hapless civil servants were imprisoned in fetters and tortured for two years by one of history's classic nutcase emperors, Theodore, because Queen Victoria failed to take him seriously.

Anyway, what does roadside Ethiopia look like? Pretty squalid. Hovels are constructed of mud and wattle, occasionally you see concrete, but for the most part this looks like a country that has endured famine and war and failed communist experiments. Some sections are so muddy and derelict that the color tones between people and landscape don't change. Teeming hoards of children run alongside the bus, and if you ever wonder where some of your castoff clothes go--that old blue cub scout shirt with den number 12120 or the old high school t-shirt with "Home of the Jaguars"--here they are. At one point I look out the window and a squad of big, pissed-off looking monkeys are charging down the hill and chasing the bus. In another spot there's an old rusted-out tank. Vultures circle overhead.

After what seems forever, we stop in Debre Markos--barely halfway--for lunch. What kind of appetite can one have after being motionless for seven hours? (well, except for the occasional piss break along the road). And that bag of overpriced Italian cookies I bought back in Addis tastes like manna from the Gods out here. I walk around the town and discover there's quite a big Jewish population, if the signs are any indication. Also at the rest stop, I discover there's a girl from Santa Barbara on the bus who has spent the last several months filming a documentary on Kenyan street children. Although the bus journey may be difficult, it's meeting one's fellow travelers that makes it so memorable.

At about nine hours into the bus ride, I break down and plug in my iPod for sanity's sake. Finally, at Bahir Dar, on the 11th hour, the bus stops, and I stagger through the inevitable crowd of touts, and go straight into my $19/night hotel alongside the beautiful Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile.

No Visa for Me

2010-06-23T02:14:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it's good in one way that there are still some countries out there that haven't sold out to the tourism god. Even brutal dictatorships such as North Korea and Myanmar can sniff a dollar out there, but the Sudan? Uh, uh. Not to say obtaining a visa is impossible, but if one holds an enemy passport, permission must be granted from the Ministry of Interior in Khartoum, and for this one needs an advocate inside the country who cares. Even a famous author such as Paul Theroux had to wait for weeks in Egypt, and he was not allowed to enter by land. Euro passport holders have a much easier time. All I have to offer is a letter of invitation from Khartoum and lots of charm, but that's not good enough. So, I offer a salute to the consulate pictured above.

It's not that big a deal since I've seen the merging of the two Nile Rivers before while flying into Khartoum in 1973. I hear the Sudanese people are among the most hospitable and unspoiled in all of Africa, and for this I regret not getting in. But things (like not getting a visa) always happen for a reason. The Sudanese probably did me a favor because it's now 50 degrees (that's over 120F) in Aswan, and it's not like there is a ton of shade in the Sudanese desert.

This description from the Victorian traveler, Lady Duff Gordon, sums it up: "The silence of noon, with the white heat glowing on the river which flowed like liquid tin, and the silent Nubian rough boats floating down without a ripple, was magnificent and really awful."

As much as I like Aswan, it's back on the overnight train to Cairo to catch a flight to Ethiopia. Time to keep moving south...

Off to Aswan

2010-06-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

A traveler's definition of bliss is an air-conditioned, private train compartment with no other passengers! An attendant even brings breakfast to me in the morning! I'm so happy, and I lie here and wonder why this train can't go all the way to Cape Town. About 14 hours later I arrive in Aswan, a very cool town, but only in the figurative sense cause it's over 110 degrees here. Yikes!!

Aswan

But who cares when for $16 I have a room with A/C, satellite TV, and breakfast? And in what other Egyptian city do they power wash the sidewalks? For less than $5/hour I spend the day sailing around the Nile on a felucca--down past the first cataract, lots of white ibises flying about.

I tell the Nubian captain that I have a thing for traditional Nubian architecture, and he takes me to a village that is more than I can ask for. Check it out...

But the main reason to come to Aswan is for Abu Simbel. It's just a few kilometers north of the Sudanese border and probably about as close as I'm going to make it to the Sudan, but more about that later. Anyway, I get up at 3:30am, because the only way down here, besides flying, is to join a police convoy. The drive is about three hours through a bunch of nothing, but this is so totally worth it:

Anyway, Egypt is just to figure out the plan for the bigger trip down south, and this is just some blog filler to pass the time. It's too hot to even think in this place, let alone put together complete sentences. So, sorry this is still kind of boring. Don't worry, the fun is yet to come.

Killing Time in Cairo

2010-06-20T06:43:00.000-07:00

Too much to say, and this is a blog, after all, not a book. I'm at the mercy of these really funky computers, and I'll mention from the get go that PCs really blow. Anyway, about Cairo:

Traffic: No lanes, no rules, 24-hour gridlock, and any one of these drivers would be highly qualified to drive the shuttles at LAX--evening shift, arrivals level.

Head scarves: Unlike 1972, now most of the women wear them. I can't figure out if they're making a fashion statement, bending to social pressure, trying to keep their hair clean, or hiding the dirt. With the men, I think their act of piety is to sport a big bruise and/or bump on their forehead. Is it from banging their heads on the ground, or what? It doesn't really matter because the Egyptians have always been warm, kindhearted people, and quick with a smile.

Fashion or function?

Neighborhoods: I walk the streets. Near my hotel there are shoe shops with enough shoes to shod the entire city for years, and shop windows filled with unknown stuff that looks like it hasn't been moved since the days of King Farouk, and ghastly lingerie shops. Across the river in the upscale areas, it's much more tasteful.

I've always held a fascination with mannequins that end up in developing countries-these look like children of the damned.

Security: It's on every corner. Go the the pyramids and there's a bag check; go to a 5-star hotel to use the bathroom or check out a Ramses burger and there's a bag check. The Hilton even has a bomb sniffer dog.

These guys are watching the World Cup.

Still here

Tut, tut, Mr. Tout

2010-06-17T00:13:00.000-07:00

"Madame, madame, MADAME! Welcome, welcome to Egypt!! You like see pyramids on camel, maybe Neel sunset cruise?" The touts lurk everywhere, on street corners and bus benches, in front of hotel entrances and ice cream stands, and one guy even jumps into my taxi on the way to the pyramids:

"You want beautiful camel to ride?"

"No. No camels, no horses, no donkeys, no guides, no nothing."

"It beeg hill."

"I don't care."

"You like perfume maybe, nice papyrus?"

"You are so wasting your time."

Despite Cairo's reputation for toutism, I generally walk the streets unharrassed. After all, salespeople completely ignore me in the stores at the malls back home, so why should it be different here? I just don't look like easy money.

Travelers always know that you can't go back and visit a place and expect it to live up to the original impression. Perfect experiences in places like Petra, the Taj Mahal, or Ankor Wat are better left to the memory. Cairo, nearly forty years later, remains surprisingly the same, but bigger, with a gazillion more people (please airdrop some birth control in this country), and layers of pollution that will surely corrode the pyramids into grit within the next millenium--that is if the ooze of urban sprawl doesn't cross the road and knock over the fence and carry them away first.

The Adventure Begins

2010-06-10T23:39:00.000-07:00

For all of you lolling about your shaded terraces this summer with iced, fruity drinks in hand, here's a bit of entertainment to make you feel glad about where you are. So read on; there are thrills galore on this trip! It's Cairo to Cape Town by surface, at least as much as I can humanly stand. I promise lots of dereliction, weirdness, and glorious moments, so check in from time to time!

And of course there are the usual reasons to once again flee Orange County, but most of all, the romance of seeing places like Ujiji, the Serengeti, the sources of the Nile, and Zanzibar is too overpowering to resist. Colonialists out there will recognize the Cairo to Cape Town journey as one of the great classic routes, and that is reason enough to head out the door.