BIG J RTW

Selva à Selva

2011-02-27T07:38:00.001-08:00

Fresh from the jungle (or rather filthy from the jungle) we rolled in to Sao Paulo wearing filthy rags and lugging a large sodden bag of wet clothes. Managing to find a place quickly, we were soon drunk and had the lay of the bars mapped out in our heads. We raced by taxi through the streets of that enormous city to areas that were purportedly dodgy, though it seemed that no amount of bad behaviour could draw any trouble no matter how hard we sought it (LaBoca that bottle man!!!).

We awoke to find poisonous rumors about us circulating around the hostel as the result of an unwise initiative undertaken maliciously by a soon to be humiliated individual. Unconcerned, and even somewhat flattered that we had made such an impression, we walked the streets of the city all day, ate food by the kilogram, visited an art museum, checked out the main drag, made our way to the old city, passed bars pumping music, hit the subway, and finally returned to finish up with another night out causing trouble (LaBoca that bottle man!!!).

It was time to blow town and like a pair of hungover idiots, we made our way to the wrong bus station where we were redirected miles away and finally had a couple of tickets to Rio de Janiero, the last stop on the trail for Sohail, my partner in mischief for the last three months.

Of course our lack of organization or planning meant that we arrived in a great and reputedly dangerous city, late at night with no reservations or plans on where we would go. Since both of us could sing part of that old song "the Girl from Ipanima," we decided that our best bet would be to head to the corresponding beach. Upon arrival we were to have a tough time finding accommodation and checked a few places that were unsigned and virtually impossible to find. Worse yet, in the cracked up hallway of some ground level dump we had located, we discovered that we were surrounded by buff, tanned, waxed, tattooed, long hair surfer dudes huddled over lap tops and looking way too cool to be either smart or friendly. This distinctly impressed upon us that we were well out of our element, and we moved to find an unmarked area with a street full of overpriced, super-shitty hostels, one of which took us in for the night.

And that was the story of where we were to stay for the ultimos dias of Sohail's time. Stuck in gringolandia again with nowhere to turn, we made ourselves scarce as much as possible. This meant some time down at the legendary beach where we soon learned we were in the gay section and decided to shame all the ripped speedo wearing brazilieros with our buff bods. We observed many ill advised tattoos, in fact it seemed everybody had tattoos in some bid for who's was the most horrific, and watched four guys play foot volleyball (a sport apparently designed to show off the brazillian ability to perform incredible physical feats while synthesizing their world-dominating abilities in both football and volleyball). Feeling fully impressed, but decidedly out buffed, out classed, overdressed, and undertattooed. Only a block back from the beach, dudes stroll the street in their suntans and speedos in the shadow of tall buildings and businesses. This place is a paradise for anyone who likes ripped bodied suntan dudes in speedos. That excludes Sohail and I (in both senses) and we were more inclined to bust out laughing as we passed beachside gyms with feeble little guys doing side crunches and pullups in the blazing sun.

We could not help but remark that there is not the corresponding level of female specimens prowling the area. At first this seemed attributable to the queer nature of the area we were walking in, but further and more expansive reconnaissance yielded little more to speak of. It seems that the boys are prettier than the girls, and judging by our observations, put much more time, thought and effort into their appearance, amazing when you consider that the majority wear only speedos. Enough: there is more to life than incredibly buff, suntanned, tattooed, chain wearing, gel haired, designer sunglass toting, totally ripped, totally hairless, speedo clad men.

As usual, it was time to find the other side of the place: to get into those legendary slums (known as favelas). And what better way to do so than following some alcoholic Portuguese speaking gringa who had been living in a hostel for three months and knew all the best ghetto jams. W rocked up late night at an incredible scene, a disco known as Castelo, in the Rio das Pedras favela. There was an incredible amount of noise thumping from the place and the amount of sweat was nearly unbearable. I had never seen the like.

The favelas know how to party - you can literally do whatever you want and the drinks are very cheap. This is especially so if you are one of the individuals who has decided to bring a cooler full of beer inside. No cooler? no problem - a bag full of beer is also acceptable. There were boys jamming inside the club, likely nine years old or so, drinking beer, smoking, wearing gold chains and generally behaving like degenerate and hedonistic adults when not sweet talking the nine year old chicks. That was apparently modeled on the behaviour of the older guys who were into the thick gold rope around the neck look (like: ya pal, nice chain...i bet you got LOADS of money) but decidedly opposed to shirt wearing as a general principle. This meant an intolerable amount of sweat soaked dirtbags who dried off on what various articles of clothing did exist as they pushed through the crowd ad disappeared into the noise of the night.

There was no relief from any filth you had the misfortune to encounter as the sinks had no running water and in any event, people had taken to pissing underneath them. In fact, people were pissing everywhere in the bathrooms with the exception of the toilets. This was particularly so among the 12 - 15 year old age group who likely found it amusing to hose the walls, floors, sinks (underneath was a favourite spot for some reason)in urine. This inevitably lead to urine soaked pantcuffs, shoes and, for those unlucky enough to have worn flipflops, feet.

As four o'clock approached, the time came to move to another party, this one a street bash in another favela known as Rocinha. We arrived to find a huge crowd getting shitfaced and creating a haze of weedsmoke (no small feat outdoors), in front of a massive wall of speakers. The music was pumping which is not in itself so strange, the feature that struck me was the fact that the area was entirely residential and there was a monstrous amount of noise lighting up the predawn hours of Monday morning with irrepressible and thumping beats. The amount of people in attendance was impressive. Lots of locals and some strange types too, like the prego-chick in the tight red party dress swilling beer and puffing cigs and weed like some ghettoland chimney. We watched the spectacle awestruck as we made new friends that had an uncomfortable level of interest in my watch.

And that is when it started to get interesting. As the revellers cleared out into taxi cabs, the drug dealers took it up a notch and started pushing their wares more aggressively. Kids began to appear equipped with automatic rifles that were bigger than they were. I had never seen anything like it. I talked to one in piss poor portuguese as he brandished the american made steel almost bashfully, like a kid too proud of a new toy. All that was left now were these kids with the guns, a handful of crack whores, and bars full of guys pumping slot machines full of cash as daylight broke over the slum. It was time to go.

And soon I was alone again. I bid adieu to Sohail after three months of vagabonding that had ultimately led us east to this legendary city. And I too was on the move, now north and on to a new chapter in this journey. As the green peaks of Rio fell away beneath me, I was truly floating on my own again. I thought back to the hundreds of beds that had felt the weight of my weary body, the thousands of vehicles that had crawled through the endless dust of continents and earth. And here I was miles above a future that I could feel, inherent in that country beneath me...

The Yerba Matte Tribes

2011-02-27T07:26:00.001-08:00

30/01/11

Back in Argentina, we headed to a little town called Gualeguaychu having read in the paper that there would be a big carnival where one goes to “escape the boundaries and conventions of modern society.” We found considerable disappointment when this translated into sitting in reserved seats among a bunch of kids spraying silly-string all over the half naked performers.

The mission was not a bust however because we met a bunch of nice young Argentines who taught us rude expressions (cara de verga) and drinking songs (yo tomo liquor, yo tomo cerveja, y me gusta las chi-cas...). That somehow translated into a couple of nights out in the clubs and a nice rainy afternoon sitting on the sidewalk eating tortas fritas.

Gualeguaychu is set up nicely on the sandy bank of a river where everybody goes to take sun. We spent a bit of time there and had the chance to get into the Yerba Matte culture. For those not in the know, this is not the name of some exotic South American tribe, but rather the name of the drink consumed at all times by all people, all over Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. It has to be the most equipment intensive beverage in the world, requiring a special cup, metal filter-straw, pack of yerba matte, and a thermos full of hot or cold water. A pack of Tang is an optional addition used to enhance refreshment delivery. To jazz things up a bit, rebellious youth sometimes elect place some stickers on their thermoses.

Throughout this part of the world we have been entirely amazed at the lengths people go to in order to consume their matte. It seems that you don't leave the house without thermos tucked under your arm, hand holding steaming cup of matte at chest level as you walk determinedly toward any destination. Further observation suggests that there is no inappropriate time to consume the concoction as it is drunk at all times of day or night.

It is pretty good. I guess.

Leaving the matte behind, we headed out for some off the track adventure in the Pantanal region of Brazil. I sat on top of a truck as we approached and once again began to feel the throb of the jungle. As night fell the pulse grew more intense with the rhythmic whine of thousands of frogs. Out in the water were the dozens of gleaming eyes something silent but much more deadly than the insect eaters. These were the cayman, a predator nearly as vicious as the millions of mosquitoes. They were looking for whatever they could find in the night, perhaps a tasty water pig - the world's largest rodent. That night I slept with the noise of the jungle all around me.

The following day we set out on foot hopping over rotten logs and listening for the buzz of unseen wasps. Not carefully enough, and I was soon stung through my pants. Undeterred we forged ahead past holes in the trees rich with honey and bees, before stopping to watch a baby anteater cling to it's mother's back as she climbed through the leaves above.

We went down to the river to catch some piranhas and this drew the interest of some Cayman that actually came up on shore after the fish on my line. I was amazed how voracious the little fish were as the scraps of steak disappeared one after another from my hook.

The jungle was alive with noise, the calls of hundreds of birds but most distinctly the screech of the McCaw and the howls of the monkeys. Eyes are watching from the treetops and as we approached the noise fell silent. The leaves rustled, the bows shook, flashes of colour darted through the air and the animals had vanished. And soon we had too, back over the dirt road to civilization beyond.

The Yerba Matte Tribes

2011-02-27T07:26:00.000-08:00

Suicide Leap off the Gringo Trail

2011-02-05T17:03:00.000-08:00

From the time I hit Buenos Aires I haven't reported much. That is not to say that nothing was going on, but rather that the number of distractions pulled me away from this blog project that has provided a common thread for me through all the places I have been. Looking back now, it is hard to synthesize everything that has happened in the last few weeks, but I suppose that is the point. Rather that chronicle every detail of my activities it is sometimes nice to look retrospectively and focus on the impressions that stuck with me.

Buenos Aires is a city that is hard not to love. The place has so much soul, from its leafy plazas where people gather for drinks and tango, to its back alleys where chubby men sit topless, swilling from bottles and tending to the asado (beef bbq). The city seems to pulse like some beast full of life and I spent my time exploring its different limbs.

The buildings would fit in as well in Paris as they do in South America. There are plazas at every turn where people meet to sit and sip beer in the afternoons. In the evenings bands show up and take turns entertaining the crowds. Sunday night is a big street party with thumping drums and lots of revelry in the streets. The sketchier areas warranted their own investigation and judging by the amount of broken glass in La Boca, it looks like there is a pretty wild party there as well.

Out in the bars there is a sophisticated scene. It seems that people have money here and they're not afraid to spend it. My gringo status gets me nowhere and it is refreshing that nobody seems to care that I am a foreigner. After a few too many nights out at the disco, an epic new year's eve with rooftop fireworks over the city that ended with street festivities, I decided it was time to make moves and we jumped on the ferry for Uruguay.

We rocked up to Montevideo to find the city completely deserted. Everything was closed and there was nobody in the streets. The apartment building had no lights in the windows and there was very little traffic in the streets. We stood in grand plazas, without another soul anywhere around and walked past the closed shops. The explanation provided was that everybody had gone away on holiday. A bit hard to believe but that was the consensus.

There was no point in spending much time and the following day, we headed out to Punta del Este, a posh South American beach resort town. The place is supposedly full of high rollers, but all I could seem to find were high prices. The clubs were lame, but still people were dropping hundred dollar bills to get in. I figure that the only reason they could be doing so is that they had never been to a good party before. But what the hell do I know. I guess the point is to show you've got money to burn.

And it's not hard to do. The beach chairs go for ten bucks a pop, a coffee costs eight, a burger and a coke is twelve, and a beer in the bar is the same. It seems like everyone there is either under 18 or over 40, and it is totally not my scene. The bars are full of guys posing up wearing tight shirts flaunting brand name designers. I leave the bar and finally make a friend outside, a stray dog who I dubbed “gimpy one eye.”

It was time to get the hell out of there so we hit another bus down the coast to some little beach town called Cabo Polonia. We had no idea what to expect other than some little fishing village so we were a little surprised to find it packed with Argentinian potheads.

The place was like nothing I had ever seen before, just a bunch of shacks in the dunes. Apparently it is one of the most expensive places to get real estate in the country because it falls within the confines of a national park and further development is prohibited. A small shack (and I mean shack) can go for tens of thousands of dollars. These things are nothing more than plywood playhouses with no electricity or plumbing. Eighty people live there year round but over a thousand show up during Argentine school holidays. They have reservations. We did not.

We walked among the shacks for a couple of hours looking for beds and just when things were hopeless we managed to score the last ones in town. We were starving from a day traveling and not eating and after some fried fish we each drank a beer. It was dark and we were exhausted so we began to make our way back. Seeing as there was no electricity we couldn't see anything. We walked for several more hours through the sand dunes, through the grass, jumping little streams and inspecting shacks to see if we recognized anything. It seems we had both forgotten where our place was, and remembered only that it was painted with a bunch of snakes. Snakes that we couldn't see in the dark.

After hours of searching we slept on the beach until dawn. It was better than walking around all night. When we awoke, we realized we were actually quite close. We decided a change of scene was in order, strapped on our packs and headed onto the beach. We had heard that the hike to the next village would take anywhere from 2 – 3 hours along the beach. We encountered a number of dead seals along the way and stopped elsewhere for a bit of lunch en route, and it took about four.

By the time we arrived at Valizes, accommodation proved to be a problem. I walked for a while in a torrential thunderstorm, checking every place in town with negative results. By the time we realized we were out of luck, the buses were all booked, and we returned to a hostel only to find that the available places for the following day were now reserved. Another night on the beach wouldn't have been so bad (considering I had just had a natural shower in the rain) but everything was soaking wet. In the end we found a cafe and sat up drinking coffee all night as people got piss drunk and ganja smoke floated all around.

The weed culture was really extreme in the little town. It seemed like everybody was smoking. We turned up at a bar/restaurant and found the guy behind the counter puffing a massive conga spliff. Apparently you can do anything you want there because there's no cops for miles around. Finally dawn broke and the sun burned the moisture from the sand. I crashed out face first in a heap, exhausted, salt on my skin, sand between my toes, and dreamed of a return to civilization. We staked out the bus station and soon had tickets on the late bus back to Montevideo.

Though nothing went as planned, it could have been worse. It was the first time in two and a half years that I have failed to find a place to sleep, strange that it happened two nights in a row. I didn't regret it at all, particularly because we hadn't seen another gringo since we left Buenos Aires.

Missions

2011-01-23T11:52:00.000-08:00

From the border, the highway rolls out over rich red tropical earth. Deep green fields stretch to the horizon in every direction over gentle hills. I signal the driver and climb out of the bus and with pack on back I head across the highway and up a narrow roadway paved with fragments of stone. The heat drips all around me and the going is tough. I walk about a half hour and finally arrive at Trinidad, a Jesuit mission out in what was once the Paraguayan jungle.

As I stand there and look over the grass, I imagine the black robes walking stone corridors in the damp jungle heat. The complex contains a couple of dozen stone buildings, and centres on a ruined cathedral of epic proportions, a massive stone edifice, the likes of which that world had never seen. Christ in the jungle, carved by Guarani hands. World heritage or not, these are strange structures to find out here.

I try to imagine the ruins full of Guarani tribespeople – kids running around and dogs playing as the priests give lessons and save souls. The houses are all smashed now, but rows of arches survive to suggest the splendour of what lay here before. Intricate carvings once covered the walls with foreign saints staring down to grant their divine benevolence to the natives who were only just invited to the pious party that had controlled Europe for over a millennium. And many took up the invitation, underwent the education and the baptism, and as a result gained the legal protection of the king of spain. The places also made prime targets for slave raiders and many were marched off in bondage, bound to poles on a long march out to the markets in the east.

I sat for a while looking out at the surrounding vegetation, now mostly green farmer's fields. I can only imagine the impression created by these massive stone leviathans for the indigenous who lived around campfires in small villages.

I headed back down the road, everything I have strapped to my back, and stood on the tarmac waving at passing cars as the heat seemed to rise through the soles of my shoes. Finally I got a hitch and an hour later I rolled into Encarnacion, the great city in the south of the country.

I was amazed at the how different it was from Ciudad del Este, hard to believe it was the same country. This place seemed downright pleasant. I walked around a bit in the afternoon heat but that pretty much wasted me so I found a place out by the bus terminal and had a siesta for a couple of hours. The breeze in the warm evening air provided some relief from the heat and I was able to stroll around a bit. There were many options for dinner including sushi, chinese, korean, italian, and the typical street stalls that pop up all over this country.

The following morning I headed to Asuncion, the “City of God” according to the signs. It is a modern city, founded centuries ago by conquistadors and was a major site of missionary activity throughout its history. After finding a place I went for a walk in the old part of town. The buildings show faded glimmers of decadence in their crumbling balconies, each ornately carved with care in an era gone by. Now there is a modern shopping street and I stop in a cafe, sipping coffee while I watch a midget do headstands for cash.

On my way back, I walk through the Plaza Uruguaya and I am amazed to see that it has been converted into a squatters camp full of Guarani. The place is a hive of activity and the whole plaza smells like shit. Men string their garbage bag tents on ropes tied to palms, women wash clothes and hang them in the trees to dry, and naked kids run around playing games. I sit and watch the scene for a while as teenage boys wrestle violently with the girls, and young women use scoops of water to wash the filth from their limber bodies. There are trash piles burning on all the corners, I begin to feel sad to see what these people have been reduced to. Some of the kids have dystended bellies, and it doesn't look like anyone has much.

So much has changed since those missions were built all those years ago. I can hardly imagine how these people used to live. The only thing that remains of the jungle is the overpowering shrill of the cigarra up in the trees. That and the heat.

East of Nowhere

2011-01-20T14:48:00.000-08:00

It is not every day that one gets to see a true wonder of the natural world. Today was such a day. As I write this, my words are still wet from the mists of Iguacu. At the fringe of dripping jungle, I watched hundreds of cascades, sliding like sheets falling from their basalt bed. Torrents of water gushed all around me like some type of sublime dreamscape. And why not, it is a place of dreams after all. For years I have wanted to see Iguacu, the place where three nations meet out in the jungle. It was one of the biggest ambitions on my list. And now it will fade into its place in my past as somewhere I have felt and lived in for a moment.

The feeling couldn't last forever and I was soon on the move again. In the heat of the afternoon I made the spontaneous decision to hit a city bus to the border and on into nowhere: Paraguay. I couldn't resist stopping for the night in Ciudad del Este as I had heard a rumor that this was a dangerous and violent city where gunmen prowl the streets after dark. I had left my friend Sohail behind and as a result, forged ahead with no map other than some crude lines scrawled hastily in my notebook. As I walked through the streets many people called out to me and even beckoned me over. I am sure they were up to no good and I waved them off dismissively. .

My first impression of the city was not good. All of the shops had shut and there were bales of trash everywhere – odd things, like a pile of denim cut from the legs of jeans. As I waded through styrofoam cups and plastic bags, I began to remark some people passed out on the sidewalk. One poor soul had apparently shit his pants and then decided to drop them to his knees, though he did not finish the job of cleaning himself up and remained in a state of unconscious intoxication, caked in his own faeces. Since my hotel is around the corner, he makes an unmistakeable landmark.

The hotel itself is nothing special, just another cheap room; this one going for 80 000 Guaranies (which I hope is about $20 bucks). The room was actually nice with air conditioning and a big double bed. As an added touch, the guy from the front promptly offered to set me up with some whores but I gracefully declined.

After a brief look around, I took a long walk to cash up. I had a hard time finding a “cajero automatico” (ATM) but my frustration was tempered by a seemingly endless procession of pale white women with dark black hair. Notwithstanding the pretty faces, I felt I had seen enough and took the decision to get a ticket out the following morning. Since I had no map, or any idea where the terminal was located, I headed to a main road an began following buses that I saw on the street. I hoped for the best and soon began to see bigger long distance coaches. I followed as best I could in the heavy heat of the low afternoon sun.

As I walked, the first impression that I had taken gave way to another side of the city. There were many parks that were beautifully landscaped, though they all seemed full of trash. I entered one designed like a chinese garden, complete with a round entrance way in the wall, gilded pagodas and traditional bridges over a small stream that made the whole thing feel downright feng shui. There was still loads of trash everywhere, but the grass looked freshly cut and the buildings were in nice shape. This provided a stark contrast not only to the trash, but also to the gang of filthy beggar kids congregated around a pavillion. I stood and watched in disbelief as little flames flickered from lighters as they freebased whatever poison they had got their hands on. I felt sad to see the little guys smoke from the straw. They couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old.

I continued on my way past red earth football pitches that sprawled for miles down the side of the road. Every single one was in use by full sides playing hard against each other. Everyone had gotten involved, whether young or old, fat or thin. I watched for a while, then off anew as the twilight began to set in.

There I was in the unknown again, no guide, no directions, following a road on an impulse. The dying light of the day took on a greater significance for me. How much more of this did I have left. How many more unknown streets, unknown cities, countries, people would I come across. The twilight of my journey is upon me now, and I began to think back to the big experiences that these two and a half years of vagabonding have brought – the faces I have seen, the languages I have heard, the food I have tasted. In the end, I could not escape thoughts of the people who had entered my life along the way. That is what I take from the journey, more than the waterfalls, the mountains, the deserts, the jungles, the continents and the oceans. And now it begins to fade into twilight.

I wandered on without certainty and had the good luck to see a big bus turn a corner. I followed suit and soon saw the terminal ahead. Lost in thought, with no idea where I was going, I must have walked for about an hour, but for whatever reason it had worked.

As I walked back to my hotel, I hardly noticed the garbage everywhere, the fallen electrical wires sizzling in heaps on the sidewalk, the other man that had fallen, passed out cold on the road next to his shit covered chum. All I could think about was living on the edge of nowhere.

The Love of One Prisoner

2011-01-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

There's a grand old structure behind a huge wall at Calles Canada y Strongest: San Pedro Prison.

The place houses the worst Bolivia has to offer. Murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and the poor ones too. If you have three thousand euros you get out in much the same way as I got in – just grease the right palms. There is a fine line between getting out and serving your time. Once sentenced, you are on your own and everything costs money. It is hard to support yourself in prison and the cells go for between $200 and $1500 (for prime views of the range). If there's no space on the range, you can simply start building on the roof and as a result, ramshackle shacks block the view of church spires and freedom beyond the walls. The cells are all priced for those with a bit of money, but not quite enough to get out. And some don't want to get out.

There is a great deal of pride on the five ranges. Each is like a neighbourhood and the prison like a town. Each area has it's own sauna, billiard hall, restaurants, ice cream stalls, a tienda (corner shop) and guys roam around selling bootleg DVDs and cakes, while local ladies come in to sell fruit. The guys are proud of where they live. As we stand looking at the colourful crests of each area's football team, one inmate pumps his fists in the air and proclaims that his range “es el mejor!” (is the best). Lots of the guys in there were street kids who found a home in the jail, have their friends, their business and their life set up in there. They don't want to get out because they own the cell for as long as they stay there and outside lies a world full of poverty with nothing but uncertainty beyond. Besides, it's all they've ever known.

We engage a guide for a few bucks, a European who I will call “F”, serving his time after getting busted with 12 kg of cocaine at the airport. He complains that it was not actually 12 kg because that crazy amount included all the packaging that he had used to conceal the product. He went on to lament not what he had done, but rather the fact he couldn't come up with 3000 Euro to buy his way out. After two years inside with no trial I can understand why. I think of Canada's constitutional right to trial within a reasonable time, and feel sure that I would have the case thrown out by now in a Canadian court. But this is Bolivia. He talks a lot and slings loads of bullshit stories, but it sure as hell is interesting. “F” plans to set up a guy who is giving him trouble, and goes on to provide evasive and non sequitur responses when I grill him about the location of the clandestine cocaine lab that I am sure is operating within the walls. He is more interested in discussing the colossal murals of tiger headed supermen that represent that area's football team. The fact that I can get in there has been a tremendous front-page embarrassment for the Bolivian government in the past. At least the last crackdown on corruption has the guides playing down the coke lab.

Though the guide may lie, the biblical quotations on the walls speak some truth. The also juxtapose well against the ubiquitous posters of topless chicks, the latter seeming more consistent with the interests of the people within. They are among the worst that society has to offer, though not everybody inside is a criminal. Many move their families inside so there are women breastfeeding in the corridors and terraces, and kids running all over the place. “This is not a good place for them” advises “F” as a little guy chugs past us unattended in a gloomy concrete hallway. Their safety is up to the parents and inevitably some are raped.

We cut through halls with tiny doors and little light. “F” points out some places where murder went down and adds that killing inside adds two years to the sentence. In other words life is cheap. The security is provided by jailer guards with sticks but the place is clearly unsafe and there are certain “no go” hallways. On account of this, we have a bodyguard, a young guy from Peru serving year ten out of eleven for drugs. That is fine for the day, but if you are inside, you'd be better to get yourself a good knife. Don't worry about the contraband. If the cops show up, just refuse to let them into the range until all the knives and drugs are carefully concealed. Yet another advantage to the self governance that comes out of privately financed incarceration.

We walk amongst a bunch of mean looking dudes, stoners, drunks, pretty boys with slicked back hair, goons with scars on cut up faces. A guy approaches us and it turns out he has done pencil sketches of us and written a heartwarming message. It reads “Prison” (in bubble letters), followed by “Renember [sic] always the love of one prisoner” and his signature. I buy the portrait for ten bolivianos ($1.40 CDN), not much to pay for great art. We continue amongst the condemned, and come out into the main range where we find a bunch of kids laughing and swimming in the pool in their undies. For a moment, it seems almost as if this was a normal existence for a child.

As the day wears on, it is almost time to leave. Years ago there were some “opportunities” for overnight stays, but this was not the wisest idea because most of the girls and some of the guys who did so got raped. Time to go, really. But one last thing to take care of before that.

We are ushered into a small room where the cocaine transactions go down. We are straight up offered the powder for 100 Bolivianos per gram ($14 CDN) and some are inclined to imbibe. Reactions indicate that it is “good shit” and “so fuckin pure” as it is chopped and snorted on a mirror provided for that purpose. At the first opportunity I headed for the door and breathed a sigh of relief as I headed back toward Calles Canada y Strongest.

As I sat sipping a beer that night, I thought about the prisoners. Stylish guys with pretty girls, alcohol, fights, drugs, stabbings and a roof over everybody's head.

The Devils

2011-01-11T11:29:00.000-08:00

Around a long sweeping curve on a decaying highway appears a massive geological basin full of twinkling nights. This is La Paz, a city that spills down the surrounding hills as if crumbling into some unseen drain in the center, as if it is about to suck you in. And it does. At 3600 metres altitude, I climbed down from the bus, short of breath and aware of some kind of pulse beating in the street beneath my feet.

The first night was spent in the Wild Rover, some notorious gringo party hole without a Bolivian in sight. The beds are clean and comfortable but the place is fuelled by cocaine, cheap booze and scared foreigners. I gotta get out of this place, but for now it's the only bed in town. “Oy mate! You surf?” Seriously? Do you start all conversations that way? Hell no I don't surf. Nobody does: we are thousands of k from the nearest ocean in a landlocked country. “Dude don't talk to me, I hate gringos.”

A couple of beers in the bar were in order but I was soon shocked and appalled to discover the gringo bartender didn't understand what “ocho” meant. “Six?” Like seriously, I gotta get out of here.

The next day I wheeled a few blocks across town, hungover as sin and carrying my friend's backpack too, an act of goodwill induced by a knee injury. The thin air was no help and fortunately the Hotel Austria was only ten blocks away uphill.

The city is madness, traffic everywhere, likely the most perilous feature of a purportedly 'dangerous' place, but at least they've got these weird crossing guards to dance in zebra costumes and everybody seems to like that. The plazas are certainly not the grandest in South America, but the depth of the culture gives the city a richness that I didn't feel in the other capitals. The faces are mostly indigenous, and the ladies have long braids and cute miniature bowler hats that they pin to their beautiful long black hair. Usually they have a big load of saleable goods, or maybe a small child bundled into a colourful blanket that they sling around the shoulder like a backpack.

There is a buzz in the market, and in particular, the mercado de brujas (witch's market) is full of herbs, potions and mummified llama fetuses. These are apparently good for any purpose, including good luck, make money, bring back lost lover, though nobody could supply me with a decent recipe for a stew, so I decided not to purchase. After all they are surely widely available should I change my mind.

The city had sucked me in indeed and after the better part of a week, I decided that the time had come to make a move. The first stop was Potosi, a small town way up in the mountains and allegedly the highest town in the world (4400 metres). The vestiges of decadence remain there to this day, though the modern population rates as one of the most impoverished in the country. The city was constructed on account of a silver and tin mine nearby. The digging began in the 18th century and soon the cathedrals and plazas started to spring up. Slaves were imported but many of the africans died because they were not able to handle the intensely physical labour at such a high altitude. This left the mine work to the indigenous, many of whom still work there today. The wealthy creoles have long since made their cash and moved on.

I decided to head into the depths of the mine, just another crouched body amidst the ten layers of tunnels 4900 metres above some distant sea. A few steps in and I am surrounded by total darkness. I follow my guide toward some rhythmic clink at the end of a dark tunnel. I arrive to see rocks smash as a man attacks them with a pick. He seems to get older with every movement, wasting away and working incredibly hard. He is looking for a vein which would allow him to hire a crew and extract the silver or tin that it contains. No luck yet. He likely earns about 500 Bolivianos ($72 CDN, $71 USD) per week and there are no guarantees for that. He works six days a week for at least ten hours and sustains himself chewing coca and smoking enormous hand rolled cigarettes. I give him a bag of coca and he is delighted with the small gift. He takes a break and has a smoke before munching some leaves as I head back out through the tunnel.

We push deeper into the mine and now I am truly inside the mountain. I feel as if I was in the bowels of the earth as we wind our way through tunnels and finally to a deep shaft with a knotted rope dangling down it. I grab the rope and climb down twenty metres or so to find another tunnel where a man is hauling 20kg bags of rubble up from another pit even deeper and darker. There is an enormous pile of rubble that has come bit bit by bit from bags attached to the end of a rope. He offers the rope up to me, and I try my hand at his task, only to encounter incredible difficulty on account of both weight and altitude. I heave and suck for air and manage to extract a bag as the miner grins. He pulls up hundreds a day.

When I caught my breath we headed down another tunnel to visit the devil who lives in a little shrine in some dark cavern deep in the mountain. There is a hideous statue of the beast, complete with horns and fallus, and he goes by “Tio Georgie” (Uncle Georgie) for reasons I have forgotten. My guide sparks up a massive cig and stuffs it in his grinning mouth. If he finishes it will be good luck. We sit and observe the inanimate demon as it smokes away, and the guide cracks out a milk jug containing some strong spirit (96% alcohol). He dumps some on the beast and we shoot a capful each. It is horrible shit, though I can't believe what I have seen. Finally “Tio Georgie” has finished his smoke and it is time to move on.

We make our way back toward the exit, dodging hand pushed rail carts full of rubble, and I pass out a few bags of coca, along with some smokes and dynamite. After two and a half hours in the bowels of the mountain, the daylight at the end of the shaft appeared as quite some relief. Soon I was back in the burning sunlight, but that was not the end of the experience.

We headed up a hill where the guide handed me some dynamite to ball up. He put it in a bag and jammed in the wick, sparked it up and handed it back to me. He insisted on taking a couple of photos, then reclaimed the sizzling bomb and walked out a bit further onto the plateau. He took his time, cleared some rocks out of the way, did a few push ups, sparked a smoke, strolled back grinning and then we waited. The bad-ass explosion shook the air all around as if the end of the world was upon us. The mine visit was over and I took the bus back to town, leaving the dust, muck, and low life expectancy behind me.

I have profound respect for the people who have mined this mountain over the last 250 years. They have decided to work incredibly hard in dangerous conditions in hopes of supporting families and making a life for themselves. It is certainly easier to go beg on the streets of La Paz. The youngest kid in there right now is 12, and the oldest guy is 62. Most don't make it that long.

Back in the main square of Potosi, I sat and watched the people go about their business on that little town on top of the world. Sleep deprived and tired from a lack of oxygen, I headed to the bus station for another overnight haul, expertly timed to rock up at Uyuni around 2:00 am. I got my plan slightly sidetracked by some sleazy brazilian guy, and eventually slept in some shithole with a booming nightclub next door. I had not come to Uyuni for anything like that. I had come for the Salar de Uyuni, a salt flat that extends to the horizon in every direction.

After a brief stop the next morning at some boneyard full of ancient steam locomotives I was hurtling over the salt in an old Toyota 4x4. There is a cheezy museum in the middle with animals carved from salt, but the overall impression is the scope of the plain. We headed to the middle where there is a hill, which feels more like an island in a still sea, and I climbed up to find endless views where the white faded into the blue of the sky and distant mountains seemed to float in between. The light's refraction off the salt gives an incredible effect and it is almost hard to imagine that this was in fact once a high altitude inland sea.

In light of the infinite, flat, high altitude vista, that allows one to see for a hundred kilometers in any direction, some may be surprised to discover that there are a high number of traffic fatalities, including at least nine tourists in recent years. It seems that the drivers get drunk and somehow manage to crash vehicles from time to time and against all odds on the flat straight road. Drunk drivers don't seem to face any consequence from either their employers or the police who inspect vehicles heading onto the the salt flat. I suspect that they keep their jobs because they are part of some tight knit travel agency carrtel. Nobody wants to fire their drunk brother in law because whatever will become of god ol' sis and the kids. The result: catastrophic car crashes seem destined to persist unabated.

Back in Uyuni the day drew to a close and I got on another night bus to head back to La Paz where my friends were waiting for me. I could hardly sleep on the bus and began to feel the effects of high altitude burn out. I rolled back into the Hotel Austria with a fever and slept for the next couple of days.
Soon enough I felt better and ready for a last round of trouble in that crazy city.

It came soon enough. In Spanish, the “last night” is el “ultimo noche.” Seeing as it was the last night in La Paz for myself and two friends, we decided to make it a good one and went out seeking the ultimate.

We got warmed up at the Wild Rover where we won a pub trivia contest operating under the team name “Stinky Pinky and the Cocaine Nails.” That went sour when a guy tried to mooch our high alcohol prize. I told him to beat it prompting some saucy little coked out Aussie interloper to come over and berate me with threats as I attempted to complete the final question sheet. I did not acknowledge him at first but when he tried to grab the paper from my hand, I sternly informed him that he was about to be “rearranged.” He backed off a bit and after receiving my friend's unsolicited explanation of what I may have meant, he decided to move elsewhere.

It spoiled the mood and the joint was crawling with lame gringos anyway, so we headed back out into Bolivia without claiming our prize, and made our way to the Hard Rock. This is in no way affiliated with the chain. It is just a crazy disco full of Bolivians where the drinks come cheap. We were accompanied by the mooch, as he had ignored explicit requests to the contrary. The guy couldn't take a hint, and was soon attracting dirty looks from the Bolivians, likely due in part to my candour with the goons at the bar as I related his negative opinion of their appearance. At two o'clock the hostel bars closed, so the gringo crowd rolled out of prearranged taxis and into the bar. It was time for us to book again. The mooch tried to jump in the cab with us, but was left to his own devices amongst the drunk Bolivians on the sidewalk.

We ended up at a super dodgy place with no gringos, but soon had befriended a gangster guy and were happily patronizing the establishment. There was an overzealous “salud” (cheers) which smashed a glass and soaked the gangster in beer, but luckily he found this amusing and we continued the fiesta, breaking the remenants of the glass under the table to conceal the evidence. I began to admire the gangster's busted up nose and told him in Castellano that it appears he gets in lots of fights, but always wins (parece como tu luche mucho, pero gagne siempre).. He was delighted to hear that and more “saludes” were in order.

The place was growing stale so we moved to a food court for some barbequed beef heart, and then on to an after-hours bar. That was a strange place and I somehow befriended a guy who soon after took out an entire table of drinks when he crashed through it. I helped him up and he staggered out into the street. I figured that was as good a time as any jump a taxi home.

Que ultimo noche! Adios La Paz!

Adrift on Currents Past

2011-01-11T10:40:00.000-08:00

Out on that great lake in the sky, the waves crash against the prow of our boat as it labours toward the centre of the world, Isla del Sol. The lake goddess, Mamakhota, has decided to grant us safe passage on the waters from whence came Wirakocha to make the sun, and moon before creating man from stone. These are all soft dreams for me now and the empire they once supported has long since crumbled back into the water beneath me.

The island ruins show what it once was, but nearly everything is destroyed now. All that remains are the walls of some ancient city and some scattered rocks that allegedly bear sacred powers or significance. This is not what makes an impression on me however. It is rather the cloudy panorama floating in the thin mountain air, the intensity of that Incan sun, and the turquoise lake breaking at the foot of mountain slopes. The natural setting is inspirational and I am now a far cry from the dusty streets of Copacabana where grimy gringos grow dreads and juggle for coins.

After hiking the island, I head back out on the water and the rhythm of the waves makes me think of those great African lakes. It sets my mind adrift and I float back to the Congo, Brazza, all the parts I never saw, the depths of a hopeless continent. I have an overwhelming impulse to get back there before it's too late, to hear those drums pulsing again out in the jungle, far from the gringos who live an easy life and sit around talking about stupid cliched shit, and worse yet: some actually appear to care about it.

I don't spend much time worrying about them though, rather focusing on my surroundings. Here I am again high above another jungle, perhaps the world's greatest, with its wild masks and smoky incantations, spears, darts and beasts. The only difference is that it lacks the crackle of Russian made guns, the warlords, genocide, fear, disease, chaos and rape. And anyway, this great lake is on high and holds none of the danger and forbidding mystery of equatorial jungle. Primal instinct, tribalism too dense to penetrate, a raw passion for this animal life may exist out there. But in the serenity of the island lie cut stones stacked in imperial rows, altars that tore minds from their jungle antecedents and gave them over to gods and legends that drift on currents above and below.

The road to this place was a blur of hangovers, trashy hotels, long buses, missed flights, rainbow flags (it's an Incan thing), high altitude headaches, too much blown cash, late night doners, dirty pisco, a bottle of rum, forgotten names, odd colour remarks, hand written letters, iPhone miracles, talking cuy, cheeseburgers, powerade, diarrhea, fever, chills, dodgy behaviour, peripheral colours, missed canyons and an ice princess.

My head was spinning from it and Titicaca (hihihihi) was the perfect place to clear my mind. I was now ready to head back into the chaos of La Paz to feel the grit and humanity of some throbbing city.

The Sacred and the Profane

2010-11-24T18:54:00.000-08:00

The Inca measured time in the heavens, the seasons by shadows cast behind perfectly cut stones by a divine sun. This was the supreme manifestation of a god who had created everything. Three windows lead to three worlds, one high above, reached on wings of the Condor, one on this earth, raw and powerful as a Puma, and one for the dead, rich in wisdom like a Serpent. Three worlds and three steps on each side of a cross that was the last symbol of that ancient religion to fade into eternity as the troops of Christ and King saved souls.

With copper chisel and stone hammer, slabs of white were shaped so perfectly that they still form mortarless walls where not even a blade of grass fits between the joints. This was not the last stand of the Incas, this was perhaps their greatest glory. As the brooding gray of the morning lifts to reveal the green chaos of the alpine jungle beneath, the ancient city appears. Maccu Piccu, or “the old mountain” in Quecha (language of the Inca), was a place made by immortals. The word 'Inca' means 'supreme leader' and it was he who commissioned the site, ensuring that it implemented the most advanced features of a society at its zenith.

From the steep cliff high above, the sweeping terraces and skeletal houses form the body of a great condor, the might of its wings bent and plunging down the cliff face, ready to heave it into the heavens. The Inca abandoned the city before the onslaught of conquistadors ever touched it, disappearing into the jungle beneath to make their last stand elsewhere.

And a sad ending it was for them: the last real Inca, Atahualpa, tricked, ransomed, humiliated and killed (though by strangulation instead of burning as a reward for a last minute conversion to Christ); a last stand in the jungle where they fought in vain against the imposition of a new order. They are still here of course, they are in the mountains, in the pueblos found in forests all down the slopes of a land full of peaks. And that was their history.

But they were not always the victims. A focus on the destruction of an empire ignores how it was built, realpolitik, fratricide, war, and conquest, a vicious and bloody history that wiped out what had come before it and assimilated whatever it came across.

And now the legacy of it all lives on in the people. The faces are different around here and the blood of both conquistadors and colonized flows through their veins. A new heritage has taken root through each person, synthesizing both histories in the metizo faces that represent the progeny of an epic clash of cultures. There is no difference between the indigenous and the invaders as now they share the same sons. From the cathedral to the ancient citadel the pride clearly bridges an ancient divide, an animus reconciled in the fusion of opposing sides.

Amidst the beauty of it all is a sad example of tourism gone wrong. There are hundreds of travel agencies in Cuzco, not one of which can be recommended, and I spend my time gathering information that inevitably turns out to be a pack of lies. A walk down the street means incessant pestering as touts harangue tourists angrily if they do not wish to waste time listening to fearmongering and lies. The end result is that tourists are generally herded onto a gringo train and head off to Maccu Piccu for ten times the price the Peruvians pay. Nobody seems to behave in a manner that befits the magic and mystery of the place. Greed and money prevail.

The rest of the country was not like this, and the friendliness and richness of the culture here cannot be overlooked. It goes far beyond the Inca and that noble last stand against Pizzaro and his band of men. It goes to other conquests, other civilizations, and all their beauty that floated away on the ebb of history's tide. Some glimmers of that beauty have survived, relics deep in the ground and away from the decay wrought by time and the ravages of the grave robbers. There was gold and lots of it

I am not talking about gold bars. I am talking about the treasure trove surrounding some bronze age bigshot now known as the Señor de Sipan This guy was a god man in the Moche culture, who wore silver sandals, an owl, Búho, with open wings adorning the centre of a golden crown, his mouth covered by a golden plate to look like an animal's jaw, scales of copper on his chest, gold and silver plates dangling from his sides to represent the duality of the golden sun and silver moon, the light of life and the dark of death. He was carried aloft amidst the gold-copper standards of headless men with the great god Ai-Apaec pounded into their chests.

He was laid to rest in a casket above decapitated llamas, beside women, children, military chief, and some lowly dog, all sacrifices to ensure Senor had all that he needed in the afterlife. Layers above lay an immovable soldier, eternally guarding the tomb, his feet cut off to ensure he stuck around as copper shield and helmet fused to his decaying bone.

I couldn't believe what these ancient peoples had made here in this desert. I saw images of snakes with birds' heads, the deities of wind and water, everything perfect to the last detail, every feather, every claw.

I tried to drink in the richness of that vanished people, my mind drifting to the shrill of flutes in the desert giving way to the mellow notes of pipes and the low rumble as skins vibrated tight on drums. The whispers of priests, Ai-Aybé, the soldiers shaking clubs, war songs through pipes and bloody beats now thumping from the bellies of drums.

In the desert near Chiclayo there is a great mound of earth. The rain has carved channels and gulleys down its sides but when one draws closer, its form betrays a human design. Millions of mud bricks laid over a thousand years ago had entombed the Señor de Sipan, and other progeny of the Moche people. As vultures soared in flocks overhead I remarked that a small pair of eyes were watching me. There standing next to some ancient tomb was Búho, a little brown owl flitted around in the dust, turning its head and surveying the land with dark round eyes. This was the same owl I had seen in gold with outstreched wings, the same owl that a thousand years ago was granted the mythological task of protecting the spirit of the dead

Another civilization disappeared into the mists of time, but traces of it are still there to feel and to breathe in the heat of the dying day.

Far from that place and high up in the mountains near Chachapoyas, a stone leviathan keeps watch over the valley below as it has for millenia. The enormous foundations of Kuelap have withstood battle after battle as weapons made of stone and bone turned to metal. There are structures inside from many eras, and show that when the Inca took over there was already a fulsome culture in place. It is arbitrary to begin pointing fingers at conquerors as conquest has taken place time and time again in these mountains. I pause alone in the middle of it all to examine the scraps of human bones that poke through the surface of the earth. As I look out over the valley beneath watching vultures drift on the currents, I think of how I now share something with that fragment of a person. In a way, we have walked the same paths.

Of course not everything is ancient and beautiful. As I peer out the window on long busrides to nowhere, I see little mud boxes on dusty hillsides with thos same vultures circling overhead. 3000 metres below, the great desert resumes and people live in woven reed huts with the national flag flying proudly from the roof. They sprawl for miles, creeping up the hillside and looking out over the great ocean. Dwarfed by dunes hundreds of metres high and collapsing in to complex geometric pillars of sand I need a rest. After a few days, I move on from the colonial streets of Trujillo, moving back inland as the ocean breaks behind me beneath the coastal highway.

As I approach my destination, there are mountains rioting endlessly over the horizon. The town of Huaraz is nothing particularly special, but one cannot help but feel spellbound by the colossal peaks screaming toward the heavens. I walk amongst them on a compromise trek to accommodate a friend who seems to wish I was not there at all. That is fine and I ditch her under strange and suspicious circumstances when we get back to town. I am on my own again and head out to the greatest city of them all at the heart of the old Spanish empire.

The road there takes me through a golden wasteland plateau, its back broken by a jagged spine of rock and ice that collects the clouds. I blow through Andean towns with red roofs and church spires and the peaks stretch unbroken along the far off end of a seemingly endless plateau blanketed with golden grass. Alone on the bus, I feel overwhelmed in the moment, as if I am dreaming that the little far off specks are cows, peasants, and shacks on these treeless plains. But they are real, they are people and animals who live in shacks beside little shit-filled pens with rock walls. Some have red tiles near the steeples of alpine churches, some are mud brick with tin roofs. Life at 4000 metres.

I sit back in my seat and turn my attention to the movie blaring from the bus's ancient televisions. It is a Ving Rames prison movie with lots of brutal violence and bad language. That is hardly appropriate family entertainment, so fortunately it is followed up by “James Mono,” a wonderful expose chronicling the adventures of a chimpanzee secret agent. An interesting combination no doubt and as night fell we rolled into the sprawling city of Lima.

At first blush, there is hardly a sign of what this place once was. Until Peru's independence this was the lifeline of imperial Spain, the hub of all that came from South America and back to the fatherland. Gold. And that is still somewhat visible in the old city centre, though the city has long since breached those confines and now spreads interminably along the coast and up the adjacent hillsides.

I post up in Miraflores, an obnoxiously serene neighbourhood, complete with a Starbucks, McDonalds, BK, KFC, and a myriad of other cafes and bars. There is a restaurant street, overpriced and infested with touts and I know in an instant that this is gringolandia extraordinaire. As if I needed further illustration, I find myself approached by a number of cocaine sellers patrolling the park and prostitutes lurking beneath the entrance of the hostal.

I get the hell out of there and check out the view from cliffs overlooking the coast. I move to Barranco and find the place to be much more authentic, full of smashed up old churches painted pastel colours, and bands playing in the plaza. I meet some good friends in Lima and we move out again.

And now I find myself writing this from Arequipa, a great city in the south abutted by volcanic snow capped peaks and full of white stone buildings. Nearby are towering mountains where the Inca once sacrificed children to appease their gods. One such child is on display in a freezer bathed in the dim light of a museum. It is a powerful sight to look upon her and imagine the grueling trek that culminated in the brutal sacrifice of twelve year old Juanita. Drunk on maize beer, she met her death five centuries ago at the hands of some ancient priest singing incantations to ancient gods on that peak 6000 metres in the sky. I marvel at the whole thing, the fascinating ceremony and the amazing resolve that these people must have had to climb that high without any modern maps or equipment.

So much has changed in this country. Removed from her tomb by cataclysmic volcanic and glacial forces, Juanita the Ice Princess sits forevermore in a freezer while i sit in a plaza sipping cappuccinos trying to reconcile all that I have experienced here.

The State of Ecuador

2010-11-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

Shrunken heads in glass cases are all that remain of those that killed the Shuar tribesmen. Warriors hunted down the murderers and brought them to justice in accordance with the law of the jungle. It is said that the shriveled remains do not represent a legacy of retribution, but rather a restoration of the cosmic balance effected by entwining the souls of both murderer and victim in some swirling alternate dimension. Tell that to the murdered murderer, whose shriveled skin, cotton-bound lips, and lush locks now make for a strange juxtaposition against the shrunken head of a pig that was sacrificed and consumed on the anniversary of the vengeance.

The chanting of the shaman may have faded into the depths of time, but the supernatural war trophies of the tribe remain in spite of the government prohibition of the practice in the modern era. But who knows what happens deep in the jungle. That is one of the few places that exists outside the fringe of the known world. Perhaps a handful of outsiders have ever seen what transpires around those jungle fires in the night. But only a handful.

The mainstream always had its sights set on the riches of the continent (and shrunken heads were once prized as a valuable curiosity – at times created for the purpose of profit). The colonizers were more focused on metal. Back in the Spanish port of San Lucas de Barramedda, 185 thousand kilograms of gold and 16 million kilograms of silver entered old world coffers between 1503 and 1660. The forbidding depths of the jungle held the promise of vast wealth. To this day some remain impenetrable.

The wealth of this trade is visible in the colonial buildings of great cities. Faded glories sit beneath the dull facade of decay in the ancient buildings of cities. The new order is a different story. The wealth has shriveled and dried up. Quito is like massive slum sprawling around a historical centre full of colossal cathedrals and the heroic statues of the plazas. Inside the houses of god is one form of propaganda or another. Inca sun gods adorn the roof of one cathedral, while another is built on the site of an indigenous marketplace where locals bartered for corn while the missionaries bartered for souls.

Centuries old paintings tell a different history, a middle eastern history, filtered through the Vatican and reformulated for the savage souls of a newly discovered continent of heathens. There was no place in this new world for the jungle ways, the mountain ways, the blow darts, incantations, potions, rituals, bone shaking, sun worship, alligators, jaguars, birds, two headed snakes, or holy men who communed with animistic deities that embodied the wisdom and philosophy of creation. After all they had no book. Brutal and savage people that had built roads, great cities, trade, commerce and empire were now exposed to the path the truth and the light.

And here I am in the aftermath of it all, in a country with no cash, where the indigenous features of the ancestors live on in the faces of the people, and where the youth scrawl revolutionary nonsense on the walls of the cities. Mass political upheaval is the last thing needed around here. I can't think of a single revolucion in the last hundred years that actually brought a better life to the people. The spirit is appealing but there are more pragmatic approaches to development. The currency is shot and the country is only afloat on the back of the US dollar which took over as its official currency over a decade ago.

The moment I found that out, I knew immediately that there would be problems. Nobody has change for anything, and in the case that the change does in fact exist it is horded because it won't last long. How can a country of 13 million people import enough $1 bills for the day to day transactions of a poor population. This leads to constant frustration and ridiculous amounts of running around pleading with guys at cigarette stalls to break $10 and $20 dollar bills, which are far to big for ordinary expenditures. There is no cash in this country.

That doesn't stop people from constructing a fictitious facade of affluence. This is Gringolandia, the other side of Quito, an artificial oasis of modernity called Mariscal where nightclubs and bars occupy squat, square concrete buildings and play pop music all night. The place is popular and the prices are high. In it lies an implicit denial of the squalor that characterizes this crumbling city only a stone's throw away. That squalor spills over the edge in the ever present danger of knife wielding robbers who target gringos on the way home from the bar. My acquaintance with these types would come later. For now I decide it's time to blow this city.

The poverty intensifies as I continue my journey along the spine of the Andes. Switchbacks leading to high mountain passes afford sublime views of river valleys, snow capped peaks, eagles and vultures drifting on the currents. Old women climb the hills with determination, wearing thin brimmed panama hats, and with flowers embroidered on the fringe of faded red skirts. They carry machetes and bear the burden of agriculture on bent backs, slowly ascending alongside the dusty highway with bales of grass and twigs and a look of purpose on wrinkled faces. From time to time, the road descends from its path along precipices toward a village at the bottom of some mountain valley basin, a single story skyline of concrete blocks with metal rods protruding from unfinished rooftops and stray dogs underfoot.

I have come to believe that concrete blocks are simultaneously the best and worst thing to happen to construction in the developing world. They permit the poor to build solid and permanent dwellings, but curse the horizon with scores of ugly buildings completely devoid of character, not to mention any of the features that were traditionally important to the community that lives in them. It is a far cry from the carefully cut rocks of the sun temples built by the ancestors. But try selling that to somebody moving out of a mud hut.

I end the journey in Cuenca, some beautiful and dangerous city where dusk ushers in an aura of insecurity. Every street is sketchy after dark. As I walk in the night, I am harassed for three blocks by two drunk junkies. There is no help at hand, so it comes down to me and them. I have learned that if you are playing a game with no rules, you must recognize it for what it is: if you play by rules you will lose. I don't try to reason with them or sort the thing out amicably (by handing over some paltry sum of american change), but rather show them I am not intimidated, talking big in Spanish.

One of the drunks wouldn't let up and was trying to sell me his filthy shirt for two bucks. After repeated refusals, he decided to snatch my hat. Bad idea. Beyond the disrespect inherent his horribly miscalculated move, I took the act quite seriously amidst visions of the last time my toque was snatched back in Madagascar. I reacted instantly, instinctively: there I was in the night, staring into the angry eyes of some miscreant with a firm grip locked around his trachea. I take no pride in violence, but was unprepared to be the victim in the situation. I recovered the hat as his eyes bulged, but ironically managed to rip the guy's shirt while attempting to diffuse the situation. He would have a tough time selling it to the next gringo sucker walking down lonely streets in the night. I spent the rest of the evening at a salsa club sipping the world's smallest beers, but unable to relax, distracted by visions of reprisals by scumbag drug addicts lurking outside my hostala. No rules, but real consequences.

It all came to nothing and the time had come to move on, toward another border and out of Ecuador, leaving behind a sense of uneasiness, and an unbroken trail of US twenty dollar bills.

Aqui es la vida a Colombia

2010-10-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

Here I am again, sitting in a bus station with 5000 pesos ($2 CDN) in my pocket, ready to roll out through the night to an unknown border with a new frontier beyond. It's been a long time since I've written anything, and even longer since I've posted it. I think this stems from a creative drought compounded by the major adjustment that I've had to make after eight months bouncing over every dirt road in Africa.

But here I am now, y aqui es la vida en Espanol. I am slowly making my way down toward the tip of another continent, down the Panamerican highway that runs along the jagged spine of the Andes toward some imaginary goal. It's very existence once again opens the door to a compulsion to move.

My head was reeling when I touched down here. I couldn't find my feet at first, still thinking like an African in a place where that no longer yielded any results. It was hard to accept that all I had seen was isolated back there, that it was not a reality for anyone around me anymore. I had no idea to what degree the experience had taken over every part of me.

My recovery began in a comfortable apartment situated in an affluent Bogota neighbourhood. My friend Jessica was kind enough to offer up her place and that really hit the mark. I sat drinking cup after cup of colombian coffee, studying spanish, and lying in wait for the cleaning lady to arrive, a captive audience with the patience to put up with my feeble attempts to relate my life story in an unknown language. Beyond this, I found myself particularly adept at contriving situations where I was surrounded by people who spoke no English. This sharpened the learning curve with great benefit to my progress, especially considering I am far too cheap to front the cash for a course. .

I benefit from the fact that most Colombian museums have Spanish only signs, not to mention that most Colombians speak no English. My excitement for the country was awakened by the Museo del Oro which contains a treasure trove of pre-columbian masks and artifacts made of gold. This was something totally different to what I had seen anywhere else, straight out of the pages of National Geographic. After a couple of weeks, I had picked up basic words and expressions and I figured it was time to probe deeper into what made this country tick.

I moved first to Villa de Leyva, a small town with beautiful architecture and rock paved streets. I found it a beautiful but strange place and my search for its pulse led only to the conclusion that it was in a coma. I moved on to San Gil, a true gringo experience, as it is the adventure capital of the country. I didn't last long there either and was eager to get away from the gringos. On to Bucaramanga, fun to say, but not so much fun to visit. There is however one busy street and I spent my day there walking up and down before rejecting gay propositions in a park while waiting for a night bus up to the north coast of the country. That brought me to Santa Marta, the oldest city in the country and a strange place with a ratty strip of beach and even rattier local bars. Of course I managed to find myself in the heart of it as I always manage to drift into the sketchiest areas of town. It was a brief stop there, I had arrived with purpose.

Ciudad Perdida was the ultimate goal. It is an ancient city that was lost to time after its abandonment by the natives during the colonial era. Rediscovered only in 1975, there is a real Indiana Jones feeling about the place, accentuated by the presence of Colombian army guarding against the reappearance of cocaine trafficking rebels. Real adventure in the jungle.

The trek took five days in total, and the whole time is spent soaking wet as a result of rain, rivers and sweat. Deep in that jungle a stone staircase begins at the riverbank and ends at a clearing where the jungle opens into a series of stone platforms where the life of the ancestors took place. The place is haunting with a thick mist that hangs heavy in the air. We moved past altars guarded by modern troops, climbing toward the highest platform that affords a panoramic view of the ruined city and the surrounding jungle.

The trek was great but I hated at least fifty per cent of the other gringos around me. Sure there were the brown scottish-pakistani gringos, and a friendly irishman, but the issue was the cocaine abusing losers who never said a word to us. Probably for the best that we didn't get invited to their “party” in the jungle involving a load of cocaine. Everyone was in bed by ten.

The drug use is a strange story in itself. I spearheaded an initiative to go check out a clandestine coke lab deep in the jungle. Those losers were too scared to go, sketched out or something. While I have never touched the stuff myself, my curiosity ran high and I jumped at the opportunity to learn more about the illicit activities of the producers. There I was at seven in the morning watching a guy produce cocaine out of leaves and an assortment of filthy chemicals. The scene grew even more surreal when he began passing out the “samples.” I was one of three lonely gringos who didn't inhale.

Back at camp, the losers were curious albeit shit-scared of the situation and fortunately their emissary had purchased some significant quantity. I understand that it retails for approximately ten euros a gram here, which if further understand to be a fraction of the price anywhere else in the world.

At this point, one thing was clear to me: I don't belong to the backpacker circuit anymore. I had nothing to measure myself against when I was in Africa. There were no tourists back in the Congo. I suppose the experience changed me a lot. Of course I don't fit in with the mochilados.Cheap gringo party hostels don't do anything for me and I've heard all the lame stories before.

With the images of jungles, mountains, great lakes, river valleys and wild beasts in an impoverished land etched in my mind, i put on some old music from the Congo and can't believe all that it was to me. It flashes before me like some distant dream. I don't tell a lot of stories, nobody understands.

This was clearly illustrated to me in Cartagena, a beautiful walled city on the north coast of the country, rich in history some of which lives on in the beautiful Metis features of people descended from the natives, the colonizers and their slaves. From the small salsa clubs tucked in the corner of the old city to the hustlers and pushers running scams on the streets, the city has a real pulse.

The sense of history was overwhelming as Cartagena de Indias was the most important Spanish port on the continent for centuries. It was through here that all the supplies and slaves entered, and from where all the continent's gold and silver left. And you can see it in the buildings, on the streets, in the sea defences, feel it in the atmosphere. Of course that is true only for those who leave the hostel. Many don't.

The backpacker scene really started to get to me. There are hostels where you would have a problem if you didn't speak English, a bit surprising for someone looking for a Colombian experience. The general dynamic involves little more than gringos sitting around telling lame stories about how great they are and how great hostels are in other south american cities. “How was Cuzco?” “Oh, it's so great dude, there is this hostel there with a pool and you can get drunk for really cheap and the chicks are bla bla bla bla.” I mean come on. Sometimes the only reason people even talk to me is out of some sense that the should be polite. They are constantly trying to recussitate dying conversation with :where you from, where you been, where you going, how old are you, what did you do back home, how long you been traveling, how long you got to go.” Just let it die because neither one of us cares. I don't judge people on how many places they visited or how long they've traveled. That's why I can't stand those types of questions, I feel that they stigmatize me and alienate me from most people around for one reason or another. Thus, I am trying a new experiment – telling backpackers that I hate backpackers (kinda like being racist against your own race). More on that as it develops.

I wandered around Cartagena for a few days and managed to make some friends in spite of all negativity noted above. I was so tired of the scene that I decided to head elsewhere and got on a bus back to the middle of nowhere. Somehow I ended up in some sketchy town with no tourists but lots of criminals and prostitutes. I hid in the hotel for a night and caught a riverboat the next morning to some languid backwater called Mompos.

It was hot and sweaty with whitewashed buildings and I arrived just at the time of year that the river flooded all the beautiful colonial streets. This in itself was interesting and I spent a couple of days exploring and doing nothing, happy because there was not a gringo in sight. The lack of anything to do meant that I could study in the evenings, and the absence of any English speakers led me to discover Spanish skills I didn't know I had. I headed back the way I came and boarded a frigid night bus to Medellin.

I rocked up at the station at six on saturday morning and was shocked to find the metro packed with commuters to the point I could hardly find a place to stand. I located a gringo hostel and sat on the terrace drinking coffees in an attempt to fight off the imminent crash from a total lack of sleep. The strategy worked initially and I hit the Museo de Antiochia, visiting the Botero Galleries. Botero is likely the most famous Colombian artist, and his trademark was depicting every living thing as extremely fat. There are fat men, women, children, dogs, cats, horses, hookers, and even a fat Pablo Escobar.

I spent the next few days bumming around town and managed to meet tons of locals including a rasta juggler girl from the subway, but who am I kidding; I made most of my new friends drinking in parks which is a wholesome nightly activity for gringos and locals alike. Strange behaviour and cocaine seem to be mutually reinforcing and this sets the tone for some memorable incidents. .

I went for a piss one night and believe that the gentlemen using the facilities before me were smoking crack in the toilet. I covered my face with my shirt to avoid whatever noxious fumes were lingering and went about my business. Seeing as there was no closing door, I was not surprised that somebody walked in. What did surprise me was he was brandishing a small knife. I took a look and politely asked him not to smoke any crack. He laughed, came in beside me, and started snorting powder off the knifeblade as I made a confident, but decidedly swift exit from the room.

Before I knew it, a week had passed, I had made tons of friends, both gringos and non, and I was nearly out of time in the country. The last stop was another archaeological mission, this time to the south in a beautiful region where the indigenous have left a legacy of amazing statues and rock hewn tombs. I gazed out at the sublime landscape of misty mountains and smoky trees, where flocks of vultures sit on fenceposts. I passed through villages full of pastel coloured houses with tropical gardens and horse drawn carts. Finally I rolled into St. Augustine.

Despite the difficulty of getting there, I arrived to find phosphorescent butterflies fluttering above sacrificial altars. Tales of human sacrifice and ancient burial rites always get my heart pounding and I could almost hear the echoes of rumbling chants reverberating in the hills. There is no shortage of history around St. Augustine, a history that remains mysterious and inaccessible. The people who created it buried it at the onset of the Inca invasion and it remained beneath the earth for centuries. The real tombs are a little further afield in a place called Tierradentro, isolated at the end of a windy, muddy and mountainous road. As expected, the place was beautiful and remote and there were no other tourists to be seen. I stayed in a house with an old woman I met in the village and she made me a massive dinner as I played with her puppy. Perhaps more interesting than the archaeology, was the fact that the town presented the first evidence of the rebel movements that had made such a great impact on the trajectory of the country. As best as I can tell, there is little danger as a tourist, no more than any other country anyway. This is the first place that I visited where people have scrawled FARC on the walls. In most instances, somebody has added an E to the end.

Presently rebels are deep in jungles producing cocaine for some vaguely articulated Marxist ideology. They would be wiped out if not for the porous borders and connivance of neighbouring Venezuela and Ecuador. If maintained, the present status quo should ultimately eliminate the deeply entrenched perception of danger that has deterred all but a trickle of tourists for so long.

After nearly six weeks, I reluctantly left Colombia, knowing that I will go back one day. I have concluded that Colombia is ready to boom provided that it can maintain it's political and military stability. I am happy to have seen it before that happens. The old combination of rebels and cocaine has not disappeared, though it casts only a shadow of its former importance in the country and is outweighed at every turn by the sophisticated feel of the cities, the warm and friendly reception that a stranger receives in the villages.

The place is so pristine and beautiful that part of me hopes that the gringos stay scared.

Fear and Loathing in Retrospect

2010-10-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

A layover in NYC came as a shock to the system, a million miles from wild Africa.

I didn't want to front the cash for digs, so I took the train into Manhattan with a feeling to find the epicentre of it all. I hung out in Starbucks for a while, marveling at the amount of people who drink that overpriced swill watching women through the window strolling the sidewalk in high heels, walking ridiculously small dogs with designer collars. These were normal people back here in the real world.

As night fell, I sat in Times Square watching shady characters lurk in the throbbing glow. Maybe not so shady as they appeared. My mind drifted back to corrupt cops brandishing kalashnikovs, then to the red earth of dirt tracks, to jungles and villages, to naked kids running around chasing sick dogs and chickens.

The reality sinks in. I can hardly recognize this place. I think of home, so close to me now and have a sudden overwhelming impulse to hit a ten hour bus ride and sleep in my own bed for the first time in over two years. I fight it off; it's not time to go back yet. I struggle to envision how I will ever go back. I don't fit in here. I little more than a faded t-shirt, a pair of Mozambican flip-flops and a pair of beat up old cargo pants. It was fine in Africa, but all of a sudden it's not so slick anymore. NYC.

Three days before I was in Lesotho, away from the opulence of the occident, sitting in a wind swept graveyard on top of a mountain, with the chiefs and elders long laid to rest. The valley beneath was alive with wildflowers as the spirit of the dead blew all around. Legends of spirits, spells, witches and demons, filled the air.

I listened to tales of king Moshoeshoe who united the tribes, took 140 wives and put an ended cannibalism some time around the 1870s. I learn of demons, Tokolosh, that haunt and possesses people, and witches who can invoke curses and raise the dead to walk amongst the living. Or so it is said. All this was put to me by a rabbit hunting orphan who spends 50 Rand ($7 CDN) for the services of a witch doctor who prepares ritual baths to remove the Tokolosh that curses him. Of course the exorcism takes time requiring several consultations.

I never thought about it, but witchdoctoring is a lucrative profession in some parts. How the hell did I get from there to Manhattan. The shock is nearly too great to bear as the clicks of the Basotho language fade into the depths of my memory.

Fear and Loathing in the mountain kingdom brought us out into the slums where a BMW driving nightclub owner started telling stories of the gunfights at his club. No problem anymore because his private security had just wasted three guys with shotguns. We slept at a monastery, and headed out the next day, drinking a few beers that pushed one guy over the edge and left him, jibbering away like some gremlin witch doctor invoking the Tokolosh and rattling pebbles in his palm.

We made wild detours into the heart of the kingdom where I gave my boots and a cheese sandwich to a man dressed in garbage. At nightfall we cruised into a sketchy city with dangerous streets and my gremlin buddy jumped out of the car and disappeared. We searched for a while, found him with the cops, threw him in the car, locked him in a hotel room, at which point he secured his release by kicking in the door, then caused a disgraceful scene in a restaurant, uttered some threats, threw a pizza at the wall. I had reached my limit so I opened the busted door and flung his bags into the hallway. He was later found sleeping on a derelict mattress down the hall. Ladislas (aka Big L) and I contrived to wake him by dumping cold water on his head the next morning and giving him a ten minute window to get up or get left behind. We were disappointed to find him awake. We doused him anyway.

Looking back at unprovoked conflict with criminal elements, we blew through the border again back to racist South Africa, with Ladislas (aka Big L) at the wheel and our newly rehabilitated witchdoctor/gremlin (now known as Paul) in the back managing our stock.

That was so fresh but so far behind me now. As I sat awake all night drinking coffee in small Manhattan diners and another realization began to take hold. I had just spent eight months of my life moving through Africa, into the heart of darkness and out the other side. It never seemed that long. And for what? I take with me an acquaintance with wild beliefs and misconceptions, the gospel for a continent that can't untangle itself from the earliest traditions of humanity, from the the corruption and anarchy that lie beneath the facade of order and development. I take with me the beauty of the continent and its people, memories of drum beats rumbling in the Congo. I couldn't figure out what to make of it.

Not there at the epicentre of the American empire.

To the Cape

2010-09-03T05:42:00.001-07:00

01/09/10

I pulled into Cape Town under grey skies, droplets of rain hovering in the air and soaking everything I had. The city looks like it belongs in some corner of Europe, like Montreal in Africa and is unmistakeably white. Sure there are blacks, but they live out in the townships, making their way into the city by day to work as parking attendants, flip burgers or sell shoes in Indian owned shops. I couldn't believe that this was Africa. South Africa.

Cape Town plays host to some of the great museums and galleries that this country has to offer. They point to one thing: race. Discomfort over race, antagonism over race, the inescapability of race. The old cape colony was built on the work of slaves, not the same ones who were packed into hulking ships and sold in the Americas, but others, stolen from Southeast Asia, India and Madagascar. The entrenchment of racial division in this place cuts so deep that I cannot imagine how it will disappear.

Communities have developed here for so long with legislated and strictly enforced divisions that they share little common experience save for that division itself. The only thing binding the modern country together is that legacy of racism, separation, division, segregation that culminated in apartheid. It is the only inherritance that they share, though clearly they occupied opposite roles in enduring or implementing that disastrous experiment. And where has it gone now. There are still black areas and white areas, not oficially enforced, but an unofficial reality.

Just outside the city is some of the most spectacular scenery in the word. As you drive down toward Cape Point, you pass cyclists and joggers in the shadow of a great mountain range that tumbles hundreds of metres into the Atlantic crashing beneath. There are mansions looking out to sea, riding stables and even the odd Ferarri, but that is not the story across the highway. Separated by no more than 200 metres is the sprawling bidonville from where the labour lives, labour necessary to sustain the affluence. The equestrians across the road pay no attention to the squalor of the huts and dirt roads visible from green fields with grazing stallions, the people on seafront terraces even less so. Perhaps it is a subconscious acceptance of the status quo. I don't accept it, in fact I think it is fucked up. But that is not the most extreme surprise in store for me.

Back in Cape Town, I ran into a couple of Quebecois, Nabil and Nancy, newlyweds that I had met two months ago back in Maputo. They had a plan and a car, so my time in the city was cut short by the fortuitous encounter. We jumped into a little Kia and headed for the southwest tip of the continent, the Cape of Good Hope. I sat in the soft white sand and felt a tremendous amount of satisfaction as the reality sunk in: this was it, this was the terminal point, this was what I had planned, this was my goal. That is not to say that I am ready to stop yet, rather that anything beyond this exceeds all my hopes for what this trip would be.

It put the trip in perspective, marking the terminus of eight months in Africa. It had begun with me floating on the wail of the aazan as it drifted to earth from soaring minarets, thousands of kilometres behind me now. Nothing between here and there will ever leave me. I love Africa, from the top to the tip. I take with me all its joys and miseries, sounds and beauty, from jungles and cites to the villages far out in the savannah. I leave part of my heart with the beleagured souls that I encountered along the way. I will never forget all the friends that I made and all the memories they gave me. As I sat on that cape with the winter sun beating down and baking my skin, I couldn't help but think nostalgically, of all that it had meant to me. I watched the waves break against the towering cliff face, the land intruding on the domain of the world's great seas as the waters relentlessly tries to wash the bleeding continent white. I felt satisfied. This was the end of Africa, the end of my journey through all its triumphs and tragedy.

With a few more days to enjoy, we headed back up north to Stellenbosch. The road along the edge of the cape was lined with small colonial towns full of boutiques and large homes facing the crashing surf. After making some progress inland, we were confronted by a startling sight. Against the backdrop of jagged peaks and the pink sky of the setting sun, there emerged a sprawling slum, shanty huts as far as the eye could see. We drove for kilometres past the township and were soon back amongst green fields and vinyards, riding stables lining the roadside. Every place we visited was like this, sprawling slum, a few hundred metres of road, then town.

Security was no issue anymore, and we walked through Stellenbosch without the least concern that JoBurg trained criminals lurked around the corner. With the exception of the odd parking attendant, this place was totally white, as one might come to expect in the epicentre of the South African wine producing region. One look at the map shows the innumerable vinyards that line every road in every direction. We tried three, tasting whites and reds, honey wine and rose. We ate cheese and chocolate in incredible elegance. We bought some bottles and took to the road. Nobody could believe that this was Africa.

There was one last mission for the day, to make Cape Aghulas, the southern tip of the African continent. This took us along a highway past lush green farms dotted with sheep, through valleys and over low altitude mountain passes in a landscape out of a dream. But not a dream of Africa. Where were the villages? The dirt roads? The wild savannah? The ramshackle roadside evangelical churches? Orderly farms with flowing rows of crops disappeared over the crest of smooth round hills as far as the eye could see.

As night fell, we approached the cape and headed into the hostel with a massive steak for the brai (the iconic ZA wood fired BBQ). I feasted on meat until I was defeated. The next morning we headed down to the cape and the geographical tip of the continent where two great oceans meet. I sat on the rocks gazing out to sea, thinking that this was truly the end of Africa, there was nothing beyond but the Antarctic. As the surf crashed, I imagined the ghosts of de Gama, Magellan, and Drake, all of whom had called at this shore centuries before in wooden vessels, rigging taught, sails straining under cold northernly winds. There was no more land, I had covered it all and ended up in this strange place where the legacy of those explorers still maintained its vice-like grip.

And that was how it ended, my journey across the African continent amidst beautiful faces, deep voices and dark skin. I finally felt fulfilled.

JoBurg

2010-09-03T05:41:00.000-07:00

25/08/10

Back to South Africa, back to black and white, back to mistrust and division. You can see it from above. The grid of Africa's richest city is divided by six lane highways that stretch endlessly to the horizon. On one side are trees and manicured green lawns, swimming pools, red roofs and the contour of security fences. On the other side are shacks in the dirt, small square tin roofs, red with rust, compressed into their confines by dusty township roads. There is no greater illustration of the contrast of how the people of this country live. Separation, a de facto apartheid.

Downtown is dead, a city of ghosts and empty buildings. To let, for lease, and nobody to move in. Nobody is down there after dark. I made my way down there in a combi taxi, local transit. Very slow and very black. I sat in the minibus and looked out the window at the whites driving past in their BMWs and Mercedes, getting no closer than the temporary equality enforced by the “robots” (bizarre S. African name for traffic lights) when everyone has to stop and obey the law of this country of contradictions. It was getting dark and my S. African friends (black and white) couldn't understand what I was doing in such an unsafe place. I was getting the hell out, and soon found myself back in the suburban opulence of Rivonia.

I have some experience of the bad parts of Joburg, thanks to Ladislas (aka Big L), my partner in crime. Our hobbies include cruising the sketchiest neighbourhoods, pumping hip hop at the roadside, saying wussup to everyone who looks our way, and hitting the black clubs. That seems to shock people, few of whom can understand what would possibly possess us to do such things, let alone for amusement. The element of danger is not apparent while we move through the streets, but only afterward when we get the reaction of JoBurgers who can't believe the type of places we have rolled through.

That is where we seem to catch all the action. Sunday afternoon crawled past as we watched a Zulu preacher perform 'miracles' for a big crowd. He preached intermittently as the sidewalk parishioners took turns covering their eyes and allowing the holy spirit to guide them toward a CD placed in the middle of the circle. They would then bend down and attempt to touch the miraculous disc. Only one woman succeeded as perhaps the holy spirit was not so concerned with this run down and economically depressed area full of unemployed blacks. We stood there and watched for twenty minutes, asking bystanders to translate the proceedings for us. South African white boys don't do this kind of thing.

There are signs of corruption and illegality all over. Police may have nice cars and spiffy uniforms, but that doesn't mean that they can't be bribed. At a spot check one night, Ladislas (aka Big L) and I were pulled over and sat there watching as the police in front hit the gas and tore the door of their brand new van. The cop attending to us was easily distracted and 100 Rand ($13.00 CDN) terminated his investigation, allowing him to go check out what the hell his colleagues had done to their vehicle. The nice uniforms conceal the corruption and incompetence only to a point.

One night in the apartment, Ladislas (aka Big L) says: “people in this country live behind high walls and go to shopping malls, and everything they don't know they both fear and dislike.” This sums up our experience, the mall culture, attacks in the bar by random Afrikaaners who take issue with us for no discernable reason. We had better stick to Montecasino, a faux tuscan village full of restaurants and shops where I celebrated my 32nd birthday, an artificial refuge from the realities and dangers of what this city has become.This is where it is safe to walk around, not out on the streets, not in the parks or public squares.

To complicate matters further, mass strikes of public workers have paralyzed the country's hospitals and schools. The army has been deployed to control strikers who are denying hospital access to the public. There are reports of students being abused by striking teachers upon turning up in hopes that school would be open, patients dying when strikers prevented them from breaking the lines and seeking treatment. Post World Cup S. Africa is not what the world saw only a couple of months before. As an outsider, I begin to feel that this well ordered society exists on the verge of chaos.

I decide to get out of JoBurg, to head for the Cape and the end of the journey I had conceived of in my little office back in downtown Toronto all those months ago. I hit another combi and this time had all my gear with me. Down by the station, there stands a good chance of getting mugged. That is simply the reality, so I pack all my things into the big pack, figuring one big heavy bag is harder to steal. I don't look like much of a victim and generally meet eye contact with a booming greeting designed to show confidence.

I moved throught the streets unmolested, welcoming anyone who approached me with word and gesture calculated to show who was the bigger dog. Approach at your own risk. The strategy paid off and I checked my massive pack in the train station, allowing me a few hours in the city centre. I was cashed up to an extent, but the bulk of it remained concealed in my underpants, while the ATM card disappeared into the fold at the back of my notebook.

The area is so strange, I have a hard time reconciling what I saw. Large, empty skyscrapers tower above ladies from the township selling produce. Street markets seem to pop up ad hoc and anywhere. Unlike the mall back in the white suburbs, there are no valuable consumer goods for sale, just crappy chinese made products. Ladies sit on the sidewalks getting their braids and extensions tended to, while the Jehova's Witnesses prosletize beside drug addicts fighting in the park.

I have never seen a city like this. The richest city in Africa perhaps, but it is divided and there is no indication of its wealth and affluence in the downtown core. The big commercial centres are dilapidated now and full of low end boutiques and businesses instead of the the name brand shops one might expect to find. That is all located to the north, where the white people live. Where the white people work. Where the white people go. I see a handful of whites in my tour of downtown, but it is not what one might expect. Just the employees of whatever holdout companies didn't abandon their corporate offices (the banks being the major ones of note). In front of the parliament there are drug addicts and smokers, men smelling of urine in ripped clothes and guys approaching me unsolicited. It is clearly not a safe place to walk alone, so I keep moving. Naturally, the richest city in Africa acts as a magnet for every criminal on the continent and I had to get the hell out of there.

Back at Park station, I sit for a while and deal with the incompetence of a staff that can't seem to check bus tickets without a great deal of delay and a healthy dose of incompetence. We roll out about an hour late and I am on my way to the end of the continent, the goal, the end. Well not quite.

Two Years

2010-09-03T05:38:00.000-07:00

20/08/10

As the anniversary of my departure fades into the past, I turn my mind to what has become of me after two years on the road. There is so much out there that I can never hope to assimilate it all.

Out in the lonely desert I celebrated my thirty first birthday atop an ancient rammed earth fortress with wicked taxi drivers waiting like vultures to make their move. Having my indian celphone stolen, I gave up on the my journey out of visa hell and acquiesced to a flight taking me all the way to Moscow, the hub of a decayed empire.

Lavish displays of wealth, chaos on the streets and crooked cops clashed with the statues of Dostoevsky and Pushkin, the bustle of Arbat prospekt, the fantasy vision of St. Basil's, the might of Red Square, and the macabre allure of Lenin's corpse. The trian took me further north to the fringe of Europe where the city of the Czars awaited with incredible culture and beautiful streets. The bridges rival amsterdam and the canals are everywhere in that city of palaces, art and culture. Noble architecture does not guarantee noble behaviour and bouncers made that bloody clear by shit-kicking drunken miscreants on a nightly basis.

Back in Europe proper, I had finally arrived back in a land that I recognized for the first time since India. I blew through Latvia and soaked in Berlin's counter-culture before deciding it was time to move again, back into the unknown.

Istanbul pulled me in with its soaring minarets and calls to prayer form every possible angle. I wandered the streets in a daze, eating mussels and seeing old friends There was something comfortable about the fusion of the eastern exoticism and modern convenience and organization. But that was not the end of the road.

After a marathon bus journey, the mountains of Georgia broke the horizon as I made my way back into the thwarted empire, a land lost to the world where tradition cuts deep. Brutal scenes in the streets and the spectre of bandits in the hills meant real adventure. What else could be expected from the land of Iosef Dzugashvili, the son of a cobbler, and a man of steel who nearly took over the world. The lonely statue representing the last of its kind toppled in his hometown a couple of weks ago and now I realize that I was among the last to see it. War with Russia was on everybody's lips and i'd had enough vodka for breakfast and thugs in the churchyard.

The Machine took us onward, across a corrupt border and into Armenia, mysoginist capital of the world. Hairy brutes in tight costumes disciplined their women on the streets in scenes that counterbalanced the serene grace in the ancient monasteries of this faithful christian country. The failure to redress old wrongs still touches the tips of tongues here and the vodka flows with equal force. A few fights with the landlady were enough and I crossed the tracks in Yerevan to head down to the beauty of the south.

From there it was over one of the most remote fronteirs imaginable. Any tourists that I hadn't left behind in Istanbul, turned back in Yerevan. I was crossing into the belly of the beast, into an unknown and evil country certain to pose peril at every turn. I was left on my own in the night at a dusty frontier, on a highway with no traffic, pack strapped to my back and hopeful on a hitch. An hour later I found myself in Tabriz, a city of kindness, the like of which I had never imagined.

I met the friendliest people I had ever encountered. I could not even believe the things that they did for me, the hospitality that they were willing to extend to a stranger, and I will never forget it. Through the barren mountains of the countryside, the seamless tarmac snaked its way toward Tehran where more friends awaited, but that was yet to come. That crazy city overwhelmed me and I made for the grace and beauty of the mosques to the south, the 'centre of the world' and even further, one of the epicentres of history from which flowed empire, wine and poetry of such lucid beauty that it strikes the soul in foreign tongue.Up north again I made a pilgrimage of sorts and Mashdi John headed back into the thick of things with new vigour and some added gumption to take the adventure to a new level.

The reality of Persia could not have been more different that I had envisioned. The people were full of kindness and the politics full of poison. Fights with police and new friends who exposed me to the reality of the country, prompted a deeper understanding that we are not so different out here in the world.

The road back led through Iraq and more specifically Kurdistan where the militia ruled and kept the anarchy at bay. The threat of grave violence kept me moving and soon I was back in the safety of stable politics, beginning a journey down the rivers that flowed out of Eden and through Mesopotamia. The city of the prophets sung to me and I moved from there across the great rivers and on down to another border that I could not cross.

Wit and charm are second to none and after bouncing back a few hundred kilimoetres, I had made my way into the president's kingdom and the ancient cities that foiled crusaders. The citadel rose over the walls as minarets moaned pouring the majesty of Allah over the bazaars beneath. Through the desert and out in the monastery, I broke bread with men of the robe before moving to Damascus, a true city of souls. More new friends and the delicious aroma of waterpipes had me tranfixed for weeks until I broke the spell and headed up through the highlands into Lebanon.

That was a place of extremes, where Hezbollah meets Holt Renfrew and the pock marked skeletons of buildings are reflected in the machined glass of skyscrapers. I walked by the water and got lost wherever possible, finally deciding to hit another flight, this time to avoid another visa fiasco and the uncertain implications thereof.

I touched down in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and was soon rocketing through the desert toward the fronteir of the greatest border ordeal of my life. After six hours of detention and interrogation I was finally granted a free pass into Occupied Palestine and headed straight to the holy city of Jerusalem to reorient myself within its spirit, an older man who still remembered the curves of the streets, the steps and the alleys that I had trod in more youthful days.

I could not have been more horrified by what I found in that land as I crossed the apartheid wall that ensures the condemnation and segregation of a noble people based on their race and religion. Favour now falls on the minority population living in complete affluence. I couldn't believe the inhumanity of what I witnessed and felt sick to think about its cause. I spoke to people on both sides of that great fence and was left stricken by the injustice, marvelling at the impossibility of a peaceful resolution and astounded by the polices that seem designed only to provoke greater calamity.

Early mornings in the church of the sepulchre provided refuge from the modern catastrophe unfolding outside the city walls. I sat on rooftops and gazed out at that Haram al-Sharif, the Dome of the Rock, the temple mount, the epicentre of all those faiths that dance around in my head without ever capturing my spirit. I spent the new year up there in solitude, reflecting on all that the city, the country, the world, and what had become of the dream that created that land. Reflecting on what I had become.

It was time to move again and I spent some time under the Red Sea before posting up in Cairo for a week to hang out with criminals and appease the Sudanese consulate with my growing understanding of Arabic greetings and customs, not to mention a growing arsenal of basic vocabulary. From Talat Harb, to lonely pyramids forgotten in the desert, through the winding bazarrs of old Cairo and the city of the dead, I finally hit a train to the south.

Across a great lake, with the border behind me, I had truly entered Africa for the first time. Contrary to the warnings of the Canadian govermnent, I found nothing but friendly people and was amazed at my newfound capability to communicate basics in the vernacular of the land. Four months of die hard phrase book worship were beginning to pay off. I pursued the path of the Nile through the barren desert, stopping at the oases that support life along its banks. Out there I hurtled along Chinese made highways on shabby buses, past herders and nothing else.I found dozens of pyramids, lost to time and non existent in the imagination of the world. Finally I arrived at the hub of repression, a great city at the confluence of the blue and white rivers. I moved for the border and soon found myself out of the friendly and honest Arabic world.

Welcome to Ethiopia, cradle of humankind, where the hotel staff rob you and the kids throuw rocks on mountain trails. I watched raptors soar in highlands, before diving back to earth and clinging to wild crags as the sound of ram's horns echoes through the valley. The ancient churches and Haille Selassie guided me through the countryside from city to city as new friends shared laughs and a couple of beers, relief from the middle eastern drought.

Down four days, with four more to go, I hitched to where the road ends, and then I hitched some more. I spent days atop careening trucks that blasted over the savannah, rattling me to the core. Great flocks of birds began to appear as gazelles bounded through the flat lands in the distance. I hit Nairobi and was in the filth of it before I knew what hit me. Fortunately, I had purpose and my parents were soon there to share some incredible time with me. Through every major park in the country, and across the border in Tanzania, I began to feel as if Noah's ark had emptied its payload here on the endless plains of the Serengetti. We made our way back through that city and my body recoiled at the filth in the air.

Out on the coast the islands held warm comfort and the language of ancient traders. I moved back inland and found my way to the peak of the continent. Above the clouds and halfway down to the tip, I couldn't imagine that it would ever end.

The plains were now somehting that I understood. I wanted to find the unknown, and headed into the jungle. In that crazy city of cities I couldn't get enough of the people, the colours, the tempo. Conversations with wise rastas about misguided kids wiping asses in Africa, and it was time to blow south again through hundreds of kilometres of jungle into the heart of the Virunga volcanoes where Nyabingi has abandoned her people. I encountered impoverished souls that can't help themselves, displaced jungle dwellers, dying on the edge of a dreamscape and no prospect for hope. I moved on the red earth of the road down to the center of Africa.

The scars of brutality, murder and genocide were almost too much to bear. Corpses in the schoolhouse and ethnic divisions that will never go away. Refugees lurked next door, drawn from the ranks of the genocidaires and I felt the urge to explore further. Over the border, chaos reigned supreme. This was the heart of darkness, a country torn by war torn by conflict that in the last decade had killed more than the first world war. I moved through the ash covered streets and avoided the corrupt demands of young soldiers brandishing kalashnikovs, wondering what the hell I was doing in this war ravaged place. The present peace conceals a powder keg with a lit fuse as the factions have gone nowhere. The genocidaires, tribal groups, Lord's Resistance Army, poachers, smugglers, and organized criminals all operate in the region. I wanted to penetrate deeper but the horrible condition of the roads lead me unexpectedly back to the safety of Rwanda where visa complications cut short my Congolese adventure.

I pushed through the middle of nowhere, through sleepy villages and cities, and made some overly complicated arrangements to move south. More villages and every child in Africa suckling on its mother's tit, and I blasted through the countryside in an overloaded Matatu making 30 km/h at the most. Across another border and back in Tanzania, I made my way down to the shores of that great African lake with water clear as crystal. There was no way out and the dream of heading down on a boat, skirting the Congolese coast evapourated into the dusty roads of western Tanzania. I pounded forth, making no more than 300 km per day with no idea of where the road would lead, and how I would find my way. After four days, I was exhausted, covered in dust and hungry. There was nothing but fried dough and breastmilk behind me and I pushed the final distance on tarmac to another great African lake.

Exhausted, I took the time to decompress on the shore of Lake Malawi, spending my days in the sun, my evenings improvising catfish barbeque, and my nights with wild locals. I hitched a ride out of town in a motorcade under armed guard with the president's son and Chris, my new partner in crime.

Thus began the hitch that would take us almost 2000 km to the south. Bounced from borders before finally slipping through, we made our way south on anything that would take us. The next days were by the roadside making connections and picking up hitches with whoever stopped. That took us to the coast of Mozambique and back again to the hub, a crossroads where a big rig hurtled a few hundred k south allowing us to relax at the beach for a couple of days. Further on in an NGO 4wd, another beach, nights under the stars, disaster avoided, we headed out of town to make the final leg down into Maputo's slick nightlife.

The World Cup was in full swing and I watched matches in bars. The more I saw, the more I wanted to stay away so I stopped in the AIDS capital of the world where I sat in a living room bumping hip hop with white Swazi rastas. Finally it was time to head to the end of the road and I soon found myself on a six lane highway with Ladislas, heading to a white part of Johannesburg, that city of dangerous criminals. That had no appeal for me and I hopped a jet to perhaps the most remote nation on the planet.

Abortive hitches left me at the roadside, rejected, dejected and ready to head back to town. Interminable rides on rough roads led me to discover some of the most beautiful people I could imagine in a land too foreign to dream of. Through the cities, to the islands and into the bush on foot, I made what I could of my time and soon found myself back in the capital with Jinja, my friend at the end of the world. After more time in taxi brousses, I felt I got to know every lemur in the jungle. My time was up and I was back in South Africa, amazed at the organization which teeters on the verge of chaos.

Time to complete the trip, so I headed down to the tip of the continent, the Cape of Good Hope and on to Cape Aghulas where the land ends. I dipped my foot in the ocean and that was it. That was the terminal point that I had envisioned when I planned this. But I am not ready to stop yet. It was supposed to be a year, eighteen months at most, and here I am at twenty five and counting. Every day it gets harder to ever think about leaving Africa, let alone going home. I wonder at what it all means, and what I have become. Certainly older, perhaps wiser, with a grey in my beard for every country I've visited. My body is worn and torn, but finally the pieces start to come together into an incomplete lattice that reveals the spirit of this human condition I set out to discover all those months ago.

And I am not finished yet.

Leaving Madagascar

2010-08-22T17:15:00.000-07:00

Rain sprinkled the windshield of the ancient Peugeot as I drew further from the hills of Antananarivo, that great city of beauty and poverty, through the rice paddies alongside the road and out to the airport. The motor roared and steel rattled as we rounded the bends of the two lane road that led me further from my little room in that city of dreams.

I made my way for the coast cruising ten thousand metres above brown scorched land, the dirt roads indistinguishable from serpentine rivers flowing seaward. As we soared westward, the land gave way to a great blue where the sea disappears into the sky without any horizon. I looked north hundreds of kilometres over the estuaries that perforate the rugged coastline, leaving behind me the adventure of adventures.

Much as I loved the country, it is not a safe place. I had that reinforced time and time again with attempts at petty theft or robbery. Political instability has combined with abject poverty, and fermented a rapid deterioration into lawlessness. It affects everybody who treads the earth of that outpost of humanity adrift in the vastness of the indian ocean. The instability has led to the emergence of mafias, some no more than gangs of teenage thugs, who ply the streets by night. Police are nowhere to be found, with the exception of those who patrol the highways, extorting bribes for minor infractions. Most cities are unsafe and there is never a cop in sight.

There are ways to deal with that of course and I spent more of my time worrying about lemurs and interminable rides in taxi-brousses, the horrible logistical solution to the lack of transportation in this inaccessible place. Fatigue sets in after long hours of movement and days were spent with my balls crushed on a hard bench through the night as my travel companions vomited into cheap plastic bags that they periodically discarded out the window.

Fed up with the grinding ordeal of marathon jouneys testing every notion of discomfort that I had ever conceived, I had the good fortune to meet Jinja again, a great friend that carried me through the last days of my journey on her unimaginable island. We made our way through city streets, climbed valley walls, froze in the highlands and watched the lemurs squeak and jump through the lush alien landscape.
As I move back to Africa and forward with this journey, once again I turn my mind to what it means to have friends at the end of the world.

As the plane drifts along the curving Mozamican coastline, I can feel the land again. Back to Africa, a true continent with all of its beauty and flaws.

Mud tracks through the Rainforest

2010-08-22T17:14:00.000-07:00

06/08/2010

I heard stories of 18 tribes and 18 caskets of gold, denied to the french by the vain queen Ravavalona III. That was back in Diego a week ago, among local women paint their faces with yellow ochre and men who chew chat.

I had decided to blow out of Diego. The plan set, I spent the night sipping beers with the locals discussing the Métis, a french word used here to describe any mix of the Arab, Indian, Bantu and Austronesian genes presently living on the island. The evening eventually took a turn for the worse. The two factions in the bar began warning me about each other and trying to milk me for beers. I was tired of the scene.

Major mullet partially concealed beneath a baseball cap (the buisness half), I embarked on a 24 hour journey covering approximately 340 km, rolling into Sambava tired but ready for a different look at the island. The breeze smelled of vanilla so I elected to walk into town, past huge tropical spiders that had taken over the side of a building. I walked the streets looking for hebergement.

I found a nice place by the water engaged a local guide, named Théophile Razafimbola, to show me the way and translate with the villagers. I slept 13 hours and slid out of town in a 4x4 pickup (2 worked), through thick red mud. Strange beginning. There were 20 people in the back and a lady breastfeeding next to me. I did a comparison with the three week old baby and his skin whiter than mine. Finally we had arrived at Marofinaritra.

There began a five day trek, that would cover over 100 km and pass through about a dozen jungle villages. The hike followed the course of one immense rive that runs from the hills and then followed the course of another back out to the sea. Marofinaritra is the end of the road. The critical connection through the coastal rainforest that would unite the east coast highway with its northern counterpart does not exist. True locals walk.

Théo had his doubts about me with my massive pack. I was the first time I had ever attempted to carry all of my belongings with me on a trek. I had no other choice. I don't have much but apparently it represents a 25.5 kg burden, about a third of my bodyweight. This was after discarding half of my personal library.

To make matters worse, there was red mud, orange mud, brown mud, beige mud, grey mud and black mud. At first I was trying to avoid it and we were making bad time. We slowly passed a number of large snakes (non lethal), through villages where woven mats lined the streets, covered in vanilla drying in the sun. The aroma was on the breeze. I got smiles from ladies with no teeth and said Mbolatsara (hello) to almost everyone we encountered. We crossed dozens of streams and traversed the river a number of times. The last crossing was across rocks in waist deep water. I jumped from boulder to boulder with my pack using my trusty stick for leverage.

We made our way into Ambalaharongana an hour before sunset. There was to be no electricity for days.

Of course my arrival sparked a sensation. Curious kids came out of little paths behind huts to examine the “vaza”. Salut vaza! Salut vaza! Mbolatsara zaza! (Hello foreigner! Hello kid!). Faces were stunned and some speculated that I may speak Malagasy. I marvelled at the number of kids and wondered if the lack of selection in nocturnal activites had something to do with it.

Darkness fell and the village retreated to the candlelight indoors. I sat down to a meal that my hosts had prepared for me. I was delighted with the nice rice, smoked pork, and ground manioch leaves. Little did I know that all meals were to consist of those same elements for the forseeable future. While we ate, the family sat in the other room and sang Malagache hymns to Christ. After the meal I retired to my room where a mixing bowl was delivered in case I had to “pi pi dans soir” (night piss). Let nobody ever claim these villagers don't have a pot to piss in.

The following day I set out, conscious of my pack but ready to make good distance. I still respected the mud back then, and spent the day trying to avoid it by walking through the brush.. I arrived at Ampokafo ten hours later, feet soaked and aching, my shirt drenched in sweat, my pants caked in filth, and my sunbaked skin bleeding, scratched by thorns. I hung the clothes out to dry and took some photos around town.

Even adults wanted to get in on the action and thanked me for taking the photos. The darkness fell swiftly and soon I was staring up at Scorpio as grey clouds drifted around the constellation. I lay listening to the peeping of frogs at the nearby riverbank, until a couple of transient locals got busy with a village lady on the other side of the barrier separating the 'rooms.' I slept soundly nonetheless.

The third morning, I declared war on mud. Mission Objective: blast through by any means necessary. Dirt was inevitable. I watched the.barefoot locals and simply followed their paths, through streams and puddles. I had to stop from time to time to empty my old Palestinian boots, but now I had a viable strategy. I was a filthy mess as we proceeded through paddies, river, jungle, villages and mud. Embourbé .

The next leg of the trek was the sloppiest yet. We slogged up into the jungle and entered Parc National Masoala where we slid down a path through the massive trees of the rain forest. I came close to a bad fall, sliding from a boulder as I jumped across a stream, just before the water cascades into a jungle ravine. I managed to get a grip a few metres above the swirling pool and again took stock of my pack's weight as I pulled myself up. I forgot it and made my way up the other side of the valley. By the time we reached Ankovana, we were filthy and soaked again after dozens of streams and a couple of times across the big river.

Ankovana will always stick with me. The kids were a mix of fear and curiosity about the vaza. Soon managed to attract quite a crowd. There were at least thirty kids checking me out. At first, eye contact was enough to send them running, but soon the bolder ones approached and I had to roar to send them running. The little guys still lurked at the back and would run at the slightest gesture. I headed down to wash my filthy clothes and bathe in the river, stoppping en route to watch some dude screw around with a snake that was crossing our path. I gave it a wide berth and remained unscathed.

Upon my return I snapped a couple of shots and the crowd reappeared in minutes. The kids were impossible to organize and I made the mistake of giving the thumbs-up sign when they posed nicely. This generated an incurable epidemic of thumbs-up poses amongst them. Nonetheless, I marvelled at all the different faces that I was observing before me in this tiny jungle village. What a different reality these kids live in. They have no video games, no television, no electricity, but they have old beatup school books at the ready. Boys do kung fu and play marbles, while the girls jump rope. They make lines in the sand and play games just like ordinary kids.

Nobody in town has a cel phone, let alone an email address. The adults are modest and most people's clothes are old, some full of holes. The flashier set wear “John Cena” or “Scorpions” t-shirts (yes, the band!) I asked a few people and apparently they all like critter, not the music. The ladies sport an equivalent style of imported garments though I could not detect any pattern.

There was not much to eat and I had taken to drinking exclusively from clean flowing jungle streams, what with bottled water unavailable in those parts. It was days of the same meal: white rice with green leaves and stewed chicken, fish or pork. The habitual beverage was some kind of rice water boullion made by scraping rice from the bottom of the pot and boiling it in another pot. Not a calorie wasted. Simple and balanced, though I grew tired of the same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The fourth day was the most difficult. My clothes never dried, they remained soaked from the day before, and soaked until nightfall. We crossed stream after stream, river after river. Sometimes we crossed on nothing more than mossy logs that bridged the ravine beneath us. We walked until I could hardly continue not having eaten in six hours. Fortunately this injected some variety into the diet as we managed to locate some sweet banana stew at the park office. I inspected the dumplings inside a pot of banana leaf packets, and discovered paties made of mashed banana and rice. I devoured two immediately and bought two more for the road. The entire meal set me back 800 Ariary ($0.40CDN). A few hours later, I was getting toward bigger villages and began to see motorcycles again for the first time in days.

Feet destroyed, we finally staggered into Navana, the last of the villages. I spent the evening sitting on a long beach, arched to receive the open Indian Ocean. I returned to feast on coconut fish, the catch of the day for 2000 Ariary ($1.00CDN). But enough rice already. The cooking was fantastic but I slept in a hut built right in front of a pig stye.

The final day, we made a two hour hike on a sandy path that took us along the contour of the bay. We got into a dugout canoe and punted the remaining distance to the outskirts of town. This called for a celebration and Théo suggested a couple of beers since the drinks were cold again. Feeling good with a hundred kilometres of mud behind us, we headed into Maroantsetra where the road begins again.

The journey had a profound effect on me. I did not see another white face the entire way. By the time I encountered one in Maroantsetra, I hit him with “Salut vaza!” much to my amusement. I will never forget the people that I encountered, the beautiful village girls who smile at the slightest provocation or the mud on the face of the farmers returning from the paddies. All that was behind me now.

I spent five days stuck in Maraontsetra. I couldn't enjoy it too much because nothing ever happens there. After three attempts to fish out my pocket in a nightclub on my first night in town, I wanted to get the hell outta there. I was intent on availing myself of this mythical 'road' I had heard so much about. There was no way out. I made reservations in 4x4s only get bumped into the back. It's not so bad, you just have to sit in the back with twelve to fourteen other people. I got nothing to prove at this point and couldn't face the three day journey under such conditions. I had few options, and after burning three days, only to come up empty, I used my vaza power and booked a flight to Antananarivo.

I am no stranger to small rural airports, but this one was something truly exceptional. As one pulls up over the pockmarked track, the vast number of free roaming bulls creates a unique first impression. The terminal has no computer, and only a balance scale. I checked in to my flight and received a hand written ticket as drivers sat in the parking lot drinking whiskey and waiting for fares. Of course the flight was seriously delayed, but soon a kindly old gentleman wearing a humungous and ill proportioned women's winter jacket approached me to advise that it was en rout and would be there any moment. I could hardly believe that I was moving as the twin prop roared to life and took off into the fine mist shrouding the savage coastline. I looked beneath at the strand of sand and murky brown water as jungle huts and cows faded into the landscape beneath. Civilization beckoned.

At the Fringe of the Earth

2010-07-28T08:03:00.000-07:00

800 kilometres off the coast of Africa, a mass of land rises from the Indian Ocean. Divided from the continent hundreds of millions of years ago, and still isolated in our time, I cannot conceive of a more remote fringe of the earth than Madagascar.

The beauty of the island is reflected by the beauty of its people, characterized by an amazing fusion of Asiatic and Bantu features scattered amongst the eighteen different tribes that inhabit this island at the end of the world. My excitement is overwhelming as the plane touches down and soon I am headed into Antananarivo, a capital city that nobody has ever heard of.

The streets wind up into Haut-Ville and I begin to walk through them. I meet Chris, my Mozambican hitchiking accomplice, with whom I had cleared 1200 kilometres a month before. He had been here a week already and was ready to move. That would come later. We are no sooner reunited than we are off to watch the match at a bar. First night in town, and before I know it we had made all kinds of local friends as we grew acquainted with THB, the local brew.

We wanted to hitch it, hitch the whole country and move along the lines I had traced on a pathetic little scrap of a map ripped from the Lonely Planet. That led to hours by the roadside, flagging trucks that wouldn't stop, couldn't stop, and nobody picked us up. I headed back to the capital, a bit dejected, and ready to try afresh in the morning.

We decided to scale back our ambitions and simply pay for a place in a Taxi-Brousse (Bush Taxi) which would take us part of the way. For the next three days, we made our way up the east coast, through incredible dreamscapes while the indian ocean tore at the sandy shore beside us. The pulse of the road beats slowly here and we must have stopped in every village that we passed. Life was nothing but huts of eucalyptus sticks and palm leaves until we reached Tamatave, a great colonial city, lost to time.

We had some wild nights and managed to get ourselves drugged in a disco. In the end, the poison didn't deliver a knockout blow, it simply pushed us beyond the brink of control and sanity. Nobody wanted any part of us and we left the bar unmolested. We subsequently discovered that one guy had managed to get himself punched in the face but I guess that's what happens when you are an full of drinks spiked with dangerous drug. Two days of recovery were imperative and we slept the time away in some small backwater. I don't even know the name of it. We tried to stop in a place called Mahavelona but I never bothered do determine where the hell we ended up.

On the way into that town, whatever it was, we were harassed for ID by some guy claiming to be a cop. He demanded that I hand him my passport through the window. He didn't have a proper uniform, so I refused. Chris told him to “fuck off” and that prompted him to run into a little hut to retrieve a Kalashnikov which he proceeded to brandish cocked and ready. I didn't want to eat lead, so I handed over the passport. He thumbed through the pages pointlessly, and didn't even bother to check Chris.

We soon discovered we were in a bizarre little beach town full of Malagache tourists. For the next couple of days we ate delicious steak smothered in gravy and managed to find the time to watch a house burn down. Somehow amidst the shambles, we missed the World Cup final – quite a blow after watching nearly every match. After the days of rest, we were ready to hit the road again, our heads spinning in bouts of self doubt and depression. A day's journey took us to Soanierana-Ivongo where we planned to push further north to Maraonsetra and a jungle trek that may or may not even exist. At least our heads had cleared a bit and we were capable of appreciating our surroundings again.

We were plagued by a dearth of information and we had no guidebook. Rather we were operating on the advice of a self proclaimed “Sea Gypsy” I had met in a pub back in Mozambique a month ago. Pressed for time, particularly after losing two days in an quasi-alcoholic stupor, we needed some assurance that Chris could make it through to the other side, and then somehow make it back to hit his flight home ten days hence. There was no internet, and not even a telephone we could use. Locals variously informed us that there were daily flights, weekly flights, no flights, cheap flights, expensive flights, but they all seemed to agree that the trip would take three days to cover about 200 km by 4x4. There were twelve rivers to cross and no bridges. After that, we would be in the jungle for anywhere between two days and a week, depending on who we asked. Too much risk. We turned back. Defeat. For now.

More villages and the journey took on a life of its own. Excited kids shrieked when they saw us and we snapped them up with cameras worth more than the whole village. It was abundantly clear that any experience would come from the journey itself and not the destination. And so it did. We moved in remote corners, meeting old men, dodging chickens and following dirt paths to nowhere.

We blew through Tamatave again and couldn't seem to stay out of trouble. Out at an empty bar in the wee small hours, some chubby lady spat a mouthful of beer on us. I told her off and this prompted some skinny little twerp to get in my face with strong words and menacing gestures. The bartender came over to investigate the ruckus, which led to the following exchange:

“What is happening here?”
“That bitch spat beer on us”
“Don't call my mom a bitch.” Fine.
“Okay, well this mother------ came over and started shouting at us”
“Don't call my step-dad a mother------.” Checkmate.

Gracious in victory, he presented us with some creamy consolation shots before we headed back to the hotel soaked in beer as his mother danced on the bar, fat and wasted.

Back in the capital we got ourselves together and reformulated plans again. There was an island to the north where, according to that old Sea Gypsy, the women were blessed with unimaginable beauty. That would be our next goal.

We hopped a taxi to the bus stop, but it inexplicably took us way out of town. When I asked the driver where the hell he was going he replied “il y'a une marché la bas” (there is a market over there). Not good enough. I coaxed him into a U-turn and about an hour later we were finally at the Taxi-Brousse stand, swarmed by sellers. That remained the status quo for the next four hours and though they were annoying, we bought two hats and a watch between us.

The Taxi finally filled and we set out in the evening, driving through the country by night. The police here are incredible. They set up rogue roadblocks, sometimes every 500 metres where they expect un 'tit pot de vin (bribe) to wave us through. They take the money from hardworking people like our drivers, a couple that lives in their taxi. The couple makes money only from the freight they pack on top resulting in them overloading the vehicle. That meant they were breaking the law. Without the corruption, their business would fall apart so it seems to work for everybody. Its amazing to see how integral the bribes are to the economy here.

finally made Nosi Bé, that small island off the northwest coast of the mainland where found locals dancing on tables, free and wild. Getting there was no easy task and I had visions of my own demise on an overloaded speedboat in rough seas. We crashed through and finally managed to relax after 26 hours of non-stop travel. We were soon making a name for ourselves around town. “I love how I'm getting the eye from the pregnant chick.” The night had begun.

The days soon began to blur together. There was beach and sun by day, and wild energetic parties with thumping music all night. Every night. The strange thing about the scene is that it was driven by the locals, not the tourists. In fact, this was the first place in Madagascar where I had seen any concentration of tourists to speak of. They were nearly all old men, walking tall and proud along the beach with beautiful young girls, some a little too young. Ten years prison does not seem to deter anything, and the most sickening aspect was the pride with which the guys were showing off their under-aged prizes. Apparently 22 were busted last month! Strange fellows - there was a German priest with a congregation in Nigeria. He was whoring every night.

From what I can gather this transpires as a calculated strategy by both parties. In an area that suffers from so much economic depression, sugar daddies are seen as a legitimate means of income. In any event, I remain disgusted. Notwithstanding the bad (read 'criminal') behaviour, I reckon that it is an incredible place to retire. Prime land in town, 200 metres from the beach goes for goes for $0.50 USD per square metre – about $60 000 USD capital investment will set you up in mansion from which you can run peipheral small businesses fruitlessley under the tropical sun (if you so desire) in an effort to offset some costs. Count on another $10 000 USD per year to survive and get around and you're set.

We quickly tired of the usual scene and we stuck to the local bars, largely free of French and Italian perverts. Other nights we gravitated back to our balcony where we would sit and listen to tunes against a backdrop of crashing waves. On one such night, we were sitting out sipping colas, when Chris said to me “Nothing's been conventional since we've me. We got no plan, no schedule, we just rock up hungover in some fucked up town, pick up chicks, find a party or get lost in a situation we've created...” I began to think about that: where was the culture? what were we doing here? Did it matter? Perhaps in some ways this unconventional method yields more insight than following a planned route, taking impressions from the pages of a guidebook.

The insight that arises touches on subjects that many people are afraid to speak of. I am not one of them. Over a couple of beers I am amazed how willing the locals were to delve into the degradation that I perceived arising from the prostitution and quasi-prostitution that existed in that beautiful little beach town. It suggested calculated strategy on the part of the locals involved in order to create economic opportunities where they would not have otherwise existed.

It also revealed that nobody knew where Canada was. I sketched a map in my notebook to confirm said fact and was astounded when local after local placed it in central Africa. Access to education and classroom resources evidently contributed to the number of people that took to the bars each night in search of a few bucks. One such individual was a midget dude who offered to do "anything we want" back at the hotel for the bargain sum of 25 000 Ariary ($12 USD). We thought we had misunderstood, but managed to reconfirm our initial perception, provoking great hilarity on the beach the next day. The midget was questioned in Malagasy and replied "ya, that's what I am like, so what?"

Enough was enough and after a few days, Chris was off to catch a flight and I was on my own again. I hit the road.

Two hours north I stopped at Reserve Speciale de l'Ankarana where I spent the next couple of days sleeping and spotting lemurs in the forest. They are amazing little creatures, not quite simian but unlike anything else either. Millions of years ago, they split from the line that gave us monkeys and human beings, and developed here in isolation for 120 million years??? That can't be right! Where's a guidebook when you need one. Where's the internet for that matter? In any event, they jump through the trees and make little squeaks. Pretty awesome really. By night, the glint of their eyes gives them away in the torch-light. I stood marvelling at the little critters as they stared at me with intelligence and curiosity. The park is full of them along with baby chameleons, strange lizards, harmless snakes, odd birds, jagged pinnacles, karst formations, underground rivers, and massive caves swarming with bats.

The true highlight of my time there was the hut that I lived in. It was constructed of eucalyptus branches and logs with a palm leaf roof. The only metals used were the nails holding it together. It was just like the ones I saw in the villages by the highway. I lay awake under the mosquito net, listening to the wind whipping through the gaps in the walls, but the roof held firm under sprinkles of rain. It was the most authentic dwelling I'd stayed in since that yurt back in Kyrgyzstan.

With local experiences come local hazards. I discovered this when I was stung by a creature that had squirmed its way into my clothes bag. I spent the next few minutes sucking my hand and wondering if it was poisonous. I made my way to the park entrance and met a woman and man taking their turkey for a walk. She said the creature was famous in those parts for administering nasty bites, but not poisonous. Confidence restored, I just tried to ignore the achey sting in my hand. It stung of authenticity and I felt that I had truly found my feet, raging party in my wake and only the unknown ahead.

I pulled into Diego Suarez, a sleepy colonial town on the north coast of the island, and had soon managed to find some new friends. I'd decided to extend my visa and change my flight, seemingly simple, but prohibitively complex, and requiring me to stick around a couple of days. In an involuntary effort to support the local economy, I managed to get robbed on my first night in town.

I was walking home alone in the early morning hours when I found myself flanked by two guys. I knew immediately that it wasn't going to go down well, and turned my head to see three more behind me. Never show fear. “Qu'est ce qui s'passe?” (What's up?) One of the guys grabbed the toque from my head and the other started feeling my pocket. I grabbed him by the face and pushed him hard. He didn't like that. They circled around and one guy had the courtesy to ask “est ce que je peux foullier dans tes poches” (Can I rummage through your pockets). Absolutely not. “Va te faire foudre” (translation omitted – not sufficiently courteous).

Another guy came up to me so I kicked him in the chest as hard as I could. That earned me a bit of respect: the rest just stood there like dullards. I had my small camera, a cel phone that I bought here for ten bucks and no money. They seemed most interested in the pocket containing my notebook. I pulled it out and started waving it in their faces “C'est ca que vous voulez? Ca ne vaut rien” (Is this what you want? It's worthless). One of the guys behind me snatched it from my hand. I tried to kick him too as they ran off into the night.

I couldn't believe what had just transpired. I saw another man walking in the street and explained the situation to him. We walked together for a while back toward my hotel. The robbers circled around and started coming toward us again. I had no way out. They threw my notebook at me – illiterate assholes – and started shouting in Malagasy. I picked up the notebook and pushed past them. They didn't touch me again, and, I dare speculate that a glint of ferocity twinkled in the eye of the animal they had cornered.

No point looking for the cops, they were all back in the bar, half drunk in combat fatigues. I just walked swiftly as my courageous new friend argued with them angrily in Malagasy. I had no money for a taxi so I just started jogging once out of sight. Subsequently I was informed that these packs of bandits were called Foroche, and sometimes roved in groups as large as 20 individuals. I was lucky I guess. It was the first incident of its kind since I was back in Mongolia, here in a beautiful country with such kind and friendly people. Totally unexpected, and ultimately harmless. I did lose my toque though. "Where's yur toque eh?"

In spite of that negative experience, and the fading 'memory' of a spiked drink, the thought of Madagascar already fills me a warm nostalgia. I cannot envision a more pristine place. I arrived here with nothing more than a map pasted in my notebook, marked with lines and stars, each representing advice I had collected over the last weeks and months. There it was, spread before me in ink and pulp. I have discovered so much more than I ever thought possible, from the rivers of the east flowing seaward through the palms, to the arid plains of the west, that rise and fall as the highway snakes its way through dusty villages. I just gave myself over to whatever there was to discover. So there it is. More to come.

Different Worlds

2010-07-28T07:58:00.000-07:00

05/07/10

Three in the morning on a warm Maputo night, I stood in Gil Vinchente surrounded by cinnamon skin and beautiful smiles. I didn't belong there: all I could think about was the road. I walked back that night, along Aveneida Vladimir Lenin and wound my way along Aveneida Patrice Lumumba. One last night in the top bunk after a week in that city of souls that pulses like a jungle to the beat of an Iberian rhythm, comforting and strangely familiar as I close in on the end of the African continent.

I'll never forget cruising the streets in that 4x4 cranking Shakira and rolling up to bars at three in the morning, feasting at that fish market on lobster and prawns, invited to act as a witness at a Namibian wedding two months hence, and I never got back the 300 meticas ($10 USD) that I lent to Geraldo, the smooth crack smoker with his congenital birth defects. I gotta cut my losses and move on.

Enough tearful goodbyes in bus stations. Its not the first time and soon I draw up to the border with Swaziland. I am quickly through and soon the spectre of police corruption lifts its grim shadow and I am one step closer to the end of the continent. As the vehicle plies the winding highways at 140 km/h, the sun sets over the great valley that defines this tiny AIDS ravaged country. I look at those with me in the minibus and think about probablities – 40% of 15 – 49 year olds – the virus likely flowing freely in the veins of a half dozen of those around me.

I am a late arrival and end up somewhere outside Mbabne, in a house full of white Swazis and South African rastas. The morning breaks and I look at my empty wallet. I'm not here for long and decide against cashing up on useless currency. Rather I sit in the comfort of a living room with my map spread before me, planning the final fase of my journey as the rain falls in sheets outside. This old map has a tear in every fold now, and a blue line that represents everything that I have become as I drifted through the last couple of years. I take stock and do a count: forty three countries, across four continents and so far from home. This is the closest thing to home I have felt in a year. Comfort.

South Africa beckons and I roll in on a Friday night to pay a visit to my buddy Ladislas, better known around town as 'Big L.' He picks me up from the heart of downtown, a no-go area for a couple of white boys. Or is it? We take it easy the first night with a couple of beers and watch the football. The next day we hit the clubs and take over the whole scene in a binge of hilarity and alcohol. I am shocked at how mixed things are, with different people intermingling, black and white, all hitting the booze at a pricey little nightspot. But who cares about that. I want to explore deeper and Big L is exactly the guy to make it happen.

The following evening, we head out for some trouble and drive to a rough area of Johannesburg to see things for what they really are. In a corner pub all we find are unemployed souls with friendly smiles. After some initial looks of surprise, people chat with us, offer up their seats and there is not a single negative look. I ask them if the area is dangerous and I am told it is not. We tell the locals that we want some danger and they direct us down the road toward another spot.

We make our way and park up the car. The city is a ghost town. The old buildings have a dilapidated appearance, the city is a shadow of its former self. I see glimmers of home but it is sufficiently run down to distinguish it and the streets are dead. We are the almost the only ones. We see the odd soul, but in a strange reversal, people seemmore wary of us that we are of them, crossing the street and picking up the pace to avoid us. There is certainly a sense of danger close at hand.

We see a group of cops right in the heart of downtown and decide to go over and say hello. They ask us what the hell we are doing around there and we say we are sighseeing downtown at night. This draws a significant amount of apprehension and they offer to drive us to a taxi. We decline but soon find ourselves walking the streets with a police escort, passing a dodgy squat that has taken over some prime real estate on the ground floor of an old building. We duck into a bar and befriend some guys from Burundi. After a beer and a chat, its back out on the streets where we find yet a dodgier area and a hotel bar with people hovering around the door giving the impression of a big drunken urban beehive.

We walk up to the entrance and the guy asks us if we are sure we want to enter. We ask if it is safe to go inside, and he says sure, but if there are any problems to come down to see him and he'll sort us out. At the top of the stairs we manage to befriend a few more thuggish bouncers and we receive another offer of protection. I think they are impressed that we have shown up, there are certainly no other white-boys for miles around.

The bar was a disgrace, swarming with whores, some of whom appeared to be in the final fase of AIDS with black marks all over their faces. We stayed well clear and befriended some of the guys hanging out. I chatted with one who eventually revealed he was an undercover cop. He was a little pissed and I have no idea why he wanted to share that with me, showing me the badge and everything. Cops aren't so popular in those parts. I grew weary of our conversation and wound up talking to some scrawny little pimp in a faux mink jacket. Things are not always what they seem.

We blew out of that scene and plied the streets for a while cranking hip hop in late model Honda Civic burning every red light. You don't stop around here. I have a baseball bat between my legs and sit dreading the possiblity that I may have to use it. It is what it is.

I can't understand how people can live in that city, perhaps they isolate themselves in the all white areas, shopping in high end shops and avoiding public transport, a defacto apartheid, an economic separation of people, a new city where the whites have fled, never to cross the proverbial tracks, never to mix with majority. We never had a problem but it was clearly not safe. Had we gone too far? Perhaps.

I leave JoBurg on an empty public bus. It seems that nobody in Sandton rides the bus. We crawl through the crowded streets past the distant cooling towers of the nuclear reactors. I am soon on the train headed for the airport. Its the first flight i've taken since that short jump across Syria six and a half months ago. And why not. It's the only way to get to the end of the world. I'll be back here but there is no way I want to sit around a pay world cup prices all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope.

It was the terminal point of the journey I conceived in my little office back in Toronto all those months ago. Off the rails and all over the world, I'm not ready to stop quite yet...

Dos Mulocos Mocambicans

2010-06-12T04:41:00.000-07:00

Nobody had d said a word in a long while. I sat in the glow of the dashboard as bats fluttered through the glare of of headlamps and back into the darkness. The overloaded truck had been blasting over the tarmac for hours, lumbering south through dusty towns in the middle of nowhere.

I thought back to the 1600 km I had just blown. Serious Ks. Concrete towns and mud hut villages. Kids everywhere naked and dirty, their noses running and their asses needing wiped by the ladies at the roadside selling live chickens and produce. This hitch was the best of the trip so far.

This was Mozambique. There's a kalashnikov on the flag and the soldiers had cocked one in my face the night before. We got shaken down on a dark pothole ridden highway and they roughed up a local behind the van. That was far behind us now.

My thoughts started to drift back over the last couple of weeks. After that dusty marathon through every outpost in Tanzania I managed to cool my heels for a couple of weeks on the shore of Lake Malawi. This marked the end of my journey through the great rift valley which had intermittently bound me within its mountainscapes from the Dead Sea to that great lake - thousands of kilometres due south. The lake was warm and clean, idyllic and wonderful, not so different from Glamor Lake back in Haliburton but that doesn't make for a good story. Its more what was going on in the town that matters:

Nkhata Bay is a dusty, undeveloped little place with a few bars. Only one is full though. The locals come out in droves, drunk on sachets (little plastic packets of cane spirit) and sometimes trouble ensues. The first outing led me to encounter a Martha and Mazy, two charming local ladies who had some beef with a long term muzungu resident who had somehow crossed them through her liaisons with a number of local men. Or so they said.

In the end Martha strangled a rasta named Fortune who remarkably didn't retaliate. Mazy moved in to control the damage and had long words with the muzungu girl. This culminated in the muzungu telling Martha to bring it on and she stepped up to her and pushed her to the ground. In another strange turn, Martha didn't retaliate. Subsequent investigation suggests that she will get 14 years in prison if she beats up (yet another) muzungu girl. The altercation was swiftly terminated by a saucy interloper who turned up and bunched Mazy in the face, dropping her to the ground. Then everyone went back to the bar. Chatting with Mazy revealed that "it happens." I replied "No, it happens to you..."

I stuck around a couple of days to gossip in the aftermath of that wild night. This led to my acquaintance with the stepson of the president of Malawi. He was a tall lanky Brit and we picked up quick because I was treating him like anyone else. It wasn't until the following evening that his entourage of ass kissers showed me the respect he commanded. In any event, we were buddies so I scored an invite in his motorcade to head south to the capital.

I had managed to pick up with a Canadian who rolled into the hostel and he was in for the mission. Next thing I knew we were having beers with the president's stepson, dodging his entourage and mingling with the locals. The guy was a specimen, 6'6" mega lanky and strollin around in jammer shorts with a beer and no shirt. The entourage caught up but they were swiftly quarantined in the back of a pickup while we headed to the bar for some suds. When it was all over, the entourage was demoted to the box and Chris and I jumped into the cab with the prodigal son. It was clear who was in charge of this mission, but just for good measure, he commanded the driver and bodyguard to stop the vehicle so he could go glad-hand the locals. He somehow picked up another beer and we were soon off again.

When PresoSon dropped us off, I realized that high society was a hollow hope. Instead I had found a different partner in crime and it we were back out on the road headed south. I spent that night in a hostel getting bad local advice about the Mozambican border. As a result I was engaged against my will in a horrible conversation exploring topics such as rape that involved wild tangents with some moments of very dark hilarity in a thick Scottish accent.

The next morning was time to make some ground. We hit the border at Dedza but got bounced back. That's nothing new, but the lack of cash amplified the inconvenience and we hit a bus full of locals on a twenty dollar bill. They refused us change, but soon the whole bus was behind us and they caved to the pressure. We were coasting on 1000 kwacha ($6.66 USD): the hitching began. We hit a pickup to the border and they tried to bounce us back again. No way.

We stood looking dirty, tired and dejected until the customs officer decided he could help us out after all. Soon we were across and crushed into a minibus. Enter AK wielding soldiers under the direction of a teenager with hatred in his eyes. It takes more than that to stop us out here, so we were soon in Tete, booked into a dive and ready to hit the bus the next morning.

Mozambique has almost no transportation network whatsoever. Nobody kinows anything about how to go from place to place. At this point in time I have given up on guidebooks and use only the map of the country that I tore out. It is dirty and tattered but its all I need, the old guide-brick hacked to pieces at the bottom of my bag, useless and long forgotten. There are buses of course, but they all seem to have the curious habit of departing at 4:00 in the morning. This of course flies in the face of my 'rock up and go' approach, not to mention being completely absurd. The solution of course is hitchiking and after a night in Tete in one of the worst dumps I have ever overpaid for we were at the side of the highway looking dejected in the sweltering heat as big-rig trucks rattled past, the drivers gesturing ambiguously at us.

After an hour on the side of the highway, a pastor from Burkina Faso and his accomplice picked us up and we were hurtling to Beira in comfort. We made great time and were met at the end by the cousin of a friend of a friend of a friend who picked us up and found us a cheap place to spend the night. We took him out for a couple of beers and were having a great time until we paid the third bill of the night. Sick of getting milked for cash, the evening degenerated significantly and we split on horrible terms. After few beers by the beach with some locals who wanted a meal ticket we managed to piss off pretty much every whore in town ("If you girls want us to keep hanging out with you, you're gonna have to buy us a drink").

I managed to clean myself up in the morning and cut about two weeks of shag from my filthy beard. After that it was time to go again. The map had misled us and the bus had left at 4:00 in the morn (again) so there we were backtracking to the crossroads to head south. Nobody knew anything about any bus, bus station, or transportaion of any kind. They couldn't even direct us to the highway that led out of town, so it took a while to get moving. Once we found the road, we really started to make some tracks. After a crowded matatu ride, we were left at the junction at Inchope where the road turns south all the way to Maputo. We walked through the kids and loads of ladies selling oranges, sat on some sacks full of maize before landing a sweet spot in the cab of a Freightliner with a friendly driver named Jojo and were soon rumbling 600 km south. We blew through the night and finally arrived at the junction of Vilankulo. Enter Ghost Rider:

As Jojo pulled away, we sat for a moment in the darkness until out of nowhere a man approached us in perfect english. "You guys going to Vilankulo?" "Of course." "You staying here for the night or are you looking for a private car." "We are not sure." With that he turned and fled into the darkness toward some approaching headlights. Tires screeeeeeched and we were sure he'd been hit. It was not so and soon we were cruising over the potholes at 140km/h.

Here it is - another beach paradise in another burned out country recovering from vicious civil war. Mocambique: the only country with a Kalashnikov on its flag.

Dusty Roads to a Simple Life

2010-05-28T00:55:00.000-07:00

Compared to Congo, Burundi seemed like a quiet backwater, a safehaven where nothing could harm me. This is what passes for instability and ethnic conflict these days?

In Bujumbura, nothing happens. You can get some good coffee and meat on a stick, but there is no action and it seems that the daily siesta is strictly enforced. This is most inconvenient when trying to do anything, let alone find a way out. There is no information, far flung bus booking offices, ostensibly unaware of each other's existence, and a port that is shut. There are rumors on the travel circuit of a boat that sails on Tanganyika to Congo, Zambia, or Tanzania, but nobody in town has ever heard anything about this.

Worse yet, I had a three day visa that expired on Sunday. That is what happens when you just rock up at the border with no information and no real plan, reliant on nothing more than your charming personality. I was directed to the 'commisariat de la parfa (or parfe?)' to see about getting a few days added. I was hopeful that this would provide me with sufficient time to catch a boat out of the country, either back into Congo, or south to Zambia. Seeing as I arrived Friday afternoon, this meant that everything was closed the entire time I was in Burundi, including the office where I could extend my visa. That meant it was time to move.

I have grown accustomed to making moves without any real assurance of success, so I decided to take a matatu south to Mabanda, near the Tanzanian border. I ended up next to a guy with rank B.O., so bad that I hung my head out the window and felt like puking for significant portions of the journey. It was cramped, bumpy and uncomfortable, and it was only about to get worse.

Once we crossed the border, the passengers of the first matatu moved into another one (now called a daladala) that was significantly more decrepit. I pulled back the slliding door to get in and it fell off the track. In true African fashion, I decided that this was no problem and just rammed it back into place with brute force. This solution proved somewhat acceptable.

The unacceptable part was the number of people that crammed into the vehicle. There were 25 inside a Toyota Hiace minibus designed to hold 15 and equipped to hold 19. People had brought ridiculous things with them. One woman had a couple of crappy wooden chairs with her that she had kept on her lap for the first five hours of the journey. People bought enormous balls of dough wrapped in palm leaves. These were variously stashed in inconvenient places throughout the vehicle. There was a large bunch of plantains on the floor at the back, eliminating any leg room that would have been available to passengers. I couldn't believe how idiotic it was: nobody was bringing anything that couldn't be procured locally at our destination. Besides that, the whole lot of it couldn't have been worth more than five bucks.

To make matters worse, one lady had brought five kids with her but she didn't take responsibility for any of them. Her son was about eleven years old and spent most of the ride fighting with his brother to sit on my lap. The road was rough and my legs were squashed to begin with so for my part, I expended great efforts defending my lap against a the extra passengers. Their mother didn't have anyone on her lap and as far as I was concerned, it was her responsibility, not mine. The road out of Burundi was not easy.

After rattling through the dirt for four hours including a brief detention wherein the driver bribed some men with Kalashnikovs, we stopped about twenty kilometres short of the city so that the driver and the conductor could issue us with tickets. It was one of the most idiotic things I have ever experienced, the chaos and irrationality of Africa smacked me in the face and I began to wonder if it was all worth it. The conductor would not accept my money because another passenger pointed out that there was a rip in the US $5 I gave him. We arrived at Kigoma at nightfall where I discovered some filthy grease had spilled all over my rucksack. Choosing a decidedly African approach, I presented the same $5 to the same man and this time it was accepted without incident.

I had heard further rumours that a boat headed out of here to Zambia and went down to the port to make some inquiries. I couldn't find the port I needed, but ran into the immigration inspector at another port. He explained to me that the boat “might” be leaving on Wednesday, though it “might” also be taking refugees to the Congo and thus be unavailable.

I didn't fancy a lengthy wait in Kigoma so I headed down to the train station. It appeared abandoned and was falling into a state of disrepair. A placard on the wall touted the designation “Cleanest Station 1965.” There was a rusty machine on the pillar labeled “platform tickets” and there was nobody anywhere. I wandered into an unlocked office and had a look around but neither this or my cries for attention elicited any notice. Strike two.

The last option available to me was a journey through the untrodden wilds of Western Tanzania, a journey of indeterminate length and outcome. Exhausted, I had a passable dinner and headed back. I was briefly accosted by a man begging who responded to my refusal by declaring “You want make me die!”Indeed, it was not only my intention, but also my responsibility (it is well known that muzungu is wildly rich). The next day I headed down to the bus park an caught a daladala to Kasulu, a small dusty town in the middle of nowhere. It was a wild ride in a vehicle that lurched forward in gear as soon as the ignition was turned. The driver couldn't shift without engaging the windshield wiper and he had a curious habit accelerating away from boarding passengers, only to stop once they had managed to leap aboard. Nonetheless we arrived in Kasulu after a high octane race through the back country. From there I transferred to another vehicle, and after a three hour delay, I was hurtling over the dirt tracks through the bush toward Mpanda.

The driver was really hammering the gas and after a couple of hours the vehicle overheated. Nobody thought of simply switching the engine off to let it cool a while. The conductor decided that the problem could be repaired by draining all the hot water out of the radiator. Once this was accomplished we tried to set out again but the whole plan was doomed to fail. The conductor spoke french so I was able to explain that they needed to put water back into the radiator. Why didn't they know this? Usually these guys have supernatural abilities to keep beat up old vehicles running. Not this time. The driver and the conductor set out to find some water in the bush while I waited with the other passengers.

Soon enough a big truck came lumbering down the track. Nobody seemed to take much notice, but I figured it was a good idea to flag it down. When the truck began slowing down, litres of water began gushing out the front as it seemed that the truck had no radiator cap. There were now two vehicles sitting incapacitated at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Finally another truck arrived and happened to have a large amount of water. I refilled our radiator and watched as the trucks pulled away. We were still stuck since the driver was scouring the bush for a stream, armed with three large water bottles. Of course he had the keys.

I passed the time by throwing some rotten bananas into the bush and lobbing some heavy rocks at what appeared to be a large wasps' nest in a nearby tree (with negative results). Finally two figures appeared on the road, coming back with three full bottles of water. They were pleased to find the problem solved and soon we were off again.

By nightfall we were in Mpanda, another dusty town in the middle of nowhere, but at least we were out of the bush for a while. Surprisingly, not much happens in Mpanda and after a night's sleep I was foraging for another lift. I caught wind of a bus headed to Sumbawanga, another town about three hundred kilometres to the south, and headed to the bus stand at half past six in the morning to conduct further investigation. The good news was that there was indeed a bus. The bad news was that it would not depart until ten o'clock.

I proved to be quite a curiosity as I sat in the bus stand. Adults and children alike were awestruck to see the muzungu sitting on a bench. I couldn't quite understand why (i.e. “I saw this muzungu sitting on a bench and it was AMAAAAAAAAZING. He was just sitting there!”). One guy stared at me for an hour and two kids started crying when the saw me. Admittedly I looked like shit at this point but I like to attribute the tears to unfamiliarity with the muzungu. I heard countless conversations that went “bla bla bla muzungu bla bla muzungu” and one man approached and said “Give me easy money.” He was one of the few who knew any English, but in spite of the language barrier, I am under the impression that my presence caused quite a sensation.

I was equally intrigued by them, and sat watching as women showed up with babies on their backs and tables upside down on their heads. The tables were carefully packed with pots, pans, food, thermoses, tubs, jugs, charcoal, stoves, brooms, and water. Once the tables were deposited, the businesses were up and running in short order, making bland fried dough available for a cheap breakfast. One of the ladies was helped out by a guy plucking chickens that he stored in a bucket of water. Nearby another man prepared a soup made of cow guts that I watched him cut into a pot. I didn't try the broth, but take it that it was substandard because one woman dumped her bowl back into the pot and demanded her money back.

The bus arrived at ten o'clock and after a further two hour delay, we were headed out over the dirt tracks toward Sumbawanga. The passengers had assembled a laundry list of idiotic things to bring on a bus including a large fish and live chickens held in plastic bags. I was mystified at the thought that none of this would be available at the destination.

More bumps and dust but finally the bush gave way to the panorama of a beautiful horizon lined with solitary mountains and endless clouds. I clung to the though that there would only be one more day of this. I was sick of surviving on biscuits and dehydrated from my zero-piss strategy since the bus never stopped. We rolled into Sumbawanga well after dark and I managed to get an onward ticket to Mbeya for six the following morning. The town was surprisingly busy with many packed bars that spilled out onto the street. After finding a cheap hotel, I sat and ate fatty meat from the BBQ, and sucked back a couple of beers before bed.

I was up at the crack of dawn again and this time the bus left on time. No breakfast for the fourth day in a row, and no lunch either. I was fed up and even the beautiful landscape couldn't redeem my increasingly negative outlook. Travel in rural Africa is painful and exhausting. We finally hit Mbeya where I pulled my pack out of the bus. It was covered in dust and I brushed a bit off before heaving it onto my back. This drew stern criticism from a man standing nearby. He was getting in my face speaking in swahili, and I think he was telling me to move the bag. I was not in the mood, I was covered in dust, and had just spent the last seven hours with a half dead chicken under my feet and throngs of luggage against my shins. I told the man to “fuck off” and he kindly took the suggestion. I moved to another bus that took me toward the border where I transferred to a final bus that brought me the rest of the way.

I hired a boda boda, a bicycle with two foot pegs on the back, that is used to ferry passengers to the border (border). Once across, I dispatched the touts and took a shared taxi into Karonga. I found all the rooms expensive but I was exhausted. I couldn't use the bank so after hustling up some cash from the black market, I collapsed into bed for ten hours of mosquito bites.

All told, the journey from Bujumbura took in 1108 kilometres, 873 of which were on dirt tracks (roads?). It took me four days wherein I awoke at dawn and traveled until after nightfall. The 300 kilometres a day were gruelling and really hard on the behind. In the end, I found myself questioning my resolve to continue. After it all, I find myself looking at maps and speculating which rural towns are likely shitholes that I never want to visit.

The experience did give me some greater insight into rural Africa. I was amazed to see all the people that lived out there. We were truly miles from civilization, in the middle of the bush but the people just didn't stop coming. Men on bikes, women with babies bound to their backs, and children, thousands of children. It seems that there are several children for every adult. We passed earthen buildings with metal roofs that were swarming with children under five who would often run to the roadside to wave gleefully at the passing vehicle. Some sit naked on piles of dirt as nearby adults idle the time away under shady trees.

A large proportion of the young women I see have babies slung on their backs, wrapped in a colourful sheet. Some have another young child with them who has clearly been displaced by the newcomer. On other occasions, the little baby is strapped to the back of the young girl, leaving the mother free to carry the older one. For their part, the babies seem interested in sucking breasts and nothing else. They just hang on to mama's back until it's time for a feed. It is really nice in a way, but what lies beneath is a population explosion in an impoverished community, ill equipped to provide for the future of all these children.

I began to see food as subsistence. I hardly ate, surviving on biscuits and whatever fried dough was made available, sometimes finding some leathery beef dripping with fat and stewed plantains. 'Dining' does not exist out there and I ate only what was available when it was available. It really began to make me appreciate the opportunity to eat for pleasure, choices of what to eat, and eating what I enjoy. I had problems finding food, and the only reliable staple was fried dough that tasted like sawdust and grease. Perhaps that is why all the bags of live chicken were duly transported for hundreds of kilometres on public buses.

I am happy to be in Malawi now, and after two more days of moving, I will be on a beach at the shore of a great lake. I need a break, which will hopefully allow me to shake the negative mindset that has set in. I draw ever closer to the point I set as the terminus of this trip back in my office over two years ago. The tip of the continent is close at hand. And then...

Congo

2010-05-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

21/05/2010

In the Congo, you are on your own. Everyone counsels against entering. There are no tourists here. I am not the first however, there are rumors out there of others who have gone into the mountains to track the gorillas, or who have trekked to the top of active volcanoes. I have similar ambitions, but have to establish myself in Goma first.

The sense of instability is immediately apparent. Indian troops in UN emblazoned Tata trucks sit wearing blue berets, machine guns at the ready. Razor wire provides some control over the chaos. It is everywhere, on every fence around every house and every business. There is no law to shield you, no police to protect you. In fact the police are one of the biggest threats.

The level of corruption here is out of control. Walking in town, I am briefly detained, my passport seized, and the soldier in charge commands me to go buy them some beer. “C'est contre mes principes” I reply and the request changes to tea. I refuse and demand my passport back, prepared to waste as much time as it takes. After pawing through the pages, presumably searching for some pretense to extort me, the idiot begrudgingly hands it over. I suppose it is tough to collect a paycheck from the Congolese state. The result is horrendous corruption amongst officials. My next move is to photocopy passport and visa so the next time my adversary will have no leverage over me.

I have a few more things to attend to before I can get settled. I entered the country without sufficient funds to sustain myself for very long. It seems that back in Uganda, somebody helped himself to three hundred bucks from my stash while I was in the shower. Rwanda was not connected to any international banking networks so I arrived in the RDC intent on stretching cash instead of spending it.

Nonetheless, I was stuck with hundred dollar bills, trying to pay for things a dollar at a time. Commence operation 'Get Money.' Against all odds, I see a bank machine. This is generally a foolproof way to get local currency. If it works. Before I knew it, the thing had spit out three crisp hundred dollar bills. I still had no way to pay for anything, but at least I was cashed up again. I went into the bank to find the staff counting massive piles of money sitting on desks no more than a metre from the counter. I asked a few people to change some cash for me and they courteously referred me to each other. Finally I was told that they could change anything because “le Girand n'est pas ici” - it seems that no boss means no work.

It had not yet occurred to me that the entire economy of this town was underwritten by the US Federal Treasury. I hit the supermarket where I soon learned that I could pay for anything in USD. I was surprised to discover that Congolese Francs were useful mainly in place of coins. Any change was first provided in US bills, and the fraction in Francs. I took a pass on a pack of six juicy looking apples ($13USD!!!) and bought only some water, strategically paid with a twenty and voila, my cash problems were solved...pour l'instant...

I had made some friends and we decided to head out for a walk around town. Goma was destroyed by the lava from a volcanic eruption in 2002 and there is lava rock and fine black volcanic dust all over. We walked down to the lake and sat on the petrified lava flow looking out over the water under the screaming engines of an endless stream of UN planes. We were soon joined by some other people who began asking me lots of personal questions about my finances and what I was doing in Congo. One of them was in a police uniform and though that was likely part of a scam, he looked like a total joke and I wouldn't have listened to a thing he said (I later confirmed he was not a cop, the reason he was wearing the uniform went unexplained). I bullshitted them all to the greatest extent I considered credible and my friends decided it was time to go. As we walked back into town they cautioned me and told me that the people who had joined us were certainly sizing me up as a robbery target.

I appreciated this advice, though I was conscious of the danger I faced before I decided to cross the border. I was fortunate to make friends but I generally intend to rely on myself to avoid danger. I have strategies to minimize the risk and they usually work. Nonetheless I was happy to heed the advice of my new acquaintances as they warned not to trust too many people, to be careful what I told people about myself, and to make as many local friends as possible in case I get into trouble. They took great pains to ensure I understood that robbers and thieves lurked everywhere.

When I got back to my hotel later, I was warned by staff there that my new friends were also thieves and that I should stay away from them. I can only conclude that it's impossible to move through the heart of Africa without trusting anyone. Rather than dismissing every person I meet, the important thing is to restrict the vulnerability that I expose by providing only innocuous information, useless to anybody with ulterior motives. Ultimately I am on my own out here.

Seeing as I had managed to find sufficient cash to tide me over a while, I decided to look into visiting the mountain gorillas for a day. I was dismayed to discover that it would cost over six hundred bucks and soon decided to head out of town to the south of Lake Kivu. Local inquiry suggested that there was no danger on this route, though I was apprehensive on account of the unanimously positive assessment of the security situation and its contrast to the Canadian Government's “Avoid All Travel” rating. I put my faith in the locals and was soon aboard a ship bound for the southern end of Lake Kivu.

The trip was good and I got upgraded to first class because I am muzungu. I made clear that I would not pay extra for that and was asked to buy a beer for the steward. I thought that was a strange request, seeing as it was 7:00 in the morning, but once I moved to the upper deck, I discovered that virtually everybody in first class was swilling 720 ml breakfast beers. I opted for a coffee instead and sat at the back watching the mountains slide past me on either side.

After arriving safely in Bukavu on the southern tip of Lake Kivu, I headed out for a walk and was briefly detained again, this time by a harmless looking old man who lured me over with a friendly greeting, then demanded my passport. I asked him who he was and he said “Je suis l'etat” (I am the state). Louis XIV? I don't think so. I told him “ca ne m'interesse pas” and walked away under the gaze of curious locals. Lawless - you can do whatever you want. One impersonates(?) an official and the other dismisses him completely.

I had found some dive hotel with a stunning view of town as it extended out into the lake on peninsular formations lined with houses and dirt roads. I sat on the balcony watching the sun set as dense flocks of crows fluttered in the distance, chattering excitedly before settling in for the night. As the last rays of light reflected on the rusty red roofs that poked up amidst the lush trees, I thought of the Italian Riviera. I felt a million miles from that place but somehow this was not so different. There are many beautiful places in the world but it is not about their appearances. What sticks in the mind is what lies beneath the surface.

I began to plan the next leg of my journey into the unknown. The route I intended would take me south toward the city of Uvira. The road was uncertain and I had received conflicting assessments of the security situation. My biggest fear was roadblocks since I entirely vulnerable when moving from place to place since I am carrying everything I possess. Tales of gunmen at roadblocks came into my mind and I began to feel doubts. I would decide in the morning.

I retired to bed without dinner because it is difficult to find food in the Congo, and I had identified several ways that I could easily break into my room. Those things combined to quash my resolve to go out, leaving me only the concern that somebody could easily enter the room during the night. I set a trap for any would-be intruders and drifted off to sleep as mosquitoes whined in my ears.

I awoke and decided to move on according to plan. I got a ticket for Uvira and was soon on my way. Sometimes it is nice when the toughest decisions are made for you. The bus I had boarded crosses into Rwanda, to take advantage of paved roads and then re-enters Congo further south. This of course was not communicated to me at all. I quickly realized what was happening when we arrived at the border and did not fancy paying for another Congolese visa. I decided instead to head for Burundi which would ultimately provide me with more routes to the south. Tonight I sleep in Bujumbura.

I will miss the Congo. There is nothing like the exhilaration that comes from constant uncertainty. For the first time I became truly conscious of threats to my survival. I was alone, an alien without the protection of law, a target unable to rely anybody but myself. The Muzungu is a major curiosity for people of all stripes.

In the end, the experience is what you make it. Life in the Congo takes place in French, making it the first country that I have visited in years where I could speak a local language other than English. Conversation leads to insight and I learned a great deal in a short time. I am left with the impression that people have an overwhelming sense of hope for the future. The security situation has improved dramatically and though the presence of UN troops generates mixed emotions, the various militias and non governmental armed groups have been restrained for the time being. That is not to say that the whole country is safe, but at least there are some areas considered secure. With security can come development and eventually prosperity. I hope.

It was an invigorating experience traveling solo in such a lawless place. Turning up in the middle of a full scale UN peacekeeping operation was a new one for me. There are so many potential dangers to consider, that dealing with stupid touts or corrupt cops fade into the realm of distant memory. Everything of importance is immediately in front of you, volatile and unpredictable.

Heading back into the world of law and order I am left with a sense of fearlessness. My existence somehow seems less exciting, but at least I can sleep easy tonight knowing that I am safe. At this point in the trip it is all about the experience, there is only the experience. I don't think I have seen the last of the Congo.

Mille Collines

2010-05-27T07:12:00.000-07:00

15/05/2010

From the Ugandan border in the north, the road winds its way through a steamy countryside beneath the peaks of the Virunga volcanoes. The highway follows the contours of the hills, passing through villages that lie so close together, one can scarcely tell them apart.

The landscape is not natural but remains remarkably beautiful. The green of abundance dominates the crop covered hillsides, punctuated with patches of red earth, freshly sown, or golden stalks left behind after the harvest. Villagers tread everywhere. Children make their way along the roadside carrying bales of fresh produce on their heads. Old men push crop laden bicycles up long hills before speeding down to the markets.

In spite of the perceived abundance, the stream of people reveals a sobering reality. This place is seriously overpopulated. The results speak for themselves. The jungle that once enveloped the hillsides has long disappeared in favour of terraces that now blanket the countryside entirely. The fields are full of people cultivating by hand. There are people everywhere.

Another eight hundred thousand lie beneath hundreds concrete slabs adorned with purple ribbons. Their memorials are everywhere, inescapable reminders of the brutality and horror that gripped this land only sixteen years ago.

The Kigali Memorial alone is the last resting place of some 200 000 victims. As I walked around the gardens past a dozen mass graves, I finally began to appreciate the magnitude of what happened here. The numbers speak for themselves, but it was not until I saw the expanse of tomb covered land that academic awareness turned into a horrific reality. Sealed with massive concrete slabs and decorated with flowers, the tombs are completely impersonal and present an overwhelming sense of the scale of the slaughter.

They are not just in Kigali either. There are towns where graves encase the bodies of hundreds of thousands more. According to the locals, there are still mass pits yet to be discovered. There are churches where people sought refuge, where genocidaires waited to kill and kill again. The graves themselves illustrate the scale of the genocide. It is the clothes of the victims piled on shelves, half rotten, or the skulls of the dead, hacked and smashed open that left me incredulous.

The most potent example was undoubtedly the memorial at Gikongoro, a small town in the southwest, a couple of hours outside the capital. Here in a technical school lie the remains of over 800 people including children. They are not entombed but rather laid out on shelves in the barren classrooms in a state of mummification. Months after the genocidaires had fled, these were excavated from a mass pit. They had not decomposed because they were packed too tightly together for oxygen to penetrate and permit decomposition. They were preserved with lime and now lie on those wooden shelves, their hair gradually falling off, their skulls gaping from fatal blows. A stench fills the air. It is not overwhelming, though it seems to grow stronger as I am led from room to room in a seemingly endless encounter with unimaginable wickedness.

As I walk back to town along the dirt road, I look out at the fields sprawling over the hillsides beneath me. I am overwhelmed and can't even imagine how the red earth beneath my boots was once stained with blood. The villagers wave with smiles on their faces, the children run out to greet me. How could this be the site of such hideous abomination.

Some of the genocidaires went to prison. They are the ones that you see in the fields wearing pink or orange, they are the condemned. Others have served their sentences and are back in the community, living alongside survivors whose families they helped to massacre. Perhaps most disturbing are the hundreds of thousands that fled to Zaire, who are presumably still there festering in their genocidal ideology.

I am left to wonder how it happened. How did they turn into killers. How does one go from sowing seeds and harvesting corn to exterminating 'cockroaches' as a matter of right.

Dying in Paradise

2010-05-16T03:30:00.000-07:00

The rolling hills outside Kabale create a barrier around the depths of Lake Bunyonyi. Beyond the terraced farms, mists fringe the periphery of a forbidding jungle that envelops the volcanic slopes. I hitchhike out through the countryside on dirt roads that twist through the rolling contours of the landscape, rising and falling over the lush green hillsides. I climb out at a small marketplace and head up the dirt road toward the jungle. I am determined to visit the Batwa people, an ancient group of pygmies that now live on the edge of the jungle.

I engaged a local man named Fred to translate for me and to show me the way to the village. We walk together for an hour or so, leaving the road behind and penetrating deeper and deeper into the unknown. The dirt tracks lead through the bush and give way onto spectacular scenes of lake Bunyonyi which now lies hundreds of metres beneath. It was not easy to organize this trip. It is easy to visit Pygmies if you want to watch some sort of dance performance or otherwise contrived tourist spectacle. It is not so simple if you want to turn up at the village for a chat with the chief.

They are not easy to find, and the Batwa are some of the most marginalized people in this country. In 1994, the government removed them from the forest in the interests of conservation of the jungle and its animal inhabitants. No doubt this is a good cause, but it has suffered from extremely poor implementation and now leaves the Pygmie population dispossessed, impoverished, destitute, and unable to support itself.

Upon my approach to the village I am greeted by a group of children. There are lots of wide smiles and shrieks of excitement as they run along beside me on little legs. These people were mythical to me, the type of people that you hear about in tall tales told by travelers from a bygone era. But here they were in front of me, scampering barefoot over the path at the edge of their ancient forest home.

I was struck by their distinct appearance. The Batwa are diminutive people, none of the men taller than my shoulder. There were tiny little babies carried about in packs strapped to the children's backs, unimaginably cute and born into a newfound reality. They may never know their jungle.

This is a people who pursued an ancient mode of subsistence until their relocation some sixteen years ago. Prior to that they hunted game and gathered the bounty of the jungle. They survived in this way for centuries, if not longer; living people continuing an ancient tradition that predates the domestication of plants and animals, the rise of civilization.

They had warning that they would be relocated. They chose to ignore it. They did nothing to adapt to the imminent reality that their entire world would soon collapse. When they were relocated there was no literacy, no money, no employment. Their survival skills were no help outside the jungle.

The village is a smattering of poorly constructed mud shacks with leaky roofs, overlooking some poor farmland overgrown in weeds. There are a few goats nibbling at the scrub growing out of the land, and I am escorted over to a large building containing dozens of chickens. The chickens are dying because the community can't afford feed. One man shows me a 100 kg bag of rotting potatoes on the muddy floor of his shack. As the pile rotted, so did the hopes of producing a crop next year. All of these things came from an American donor.

There is a school in the village, a bunch of planks attached to logs with a metal roof. The rains came and I found myself huddled on some disused bench while more and more Batwa sought shelter in the building. There is no teacher, no books, no supplies, but at least the building is providing something for the community.

Once the rain cleared, I headed back out into the muddy village and hung around with my diminutive hosts. A couple of the men smoked cigarettes, and I asked them questions about Batwa life.

They had all converted to Christianity as the result of missionary activity once they had been displaced from their jungle home. These once proud hunters were now christianized. Mission accomplished, the missionaries had abandoned ship post-conversion leaving nothing more than a broken wooden sign showing that they had missionized the village. They left the community to fend for itself, its plight no doubt tempered by the promise of God's kingdom. A job well done. I later learned that many local people viewed the entire ordeal as a positive development. "At least now they know the truth" explained Fred, my faithful guide and translator. This is of course coming from a land where everybody I meet is a creationist. Doomsday cults exert an alarming amount of influence from their roadside chapels made of wood and tin.

Their traditions incompatible with the new reality, their integration non existent, the Batwa are living on the edge of extinction. Assimilation is the only option. People in the community are already starving to death. The chief asked me to send a 100 Kg bag of beans with the next muzungu. This would feed the 200 people in the village for a week. He did not seem to understand my explanation that I don't know when the next muzungu will turn up, let alone know who it will be. I left a modest donation with the chief and his eyes light up. I have seldom seen such delight arise out of such a small gesture. Fred warns them not to buy beer with the cash and later explains that this has been a problem in the community in the past.

I went out hoping to find some connection to my own origins, a people living in the most egalitarian and ancient form of social organization, living off the bounty of the land. What I found instead was a marginalized group, dispossessed and forced into an alien world and struggling for its survival. Once proud archers from deep in the dense jungle, they no longer wear barkcloth and animal skins. They rely on charity for their clothes and have virtually no means of defence in the metaphorical jungle that they now inhabit.

Their skills diminish as years pass by. Their knowledge of every plant an animal is nearly useless to them on their barren farming squats. The next generation will not even know how to hunt, breaking another link in the uninterrupted chain that connects us all back to our earliest origins. They have lost the battle and have been forced out of their homes. They cling to a foreign land that yields nothing but misery.

And looking out from the village I am struck by the beauty of the vista before me. As I look out over bountiful farms that fringe the lake hundreds of metres beneath me, I begin to feel as if the Batwa are starving in paradise. They share none of the fruits of this land and languish in a grim struggle for survival.

The jungle south of here is the home of Nyabingi, the rainmaker prophetess who once inhabited these hills. Her spirit continued to inspire fierce resistance to the colonial overlords long after her murder, purportedly moving across borders to enter Haile Selassie of Ethiopia when Mussolini invaded in 1937. From there she moved to Jamaica where the Rasta venerated her cult invoking righteous justice in smoky ceremonies to seal the demise of oppressors. This jungle is where she was born, this jungle full of spirits. Maybe one day she will return and help these beleaguered souls.

The Unbelievable and the Unattainable

2010-05-09T01:38:00.000-07:00

Kampala. I can hardly even begin to describe the savagery that I have observed here. My guesthouse is a den of 19 and 20 year olds who are abusing themselves in unimaginable ways. They are all kids on holiday from the developed world. Some of them visit an orphanage in the day, but by night they turn into drug fiends smoking the local draw and popping African Valium.

Those aren't the only pills. There's also the anti-AIDS meds that at least two of these kids are taking after ill advised encounters with prostitutes in dorm rooms. Nobody seems to think its a big deal and the debauchery continues.

It is the only place in Africa that I have found a western style hostel, particularly one with a major party vibe and loads of drunks every night. I took part in the action on a wild Friday night. I somehow managed to take up with some Rasta and a couple of overly friendly bar girls, and we ditched the place and cruised around that night until nine the following morning. The bars just don't close. People don't go home. In the end I had to give my new friends the slip, which involved a motorcycle chase through the streets. It was early Saturday morning and with some dangerous swerving and a hairpin turn, my driver managed to ditch the bike behind him and I walked into the hostel to see people eating their breakfast. I was happy with a small dose of the scene and really took advantage, having a total blast on my big night out. It's bound to be the last in a long time.

From here the kids are all going adrenaline hunting, bungee jumping and rafting in Jinja. I on the other hand am headed into the jungle, researching dangerous international borders, corrupt officials, guerrilla groups, gorilla groups, boat trips down the Congo river, the monthly train through the deep heart of the jungle, and some other activities provided that they appear dangerous or impossible to organize. Of course what else could be expected from one of the most remote and lawless regions on earth.

There is no road from the capital to the east of the Congo, only the river. There are few places so untouched by the modern world. Pygmies inhabit the jungle, living as hunter-gatherers and maintaining an unbroken tradition dating back to our earliest beginnings.

It is forbidding and I am told by some that it is impossible. I love the unattainable in every sense. I just hope I can keep sight of that when I am scooping river water over the side of a steamer with a bucket and a rope. Maybe I should just hope the monthly train turns up, try to keep a low profile and stay out of danger. Lost like Kurtz, I don't know where this adventure leads anymore. Maybe I never did.

In my mind, I am almost at the Cape of Good Hope, the tip of the continent. That was my focal point since I left: Terminus S. Africa 2010. It's no longer so clear to me. I suffer from a serious urge to head up the west coast through 20 more countries. I've burned through so many places already; Its all about the adventure now.

I sit on the back of a boda boda as it cruises the hillside opposite Kampala's low profile skyline in the warm night air. I think about what is next for me. The rider guns the engine and we fly over the wet tarmac into the city where the streets turn into a moving maze of unpredictability. We blow past the traffic, through a red light and gun it up the hill. Maybe nothing can stop me.

Nyumba Ya Mungans

2010-05-06T12:35:00.001-07:00

Back in Tanzania there's this village called Nyumba Ya Mungu. Its name means 'house of god.'

We hopped a bus and alighted in the middle of nowhere. A guy named George turned up because someone in Moshi had tipped him off about our arrival. We hung out for a while and went hunting for a coffee. After lengthy delay Rishidi turned up with his Dala Dala (matatu/minibus/etc). After a further delay, we were hurtling over a dirt road through lush green farmland. We crossed a large hydro-electric dam and rolled into the village in the late afternoon.

We were immediately escorted to the office of the village's 'executive officer.' He was a skinny bald man named Paulo. He sat pawing at a guestbook that dated back to at least 2006. He didn't invite us to sign it but rather escorted us to the local attractions.

They escorted us to the stream beneath the dam and showed us a hot spring where they 'cleared' the pool of the local kids who were doing laundry. They took us to the riverside where egrets fill the trees. They boasted of a crocodile that killed a Masai boy. We then proceeded to visit the quarry, a lake formed in a pit, apparently also swarming with crocodiles, though I observed none.

We discussed village dispute resolution mechanisms before Norm and I proposed a harebrained scheme to export granite countertops. That didn't fly, so I changed the subject, suggesting that they do some community meetings to build a strategy to preserve their way of life in the face of the large number of tourists they are expecting once the surroundings become a protected area. He seemed to appreciate that so I was happy about the breakthrough.

We headed back through the bush toward the back of the village. The tour concluded with a visit to Paulo's unfinished house which was duly admired by all. We were escorted to dinner where we both ate one of each item on the menu. We were finally led to a hotel, made to pay 5000 Tsh ($3.50) each for the private room and retired.

They were there to meet us at half past six the next morning. We were escorted to the dam-made lake where there would be fishermen. There was no fishermen. We began to walk back.

That's when George asked for the money for "motorcycle rental." I was expecting that, and also planned to give him a bit for his time "guiding" us. I told him to name an amount. He said 60 000 Shillings, nearly fifty bucks. I replied "That's high, It's too high George." These were the very guys who were asking me what I thought about Tanzanian hospitality the previous evening. In the end I told him it was a shame because he should have stated it at the beginning if he expected that kind of money. Too bad everyone is unhappy in the end. He tried to haggle, lying about the price of the motorcycle ride, and I told him he would receive 20 000 Shillings, no more. He replied "I have nothing to say." He did ask for my email address though, perhaps for that elusive guest book entry.

We unilaterally decided it was time to go so we hauled ass out of there at nine in the morning, less than eighteen hours after our arrival. Paulo jumped in the Dala Dala to make sure we were really leaving.

I hadn't experienced such "hospitality" since I was in North Korea.

Not much goes on in Nyumba Ya Mungu I suppose.

Boda Boda

2010-05-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

My restless feet have finally crossed into Uganda and the change is thoroughly welcome. It has been a huge adjustment getting used to African culture and I am finally picking up some subtleties I hadn't initially recognized. I am blending in much better as a result.

From Nairobi I rolled over potholes at high speed in the back of a Kampala Coach via Tororo crossing. Soon after the border, luscious vegetation took over from the rift valley vista. I opened the window of the bus and stuck my head out in the humid air. Change felt refreshing in the warm dusk.

After a night at a dive down by the new taxi park, I hit the streets. Kampala moves. Be quick or you get smoked by some errant vehicle. The streets are incredibly chaotic, up there with Tehran and Hanoi for wild manoeuvres in small spaces. The difference is that here the vehicles are mostly fourteen-seater minibuses with reinforced grills and lots of chinese writing all over them. The motorcycle taxis (Boda Boda) whip in between, defying death in the red mud of the streets.

The city is mobbed with people. I haven't seen the like of this since the Indian Subcontinent. There is colour everywhere. Clothing shops hang their wares in the streets. The sidewalks are covered in small businesses operated off blankets. Some of the ladies have small children sitting with them. They work hard for their money. Throngs of people stream past from dawn to dusk, but few stop.

The people are friendly and helpful, but the best part: no touts! It has been such a relentless dose of harassment for the last two months. I feel such a large negative weight lifted. There were two direct incidents with authorities that nearly led to my arrest for dubious offences. Hopefully I can keep it together here but I am planning to take some photos tomorrow so anything could happen. I'll do whatever I want.

Restless in Nairobi

2010-04-19T01:37:00.000-07:00

Saturday night in Nairobi. The thumping music blasts out into the street while some MC 'enhances' the sounds by shouting and grunting into some over-amplified microphone in some crappy little hole in the wall club on this dirty forgotten side street. The sign at the door heralds the party's promoters, a group called "Black Supremacist." I sleep intermittently, my dingy hotel room facing the party and finally the music stops at about 6:30 in the morning. That provided no relief however on account of the overlap between the sounds of the nighttime world and the rant of some overzealous lady pastor who started berating her congregation in incomprehensible English at 6:00 Sunday morning. Praise the lord!

Nairobi again, where the air is so foul that it burns my eyes, back here again killing some more time sitting in a tattered hotel room reading the bible. No I haven't gone crazy. I am just trying to avoid the chaos on the streets and the filth in the air. And I've blasted through every other book immediately available to me. I am waiting for a visitor who will accompany me to the top of Kilimanjaro in the coming days and there is little option but to sit tight. I've been in and out of this city for nearly six weeks and I guess I have developed a bit of a routine. Most of it involves hiding in my hotel room reading books that I buy from a nearby shop. I am beginning to lose track of time, I forget what day it is, and begin to fear my reading habit is spiraling out of control. No matter, it will soon be replaced by a climbing habit.

Besides, sitting in my filthy little sanctuary, I feel that I have had enough experience of the outside world. I am greeted by something unwelcome every time I exit the hotel. People grab me, push me, bump me, beg me, and sometimes berate me. "Hey Muzungu" i.e. "Hey Whiteman" no longer elicits a response, and I think how it would come off if one were to stand on a Toronto street corner shouting "Hey Blackman" or "Hey Yellowman" at passers-by. There is no "yellow" here though. I have been advised that anyone who is not black is white. I wonder what the folks at 'Black Supremacist' would have to say about that.

I tried to do the local thing and visited some markets where I browsed used clothing. I couldn't help but smile at the irony that the clothes made in Asia, had been sold in America, worn at "Blah Blah Blah Volleyball Tournament 2003" and then found their way to Africa where I was in a position to purchase said garments and ultimately repatriate them. I resisted the urge to do so, made my way through throngs of aggressive sellers and jumped into a Matatu to head back downtown. Strange thing was that the bus was on fire. This initially elicited a response from the driver and ticket man. They inspected the area billowing smoke and decided it was no problem so we continued through the flooded streets with acrid smoke pouring in as the vehicle burned.

I decided to head out of the city for a few days and went to Kisumu on the shores of Lake Victoria. From Nairobi, I blew through the countryside in a minibus, passing Naivasha and Nakuru (again) and getting further west toward 'Obama Country,' where local legend has it that the man himself purportedly lived.

I got to some run down bus station and trudged out through the mud. I jumped on a motorcycle and rolled up to a cheap hotel. When I entered a big fat hideous woman shouted "I wanna fuck you!" from across the room. Strike one against the place. The rooms had that 'brothel stench' (strike two) and I got out of there while evading lots of greasy hand grabbing from ladies of dubious virtue. Strike Three.

I found a place near the "Lazarus Funeral Home," and wondered if resurrection hurt the business. My friend invited me out of the city to visit her relatives and I spent the evening in some quasi suburb that resembled more of a village. I sat and ate "small fish" in a modest house that accommodated thirteen people. It was nice to see how people lived and the evening ended with me in a tuk tuk thundering along a muddy road in a downpour.

The next day, I was planning to head to the "beach" and my friend had agreed to come along. I didn't know, but should have known, that this meant I would have a number of people who effectively qualified as my wards for the afternoon. I took my four new acquaintances out to the "beach" in a tuk tuk, to find it was more of a swamp with some reeds in the mud. After lengthy discussion in Swahili, my friend advised that they wanted to take a boat ride and had negotiated it with the boatman. How could I say no? We headed along the muddy shore of Lake Victoria where people bathe in the murky water. Some were shy, while others were happy to 'present' themselves and shake anything that would shake to the great entertainment me and my wards.

The shoreline led to a fishing village full of colourful boats and birds. I stood and watched a kingfisher dive beneath the muddy water. It bobbed up and down like a yo-yo, diving and rising again with a flutter before falling like a stone on its next victim. There were great egrets stalking majestically in the marshland , and hammercops hanging out on the boats. Most of the birds were concentrated back from the water waiting for scraps where the village women clean the fish. With every discarded basket of guts, there was a flurry of feathers and a great deal of competitive pecking. The wards were largely unconcerned with any of the birds and announced they were hungry.

We went into a little shack and ordered a fish head. The Nile Perch may be prized for its fillets in Europe and America, but here just about all you can get is the head. The massive head sat there in a bowl, staring at us from the brown broth. We picked the meat off it and ate the gills. I didn't eat much because my wards were quite hungry. I just sat back and watched as they dismantled the head and sucked the flesh from the bones. I paid the bill and it was time to head back. I paid the boatman and we hit the tuk tuk again. I wanted to stop in town but nobody wanted to do that, so it was back to the hotel where i paid the tuk tuk. I turned to bid farewell to my wards, but they had cashed out and were already gone without so much of a thank you or a goodbye. Nobody talked to me all day and nobody took the time to learn my name. I hope they enjoyed themselves, whoever they were.

Kisumu is a small place and I wanted to head back to Nairobi. There is nothing to do either way, but at least in Nairobi, I feel as if I am still connected to the outside world. And I have no anonymous wards to support. I headed back and was soon surrounded by the smog and the maniacal matatu drivers.

At least there is some life in this city. There are crooked police all over, noise everywhere, busy sidewalks, and streets pulsing with the flow of colourful matatus. These are public buses, most of which are decorated with the images of American rappers. Most are emblazoned with slogans glorifying gangsterism and "thug life" appear beneath airbrushed portraits of gold toothed heroes, some dead, some alive, but all gangsta. I suppose that the lively atmosphere is what I came for.

During the day, business bustles, though it is mostly limited to cel phone shops, barbershops, supermarkets, beauty parlours, pharmacies, and restaurants selling fried chicken and chips. As far as I can tell there is virtually no product differentiation but all these businesses seem to coexist in some strange harmony.

At night the streets are taken over by strange and sketchy people. Drunks stumble out of noisy the bars, sometimes with a lady in tow. Most are quite civil though some show a little too much interest in me. I get approached by some filthy down and outs and have resorted to telling them to "fuck off" without any attempt at civility.

I am eager to head out of here, back to Moshi where I am potentially still wanted by the authorities. This inevitably will lead me through another border fiasco laced with a good dose of official incompetence and a sprinkle of scam thrown in for good measure. I have crossed there three times now and I am told a different thing each time. They never cooperate with my request to conserve space when stamping my passport. I am ready for the net time and will likely be unable to resist saying something to the effect of "I am sorry. You have failed again." Pushing my luck seems to work these days.

I also hope to see the guys hanging around running an unusual scam. They lurk between the Kenyan and Tanzanian customs posts and ask to see the exit stamp as you cross. They proceed to hand you money belonging to the country you are entering telling you that it is needed to cross the border. Last time I refused the cash but one of them jammed it into my passport. They wouldn't allow me to return it so I threw it on the muddy ground provoking shouts, threats and general abuse as I walked away. I assume that had I accepted, they would have met me on the other side and demandd an extortionate amount of cash in a different currency. I reported them to customs, but the stupid woman didn't care that there were people impersonating customs officers and ripping unsuspecting tourists just outside the front door. Service with a shrug. I can't wait to say "hi" to my old friends, maybe ask them to clarify the details of the scam.

For now, I sit here sipping overpriced (but tasty) coffees and rubbing the airborne filth out of my eyes...

Harassment on Higher Ground

2010-04-14T01:43:00.000-07:00

I headed north out of Dar Es Salaam, intent on moving upland to beat the heat and conducting a bit of reconaissance to determine the feasibility of climbing Kilimanjaro. This led me to the town of Moshi, a small place at the base of the great mountain, and unfortunately, a place infested by touts. I have never been so popular so quickly and by the time i had walked from my bus to my hotel, I had met at least a half dozen people trying to get me into travel agencies.

There is an immense amount of hassle traveling in this part of the world. It stays close to the tourist trail though and is not so difficult to escape if one is not afraid of heading into the middle of nowhere. I fully intended gather some information in this town, so I resolved to deal with a couple of the touts who owned tour companies or worked as guides. This left out the majority of those who were drunk or under the influence of some unknown drugs.

I soon had all the information that I required and quit the hustle in order to to meet a friend for lunch. On my way I was arbitrarily detained by police for allegedly dropping a miniscule piece of rubbish in a gutter. I note that there are no rubbish bins anywhere and the ground is littered with other similar pieces of trash. No matter: this was clearly a serious offence.

First, I was accosted on the street. Some scrawny teenager had picked up the morsel I had allegedly discarded and provided it to a city inspector. The inspector was demanding that I come to his office with him. A crowd soon gathered and began shouting at the inspector. It seems they didn't like him hassling a tourist. No big surprise considering the importance of the tourist industry to this town.

I told the man I couldn't go with him, that I was late to meet my friend. This was not an acceptable excuse. I asked the amount of the "fine" and was told 50 000 Tanzanian Shillings ($35 USD). I told him there was no way I was paying that and to stop wasting my time because I was late. The crowd was apparently telling him similar things and he told me that he couldn't just let me go in front of them. If only I would accompany him to his office, he would set me free from there. Fair enough.

We arrived at the office where I was subjected to a variety of threats. First we were going to the police station. Not the first time I've heard that one. "OK, lets go, you guys are wasting my time." This led to an explanation that the gravity of my offence would lead to a trial on Monday. Stone faced, I replied "that is fine, I am ready for it, I have to face the music for this, I'll see you in court and we'll let the judge decide what happens." I was warming to the idea of some good ol' fashioned litigation, hoping that the scrawny teenager would turn up with the scrap of rubbish at the bottom of this whole affair.

The guys saw that their threats were not intimidating me, so they decided to cut to the chase. "Just give us 50 000 shillings and you go." I refused, saying I didn't have enough money. They asked how much I would pay and I told them 5000 (about $3.50 USD). They laughed in my face and told me I would soon be in police custody. Bullshit. Soon they had dropped the asking price to 20 000 and I refused that too, on the grounds that "I don't want to pay you anything." I told them they were really wasting my time and to take me to the police station immediately so I could be formally charged. This provoked intense discussion in Swahili, at which point I was told that 5000 TSH was acceptable. I reached into my pocket, trying to avoid pulling out a large note, and produced a crisp 10 000 TSH bill. The guy reached out his palm, but I wagged my finger and said "not gonna happen." I reached in again and fished out a 5000 note. Once it was handed over, I wished them a nice day and headed out to meet my friend. Some helpful locals who had stuck with me through the ordeal were quick to point out that no receipt was provided. Corruption strikes again.

Before proceeding, I should note that under the influence of the adrenaline induced by my "arrest" I started talking some real smack and detailed some local touts to locate the scrawny teenager so that I could 'strangle' him. Fortunately that never happened.

I am at a point where I am pretty sick of the touts and the scammers. These people are the most ignorant and incompetent con men that I have ever encountered. They are complete fools without the requisite intelligence to see the negative impact of their behaviour on themselves and everyone around them.

It's the law of the jungle out here. The police are not out to help you, they are out to fuck you. And then they take your money. Everyone who talks to me wants my cash. At least it's a bit better as a man, because as far as I can surmise I only get half the hassle. Women get harangued for both sex and money. At this point I am thoroughly disgusted with the kleptosociety that I find inescapable around here. I am fortunate only that the level of incompentence at its core ensures that I am easily able to navigate around the scams and tricks.

That does not help much in some areas though, and I am still susceptible to those who shout arbitrary threats at me as I walk the streets at night (a habit that guidebooks, hotels, other tourists advise against). I refuse to give in to the culture of fear that these thugs create. Thus far there has been no real incident and I don't intend on provoking one. The threat is all to real. Some westerners have been shot.

I am now back in Nairobbery waiting for a friend before I head back to Moshi to head up the rain soaked slopes of that legendary mountain. But when I think back to that town, I don't think of the spectacular view of Kilimanjaro. I think of the corrupt officials, the ineptitude of their scams, the legion of predatory touts, and the unseen faces shouting threats at me on darkened streets.

Days on the Equator

2010-04-14T01:42:00.000-07:00

I was tired of the city and decided to move to a more relaxed environment. The road led east through Mombasa, that great port city and on to the island of Lamu, the deceptively quiet site of a colossal clash between the traditional and the modern.

It is a place where women walk along the beach in full niqab (covering entire body including face) while sunscreen covered tourists and non-Muslim locals run in and out of the ocean in bikinis or underwear. That was no big deal really. The strange part was when some of women took off the head scarves while chatting with local men, wearing them around their necks. I never saw that anywhere else in the Muslim world. I have even heard reports of swimming by moonlight, but these remain unconfirmed.

There is a feeling that this is not a tourist island. Sure there are some muzungu around but the place has not yet given in to the archetypical model of crappy tourist beach resort. The local shops don't sell souvenirs, but rather clothes and groceries. I chatted with some locals who explained that people on the island don't have great ambition. Welcome to paradise. They are happy to survive on a couple of bucks earned by providing a boat ride once in a while. This was consistent with what I observed. Though many people work hard, other people apparently don't do anything.

I don't know if it will last for long. The tourist trap is opening its ugly jaws. There are some annoying touts who try to sell boat trips and some Masai have moved in to sell cheap tourist grade jewelery. This makes only a small impact for the time being and the locals remain friendly and welcoming. For now.

Back in Mombasa, I found my way down to the seafront beneath Fort Jesus, built by the Portuguese almost five hundred years ago. I sat looking out over the Indian Ocean, feeling the cool tropical breeze in the evening air. I thought back to the last time I had seen those waters, sitting in Mumbai gazing westward toward the point where I was now. In that moment I felt so satisfied. I have gotten everything that I ever wanted from this trip and struggle to imagine what more it could hold in store. I felt blessed by the all my experiences between now and then, the continents I crossed, the people I've known. And I am not finished yet.

The next stop was Dar Es Salaam, the 'Haven of Peace,' a relaxed city with great atmosphere and virtually no tourist attractions. I arrived late at night with no Tanzanian money and went out in search of my dinner. Sitting at a roadside stand with a bowl of beans and rice (800 Tanzanian Shillings, or about $0.70 USD), I met a local guy who claimed to be a student. He had a bit of booze on his breath but he seemed decent so we chatted a while. I was disappointed the following morning when he was waiting for me downstairs in the hotel lobby. I managed to ditch him on my way through the city but he has a bad habit of popping back up. That evening I received a call in my room. He was on the phone, downstairs in the reception claiming he had some kind of emergency. I went down, fully intent on getting rid of him and prepared for whatever nonsense he was going to throw at me.

I instantly realized he was drunk and as suspected, he had a story about his mother who had apparently died that very morning. In fact that was the reason he had disappeared earlier in the day (not my carefully calculated strategy to get rid of him!) and now he needed a long distance bus ticket to attend the funeral. He had borrowed the money from school and he was only thirteen thousand shillings short (about $10 USD). I was stone cold in my refusal and wished him luck with his journey. He left dejected likely upset about his bad acting.

I had not had my fix of beautiful beaches and soon headed for to the tropical shores of Zanzibar. The island is almost a mythical place in my mind, an ancient trading port, the seat of vanished empires and a place where cultures have mingled to the point that the lines between them have blurred into an indistinguishable continuity. I met Muslims, Masai, Christians, and Rastafarians, all of them coexisting in a seemingly harmonious tropical paradise.

The island has a steamy climate at this time of year, and there is a torrential deluge twice a day and during the night. Each night I feasted on seafood barbeque and have to declare it the best food I have tasted on this trip. There are stalls by the ocean that serve lobster, squid, octopus, all kinds of fish, and delicious nan flavoured with garlic or coconut. I can't remember the last time I had such a great meal. As usual, everything was dirt cheap allowing me to fill up on grilled lobster chunks for about ten bucks.

Days at the beach melted into nights by the seaside. I was sad to leave the place, but had a mission to take care of before my departure. A friend of mine wanted some souvenirs and asked for my assistance in breaking the shopkeepers. I have some degree of skill in this area, effectively stemming from a technique developed in India and perfected in markets worldwide. It takes time and a bit of determination but is virtually guaranteed to result in the cheapest prices available.

The trick is to play merchants off against each other, effectively delivering an ultimatum to force them into competition. I move from shop to shop telling every salesman that I am visiting every shop in the market and promising that I will return to the one with the lowest price. I demand their best price and don't linger long. When they see that I am serious, they generally give a reasonable price that I can then force upon the next merchant to secure something even lower. This was working splendidly and I had hit on some reasonable prices. Then I hit a snag.

There was the shopkeeper who would not tell me the price of his items. He grew angry with me when I refused to tell him the highest amount that I would pay, (never offer a number higher than zero) and berated me until I left the store. At this point the tirade turned to threats and I was warned against coming near that street again. Pity I am too foolish to understand the mental sophistication required to engineer such a brilliant sales tactic. Plenty of others were interested and in the end my friend ended up buying a couple of beautifully carved masks, a statue and some other souvenirs, spending well over a hundred dollars in the process.

Before long I was back on my own in Dar Es Salaam. I had the good fortune to run into my friend with the dead mother again. He was drunk again and told me he didn't make it to the funeral. He seemed like it was no big deal and was more interested in showing me the paintings he had made that afternoon. I admired them and noticed that there were at least two different signatures on the paintings. I asked him why he had written different names on his paintings and he 'explained' that those were the names of the paintings. Of course. “Support an artist man.” Ya right. A couple more losers approached me, trying to organize overpriced taxi rides. I told them they were ripping me off and they quickly grew indignant and angry. I guess it's rude to refuse to throw cash away. I soon beat a path back to my hotel.

The more I travel here, the more I realize what an idiot I am. There are people so fiendishly clever that I can never deduce what on earth they are trying to do. I can't comprehend the blank stares from waiters who never thought to bring a menu and disappear before I finished ordering. I wonder at the cab drivers who claim to know a place then ask me for directions through a city I don't know in the pitch dark. I fail to grasp the logic in berating customers and the anger that arises when someone has the nerve to ask for a fair price.

Perhaps I've had enough of hot days and cold showers. Perhaps its gone to my head. I am on my way back to higher ground and cooler air. This is life on the Equator.

Nairobbery

2010-04-14T01:40:00.000-07:00

Nairobbery: the nickname is well deserved. It's not a safe city. That doesn't worry me though: I have been around a bit. The scams are the same, the only difference is a slightly increased risk of a thug wielding a machete or a pistol.

This is a place where risk must be accepted. African travel requires me to carry large amounts of cash on account of the under developed banking system. That presents a significant problem and makes me a sitting duck. The solution: don't draw any attention to myself and keep everything out of sight. That means relying on the illusion of security in a roach infested hotel room with a lock that I could personally break if the mood struck me. As a result, a bit of trust is necessary, blind trust in people you don't know.

So far there I've had nothing worse than a couple of hassles. My favourite was an incident where police seized my friend's camera for photographing a casino. They grabbed her and threatened us both with arrest. We were to be taken to the police station. My response? "Lets go." They backed off a bit and demanded our passports (me because I was "with" the criminal culprit). I resisted the foolish request and repeatedly demanded that they take me to the police station. As I suspected, it was all bullshit. These cops didn't even have a car. I demanded to know the address of the police station so that I could "tell my embassy," all the while brandishing my cel phone. I have no idea of the embassy's number, but that is not important. The cops grew quiet so I escalated the situation by pulling out my secret weapon - a well worn notepad.

I managed to write down the badge number of the lady cop and asked her name. She replied that I couldn't ask her name because she was police. Fine. I turned to the male cop who began to squirm and ducked quickly around a corner to prevent me from writing the badge number. I have never seen a corrupt cop move so quickly and was happy to see how swiftly he removed himself from the equation. Again, I demanded the name of the lady cop so I could "tell the ambassador who I was dealing with." She refused. Time for the endgame.

I tore out the page with her badge number and waved it provocatively under her nose. "I'll tell you what, you give back the passports and the camera and I'll give you this paper." There was a short standoff, but she gingerly extended the passports toward me. In exchange I offered up the scrap of paper, feigning a proportional level of timidity. We met in the middle and snatched the items out of each other's hands. "This is how you treat tourists in Kenya? You arrest them for taking photographs?" She had nothing and we were soon back on the street.

Africa Travel Maxims illustrated by this incident: 1. Don't draw attention to yourself. 2. If you fail to keep a low profile, bully anybody that tries to take advantage. 3. Treat stupid and corrupt cops as they should be treated. 4. Show no fear and call all bluffs. 5. Escalate the incident to the point that the authorities begin to worry that the CNN cameras are rolling up out front, right behind the limo with the angry ambassador climbing out. The results speak for themselves. The male cop was too great a coward to even hang around, and the female cop was too stupid to backpedal out of the situation she had created. She didn't even get to ask for a bribe. Like I said, I've been around a bit. Next time I plan a grand finale that will culminate in me beating the cop about the face with my UK passport.

That does not mean that I never fall into the traps though. I am a walking wad of shillings and this has been reinforced to me time and time again. Perhaps the best example comes from a night out with a couple of guys who work at the New Kenya Lodge, the Nairobi dive where I keep my dead cockroach collection.

Me and a Japanese girl were invited out by Moses and Willy for a beer. I had yet to learn that having “a beer” with Kenyans is an expensive proposition. On every occasion, the Muzungu (me) receives the bill at the end. “Do you want another round” means “will you pay for another round.” The drinks don't cost much though, and hanging around with the locals does open up a whole other world.

That night, we moved from bar to bar, and found each one swarming with prostitutes. These places were cranking by 8:30 p.m. and everyone seemed wasted. There were people in corners screwing around with the prostitutes, guys spilling drinks and sleeping on tables, and people I didn't know kept hitting me up for drinks. The portrait of president Kibuku hung above the bar, his cynical smile beaming out into the darkness that shrouded the mayhem below. My Kenyan friends were trying to fix me up with prostitutes (who I learned will turn tricks for 300 Kenyan Shillings – about $3.75 USD). I was never into the AIDS thing and eventually I couldn't stick it out any longer. The scene was so crazy so early that I worried that everyone was going to turn into a vampire by midnight. I didn't want to be there when it happened.

I woke up the following morning with a bit of a headache and some solid reaffirmation of why I rarely drink these days. Its a little tough to find wholesome pursuits in this city, but they must be out there. I am just not trying hard enough...

Settling into Sub Sahara

2010-04-14T01:34:00.000-07:00

Its been a month since I was atop those rattling Mitsubishi trucks, careening over the crater ridden dirt tracks down into Kenya. I have not had much time for writing since then but that is a good thing I suppose. Rest assured that I was not sitting around idle.

Rather, I have spent my time exploring Kenya and Tanzania, from the national parks where Hemingway and Roosevelt once shot the big game, to the great port cities and on to the white sand beaches of equatorial islands. What was once an unknown continent now seems somehow familiar.

When I came out of the Sudan I had no idea what to expect. I felt as if I was in an unknown land that promised dangerous experience in the search for undiscovered treasures. It was the land of the Masai, the land of gorillas, guerillas, pygmies and poachers, a place where poverty, starvation and the scourge of AIDS maintained a grip over millions of people. That is not what I found at all. There is no shortage of social problems here but I had underestimated the number of normal people that I would find leading perfectly normal lives.

My parents met up with me for a couple of weeks and we made good use of the time, visiting national parks including Masai Mara, Lake Nakuru, Amboseli, Serengeti, the Ngorongoro Crater, and the Olduvai Gorge. This ensured that I saw every animal I had ever dreamed of seeing in Africa, saw where Australopithecus Afarensis took timid steps through the ashes of a great volcano that collapsed aeons ago. After nine days of safari I was truly blown away by the power and beauty of nature. I sat on the rim of that volcano, now the Ngorongoro Crater, where the animals are so plentiful and diverse that one can feels this is where Noah emptied his ark. There is perhaps nothing in this world more incredible than the endless plains of the Serengeti, its animals living and dying in an eternal rhythm. It is bound bound at the eastern edge by lush green mountainsides, and the valleys harbouring secrets of our past where evidence of homonids dates back millions of years.

That is not to say that we didn't spend a lot of the time bouncing around in jeeps over dirt tracks, eating picnic lunches under trees as my mum kept watch for lions and leopards overhead. The journey itself never comes easy. There are a lot of hassles to deal with when organizing this type of trip. This stems from the stream of tourists that flows through towns that are in many ways economically depressed. Unemployed young men smell the cash and will do just about anything to get it. I am quite accustomed to touts but I have to say the guys in Arusha are a different breed. I have never met touts so annoying, persistent and idiotic.

Generally I just provide nonsensical affirmative responses like “that's great, i love it so much” or “thanks a lot boss.” This gives a clear signal that I am going to waste their time and usually causes them to give up quickly. That did not work in Arusha. We were swarmed every time we set foot on the street and they would wait for us outside shops and cafes. After managing one escape we turned the corner to find that they had cut through the alley to intercept us. At one point, I was standing on the steps dealing with a half dozen of them, playing around and trying my best to be friendly. One of the drunk ones took exception to me and began to threaten me by word and gesture. I told him to bring it on which only proved my assumption that he was a bully, coward and an idiot.

The hassles are worth it. The rewards are great.

Blogging in Africa

2010-03-02T06:38:00.000-08:00

Almost impossible. Patientez s'il vous plait...

On to Addis

2010-03-02T06:32:00.000-08:00

26/02/10

I had to keep moving. After all, I had a date in Addis Ababa with my great Auntie Lucy. I took to the road with the Dutchies and we wound our way through the countryside scaling the side of lush green mountains as the misty valleys broke endlessly beneath us. Maarten and I climbed on the roof of the truck and rattled our way over the dirt roads in the full panoramic splendour of it all.

We stopped for the night in Showaromit, a small highwayside town full of hotels, pimps and whores. We checked into a dive and spent the evening sipping beers in questionable company before it was time to move on again. We continued through the stunning highlands and stopped for breakfast in the middle of a bustling market. Guys selling bags of oregano pestered us a bit, though the situation turned humorous when one of them claimed it was Ganja. I feigned interest but ultimately disappointed him by saying I was only in the market for a big bag of oregano.

After breakfast, the road turned bad again and we snaked our way slowly up the mountainside. The Chinese have paved most of the highways here in the last few years. They have a long way to go and we teased Sammy that he would have to call them to fix the rest.

There was a final stop at the home of Sammy's mother in law where we dropped off some sticks for her to burn, and were invited for pepsi, peanuts and chat. Chat does not mean conversation in this context, but rather leaves with a mild narcotic effect. I couldn't feel anything though the bitter tasted went down pretty well with a handful of nuts and a few gulps of soda. We found a bit of “highland,” the Ethiopian term for bottled water that arose on account of a successful advertising campaign by a particular company years ago.

Soon we were among the low rise buildings in the middle of Addis Ababa. I was dropped with Natalie at the National Museum where I found myself staring into my past looking at six million year old fossilized hominid teeth. I could hardly synthesize what I was looking at, and though the possibility was remote, I couldn't help thinking that one of those teeth could have come from one of my own ancestors. I tried to wrap my mind around the homo sapien skull from a man who lived 150 thousand years before me and marveled at the fleeting tick of the second hand that encompasses all of recorded history on the clock of the earth.

To conclude my journey through humanity's distant past I had a date with Lucy. I found her tucked away in the far corner of the basement. Blind dates seldom work out and I found Lucy much smaller and hairier than I would have imagined (though possibly still my type). Her skeleton is amazing – a little figure reconstructed in full stride just as she would have appeared on the savannah three and a half million years ago. Not so different from how we all look, just smaller.

We left the museum and moved through a maze of Ladas as we walked back to the hotel in the company of a jabbering lunatic, who revealed he was a drug addict and almost certainly an HIV victim. He also claimed to have either twelve or a hundred and fifteen children before I ditched him by popping into a music shop for some Ethiopian beats.

The evening was spent at Sammy's house in a suburb of Addis out by the airport. His wife made us the most delicious black coffee I had ever tasted, roasting the beans from scratch and burning incense throughout to infuse the brew with a delicious aromatic taste. Sammy dropped us off at a bar where we took in a cultural show. We stayed until Maarten and I had fallen in love with all female performers, before leaving to look for another bar. That plan was reconsidered on account of a gunfight that broke out in the middle of the street in front of us. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing and asked the doorman of a nearby hotel what was going on. He replied “these guys…some conflict” with a surprising degree of nonchalance. It wasn't the sound of the shot, but rather the metallic clink of the reload that drove us into a Lada and back to the hotel after checking out another bar without incident.

The incident was a bit of a reality check. I am generally not in the habit of partaking in local nightlife and this was a reminder of exactly why that policy has proved so effective in allowing me to enjoy my trip in safety. It’s like the wild west out here. A wild west right in the heart of urban Africa.

Life in an Ancient Kingdom

2010-03-02T06:29:00.000-08:00

26/02/10

Leaving the ramparts of Gondor in my wake, I blew through the hills of the Ethiopian countryside in a 4WD with some new friends. The long journey flew past thanks to the Dutchies who had rented the vehicle: Maarten, a doctor known to examine and diagnose the occasional sick baby, and Natalie, a veterinarian known to tease goats by gripping their tail to simultaneously provoke and prevent escape. There was plenty of chat and good conversation about what we saw and other parts of the world, the state of women, religion, the emergence of human society and mechanisms of social control. We twisted our way toward the sandstone of the ancient Lalibela kingdom, stopping for macchiatos and the occasional plate of “Shiro feses,” “cocked chicken,” “paper stack,” (likely pepper steak) and of course, Injera.

Travel through Ethiopia is an experience in and of itself. I managed to avoid much of the hassle and the early mornings thanks to my new friends. This did not grant us any immunity from animal related delays. We stopped to wait for errant rams going head to head in the middle of the highway as the shepherds patiently tried to move the flock along with sticks.

In the evening the locals guide their livestock back from pasture. This means that there are large herds of camels all over the road, sheep and goats running every which way, but somehow everything seems to move slowly down the road. Most of all there are the cattle. We passed long horned steers by the thousands, their massive curved horns swaying menacingly close to the vehicle as Sammy, the driver, pulled off death defying manoeuvres and kept the truck on the road. On top of all this, there are often long patches where the asphalt disappears altogether. We passed four capsized trucks that had apparently attempted corners too fast

Finally we ended up in Lalibela, seat of a Christian empire that left behind some of the most incredible monuments ever devised by mankind. In the town itself, there are eleven churches hewn from the sandstone, some cutting through hard veins of basalt as well. This is not a monument like Petra, ghostlike and abandoned to the desert. It is a living Christian community that has continued uninterrupted for nearly a millenium.

The day I spent there was the feast of Mary. This was cause for a great deal of incense burning, singing, drumming, and prayer. I stood among the priests as old ladies wept at the altars, shrouded in white cotton scarves, bending to kiss the ancient rock beneath the Saviour's feet.

I was amazed to see some of the features that distinguish the Ethiopian Orthodox faith from its christian cousins. Priests wait in each church, protecting the holy of holies and wielding ceremonial crosses that they throw into action at festival times. The inner sanctum is forbidden to everybody but the priests and each one contains a copy of the Ark of the Covenant, filling the church with the word of god. The number ten is significant in the design of the churches, many having ten windows to represent the ten commandments. I have never seen a christian faith with so much ritual surrounding the Old Testament.

Then again, the Ark of the Covenant resides beneath an ancient chapel in Aksum, a holy city to the North. It seems that the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (an Ethiopian) brought it here almost a thousand years before Christ. True story, just ask around. The copies were made some nine hundred years ago and are tended by priests. They make an annual appearance, winding their way through rock hewn passages for one of the big christian festivals. They are under cover of course, pursuant to the command of god and even the priests are unable to look upon what lies underneath.

Traditional christian iconography appears as well, sometimes with Ethiopian twists. The trinity appears in many of the chapels, oddly depicted as three long bearded old men seated side by side. It was strange for me to see 'the son' depicted as an old man identical to 'the father.' It was even stranger to see the 'the holy ghost' depicted as the third musketeer complete with flowing robe and long beard identical to the others.

The faithful must like it because make no secret of the fact they believe in Christ. Many women have a cross tattooed on their forehead, and some have their entire chin tattooed with lines and crosses that collectively resemble a fake beard. This is certainly a christian country.

The tide of Islam is lapping at the borders and people are worried. There is a great deal of distrust directed at the Arab world, a land allegedly bent on subverting christian Ethiopia and destroying it beyond repair. Many people explained the mechanisms of this to me, pointing to the polygamous lifestyle of many Ethiopian Muslims, the relative affluence of Saudi and Yemeni backed Muslim families, the seditious plans of those dreaded Eritreans, proposals to build mosques in Lalibela, and the demographic shift that may one day result in a democratically elected Muslim leader. For now though, Jesus is still the main show. That is fine by me as it ensures that the St. George Beer keeps flowing and local girls can smile at me with impunity.

There are some real beauties in this country. I couldn't help but take notice having spent the bulk of the past three months in the Islamic world. It is nice to be back in a culture where conversation with women is at least a possibility. In this regard, I was the fortunate recipient of some local advice from a group of loitering Lalibelan guys. As we sat on the curbside watching local beauties pass us by, they explained to me how to make macchiato: it seems the ingredients are white milk and black coffee. Unfortunately, I am not much of a chef and have yet to master the recipe.

The Abyssinian Abyss

2010-03-02T06:26:00.000-08:00

22/02/10

Here I am, back in a Gondor, the Macchiato capital of Africa. There is macchiato everywhere, costing between 2 and 4 Birr ($0.16 - $0.32 USD). They are delicious and cheap and I have been taking advantage at every opportunity. I just checked back into a hotel room, neglecting the blog until I had scrubbed the dirt off myself and everything I own, having spent the last three days trekking in the Simian Mountains.

The highlands lie in the north of Ethiopia, carved by the flow of waters over millions of years. The first step in getting out there was organizing the trek in a town called Debark. I teamed up with an English/Danish couple to share expenses and we hired a scout (think man with a gun) and all the necessary gear.

The scout was supposed to show us where to pick up the tent and sleeping bags. I grew suspicious as we made our way out of town and toward the villages in the surrounding countryside. I tried to show the scout that we had no supplies but he couldn't understand what I was talking about. After drawing a tent in the sand, showing him the contents of my pack and making a variety of wild gesticulations, I gave up and decided to hope for the best.

There were kids all over and they would run along side us shouting “hello” incessantly. This was charming at first but grew tired after a few minutes. The next hours of it were almost painful. I did not meet a kid on the entire trek who did not say “money,” “pen,” “plastic,” “t-shirt,” “candy,” “caramello,” “water,” and I was repeatedly reminded “you are rich.” One guy advised me “I am grocery” and reiterated the statement several times upon request. The harassment really spoiled the village atmosphere as everyone was begging and had little interest in us beyond that. Plastic seemed the most coveted prize since the villagers use water bottles for storage. Empty ones are available in the market for one Birr (Roughly $0.12 USD).

The trek was difficult and I had no water since we had not made a stop for supplies. The couple would not share theirs so I was fading fast as the afternoon wore on. I was told water would be “no problem” but all I could find were little puddles full of algae. I feared my UV sterilizer was not up to the task. Beyond that, I was not inclined to sample the flavour of donkey shit. I asked some villagers for water but they were unwilling to help even though there was plenty gushing from a pump. Regrettably, I found the villagers to be unfriendly and unhelpful, contrary to past experience in remote mountain regions. It seems to me that the villagers have not made the choice of whether to embrace tourism or reject it. They send their kids out to beg, will profit from tourist money in a heartbeat, but will not offer the simple human decency that a dehydrated person might expect in the middle of nowhere. I get the impression that they don't like tourists, but they like their money.

We walked on for hours. Finally I saw some huts on the top of a ridge . I could tell it was not a village. It had to be the Simian Lodge. I made a break for it. I left the scout and the couple in my dust, and made my way to the lodge with what little energy I had left. I chugged a litre right away and then started making more for the couple to drink.

From the very beginning, the couple started to get on my nerves. First it was the “ridiculous” price of the expedition (about 750 Birr, less than $15 USD per day). I listened to complaints about that all morning until it became clear that we were not properly equipped. The whining shifted to incessant speculation and reiteration of said speculation about whether or not there would be equipment and how much it was a rip off.

Once everyone had arrived and we confirmed that there was no equipment, we called the park office and they agreed to send some up. It seems the scout was inexplicably under the impression that we wanted to stay in a lodge for $150 USD per night. His impression that we didn't need a tent or sleeping bags was nonetheless strange in light of the fact that we still needed camping supplies for the following evening. Thus I dubbed him Einstein, a nickname that proved more and more appropriate with every misunderstanding that arose throughout the trek.

Seeing as we were waiting for our equipment, the Danish girl went and checked the menu in the cafe. I think she did so just to scoff at the prices because she quickly deemed them ridiculous. I asked how much a macchiato was going for and she told me I didn't want to know. I looked myself and found that it cost 6 Birr ($0.50 USD). This produced indignation and borderline outrage among the couple. I was not terribly put out and decided to buy a drink for each of us. We sat above a village, wilderness behind us, sipping macchiatos in the afternoon sun.

Of course the gear never arrived. The lodge manager helped us out and made some calls. The park office was apologetic and swore to refund the day's rental. This was good, but we still had nowhere to go. The couple wanted to go find a campsite and I was eager to explore. We set out from the lodge, accompanied by Einstein, passed some photographers baiting vultures and birds of prey, and soon came upon a troop of wild Gelada Baboons. We sat for a while in the fading light watching the baboons groom, play and fight until it was time to get ourselves settled somewhere.

Einstein could not comprehend the idea that we wanted to camp, so he wouldn't show us to the campsite. The confusion was resolved by the Lodge manager, who then offered us a free loan of gear and a space to pitch tents. It was certainly the nicest thing anyone has done for me in Ethiopia. I decided to put my gear refund into a good square meal and paid 60 Birr ($5 Bucks!) for dinner at the lodge. I had a club sandwich which had an egg, roast beef and salad dressing thrown curiously between the bread. It was delicious. The couple split the cheapest thing on the menu, only because the manager could not provide us with a camping stove to cook spaghetti and soup.

In the morning I got up to the noise of the couple complaining about the gear and whether it would arrive. It did. The problem then became that the couple did not have room for anything other than their sleeping bags and mats, so I ended up carrying water, tent and camping gear. I was happy to get going and really didn't mind...yet. Soon we were off and walking through the baboons toward the edge of the gorge.

For hours, we skirted the a magnificent ridge full of peaks that rose from the valley floor, hundreds of metres below. We walked in the shade of the forest, watching birds drift on the currents and I was blown away by the beauty of it all. The Danish girl though it was too hazy, but other than that the couple was impressed too. There was some complaining about the price and the incompetence of the guide, but things were going relatively well.

We stopped for lunch and met another scout, this one with an AK-47 instead of a rifle, perfect for blowing away a troop of baboons. I decided that Einstein must be superhuman because I had not yet seen him eat or drink anything. Finally a kid brought him a bottle of water. He took a swig and poured the rest out. Soon we were on our way again, down a steep hill, through more baboons, and up the other side of the valley to another lookout, even more spectacular than the first.

I was really enjoying the trek though the couple soon grew tired and morale was low. As we got further into the valley, the views disappeared behind the ridges and we walked through farmland and villages. This was described as “boring” and I was getting pretty sick of the negativity. I just summoned what remained of my strength and walked the last few hours about a hundred metres ahead of the rest.

We arrived at Geech, a village just outside camp, exhausted after about nine hours of walking a great deal of which was through steep and rocky terrain. The air was growing cold and I sat watching the sunset, really enjoying the atmosphere. The couple had to get the tent up immediately though and I felt obliged to help. I caught the last rays of the sun as we started to make our spaghetti soup dinner. The British guy was cold so I loaned him my India army sweater. I began to feel as if everything in my bag was simply for their use and benefit.

The night was freezing and I bundled up and slept in my jacket. The next morning there was a major controversy over leaving our bags at the campsite and returning to pick them up later. We were told back in Debark that we could leave them while we walked to the lookout point at Imet Gogo. The guides at Geech told us that this would almost certainly result in theft. I almost felt that they would personally make sure of it. I picked up my bag and listened to a major bitch off about the whole thing from the couple. My legs were screaming for mercy but I wrapped up the tent, packed the stove, purified water for us all and jammed it all into my pack without a word of complaint. Soon we were off to our final destination, Imet Gogo. The walk took us up a gentle slope up through rolling hills covered in mountain palms. It was a strange sight at altitude as we climbed higher toward the terminal point at 3952 metres.

I couldn't take the negativity and made tracks. Soon I was ten or fifteen minutes ahead of the other two and the scout. I thought it best to wait and did so for a little while. It was then that I saw them lumbering up the path and to my horror, they had some other packless tourists nipping at their heels. I didn't want any part of that. I felt I had pushed too hard to wait for these people to overtake me. They were doing it the easy way. I grew as stubborn as the mule they had hired, decided that I was going to make it up there first regardless of the 20 kilos on my back and I really started to push. I overtook a lady and her guide, climbed some rocks, got lost a couple of times on the cliffside, and made the final push. There I was, nearly four kilometres above sea level alone with the Lamagay that float on mountain currents.

I had a tremendous sense of accomplishment as other tourists made their way to the top, packless, soon followed by the British guy. The girl had stopped about twenty minutes short of the summit, as far as I can tell because she was a grouchy bitch. After some photographs, everyone left and I was alone again with the birds. It was a great feeling. I was filthy, sweaty, and exhausted but I felt as good as I ever had in my life as the landscape beneath me unfolded like a basin full of jagged mountain peaks under an azure sky.

The road back was a breeze, mostly downhill, though the couple were dragging their heels a bit and I had to wait a lot. There was some challenging climbs but fortunately I had the hiker's secret weapon: a Snicker's Bar. I shared it with the couple (who accepted though they stated that the 15 Birr was “ridiculous” when I paid it) and soon we were up at one of the lookouts from the day before. From there we saw a truck at the side of the road and hitched back with some Dutch tourists who had hired a private driver.

As far as trekking experiences go, this one could have been better with some higher level of competence from the scout and without the constant nagging from grouchy cheapskates. They took and took from me and gave nothing back. I don't mind, and I am still happy that I could help them to enjoy the experience. Judging by the way they treated me and the dutch couple who picked us up, they use people for whatever they can get and avoid reciprocation wherever possible. It is a shame that I couldn't have shared the experience with more positive people.

The Ethiopian highlands provide some of the most spectacular landscape I have ever seen. They are full of animals including ibex, baboons, and birds of prey, as well as the unseen hyenas and leopards that roam in the night. As I walked the edge of sublime cliffs that cascaded hundreds of metres into the jungle below me, I blocked out all the mishaps and nothing could bring me down. I was tired, sweaty, and dusty: on top of the world.

The End of Arabic

2010-03-02T06:25:00.001-08:00

16/02/10

Northern Sudan is a wasteland: dusty towns and desert. The new highway traces a path through a barren desert, winding hundreds of kilometres through the sand. Small mosques appear in the middle of nowhere so the faithful can make salat, something that is usually combined with a piss break involving a great deal of squatting to ensure consistence with Islamic modesty.

As the road winds further south, brush begins to appear in the desert. Goat herders in filthy robes tend to their flocks outside mud brick villages. More long stretches of emptiness with the occasional graveyard for hundreds of rusty oil drums, likely a relic from the time the road was built.

The Sudan is not a place with tourist attractions. It is not a place with tourists. The people are incredibly friendly and went out of their way to help me. I was literally held by the hand and shown to various destinations, invited for shay in the poorest of villages and helped along every step of the way by locals intent on welcoming me. The people inject life into what is otherwise an empty land of endless desert and blazing sun.

I thought back to Iran and to Burma: two other countries with highly repressive governments but kind and helpful people. This was quite similar. Perhaps these places without hordes of westerners marching through are unspoiled in a sense. Life goes on without any thought of attracting tourist dollars. There are few English signs and in the case of Sudan, fewer English speakers. There is a different mentality entirely. People want to share their culture and kindness with you, not charge you for it.

In a sense, Sudan marks the last outpost of the Middle East. The faces have changed, but the language, dress, customs, and culture provide a common thread subject to African influences. It is a place where Sharia law rules the day and a bottle of booze will earn you forty lashes. Nobody exposes their skin in the blazing heat, the men wearing long white robes and the women covering up completely. In the cities people ride about in rickshaws and on motorcycles. In the countryside, people walk and live in small villages without running water and often without electricity. It felt like I had gone back in time.

I felt sad to leave it behind, having spent most of the last four months in the safety of Islamic countries. As I drew up to the border post, sweaty, dusty and exhausted, I heard the wail of the Aazan for a last time, crackling over tinny loudspeakers. Soon I would be in a totally different world. After some idiotic registrations and several passport checks, I had seen the last of the senseless bureaucracy at work. I crossed a dry riverbed and found myself at the Ethiopian border post.

To find Ethiopian Customs and Immigration, I crossed through into a little village full of huts with grass roofs. The office itself was situated adjacent to a garbage dump, in a building made of mud. It was painted green on the inside but the walls were crumbling to expose rays of sunlight through the cracks. I waited outside and watched while people cooked at little fires and hung their laundry on lines. They all looked so clean. Nobody was dusty and it was the first time I had really noticed women since leaving Cairo. Goodbye hijab!

After getting my stamps, I made my further finding a paved road where the village began to give way to Metema, a proper town and my first taste of Ethiopia. There were people all over on both sides of the street, sitting in cafes and drinking beer. Many approached me to warn me of thieves everywhere and told me to watch out. I was approached by several money changers and had a couple of guys follow me to the hotel in hopes of a tip for “keep you safe mister.” I viewed that as more of an implicit threat than a service.

Metema was not the ideal place to spend the night but I had little choice. Surrounded by touts and moneychangers that wouldn't take a hint, I checked into a cheap hotel and took a bucket shower. Only a couple of guys waited until I had finished in the shower. I managed to dispatch them after explaining that I had no idea they wanted tips or I would have declined their 'service' at the outset. There was a bit of a scene and some attempted negotiations but I gave them nothing. I am not afraid of these guys and shamed them into leaving, saying I didn't know they wanted money because in the Sudan people are so nice they would never dream of asking for anything in exchange for their help. That much is entirely true. I wasn't asked for a tip and nobody begged money the entire time I spent in Sudan.

I had a delicious Ethiopian dinner and drank a beer without concern for the legal implications of such un-Islamic behaviour. I was approached by an assortment of moneychangers and I sat and chatted with other people who continued to warn me of thieves while seizing any opportunity to badmouth Sudan.

As the evening was drawing to a conclusion, I left my room to brush my teeth. I bolted the door but did not put the lock on the bolt. As I stood there scrubbing I watched a lady who worked at the hotel stalk over to the room and unbolt the door. I walked quickly toward the room and found her half way to my belongings. I calmly said hello and she turned around a bit startled, apologized and left as if nothing was the matter. Unbelievable, but I guess the warnings were right.

The overall impression made me sad that the time amongst such nice and honest people was clearly at a conclusion. I could not imagine anyone in the Sudan trying to take advantage of me much less rob me of my belongings. Everyone bent over backward to assist me wherever possible. I left my bag in unattended in dormitories full of Sudanese and it was never touched once. It is a shame that I am back in a place that will require constant vigilance as it is such a hassle to secure your belongings all the time out here on the road.

Hassles are a part of traveling for such a long period, through such diverse countries and peoples. I am at another turning point of this trip, on the cusp of a journey through the African continent. I leave the Arabic world behind with some regret as I turn my sights toward new people and experiences.

Khartoum

2010-02-14T12:27:00.002-08:00

Two mighty tributaries converge here swirling together into one. From here the Nile cuts a path through thousands of kilometres of desert, an oasis of green in a sea of sand. For days now, I have crossed seemingly endless desert. I passed through dusty towns with dusty streets, walked amongst the mud brick buildings and slept on sandy sheets. Khartoum provides some much needed relief. But not much.

The city crept up out of the desert. Out in the desert some herdsmen with goats appeared, then some small huts. Soon there were rickshaws and minibuses, cigarette stands and vegetable stalls. This gave way to bustling souqs on wide dusty roads lined by single story structures with big metal doors. The dirt turned to asphalt, the sides lined with massive billboards for the Sudanese Congress. Over the Nile glass and steel glittered from the smooth curves of modern buildings. A real city at last.

I was dropped at the side of a busy road and quickly found a driver to take me to a small lokanda. It is not much, but the trickle of water from the shower was sufficient for me to clean my body. My clothes still need some work. I waited for the midday heat to subside and made my way out to catch sunset by the Nile.

The river level is low but the feeling of being at this place is something really special. Many young Sudanese couples were hanging around and I watched some men practice rowing (the sport – true story!). One of the guys capsized and this produced great hilarity amongst all onlookers, myself included. I walked up the bank of the river and sat drinking cinnamon tea under a bridge. There were loads of people hanging out and enjoying the evening as the orange light faded into the dusk. I sat drinking my tea as groups of beautiful Sudanese women walked past, dressed in finest hijab.

As the dark began to set in, I walked back toward my lokanda, past the “Ministry of the Council of Ministers,” taking a detour through the night markets where old ladies have made little forts out of the traditional round caps worn by the Sudanese faithful. They sit behind their hat-walls selling their fortresses brick by brick until it is time to pack up and go home. They were many ladies sitting at all four corners of an intersection as if they were about to stage a battle and take over the adjacent hat forts. Other than that, the souq was full of clothes and cheap electronic components. It was bustling and there were people everywhere.

One turn led to a completely different world. The side streets were completely dark without and beggars shrunk back into dusty corners that stunk of stale urine. I wandered through the dark, the dust and the trash, and stumbled upon another souq. There was a delicious aroma of barbeque in the air and I found a stall selling barbeque. I had firakh nuss (a half chicken) for six sudanese pounds ($2.40 USD). I sat with some old Sudanese men and we devoured our meals together. It was the best food I have had in Sudan, juicy and delicious.

This is a dirty city. There is dust in the air and trash everywhere on the streets. For the first time I am reminded of the great cities of the Indian subcontinent.

Now I sit in the dim light of a room in some Khartoum lokanda, a dive hote, but much better than what I had out in the countryside. I took a room to myself, paying for all three beds. That set me back a whopping 25 pounds ($10USD), but I think it is money well spent for the chance to relax and organize my affairs. I sat for a while scratching plans on scraps of paper. Two more days and I'll be in Ethiopia. Its an early start tomorrow, searching for a bus station I have never been to, in a town I don't really know, in a language I can hardly understand, to get to a place most people don't even know exists. Once there, its another bus to the border then the same process is bound to repeat itself over.

From the Temple of Amun

2010-02-14T12:27:00.001-08:00

13/02/10

There I was alone, sitting at the edge of a vast plateau of red rock that rises impossibly from the desert. Beneath me were crumbling pyramids, the decay of millenia sweeping over the stone and mixing it with the sand. Behind me flowed the mighty Nile, though a trickle of what it once was, carving its way through the sand to the distant shores of Media Terra. Beneath me lay a cavern carved by ancient hands of Egypt's middle kingdom, a temple to Amun, god of the Sun with the head of a ram. In front of me the sun set over the Genocide slowly eating away the despairing people of the West. I finally had what I had come for.

I made my way to the side of the rock and skidded down two hundred metres or so through the loose sand. I walked back to town with about fifteen Sudanese Pounds ($6USD) in my pocket. Enough for dinner, and not much else. I have grown quite accustomed to coasting along on nothing though, and ordered myself a little feast in a 'nice' restaurant. I dropped nine pounds on a tasty little feast and headed out to find the money changers.

They had all gone home for the day but I managed to wheel and deal with a gigantic Sudanese guy and soon I was cashed up again. He was a big Bryan Adams fan and insisted I listen to 'Everything I Do' because it was his favourite song. He blasted it out into the street and proceeded to take me through Tupac's greatest hits as he tried to convert me to Islam.

Karima is a strange little place. Single story building are the norm, housing an immense number barbershops and cel phone stores. Tuk Tuks roam the streets, and most are souped up with blade like hub caps decorating the wheels. There is dust everywhere. Everywhere.

After such a mundane ending to the sublime experience I felt on the mountaintop, I decided it was time to really start moving again, not to the next little desert outpost, nor to the other pyramids that lie forgotten to the east. First to Khartoum, the confluence of the White and Blue Niles, and on to the border. Ethiopia. I am tired of the desert, tired of the dust. And I couldn't have asked for a better experience.

With the Villagers

2010-02-14T11:39:00.000-08:00

12/02/10

I wasted no time getting out of Kerma and a few hours later I was cruising through the desert to Dongola, quite a hotspot in this sandy wasteland. After registering with the police and simulating kung-fu combat with a Tuk Tuk driver, I made for the souq. The mission gave way to wider exploration as I continued on all the way to the riverbank. I walked for a while past the green fields and soon found myself in a small village outside the main part of town.

Curious kids started appearing from unlikely places and were taking great interest in me. Soon the curiosity turned to unmitigated excitement as I snapped a couple of photos and showed them off on the camera's screen. I walked on with my entourage, now well into the village and began to meet some adults. There was an elderly women with ritualistic scars carved down her cheeks who really wanted a photo with her granddaughters. I snapped away and they were delighted. I excused myself and told them that I would return to visit the next day. I had a plan.

I made my way further along the bank of the river and stopped to soak my hair and face in the cool water. The heat was intense, nearly unbearable. The carcasses of old steamers lay on the riverbank, massive steel boats rusting away. The new bridge in the distance has rendered them virtually obsolete. The falling water level was the nail in the coffin.

I make my way back through the fields, past feral dogs and bulls glaring suspiciously toward me. Somehow I emerge unscathed by man or beast, and find my way back to the lokanda, a simple mud brick hole in the wall named “Lord Hotel.” Upon heading back to my room for a little rest, I discovered that I couldn't close my door. I took the liberty of kicking some of the mud out of the wall and this cleared a path allowing me to push the metal back up against the frame. The lock would not work because the pin had worn away the mud holding it in place. At least it would close now.

As the afternoon turned to evening, the air cooled off a bit and I was able to leave the darkness of my mud cavern. I decided to execute phase one of my aforementioned plan and headed to the local photo shop. I printed ten photos of the kids and the grandmother and pocketed them for the time being. I headed back and had some fresh fried fish for dinner before calling it a night and putting a few hard kicks to the metal door to secure my mud cavern.

The next day, I headed out to the desert. Not far out of town, I encountered the poorest people that I had ever seen. They were living in the desert with nothing more than huts made of thatch. They were amazed to see me and everyone was inviting me for tea and food. I couldn't accept, but did take the time to chat and ask about their families. I could hardly keep track of which kids belonged to whom. Everyone wanted their photograph taken, and I was happy to oblige. No hope of coming back here though, but it was still a hit for people to see themselves captured on an LCD. This is not your typical tourist trail.

I said my goodbyes, and headed out further, past more feral dogs, and through lush green fields. By the sides of the river men were hard at work digging mud from the banks and cooking it into bricks with ingeniously designed ovens, made from the very brick that would ultimately make its way to the village on the opposite bank. I was greeted with smiles and waves by everybody that I encountered and spent a great deal of time exchanging pleasantries and telling people about myself.

I passed some large irrigation works that fed the Nile's water into the desert. A man told me that the canals extended for fourteen kilometres. No wonder the water level is dropping. After about a half hour's walk, the fields turned to sand. I walked for another hour or so and didn't see a soul. Finally I arrived at the ruins of an ancient Kushite city named Tawa. It was nothing more than some mud brick foundations, slowly receding into the sand. Water supply was getting low as the sun climbed higher. It was time to go. I made it back to another village and found some big clay pots of water under a shady tree. Untreated Sudanese water. I drank thirstily and was amazed how cool the water stayed in the heat. Clay pots and shade really work. I had no problems dealing with the drink and thus felt emboldened and have been drinking what the locals drink ever since.

Upon my return I rested a bit and then set about executing phase two of my plan. As I approached the village where I had taken the photographs, I saw some of the kids from a distance. They came a bit closer but once I was recognized there were shrieks of excitement and I was soon mobbed with over a dozen little hands pawing at me. Some were just jumping up and down and screaming. I made my way through the village, my progress inhibited by legions of adoring fans, and found my way to the home where I had met the grand mother. The coup de gras came when I produced the photos. I thought people were going to faint they were so happy.

I have never seen such a reaction to anything that I have done. Everyone was in some state of ecstasy, young and old alike. Granny's eyes were growing damp, and looked ready to flood her scarred cheeks with salty tears. Some of the ladies were similarly fixed, while the others were beaming from ear to ear. The mother of one child couldn't take her crossed eyes off me. Meanwhile the men grabbed me by the hand and pulled me into the house where I was immediately served endless cups of shay. The reaction was nothing short of fanatical, far beyond anything I could ever have imagined. I was delighted that they were so pleased and really feel that I connected with them in a most positive way. I sat for an hour with my phrasebook, supplementing my Arabic skills with the dictionary in the back. One of the kids had shoved his face in the camera with cheeky results. I explained that my brother used to do the same when he was little and the story really went over well. I was presented with a bag full of dried dates for my efforts and after lengthy goodbyes, dozens of handshakes and imploring Allah to arrange my return one day, I was on my way feeling happy.

This experience illustrates exactly what I love about being out here among the people of this world. It is sharing simple pleasures and finding common ground when you lead such different lives. The fundamental emotions that we share give us more in common than the differences that divide us.

Vulnerable

2010-02-14T10:02:00.000-08:00

10/02/10

This feels like the edge of the world. It is a barren and forgotten place where few tourists tread. Case in point, I am alone in Kerma, on the bank of the Nile, surrounded by Sudanese who are turning out to be remarkably nice people who speak no English.

This should have presented a problem, but I was amazed to discover that I have solidified my Arabic sufficiently to get by. Sudan was a British colony at one point, but you would never know that travelling in rural areas. Using simple verbs, numbers up to a hundred, personal pronouns, and a handful of nouns, I find that I can introduce myself, explain about my trip, ask simple questions, and get where I am going. I counted in my phrasebook and think I have memorized about 250 words, not counting the numbers. I can also read the script, very very slowly. Unfortunately such efforts generally produce completely unintelligible sounds.

I am happy to rely on the small bit that has sunk in, since I am truly on my own. I left the boatload of tourists back in Wadi Halfa. I am sure I will see them again somewhere on this vast continennt. I am feeling rather vulnerable at this point because there is nobody but me around. From what I can tell, I am the only non Sudanese in this town. I don't think they get a lot of tourists either.

I rolled into town aboard an ancient bus painted psychadelic colours, remniscent of the Tata trucks in India. This is the kind of place where kids gape at me with big dark eyes as the bus rolls through dusty streets between the mud brick buildings. It is the kind of place where women float through the streets in colourful robes over dark skin, with only their lean faces and wide eyes exposed.

My place here is a bed in a dorm with the Sudanese. The standard bed here seems thus far to consist of a metal frame with mesh woven over itto create a base. A thin layer of foam and a sheet usually, though not always, complete the setup. There is no blanket or pillow. I sleep in my jacket. I met my roommates, was received with warmth and curiosity and then headed out for a walk. I stood on the bank of the Nile watching a fisherman haul in his nets. Bugs skimmed the surface of the water and the bank was covered in garbage. I cloimbed back up and after a brief interrogation by the police, I explained who I was, and where I was going (in Arabic of course). I have never been a fan of arbitrary detention.

On the way back, I stopped for a bite to eat and was invited to sit with four sudanese guys. They insisted that I share their dinner and I at some of that along with a quarter rost chicken. They finished before me and were gone before I knew it. It turned out that they had paid my bill before leaving. Welcome to Sudan.

Upon my return to the lokanda I realized that two of them were the roommates I had met earlier. I felt a bit embarassed, having failed to recognize them, but I think it went unnoticed. I spent a half hour telling them about myself and showed the the map of my trip.

I can't believe how kind people have been so far. Vulnerability may be at an all time high, though it seems that any danger comes from the government more than the people, much the same way it did in Iran or North Korea. The bureaucracy has been a hassle thus far and promises to continue all the way to the border. Hopefully I can duck the police from here on out...

The First Step into Africa

2010-02-14T06:21:00.001-08:00

I awoke in the night with a cold wind rushing over my face. There on the metal deck of a packed vessel, surrounded by Sudanese in a little enclave that I termed “foreigner corner.” This is where real Africa begins.

The scene at the port was chaos. There were endless passport checks, each one degenerating into a scrum with people shoving their way to the front. I waited patiently and had thorough verification of my passport and ticket by no less than a half dozen individuals. Finally I made my way down the concrete pier and onto the ferry, scoring prime real estate on the top deck, and bracing for a delay of indefinite duration. Box after box was loaded on to the boat and people streamed in with huge bales of goods rammed into suitcases and sewn up in synthetic burlap sacks. Gradually the deck filled to the point that movement was virtually impossible.

There were almost 25 other westerners on board. Most were either jeep people or bike people, people crossing the African continent overland from Cairo to Cape Town. My plan no longer stood out as crazy, dangerous, or foolish: it now seems that everyone is headed down to the World Cup. As night fell, we discovered some absurd rules, all shouted at us in Arabic by the Captain of the boat. Later explanation revealed that there was a prohibition on flashlights as it would interfere with the ability of other ships to navigate the empty lake.

The Sudanese were curious about us and spent a great deal of time inspecting bicycles and the tent that a British guy had set up. The rest of the time they spent, lying in the sun, playing with cel phones, eating, smoking and periodically taking a breaks to pray. This It was only men on deck, nothing unusual in this part of the world. It seems that the rigors of such a journey are too tough for the 'weaker sex' who find themselves confined to the dim light of the seating area below. After about eight hours of waiting under a blazing sun, we set sail for the Sudan.

The boat began to move in the middle of evening prayers. I stood and watched with amazement as a mass of the faithful were gradually steered away from Mecca and ultimately wound up facing the exact opposite direction as the ship pulled out of the harbour. They didn't seem to mind and foreheads were pressed to ship deck in the usual fashion. I couldn't help but wonder if the unexpected departure went unnoticed until it was too late.

As usual, I boarded the ship completely unprepared under the assumption that I would be able to eat and drink enough to survive. This was indeed the case, though lunch on the boat fell well below my low expectations. A man behind a counter slops some potato substance on a metal tray, reaches into a bin, grabs a quarter chicken and tosses a flatbread on top. I sat in the cafeteria with a couple of Sudanese who helped me to squash a number of cockroaches that were climbing into my food. Looking around, it occurred to me that they must be in all the food already as it was all stored in baskets sitting on the floor of the ship.

Soon the cold of the night set in and I lay down on the deck beneath a sea of stars overhead. I awoke in the night and had to make my way through a minefield of sleeping bodies in the dark to access the filthy toilets below. Could really have used a flashlight, though I made do without incident.

The morning was cold and windy. There were flocks of birds skimming the lake and even some pelicans floating behind at the rear. We passed Abu Simbel, the great temple of Ramses II that once marked the southern border of his kingdom. As we drew nearer to the final destination, I completed my customs forms and was ushered into a bedroom below deck where I was granted a number of stamps. After a couple more hours without any food, we began to drift slowly toward a partially submerged concrete pier with a bizarre metal barge attached assembled from hundreds sheets of welded steel.

Disembarkation was no simple task and required a great deal of pushing, fighting, blocking and general struggle. That of course was after the surprise immigration procedure wherein some very unofficial Sudanese too great pains to record a bizarre, inaccurate and incomplete version of my name from my passport that did not in any way correspond to the information they recorded from the additional forms that I filled out. As soon as that was over, I rode the wave of people as they pushed me toward the exit.

Down on the pier, there was dust everywhere and lots of police standing around. I walked up the road a bit and found people waiting for dusty buses that would take us further on. The first bus turned up and there was an incredible amount of pushing and fighting to get on board. I stood back and began to realize what I had gotten myself into. This was absolute chaos, inexplicable and senseless. I waited a few moments and another bus turned up. I had positioned myself perfectly and the door stopped in front of me. This was a superior strategy to the Sudanese who had thrown their parcels and bodies under the wheels in an attempt to board before the bus stopped moving. Two or three made it on, one piece of luggage was crushed, and nobody died; a good result I suppose.

We made our way down a dusty trail at breakneck speed, overloaded with all sorts of luggage in laps including suitcases and cheap Egyptian televisions. We were soon at the final immigration post which looked like a massive meat locker with imposing doors that slid open to admit people for inspection. There was a long line of tables and loads of people unpacking parcels and suitcases. I opened my bag for the officer who rummaged around a bit without really looking at anything. He asked me where I was going and I said Dongola. He asked me what I wanted to do there and I said I had it written down. I produced a printout of Lonely Planet Africa's Sudan chapter and read him the highlights. This prompted the improbable declaration “you are interested in history.” I replied in the affirmative and was waved through after receiving two stickers. Before exiting another officer checked the stickers and marked them (and my bag) with a creative black squiggle.

Outside the meatlocker there were over a dozen men in white robes waving bundles of cash and offering exchange. I swapped a hundred bucks and stood in the sun watching people fight their way onto 'boxi' ancient Land Rovers modified with benches in the back. I slung the big bag on top and got to sit up front with the driver. The interior was incredible. The roof was made of cloth, and the gas line came in through the cab then out to the engine. I sat with the gearshift between my legs looking at the busted instruments as we rattled toward a final post where we were re-inspected.

On the other side, the desert rocks gave way to a small town: Wadi Halfa. At first it seemed no more than a desolate series of mud brick buildings, though nearer the centre there were some newer ones made of concrete. There are no signs and a single paved road leading out of time. The rest of the town is a bunch dirt tracks with stray dogs rolling in the dust under clouds of flies. This is what I came for I suppose.

I checked out a couple of hotels and most had scrappy rooms with dirt floors and woven mat roofing. I managed to find one with a concrete floor. Though a little extravagant, I thought the 7 Pound pricetag was within my budget ($2.80 USD) and I decided to splurge. I am assuming it comes complete with bedbugs. I am sharing the room with a couple of self-drive overlander Welshmen who I met on the boat. Once we checked in, we were amazed to see the staff appear and begin assembling somebody else's belongings from the room only to move them outside. It appears the guy was kicked out to make space for us, and he came back to visit us a number of times, looking for stray socks, sandals and a shirt, that somehow did not make their way out of the room with the rest of his belongings.

This is some of the most basic accommodation I have ever seen. In a year and a half, it is undoubtedly the room with the fewest creature comforts. It also may take the prize for the dirtiest sheets. I hope that bedbugs are included in the price, because I am not willing to pay extra for that. At least the holes in the roof and the broken windows provide good ventilation. I am also pleased with the bullethole pattern produced where the paint has flaked away from the hard packed mud underneath.

Tonight I explore the town, not that there is much to explore. Tomorrow is time to swallow some more bureaucracy as I have to go register my passport, the first of what promises to be a litany of similar experiences.

Finally Africa...

The Other Cairo

2010-01-30T05:23:00.000-08:00

Most tourists don't like Cairo. I think it's because they spend all their time at tourist attractions and fall into the con game of the sellers and the scammers. The pyramids must be seen, but I have the sense that all the hassles that go with it really put people off. That is not my experience.

I hang out in local shops and restaurants. That's where you meet the real Cairo. People are friendly and welcoming. The table next to you is full of 12 year olds talking on cel phone headsets, possibly to each other. The food is cheap and you never ask the price. After all, that would imply you don't know it already. After lunch I head back to my hotel and find turned into a makeshift masjid. The lobby is packed with kneeling men, wall to wall and thirty bodies deep. After an abortive attempt to wade through the faithful, I had to wait outside.

I spent the next day wandering the bazaars of old cairo, discovering brilliant mosques at every turn. I time it to go betwen Aazans (calls to prayer) and often find myself alone in grand marble courtyards looking at shafts of light as they penetrate the lattice in soaring archways. Best of all - Islam is free.

Another afternoon I headed to the Northern Cemetary, sometimes known as the City of the Dead. It is a place where the poor have moved into grand tombs, built centuries ago but still buzzing with the activity of the inhabitants. The friendly reaction of the locals gives the impression that few tourists venture there.

Walking among the graves on hot dusty earth, I dodge scrappy looking stray dogs sleeping in the shade of the tombs. A hysterical lade forbids me to go any further and wails on in Arabic. She musters the words "obey my advice" and warns me of untold peril lurking around every corner. Some old men come out of nowhere and start arguing with her in Arabic as I turn the corner and continue deeper into the maze of streets and alleyways.

The kids are all over and really happy about my assortment of Arabic greetings and the occasional catch phrase. They all want their photo taken and most are really nice about it. A couple of the older ones ask for money and a teenager groped one of my friends. I got rid of him quickly only to have him return shortly with a rifle that he first posed with, then shot at me. Fortunately there was nothing in the chamber. Another fifty metres and the people were nice again, inviting us into their homes and insisting on cups of shay.

I talk to dozens of people and cheer TaHir Musr (Egypt Rulz) to share my delight over the glorious football victory the previous night. There are lots of laughs and some tears from the little ones who are a bit camera shy. In the end I take a taxi back to my hotel and they continue with their lives. Impoverished among the graves.

With the Smokers

2010-01-30T04:43:00.000-08:00

Here in Cairo, I have managed to make myself some sketchy acquaintences. These are the burnouts, dropouts, hustlers and borderline criminal elements who prey on unsuspecting tourists, but perhaps more on each other.

I met a man named Sam who hustles for money however he can find it. He found me eating a big greasy shawarma and started with some weak attempts to deprive me of my cash. He uses a small papyrus shop as a platform to offer hashish to tourists. He can get anything though, bring you to any hotel, set you up with any tour.

I was curious about the hustler scene here so I strung him along and we took a walk. We made our way to a shop in the guts of a downtown Cairo building. After twisting and turning through hallways witn low clearance, we came to a courtyard of sorts where was a small souvenir shop and a bunch of guys hanging around smoking cigarettes and cursing in English and Arabic.

They all wanted to smoke hash with me, at my expense of course. These guys are seedy as they come and I joked with them for a while, pumping them for information about criminal activity. Turns out that one particularly crass man spent four years in prison for heroin offences in Netherlands. Seems the Dutch government recently repatriated him after four years of free room and board in one of Amsterdam's finest institutions.

There's another guy, a halfway respectable looking middle aged guy who has the prayer scar on his forehead. He is at the mosque five times a day. The rest of the time he hangs out upstairs and smokes hash. I sat outside last night and watched him tread his well worn path at the behest of the Aazan. Twenty minutes later, he was on his way back to the building.

The situation soon degenerated into a squabble over money and smoke. It seems that Sam had escorted some foreigners to a tour agency and made himself a healthy 400 Pound commission (roughly $80 USD). Everyone wanted to smoke and some harsh words were exchanged. There was a rustle in the shop and the fracas died down. The old man stepped out to investigate the commotion.

I was later informed that the old man was the boss in that area. Word has it that years ago he was accomodating some known hash slingers which led to an incident with police. It ended with the officers pleading for their lives, locked in the shop and doused in kerosene while he threw lit matches through the grate. That's the story anyway. Regardless of the reason, the old man is the boss, landlord and king over the smokers.

These guys are always on the streets and I see them every day hustling whatever they can. They sometimes try to get me in on the action and propose business arrangements that would effectively reduce me to the status of 'hotel tout.'

I decided to take advantage of my newfound acquaintances and detailed them to find me a very particular chess set. Negative results. In spite of assurances that they scoured the bazaars, it's more probably that they sat around getting high and bickering over petty scams.

These guys are not my friends. They are just a small pack of burnouts who want nothing more than a free meal so they can spend their cash on smoke.

Back in Cairo

2010-01-26T12:02:00.000-08:00

Scars of piety mark the heads of the faithful in this throbbing metropolis. Men wear them on their foreheads like a badge of honour showing a lifetime of devotion, five times a day. Beneath me the noise rises from the streets as little Chinese motorcycles and donkey carts dodge in and out of traffic betwen minibuses and Mercedes. This is Cairo. This is Egypt.

It's a welcome change from Dahab, where nothing ever happens: "you been to the pyramids man?" "Naaaw man, I just been here three weeks and I fly home tomorrow but I am trying to change my flight so I can get drunk tonight with my dive instructor." I had enough of it, and missed the dive of dives on account of bad weather. I have yet to give up on the idea, though it is bound to require some creative re-routing toward the Sudan.

The Sudan itself feels ever closer. I began the visa process today which entailed visits to three embassies to obtain one of the most absurd documents imaginable: the letter of introduction. This is a letter from your home embassy saying that you are a nice guy and that you want to visit the Sudan. This morning I spilled off the bus on little sleep and amid a flood of Koreans. I found a cheap place downtown and swilled some McDonalds coffee while waiting for the embassies to open.

First I had to deal with the Canadians to get the ridiculous letter. It was nice to be in an outpost of my home and native land, even if it was just for a while. It was clean, efficient and organized. Within minutes they had received me and informed me that they could not issue any letter or offer any assistance. It seems that the Canadian government is warning against all travel to the Sudan and thus refuses to cooperate with anyone seeking to visit the country. They did however print out the government warning from the DFAIT website, warning me not to go. Sounds like the most dangerous place I have visited yet, but more on that when I am out the other side إن شاء الله (Insha'allah or 'god willing')

This in hand, I went round the corner to the Sudanese embassy. The contrast was incredible. The building was falling apart and there were mobs of people pushing their way to unlabelled windows. I fought my way to the front and was asked for a letter of recommendation. I explained that the Canadians wouldn't issue one. Ironically, I was able to use the printout they had provided so as to avoid the letter. The Sudanese man scoffed at very idea of dangers lurking in the Sudan. He told me to go get an Ethiopian visa and return at which point he would issue me a transit visa. I was now relying on the Ethiopians to get me on my way.

After some internet research, I boarded the metro and headed to Dokki in Giza where I wandered around asking for directions in broken arabic: "أين هي السفارة الاثيوبية؟" This went well thanks to some gesturing and the occasional English speaker. I was pleased with myself and managed to find out that the address was wrong. I stopped at McDonalds for a McArabia, hit the Metro again, returned to my hotel, made some calls, got a new address, headed back to Dokki, wandered around for a while, and finally found the place with the assistance of some friendly locals. These missions are a headache at the best of times, but really take their toll when one is running on no sleep.

The Ethiopians were friendly, though they conduct all business through a small hole in the door to the compound. I was quoted $20 USD for the visa but this was raised to $30 because I paid with a $50. I pick it up tomorrow at 13:00 and then its back to the Sudanese so they can spin me in some more circles. More of the same no doubt.

Looks like I have a few days to kill here, which should present no problem. This is my kind of city, full of action. Besides, I have more than enough things to take care of to fill the days. Might even get out to the pyramids, yet another lifelong dream to many people. Here I am with an opportunity to live it again and all I want to do is hang with the locals in smoky cafes. I want to feel this city and stay away from the tourists, the touts, the hawkers, to have a real experience of what its like.

To Sinai

2010-01-25T00:23:00.001-08:00

I am the first to admit that I am spoiled for the things I have seen in this life. Another day, another ancient monolithic rock hewn temple. What's the big deal guys? They didn't even carve the inside of these ones. The think that most impressed me at Petra were the vistas over the desert, looking back to the Dead Sea and the Holy Land in the distance. I soaked up the atmosphere, imagining frankincense laden camels plodding their way through the canyons with five hundred kilogram loads. I imagined the bustle of ancient bazaars where traders and priests walked among the locals in an ancient kingdom long since vanished, a people who disappeared, their blood now mixed throughout Jordan and beyond. The Bedouin remain and work the camels to the delight of lazy foreign tourists. These once vital beasts are hardly the resource they were in the ancient times. Some have a diet of cardboard boxes.

After a couple of days I had seen enough and made my way south. I boarded a ferry and headed out of Aquaba to the port town of Nuweiba in Egypt. I gained some small amount of fame on the boat on account of my shirt printed with “Jameela Filistin” or “Beautiful Palestine.” My Mommar Ghadafi impression further endeared me to my new friends, particularly the Libyans. There I was, growling “Strong Man” in my best ArabEnglish accent. There was appropriate bicep flexing to illustrate the point. We were soon thick as thieves and there was no escape. One of the guys to show me loads of 'big booty' porno on his cel phone. The initial hilarity turned quickly to disgust amid explanations that this was not in fact how people behaved in America. He had a seemingly limitless supply, with the booties growing larger and larger. I had to request he show me something more wholesome.

He switched to Arabic quasi striptease (need I say more?) and then we moved on to a video he had taken of a massive heroin smuggling operation. The video showed men using rollers and stencils to paint green camels on packs of heroin. There were loads of guys sitting on piles of Egyptian money, purportedly amounting to the equivalent of ten million USD. I don't know how I make these friends. As we docked in Egypt, the encounter finished with the man showing me photographs of his children and a number of Russian, Moroccan and Tunisian girlfriends that he proudly objectified for my benefit.

The bastards at customs used a full new page in my heavily stamped Canadian passport. Yes, I have repatriated myself after some evasive maneuvering through Israeli and Jordanian customs. Goodbye to her Britannic Majesty...for now. I have two empty pages left and am relying on my limited Arabic to entreat friendly Sudanese officials to overlook the obvious problem of onward travel. Maybe its time to start ripping visas out...

We hit a minibus and ripped along the Egyptian highway under ominous clouds. Dead camels littered the roadside, rotting into the desert sand. I reached Dahab with some duty free booze for the sullen owner of a guesthouse who had agreed to hook me up with a room on the cheap. It never rains out here in the desert, but that night was cold and stange. A “storm” rumbled in over the Sinai, its clouds covering spectacular stars and drizzling through the dark desert night.

I made my way to the shore of the Red Sea and looked out as the heavens billowed and lightning crashed over the other holy land: Saudi Arabia. I could feel the power of it and thought about the Biblical passages describing the Lord appearing as dark swirling clouds and towering pillars of fire. I gazed with wonder on that far off shore, a land so inaccessible to all but the Hajji. Its a place I may never go.

I did however take advantage of my present location to climb Holy Mount Sinai for a second time. There is no substitute for the feeling you get watching the sun break one ray at a time over the desert mountains. A cold wind whips over the mountain top and heightens the senses as the Bedouin huddle under blankets trying to stay warm. The panoramic vista is incredible and I am lucky to be here again. Some people dream of things like this all their lives. Here I am again, this time with a new friend. I think back to the last time and get a laugh when I think of Martin and Maurice "man spooning" for warmth in the frigid night air. Soon I am back on the minibus winding a path through the desert and back toward the sea.

So here I am now with salty skin, “stuck in Dahab” - an expression that is all to common around here, usually uttered by people watching life pass them by under under the Red Sea sun, people who never got started and have consciously opted for beach bars and coral reefs in a colossal denial of something greater lying beyond this concrete oasis on the edge of nowhere. In my case, “stuck in Dahab” is more of a reality, since the “storm” dropped 40 millimetres of rain on the Sinai. This resulted in buildings crumbling, hotels flooding, airport closure, and roads shut down for a couple of days. I was trying to get out, thinking the run off would lead to murky water and ruin the diving I had intended. I checked out of the dump roach hotel with the sullen booze drinking manager, and effectively took up residence in a restaurant where I swilled beers and waited for word that I wasn't going anywhere.

Rather than waste any more time, I signed up for an advanced SCUBA course the following morning and spent the next few days in the world's biggest fishbowl looking out into the deep blue with a coral wall dropping off toward the bottom, 600 metres below me. My fears of poor visiblity were unfounded and I floated weightlessly in the infinite blue as the days slid by. One day has turned into nine as I sit here waiting for the final three dives I intend to complete before moving on.

Tomorrow I head to a shipwreck: the SS Thistlegorm, sunk in WWII and containing motorcycles, tanks, anti aircraft guns, and even couple of locomotives still chained to the deck. Stuck in Dahab. Could be worse.

To the Rose City

2010-01-16T00:38:00.000-08:00

I woke in Jerusalem this morning and was on my way before the sunrise. Tonight I sleep in Petra. In between there was some wrangling at the border in order to ensure I avoided the dreaded Israeli stamp. It's not that I have a problem with Israel, it's just that the Republic of Sudan doesn't view things the same way.

Considering a negative results report from an American who carried out the exact plan I envisioned, but one day earlier, I made some last minute alterations to the scheme and decided to head to Eilat at the far south of the country. Contrary to the three and a half hour “welcome interrogation” that I received on my way into the country, I was through Israeli customs in two minutes without a single question about what I did in Israel.. I am amazed that they are so careful to screen people coming into the country but are apparently unconcerned with what they do while inside.

The Jordanian side was a nice surprise too. I had planned to bite the bullet and accept the entry stamp on my Canadian passport, which would inevitably lead to the logical inference that I had exited Israel. The Jordanians were more interested in advising me to shave my beard, and telling me how to meet women than they were in stamping my passport. I regaled them with my piss poor Arabic and they were very impressed. They noticed I had no exit stamp, and just when I thought I was busted pulling the passport switch the guy asked me if I wanted him to stamp a piece of paper. They stamped an exit form and didn't charge me for the visa. I was shocked and entered the country in high spirits, having achieved optimal results through no fault of my own.

After wrangling with a taxi man over the fare to the bus station, I got in the cab and listened to him pitch a ridiculous scheme which would have me go to Petra in his cab. I hit the bus, met a friendly local, chatted with him in french at his request (though he had no idea what I was saying), learned some Arabic, and rolled into Petra before sunset.

I missed the rose red colours sinking sun, but did manage to feast on 'all you can eat' Jordanian cuisine at my hostel. It was the best meal that I've had in months. The evening ended with somebody popping Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade into the VCR. I couldn't have imagined a better way to begin my own adventure.

Settling for the Facts

2010-01-16T00:37:00.000-08:00

This is not the same place I visited all those years ago. Ideology has poisoned the holy land. Back in 2001 when the bombs were going off, the fear they induced had everybody on edge. Back then I felt confused and couldn't figure out how things had gone so far off the rails. Through all of that, I was amazed how friendly people were, how welcoming. I felt genuine sympathy for the plight of both sides. This time I did not get the same impression.

There are normal people living here, like people do anywhere else. But somehow I feel more as if this is a land of troops, zealots, tear gas, protests, barbed wire, fences, concrete barriers and guns. Too many guns. Guns everywhere. In the market, in the park, attached to belt of the fat guy swilling coffee in the bus station. A large number of the gunmen are not even in uniform, either off duty military, civilians or private security. I have yet to see any action though. It is about time these guys waste some terrorists.

I find that the longer I spend in Israel, the less comfortable I feel. I attract suspicious looks in certain quarters from people wondering what I am doing close to their home sand holy places. The Apartheid wall dividing Israel from the occupied West Bank snakes its way over the ancient Judean hills.

After spending time in the West Bank and observing the absurdity of the Israeli policies there, I am baffled by the Settler movement. How could anyone write this: http://www.shovrimshtika.org/gallery_item_e.asp?id=53 . It smacks of ignorance and hatred, nothing more, nothing constructive, nothing of value. Is this what the writer teaches his kids?

Shockingly this sector of society exerts a great influence over government policy. I ask myself what they have planned? Continued expropriation of land, homes and resources until they have the whole west bank? This is no logical plan: it can lead only to further catastrophe for everybody involved. There will never be peace with an alien population taking over land and homes in a territory it rules by military occupation. All this breeds is vicious and perpetual animosity.

“Facts on the ground” do not in any way justify the expropriation of land, homes, and resources of their inhabitants. They do not justify the division of the territory into isolated hamlets, segregated from each other by “bypass roads” for the exclusive use of Settlers and functioning as de facto walls prohibiting the movement of vehicles or farm machinery between areas with longstanding territorial links.

Back in Jerusalem, men stand near the Western Wall asking for a donations. When I was asked, the guy took offence to my inquiry about the cause I was supporting and replied “What are you doing in my country anyway? You come here and you don't want to give anything.” I felt uneasy standing there in the shadow of a large golden menorah. According to some, it will grace the Third Temple when it is built over the ashes of the Dome of the Rock.

Later that night, I sat in a tent on a street in East Jerusalem. This is the residence of Mr. Nasser. For all his life, he lived in the house across the street, the one draped with Large Israeli flags, a wooden menorah affixed to the roof. It really stands out in this neighbourhood, an area of town populated entirely by Arab people. The Settlers are here and they want everybody to know it. There is racist graffitti in the streets, swastikas and slogans scrawled in Arabic. This does not make the situation any better. I can't help but think that this is a microcosm of the entire Settler movement. Expropriation without compensation.

For now the situation rests in a perpetual state of hopelessness and breeds inexplicably incendiary actions that will lead to nothing but more instability and loss of life. I feel as if the prospects are dimmer now than they were back in 2001 when all the hope of the 1990s had only just vanished amid the blasts of suicide bombers.

It is not about pointing fingers or laying blame, but rather about determining a fair resolution that both sides can live with. It is about finding courageous leadership who will implement it. This will not happen through “facts on the ground,” the resurrection of Apartheid policies and an insatiable appetite for expansion combined with a dangerously unfounded sense of entitlement.

Ideology and hatred lead to war and resistance. War and resistance have led to segregation and a struggle for survival.

The Spectre

2010-01-12T10:14:00.000-08:00

I stand in the south Hebron hills at the tip of the occupied West Bank. Around me are the tent houses that make up the remains of Susiya, a rural Palestinian village. Dirty kids run about taunting a couple of old dogs. Men work what's left of the fields, little more than some soil collected in the recesses of the rocky land. According to some, they should have sold the animals and moved on a long time ago anyway.

The villagers have been rounded up repeatedly packed into trucks and buses with all their belongings and left on the doorstep of Yatta, a Palestinian town miles away from here. Their tents have been burned down, they have been evicted by military order. Thy have no electricity and struggle to find a subsistence level of water. Yet they fight to remain here. They are back now after a period of absence on account of a court order authorizing their return and recognizing the legitimacy of their claim to the land. The forged warrant was not enough to break their will. They have nowhere else to go.

There is a settlement up on the hill. The electrical lines swoop around Susiya in a great arch that terminates in the paved suburban comfort of the settler community. Its red roofs peer down toward the tents and the security zone around it now accounts for over sixty per cent of the original farmland used by the Susiya villagers. It encompasses most of the springs containing water.

The archeological site down below is the original site of the village. Its preservation was the reason for the first eviction order. It was not long however until the settlement sprung up in place of people's homes, right on top of the very ruins they had been evicted to protect.

I am not here alone. My guide is an ex-Israeli army soldier who was posted in the area. Somehow he could not overcome the injustice of what he saw, the orders he carried out, and now the time has come to fight back by exposing others to an ugly reality. The day is full of disturbing stories coming form first hand experiences of Palestinians and Israelis. My objective is not to set these out in detail. It is merely to relate my horror at the condition that the people I met are now living under.

This situation transcends all considerations of religion. It is nothing to do with religion. It is perverse ideology imposed at the behest of the settlers, a right of entitlement to land occupied by other people, simple people, farmers and shepherds.

Shot out tractor tires are expensive to replace. Burning tents scare the kids in the nights. And they call them terrorists...

The government points out that the settlements are illegal. This does not prevent the state from providing the settlers with roads, water, electricity, and military protection.

The inhumanity here raises the spectre of facism. How did it come to this.

Quiet and Memorable

2009-12-31T10:29:00.001-08:00

Its New Year's Eve and I make my rounds of Jerusalem taking stock of all that I have experienced in the last year. It started with the Mumbai police chasing people from the Gate of India with clubs and whistles. It will end with me overlooking the Temple Mount and thinking to what lies ahead: Africa.

I passed up a potentially wild night in the Tel Aviv party scene to hang back in this holy city amid the domes, crosses, crescents and menorah. I have enjoyed my fair share of parties over the years and think that a quieter experience promises to be more meaningful and memorable. And cheap.

Thinking back to what I have gone through in the last year, I am overwhelmed. I know the world is beautiful and I have only just scratched the surface. There is so much more to see and experience. So many more people to meet. Friends have come and gone and we are now people scattered all over this planet. Some I will never see again, while others will inevitably pop up somewhere on the open road ahead. One thing I know is that we have shared in experiences that we will never forget. I miss them all.

Of the things I took with me when I left Toronto, I have almost nothing left. I have managed to trash two cameras, break one computer, supply two mobile phones to the criminal underworld, surrender my twenty year old Swiss Army knife to Beijing airport security, wear through a dozen pair of sandals (largely on account of my reluctance to wear socks), and fill the better part of two passports. All of that is behind me now.

At present, my clothes are a collected assortment of international fashion statements, each garment representing some triumphant feat of bargaining in some labyrinthine bazaar, souq or local shop. I have somehow acquired an Indian army sweater, a pair of Palestinian boots, a muslim prayer cap, a kafir (which is an Arab style scarf – think Yasser Arafat), some slick Iranian jeans, a Bible, volumes of Russian literature and a short book of Chinese Philosophy that could take a lifetime to read. I don't have much and have few attachments to my possessions. The ones that remain are thus more meaningful.

The greatest thing that I possess is the experience itself. It continues every second of every day. In the old city, the church bells begin to chime out their rhythm as the wail of the Aazan reverberates through the alleyways. There is nothing to take from this but the memory.

The new year is almost upon us and I relish in the thought of what it holds. One thing I know is that it will bring me home, back to friends and family. I feel refreshed in this thought. I am ready to move on toward the edge of the earth with open mind and open heart, in pursuit of my objectives: to experience and understand the human condition.

Shalom. Salaam Al'ayakum. Happy New Year to all.

Rooftops in the Rain

2009-12-31T10:28:00.001-08:00

I know a place in Jerusalem where you can climb the rooftops overlooking the temple mount. I stand there alone in the pouring rain looking over that golden dome thinking about the rock underneath and all that it signifies. It is a dark wet night and there is nobody around, the rooftops are deserted and I make my way through the puddles to the edge of the buildings where I looked down into the wet streets in the dim light rising from the alleyways beneath me. I began to feel this place again much more profoundly than before. I have grown so much since I was last here.

I climb down through pathways, walking along ledges and treading carefully to avoid a fatal slip. I move through a network of alleyways that lead through the new buildings of the Jewish Quarter. At the bottom of the path I discover a patio that looks over the western wall and the faithful as they sway in the rain. I think back on the last year. A year of my life spent on the edges of this earth and so far beyond anything I could have imagined. Here I am, blessed, back in the holiest of places with a camera and a bible. I look down at my feet and see rose petals covering the deserted patio before moving on into the dark twisting streets in the night.

This is a far cry from a few hours ago when I made my way through Sheikh Jarra, an East Jerusalem neighbourhood that is a budding flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian conflict and violence. Settlers have moved into the area, taking advantage of the fact that some of the original Arab residents don't have valid title to their homes in accordance with Israeli law. The Arabs are evicted and the settlers move in. There are a couple of homes with Israeli flags draped from the windows and the rooftops above graffiti such as “Fuck Israel” and other hate slogans scrawled beside crudely painted Palestinian flags. I can't understand why anyone would want to live in a home under military guard in a neighbourhood where they are universally hated, but I suppose there is a bigger picture. I am not the one to adjudicate on the issue. Suffice to say it is disturbing, ongoing, and promises to get worse.

Here in Jerusalem, sublime peace, love, faith, worship, and god are juxtaposed against violence, hatred, guns and ideological warfare in a way that is outrageous and incomprehensible.

Into The West Bank

2009-12-29T12:55:00.000-08:00

Hebron is a city divided. Part is administered by the Israelis and the rest by the Palestinian Authority. The reason for the division is a group of hardcore Israeli settlers that have claimed the center of the old city and reside in a world of fences, barbed wire and troops. Life is clearly not normal and they cannot even leave to go to the bustling markets just outside their barricaded back doors. They do however have access to the tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs which is a mosque containing the bodies of Abraham and Sarah, Issac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah and even a footprint left by the original man, Adam himself. Very persuasive.

Of course the majority of the complex has been turned into a Synagogue because as usual nobody can share. Barush Goldstein, was the man to demonstrate this most effectively. He is the settler who went into the Mosque and killed 27 Muslims at prayer in the mid 90s. That is not really such big news in the settlement though. The thrust of a well organized poster campaign reminds residents of that in 1929 “Arab Marauders Slaughter[ed] Jews” in the area, 67 of them to be precise, and stole their land after the British moved the community for its own protection. They reestablished the community only in 1967 after the Arab Israeli war. But I digress.

The “synagogue” is now an area of the complex that is protected from “the Arabs” by a barrier inside the building, sealing off Arab access to various biblical all stars including Isaac, Rebecca, and Sarah. There is Arabic calligraphy all over the building and it is really a bizarre sight to see it functioning exclusively as a synagogue. On the other side, the Muslims have some bodies of their own, claiming Jacob and Leah. On the Muslim side, I managed to look through the grill and beside the tomb of Abraham, there was a group of Jewish people looking at the same grave. Amazing that people are going out of their way to worship at the same places because of the same people and they can't find a way to do so in harmony.

Prior to the massacre by the settlers, the mosque was apparently shared by both groups, but sharing is a feature that this region seriously lacks. Presently, the Israeli army controls access to the Muslim entrance to the mosque and troops walk around inside wearing their combat boots. This is in spite of the fact that Jews are not allowed in the Mosque, and Muslims are certainly not allowed in the Synagogue. I suppose that any harmony could last without a serious change of attitude, especially by the most extreme elements at the fringes of either side.

For the time being, the settlers are living the dream by imprisoning themselves on a high security island in a sea of Islam and Palestinians. Five times a day, the wail of the Aazan echoes out over the whole settlement from all sides, bringing to life the isolation in which these people choose to live. The streets are deserted in most areas since the army has moved the Palestinians out of large sections of the old city out on account of the incessant violence between the two groups. There are not nearly enough settlers to fill the space that they have claimed. They barely fill out the one that they inhabit, let alone the surrounding area full of empty shops and homes, devoid of people. There is an eerie feel on the streets and the overwhelming sense of unease is driven home by the barbed wire and troops.

Some places there have nothing more than a waist high concrete barrier segregating the two groups (heavily guarded of course), and marking the pathway where Muslims are allowed to walk in order to get to their homes. People from the two groups pass each other every day, though they don't say anything or make any eye contact. You can feel the tide of hatred surging just beneath the surface. [subsequent to posting this entry, I came across http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/gallery_e.asp - worth a look if you are interested in the situation in Hebron].

The solution is to build a massive wall. After crossing the checkpoint into the West Bank this morning, I took the opportunity to walk alongside the barrier for a few kilometers taking in the graffiti. I couldn't help but wonder to myself what people must have thought when the cranes showed up with troops guarding flatbed trucks loaded with colossal concrete slabs. Did the locals stand there and watch themselves getting penned in or did they just go about their daily lives in an attempt to maintain a feeling that everything was normal.

I cannot deduce the logic behind the execution of this occupation. I get the impression that a lot of it depends on the discretion of ground troops who resemble a group of college students more than they do a well trained fighting force. College students with M-16s of course. Some seem to relish pulling Palestinian men off buses and lining them up with their hands against a wall. Others seem like they couldn't care less, and just want to do their time and move on with their lives.

Whatever the logic (or lack thereof), I cannot predict what to expect at the checkpoints. Some involve intrusive searches, while others don't even involve slowing down or showing a passport. The soldiers are not terribly interested in me. They focus more on barking commands at young Palestinian men and ordering them to lift up their shirts. Either way, from the perspective of a foreigner, the security is a far cry from the three and a half hour 'welcome' interrogation that I received on my way into the country. I am not sure it makes any more sense.

Christmas on the Road

2009-12-29T12:54:00.000-08:00

26/12/09

Christmas in the Holy Land unfolded in a somewhat predictable way. I made my way to Bethlehem to find that I would not be allowed to enter the Church of the Nativity or even to go within reach of its great stone walls. It seems that some things never change and there is still no room at the inn. Alas, no angels appeared to me and I did not take on the ability to perform miracles.

The night was passed instead in a crowd of Palestinians, mostly men, watching a Christmas concert. There were no Christmas carols, though there were some religious songs by “God's Children's Chorus” that warned that man is a sinner and has “ruined creation.” Fortunately the song also points out that we can all be saved. Not what I had anticipated out of a Christmas concert but it certainly passed the time.

It was a great evening, tainted only by a large number of perverts incessantly groping my friend Sissi while looking at me for approval. That proved enough after a while and we boarded a bus back to Jerusalem and made our way through the old city to the heart of the Muslim Quarter where I have taken up residence in a nice little guesthouse.

Christmas day was special but very much done backpacker style. The plan was hatched in a monastery back in the Syrian desert. I met up with some friends and we cooked a feast in a Hostel kitchen, managing to put together roast beef, with lots of salad, veggies and, of course, vino rosa. After the meal we smoked a water pipe and went to an empty nightclub. I made a quick exit and returned to the hostel to make some phone calls, full of Christmas cheer of course. Thus ended backpacker Christmas in Jerusalem.

Of course everyone missed their friends and families, but it was really nice in another way in that we all had each other, and we came together to do something memorable and special. Hopefully I will be home next year...

Back in Jerusalem

2009-12-29T12:53:00.001-08:00

23/12/09

The bells of Jerusalem break the stillness of the early morning with rhythmic notes from all sides. It is still dark outside and the first rays of sunlight have only begun to breach the horizon as another day dawns on the holy land. I make my way through the twisted alleys fo the old city, past the shuttered stalls of the souq and on through the empty square where alleycats pace silently in the shadows. Soon I feel I am at the epicentre of it all, this whole world and everything in it.

I enter the gate and cross the stone courtyard, through the arched doorway into the dim lamp light of the holiest of all churches. I pass the rock where Christ was embalmed, brush my hand on the base of Golgotha, and make my way to the side of the Sepulchre itself where the deep voices of the monks resonate in the cool air of the morning. The candlelight flickers against ancient oil paintings as the smell of incense fills the air amidst the sound of the bells echoing in the distance outside. I breathe in the fragrant air, drink in the hollow echoes of those chanting voices, and wonder how I can ever leave this place.

Back through the alleyways, I stop for a couple cheesy pastries. The sun is up now and there is a grey quality to the light of the early morning. My mind wanders back eight years to the last time I walked these streets, wandered through this ancient maze and lost myself in the overwhelming feeling of it all. That was a long time ago and I am a different person now. I fall upon the old city feeling that I know the place, its twists and turns corresponding to fragments of my experience and memories awakening at every turn.

There are people out there who will never make it to Jerusalem and here I am back. I walk the Mount of Olives again, see Gethsemane and wonder about betrayal. I climb through the smashed stones of the ancient Jewish cemetery and make my way across the Kidron valley. A steep climb up the other side puts me back at the gates of David's City looking upon Mount Moriah where Adam and Noah made sacrifices before Abraham made the climb to give his son to the Lord.

Of course it is the “Temple Mount” now, so called because of Herod's massive retaining wall that levelled the mountaintop, but also as a repudiation of its present role as host to al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. The Menorah that will grace the third temple of Solomon sits in the Jewish quarter, waiting for the day “within our lifetimes” when the Third temple is constructed, presumably after razing the existing buildings to the ground in an attempt to purge Islam from the Holy Mountain of Adam, Noah and Abraham: www.thirdtemple.org.

Down below at the Western Wall, the Jews gather on the Sabbath to rock and pray in peaceful harmony with everything around them. It is a beautiful sight to see the descendants of the patriarchs giving themselves over to the Lord. I sit back and watch, content to pay my respects in my own secular way.

The day ends with a walk around the new city and some nice Thai food, a temporary break from my felafel diet, and a slow wander home through the deserted streets of this ancient city of souls.

Mar Musa in the Desert

2009-12-16T03:54:00.001-08:00

13/12/09

Out in the middle of the desert, two Norwegian men are walking down an empty highway. They look like they have just come out of a business meeting in their full length wool coats, dress shoes and wool scarves. Their faces are bright red from the sun, the wind and the exertion of walking up hill for miles in the desert. They are hoping against all odds that a vehicle will happen along and pick them up. Sure enough I am soon sitting with them in the back of a pickup truck full of Syrians wearing kaftan and headed to An Nabek. Here is how it happened:

A few days ago I left Damascus in a minibus and made my way out to An Nabek. That was the last stop before miles of barren desert and mountains with nothing but brush and the occasional shepherd with a flock of goats. I hitched my way into the middle of nowhere and was deposited at the turn off for Deir Mar Musa El-Habashi, a Syrian orthodox monastery. I walked up the highway to a stone path that wound its way up a valley toward ancient buildings looking for miles out over the arid vista.

I arrived at the top to find the place somewhat deserted and wandered around a bit before finding my way into the ancient part of the complex. I crouched down and passed through some very low doors and was in the central part of the compound. This was a hive of activity with people moving all over the place, cooking, hanging laundry, chatting and generally milling about. I could not figure out what I was doing there, so I continued my exploration.

I pushed open a door that led inside a church dating from the tenth century. Apparently the place goes back a good five hundred years further than that, but the frescoes inside were added at a later date. I marvelled at the paintings on the walls, remarkably well preserved and hung around for a while alone in the small church, still not quite sure where I was.

Finally a man with a long beard and a kaftan joined me inside. He invited me to lunch and told me that they would find a place for me to sleep after we eat. I made my way out of the church and into a large tent where there were about twenty foreigners, a half dozen monks, a nun and some workers. We ate a vegetable stew with rice, bread, yoghurt, cheese, olives, tomato, and a delicious apricot marmalade. I made some friends and met Father Piero, the monk who had revitalized the place after finding it lying in ruin back in 1982.

I chatted for a while and helped to clean up after the lunch was over. I put my things in my humble quarters, and took a walk to the top of a peak giving a brilliant view of the endless desert vista. Storm clouds were blowing in and I headed back down to the monastery. After all, it would soon be time for meditation. This happens every night, bringing everyone together for quiet reflection in the church. First the monks sing and then the lights go off for an hour and, nobody speaks. After the hour, the lights go back on and there is a Mass, mostly in Arabic for the benefit of the monks, though some English is inserted for the benefit of the tourists. Guests are encouraged to pick up a bible from the shelf, which are available in many different languages. Some scripture is then discussed and afterward it is time for dinner.

Father Piero clearly relishes in the fellowship of the meal and encourages everybody to come together for a nice experience. We prepare the tent with food and eat whatever we have left over from the lunch. It is hard to help out since there are so many hands and I had to pounce quickly to carry jugs of water and tomatoes up to the tent. Once the meal ends, everyone helps to clean up and then it is off to bed. I secure five blankets and throw them over my mattress on the floor, hoping that they protect me from the cold desert night.

The morning begins with the sound of a gong calling people to the morning mass. It is cold outside the blankets so I stay underneath and wait for breakfast instead. Breakfast is much the same, in fact, exactly the same as dinner and is made up of the leftovers from the night before. It seems the food is recycled meal to meal until it is gone. The meals were simple and delicious and made me appreciate the simple pleasures that this type of experience can bring.

A note on communal living: It amazes me how much of the day goes into the tasks surrounding basic subsistence. The labour of the entire monastery seems directed principally toward food preparation and cleaning. That is not to say it is the only thing that people do, just that it seems to occupy an inordinate amount of time. It does produce a great sense of community and mutual feeling of accomplishment and fellowship. It is a nice feeling and I can understand how reluctance to relinquish it results in overnight stays turning into weeks in the desert.

After eating, I retreat into the church by myself and crack open the Old Testament, starting “In the Beginning,” and devouring the couple of books by lunchtime. Lunch again and the cycle begins to repeat itself. After cleaning up, I head off to the library to read about the crusades before succumbing to the lure of ancient gossip about who got stoned and who “lay” with who. Back to the meditation and mass and finally the Last Supper then off to the room and under the blankets for another cold night.

On the final day, I hung about and this time helped to prepare the breakfast while the morning mass went on. I planned to leave right after breakfast but it was a beautiful clear day out in the desert and I walked up into the valley instead. When I returned my assistance was enlisted to chop some garlic and tomatoes and I willingly obliged. As I chopped I thought about staying another night bit I knew I had to start moving, as I intend to be in holy Bethlehem for Christmas.

Enter the Norwegians. I awoke that morning thinking that there was no way out of the desert except hitchhiking. The Norwegians apparently had arranged a taxi. I rushed out to jump in the cab with them and didn’t even have a chance to sample the delicious lunch I had helped to prepare. This was most disappointing when we walked down the winding stone path through the valley and heard the bell ringing, summoning all people to the dining tent. It was even more bitter once the Norwegians advised me that they didn’t have a cab waiting, but rather they would just hail one on that desert highway in the middle of nowhere.

So there I was on that long desert highway to nowhere with two Norwegian businessmen...

Syria

2009-12-16T03:49:00.002-08:00

08/12/09

Once in Syria you can be sure that you have truly arrived in the Arab world. The men wear Kaftan and there are Palestinian flags hanging in the streets alongside portraits of Bashar Assad and the Syrian coat of arms. Political discussions inevitably turn into a condemnation of Israel and an outpouring of support for the fellow Arabs dispossessed of their land and livelihood. People seem proud of their country, their culture and their customs.

This goes a little too far sometimes. I had a Kurdish man inform me that Chinggis Khan was Kurdish. He seemed genuinely surprised at my misconceived notion that Chinggis hailed from Mongolia. We discussed the matter at length and he remained entirely convinced that Chinggis was a great Kurdish war hero. I told him that Saladin was from Kurdistan too. At least we agreed on that.

Walking about town, I begin to notice some new characters watching me. There is an occasional portrait of the Ayatollah and his smiley sidekick, but the stage is stolen by dramatis personae both new and exotic. There is Bashar and his dad, the prodigal son and the deceased strongman and their portraits are spread far and wide throughout the land. There are decals on the windows of cars, and portraits hanging in businesses. If you miss these, you still know you are in Syria as a result of the huge billboards in the streets. My personal favourite is basher with the military fatigues on looking like he belongs in Top Gun. Or something like that. The Assad dynasty is not the end of the characters on this Levantine stage.

Enter Hassan Nasrallah, the cheerful looking leader of Hezbollah. He is always beaming from ear to ear, his chubby cheeks bursting beneath his bushy beard. Though he may hail from neighbouring Lebanon, he is wildly popular here and is widely represented, beaming ear to ear whilst holding Kalashnikovs.

These guys are so much fun that it is unnecessary to even criticize them. Fortunately the censor precludes any of that dirty criticism from entering the country by means of a restrictive internet filter. They are on to the fact that Facebook and YouTube pose a mortal threat to civilization as we know it. Thanks to god that somebody is looking out for me and protecting me from these menaces. Chalk one up for the Islamic Republic of Iran who had no problem with me accessing my blog (though I doubt they would support its contents).

In spite of the cult of personality dictating government, and the affiliation with organizations based on dubious principles, society at large strikes me as relatively liberal. A large number of young ladies dress without hijab. The ones that do are generally not the chador wearing types. They are more likely matching the bright purple headscarf to the high heeled suede boots of the same colour. This is not your grandmother’s hijab.

Of course I have been subject to the typical Neanderthal attitudes of some men. One of these described a particular sexual position then advised me that “If you do that, you won’t be able to control her what if you get sick for a month. She will have sex with every man and she will be a prostitute.” Seems logical. Another man interrupted a political conversation among westerners to ask us if we knew various words describing a certain part of the female anatomy. I denied any such knowledge with such a straight face that he continued in his attempts to make me understand by uttering a slew of slang, each term more abrasive than the last. The battle of the wills did not stop there. Finally I had him describe what he was talking about in excruciating detail, satisfied that he was embarrassed and felt he had bitten off more than he could chew.

Putting these things aside, the Syrians have been nothing but friendly on the whole. Though nothing can hold a candle to Iranian hospitality, this country is full of welcoming people and aside from a bit of bargaining required in the souq, westerners are welcomed and treated as guests.

This place has the potential to be a major tourist destination if it were not for all the western misconceptions about the country and the government’s apparent reluctance to clarify them. It is hard to spend money here making $15 USD a reasonable daily backpacker budget. Hotels are clean and beds comfortable (200 Syrian Pounds or $4USD), transportation is cheap and efficient, the most expensive bus ride so far setting me back about 200 Pounds, food is delicious and cheap, meals rarely costing me more than 50 Pounds or 75 with a drink ($1 - $1.50 USD). The fake ISIC Card I picked up on Khao San Road has also come in handy, reducing admission fees from somewhere in the hundreds to ten Pounds or less ($0.20USD). It’s a cheapskate’s paradise over here, though not much of a party destination I suppose. I guess you can’t have everything.

Syria

2009-12-16T03:49:00.000-08:00

Damascus

2009-12-16T03:40:00.000-08:00

08/12/09

Here in Damascus I find myself sitting at a hotel desk, typing away wearing a kaftan (the Arab style chequered scarf) and my newly tailored Iranian blue jeans. This city is all I had hoped it would be with a great old town, a mosque as unusual as it is ancient, and a bustling new city with boutiques and cafes lining the streets. Damascus has it all.

There is a great atmosphere here. I can hardly say that it is a liberal place because there are many people who appear quite conservative. In spite of this, I see a young man with gelled hair for every old man wearing a kaftan around his head. I see a girl in tight jeans and makeup for every old lady in a chador. There is a sense that anything goes here. Within reason.

The old city is a maze of souqs and alleyways, centering around the Umayyad Mosque at its centre. The mosque is built out of the remains of a Byzantine cathedral, which in turn was built from the remains of a temple to Jupiter. From the narrow streets around the massive complex, you can still see the Roman archways in the retaining walls beneath the dome and mismatched minarets dating from different eras. It is as if the place was put together piece by piece and there is a dissymmetry to it that results in a unique and beautiful building that lies at the heart of a city bearing the same qualities.

Inside the mosque, men and women pray in close proximity, separated only by a chain confining the ladies to the rear of the building, though everyone is in plain view of everyone else. The prayer hall is enormous, well over a hundred metres long, and the floor is covered by strips of carpet. There is a small shrine in the centre, allegedly containing the head of John the Baptist, though I understand that several other places make the same claim. Outside is a magnificent marble courtyard and walls with golden mosaics depicting the city. Just beyond the walls lies the mausoleum of Saladin, a great Arab general of the Crusader era.

Around the mosque are medrassas, tea houses, restaurants, and souqs selling every imaginable curiosity. I find it easy to pass the day wandering among the laneways finding new sights, sounds and smells around every corner. It is amazing to stand and watch ladies weighing a bag of walnuts with a hand scale, then to turn the corner and see to women in chador inspecting racy lingerie. This is the middle east in my mind: exactly what I would imagine if I closed my eyes and tried to picture a scene from this region.

Back in the new part of town, there are plenty of discoveries to make. I passed a couple of movie theatres that advertised 1970s soft core feature films by means of a vigorous poster campaign confined exclusively to the entrance. A man came out to shoo me away as I snapped photographs, but I didn’t listen. I found it humorous that somebody would deliberately place himself in a photograph with such scandalous subject matter. I have become excessively nosy with my camera and found myself briefly detained warned by police on numerous occasions. Other times, the warnings come from sources commanding less authority. They are generally ignored.

The streets are full of vintage cars, the occasional Chev or Ford from the 50s, VW Bugs, Citroens and Jaguars from the 60s, and big American gas guzzlers from the 70s. The pace is electric with traffic throbbing through busy intersections as pedestrians scramble between the bumpers. Traditions remain alive here too, as the locals sit and relax with their nargileh and shay.

Damascus days are short and the sun sets around five o’clock. Then it is time for a rest, perhaps a nargileh, some study of Arabic words (I can proudly say I have learned the alphabet), a bit of reading, a cheap feed, a good conversation and then time for bed. I have been here four days and don’t know where the time has gone. I feel as if I have not taken a moment to myself having remained active at all times without ever making a specific plan. From here, I intend on heading out to Mar Musa, a monastery in the desert.. It should be a nice change from the relentless pace of this eternal city.

Crumbled Empires

2009-12-16T03:37:00.000-08:00

03/12/09

Atop Aleppo’s citadel you can see over the entire city, the domes and minarets surrounding you below and the call to prayer echoing through the streets of ancient souqs and crumbling houses. I sat for ages gazing out over the city thinking about all the people moving about beneath me just as they have done for centuries in the winding lanes.

The Crusaders passed through this country almost a thousand years ago in their quest to take the holy land. Their fortresses are everywhere, as are the ones established by the indigenous armies that chased them out. It is hard to imagine legions of knights roaming through the rugged countryside on an unprecedented holy war that took place nearly a millennium ago. Their impact is still felt here, and a small Christian population remains. It is largely a mix of different faiths including Armenian, Greek, and Catholic churches in addition to the Syrian Orthodox community. Damascus and Aleppo contain Christian quarters that are nice places to walk around if one is in the mood for iconography instead of calligraphy.

Out in the desert are Al-Bara and Serjilla, cities that were abandoned for reasons unknown fifteen hundred years ago. They are crumbling now, but the remains of stout stone buildings, bathhouses, and cathedrals, provide an amazing glimpse into the way people lived back then. The way into Serillja took me through a group of empty sarcophagi, their stone caps heaved off by ancient grave robbers so long ago there is nobody to blame. They lay there next to a huge quarry from where the stones in this city were once hewn. There is an eerie feeling when you walk the deserted tracks between the buildings, through doorframes that lead nowhere, and stand under colossal archways that have lain barren since before the last millennium.

Other monuments are better preserved. Crac des Chevaliers is a crusader fortress atop a hilltop in the gap of a massive ridge dividing the north and the south of the country. Whoever controlled this gap had a stranglehold over the land in ancient times. Upon entering the fortress, I made my way up toward a massive stable that would have once contained hundreds of war horses ready for battle. From there, I proceeded out the other side of the defensive wall, and through a grassy area into the fortress itself. Inside another impregnable wall lies the barracks, a kitchen, toilets, a cathedral and enough watchtowers and ramparts to keep me busy for the afternoon. There are no railings and I felt the onset of vertigo looking down along the profile of the sheer wall. I could not imagine how anyone could dream of mounting an assault on this stronghold and in the two hundred years that the Latin nights held it, only the great Saladin tried, only to give up after thirty days. Crac des Chevaliers was never breached, but the Knights Hospitalar eventually surrendered to the Mamluks when the kingdom was clearly lost.

The final piece of the tourist trail here in Syria is the city of Palmyra. This is a ruined city of a rebel Roman tributary that declared its own republic at one point and conquered as far as Alexandria in Egypt. Brought back into the Roman fold, the city faded into obscurity sinking into the desert sands. Palmyra means the “city of palms” though that is not the impression given off by the flat concrete structures of the new city. There is an oasis there today, visible from the roofs of ancient tombs and a hilltop fortress, as a patch of green in the cracked earth of the desert.

I am not the easiest person to impress when it comes to ruins, particularly Roman ruins, since I have seen so many including those in Rome itself. As a result, I was underwhelmed. I did however have a great time helping a local shopkeeper in his attempts to fix his fax machine. We failed, but went on to smoke his Nargileh pipe (a.k.a. Hookah, Sheesha, Qualyun) for a couple of hours while consuming countless cups of shay and discussing law and politics.

Through with my time among the landscape of crumbling empires and vanished peoples, I make the long journey to that ancient city of Damascus, a place I have dreamed of for years now. It lies out there across the desert. What could happen on the road to Damascus?

Into Syria

2009-12-16T03:36:00.000-08:00

30/11/09

The romance of my Mesopotamian experience quickly evaporated when it came time to cross the border into Syria. Of course the guide warns to get a visa in advance, and not to approach the border without one under any circumstances as this would constitute a highly risky course of action. Of course I didn’t listen.

I made my way down to the Akcakale crossing, passing huge bales of cotton as colourfully dressed women worked the fields and men sat on rooftops looking on. Once at the border, I joked with guards for a while until finally the let me through where I was surprised to find that they were in the process of burning a heap of garbage contained in large plastic bags. Some ladies passing through were attempting to salvage some of the garbage and this produced quite a row with the customs officials, providing me with sufficient entertainment to wait for word whether they would let me through without a visa. It was soon determined that the Syrians would not be granting me a visa and that I could go to Ankara to apply for one if I wished.

That did not seem to me like it was a prudent course of action, so I headed back into Sanliurfa, then to Gazientep, crossing the Euphrates en route, and marking my acquaintance with a second river alleged to have flowed from the Garden of Eden. From there, it was on to Kilis, another border town where I would try my luck again. This entailed three dreadful minibus rides, each one impossibly more packed with children who were crying, puking and shitting their pants, possibly simultaneously. I arrived at Kilis feeling tired and it was getting late. I decided to head to the border in the morning intent on playing on the good grace of Syrian customs.

Upon arrival at the border I was advised that I could not cross without a car. Instead of asking anyone for a ride, I just stood around like an idiot until it became apparent that nobody was picking me up. This led the guard to inexplicably usher me through and I hit the Turkish customs window, waited my turn between two cars. I had my passport stamped and walked for a couple of kilometres to the Syrian side. There were signs not to leave the roadway on account of minefields in every direction.

The difference was immediately apparent. Big portraits of Bashar Assad and Syrian flags dominated the little station, and I headed inside to find a scrum of people vying for the attention of four immigration officers who were chain smoking cigarettes behind the glass. Almost everyone in the line was smoking too, creating a very hazy and carcinogenic atmosphere. I got to the front and after some mild scolding that I should go to Ankara, I was told to wait as calls were made and stamps were stamped. Soon I was the proud bearer of permission to enter Syria, some handwritten into the passport on top of the stamp.

The City of Prophets

2009-12-16T03:33:00.000-08:00

29/11/09

After my brief rest in Mardin, I decided to spend a couple of days in Sanliurfa, “the City of Prophets,” where Abraham and Job once lived. It was a great place with a beautiful Islamic complex surrounding a fish pond and rivers containing black fish that people get a real kick out of feeding. I had the pleasure of learning a bit about the prophets and seeing “the rock where Job sunbathed” and I can confirm that he definitely leaned against it because it kinda looks like it could be a backrest.

My favourite Job story is the one where he and God got pissed at his wife because after God “tested” Job by taking everything away, his wife was tempted by the devil. Job made a pact with God to give her 100 lashes with a rod as punishment, but he couldn’t do it for a while because he was living in a cave. When he got out of the cave he didn’t want to administer the lashes because he loved his wife too much. God let him off easy by allowing him to deliver a single lash with a bundle of 100 branches bound together. And I wonder where these guys get their misogynistic ideas. [A Christian girl in Damascus subsequently advised me that this was a “Muslim reinterpretation of the story.” She was full of indignation]

I was further delighted to remark that a “gun craze” had taken hold among the children of Sanliurfa. I participated in the fun by getting shot in the back of the ear by one little devil with a small air powered pistol. It was a great time, and broke skin. The sight of blood whipped the gang of kids into a frenzy. Though thoroughly annoyed, I beat a hasty exit as they assailed me with simulated gunfire, pausing only to shoot back with my camera. It was time to move on.

Over the Tigris

2009-11-26T06:47:00.001-08:00

Today I crossed the Tigris for the first time. It was a great moment for me, partly because I had always wanted to look out over its civilizing waters, and partly because Turkey lay on the other side, ending my brief foray into Iraq.

I woke up this morning and lay on the living room floor among some of the snoring brothers until the Major started hitting me shouting “get up.” I was up quickly and ready to go. The plan was for us to head up to Amadiyah, a small town in the mountains in the north of Iraq. I couldn’t stomach the prospect of any more time with the Major so I grabbed my big pack and announced that I was going to head to the border.

The Major tried to have me leave my bag at his place and when he failed, he insisted on accompanying me into town to get breakfast. He managed to secure two kebabs with falafel and meat inside. He then got us two more but spent most of the time complaining that it was too much food. No matter, I was paying. We were then off to cruise around Dohuk for a bit before he decided it was time for me to go. The Major began asking me to give him my camera again and we happened to pass a camera shop shortly after. I showed him that there are SLR cameras in Iraq, then the story changed from “it’s unavailable” to “it’s too expensive.” What a loser.

In all the time I spent with the guy, he didn’t answer a single question I asked him, never told me where we were going, what he had in mind, didn’t ask a thing about me and did nothing but treat me like some kind of a liability who was on the verge of handing over an expensive camera for the ‘hospitality.’

I was delighted to be rid of him, and soon I was on my way out across the plains of Iraq toward the Tigris and Turkey on the other side. As we got near to the river, we passed through a valley that had thousands of crows swooping around in flocks and darkening the sky.

The border was a fiasco as usual, involving a smuggling scheme where the driver imposed on his passengers to claim cigarettes and asked me for my passport to buy more from duty free. For some reason the driver went by “Ghengis Khan,” perhaps on account of the pillage and plunder that netted him all those contraband cigarettes, or perhaps on account of the cutthroat tactics that led to us skipping a large line of vehicles to get back into turkey. He approached customs, and lied that I was a stupid tourist with a flight to catch and that any delay would inevitably cause me to miss the flight and ruin my holiday in Iraq. The ruse worked, though I was not happy to take advantage of people who were clearly being decent and hospitable.

We were soon off and Ghengis Khan stepped on it as we blasted through farm fields and roadside tire fires on the way to Silopi, a depressing little border town with a bank machine and a bus station. The contrast was amazing as the barren landscape on one side of the river suddenly seemed green and fertile on the other.

After getting to Silopi, I ad one more bus to catch to reach Mardin, my final destination. I attempted to buy tickets for the bus three times and was told to buy it from the conductor on each occasion. I did so and all was well until the bus stopped and a man boarded and ordered me out of my seat. I told him to go take it up with the conductor and he refused shouting at me in Turkish about “billet.” I started ignoring him and another man jumped in to translate that i was in his seat. As if id didn’t know that. I said tell him to go talk to the “bus man” but he kept telling me to get out of the seat, growing more and more enraged until finally he going red in the face screaming at me. Finally he took exception to the fact I was ignoring him, and lunged at me to snatch my headphones. I smacked his hand away and told the translator “tell him ‘don’t fuckin touch me.’” I think I looked serious because he went to speak to the bus man without the necessity of any translation. He was promptly kicked off the bus.

And now I am on my way through farmer’s fields to Mardin, past mud brick villages, many crumbling and abandoned as tractors plough the rich black earth. A couple more days and I’ll be through another border, this time without the necessary papers, and it promises to be another scene no doubt. A few more check points, a few more stories, and I’ll be in the ancient city of Damascus.

Around Iraq

2009-11-26T06:46:00.000-08:00

25/11/09

Moving around in Iraq is not to be taken lightly. The smallest variation in rout can take you out of the Peshmerga controlled area and into Iraq al-Arab where the bombs go off. Conscious of this, and not speaking a word of Kurdish, I headed for the taxi garage and started making a deal that would get me up to Dohuk without going anywhere near the hornet’s nest Mosul.

Satisfied that the driver understood my instructions, we were on our way with three old ladies in the back. We rolled through the Iraqi countryside, a barren landscape of light brown hills covered in something between dust and soil and apparently useless. There were little towns at the side of the road in some areas, strips of concrete block buildings that would flash past in an instant and disappear behind us as we made our way further across the desert. There were lots of bases painted in camouflage colours with watchtowers and barbed wire protecting them. There were massive armoured vehicles patrolling some areas. They looked like renovated dump trucks with lots of guns and armour on them. Convoys of Kurdish troops passed by in buses protected by pick-up trucks loaded with armed men in the back. The truck of choice for the police and army around here is the Ford F350, a big beefy American beast perfect for kickin’ ass in the desert sand.

We stopped at some barren outpost for the ladies to pray and I drank chai with the driver and the storekeeper as I watched traffic whiz on across the desert. Soon we were back in the car and winding our way over the desert and up into the hills and mountains that conceal the path to Dohuk. As we descended into a valley, the city appeared before us, its pastel buildings creating a colourful palette against the brown hills.

Once there, I made the mistake of calling back the Major, eager to secure some free accommodation in a country with no tourists but absurdly expensive budget accommodation. I knew at the time that it was a poor decision and that was confirmed over and over again.

My Dohuk experience started with the Major shouting at me not to leave the taxi garage until he arrived. He turned up about an hour later, though I had not listened and took my sweet time exploring a bit of the city while I waited. As soon as he arrived, it was Major time. This began with a hairbrained mission to some “bank” (read: loan shark/money changer) for him to get five hundred bucks. He picked up the money after lots shouting into cel phones and we were off to shuttle a bunch of passengers around town in his van. He used this opportunity to tell me that David, the Canadian who had been living with him prior to my arrival, had refused to give him his SLR camera. Upon hearing this, I felt an overwhelming sense oof revulsion and the desire to go check into a hotel. Too late, I was the Major’s guest now. Anyway, he couldn’t believe that David had not given him the camera because his mom had cooked for him, he stayed four nights in the Major’s house, and the Major bought him lunch three times. Shocking. As If I couldn’t take the hint, the Major then asked me to give him my camera. I really wanted to bail at this point, but that would inevitably have created a real scene. I just refused and explained why it was not a realistic option for me (omitting the fact that I didn’t even like him). We went on one more run with more passengers, mostly in silence and then headed back to the Major’s house.

The house was nice and packed with people. The Major has nine brothers and sisters and apparently thirteen people live in the house. The home was big enough and was in a new neighbourhood full of concrete homes, many of them painted the nice pastel colours I had seen on my way into town. I wasn’t introduced to anyone, and nobody asked my name. I was told to sit on the sofa and I did. The TV was blaring Hindi from the soundtrack of an old Indian movie with Arabic sub-titles. After about fifteen minutes of heated argument with various family members, Major got up and left without saying a word to me. I was at the mercy of the family. Fortunately they are nice people. They don’t speak English, but they do know how to yammer “mister mister mister mister” until they get my attention The one exception is the father. He chatted with me for a bit regaling me with such comedic stylings as “I don’t say the United Kingdom, I say the United ‘Condom!’” What a zinger.

As far as I can tell, among the thirteen people living in the house, only the Major is employed. This was later confirmed by his father who said he is the only kid who was never a drain on the wallet. As far as I can tell, all the other brothers just sit around and smoke cigarettes. The father went on to explain how he and the Major had acted as translators for the US Army. This shocked and awed me since neither one of them could speak functional English or understand the majority of what I said. It dispelled the myth of the well organized US forces going into homes and communicating politely and effectively with the locals with the assistance of translators. The one thing that I couldn’t figure out is know the Major scored the job as a translator, when he learned to speak English in the Army. Apparently he didn’t speak a word before he started working as a translator. This doesn’t make any sense, but maybe the explanation was lost in translation. The Major’s father (who also calls him “Major”) confirmed the mystery without any clarification.

An important point to note is that one of the brothers has some sort of kidney problem. I found out because I wasn’t in the house a half hour before I has handed the results of a Urinalysis and asked to provide an opinion. I just said “I’m not a doctor, but everything looks good...and that he should take the pills that the doctor prescribed.” I can understand why they wanted my input, after all, random strangers from the west are a valuable source of second opinion when it comes to kidney problems.

Other than that, everyone just sat around watching Kurdish TV and talking to me in Kurdish. The big attraction was soon to arrive. A lady, possibly the sister, showed up with a little baby. The whole family was wild about the baby and competed to lavish it with attention. As a side note, nobody ever opened a window or, made any attempt to butt out before picking up the baby to kiss and cuddle it. It was a curious scene. Most of the brothers looked much like the mother which was unfortunate on account of her huge and flat nose, hardly a flattering feature. I struggled to tell them apart as they came and went and smoked cigarettes. After a couple of hours I went to the other room to escape the stale cigarette smoke that was billowing about in the TV room. I sat quietly by myself reading my book until a couple of hours later the family began to trickle in, one by one, to see what I was doing. This meant that I soon had a Kurdish man lying next to me staring at me while he chain smoke and I read.

There I was, in the house alone with a family, only one of whom spoke English though he was occupied with a game of backgammon. The women sat on the carpet making a big pot of cabbage and cauliflower as the young girl hacked up a large hunk of meat. The vegetables were strewn all over the carpet and I was fed a regular supply of delicious raw cabbage that I sat eating politely. It was about eleven o’clock by this time and I really began to regret not having checked into a hotel. A couple more cigarettes got sparked up and one of the kids would not stop saying “mister mister mister” until I acknowledged whatever he wanted to tell me in Kurdish. None of the men paid any attention, fixated on their backgammon. No sign of Major who was out earning money in the van while the rest of the guys lounged around the backgammon board.

These guys are really starved for action and produced an old ghetto blaster to pump up some 50 Cent. They then insisted that I dance for their amusement. Bored, I complied and mustered the most ridiculous western dance I could on short notice. It was well received. Afterwards I sat with another brother (had I already seen this one?) who demanded to see my photographs. I showed him a bunch of shots of Uzbekistan. He kept asking me if it was the United States and wouldn’t take “Uzbekistan” for an answer. Sounds like America I suppose, but when I persisted in saying “Uzbekistan” he replied “France?” and I said yes. Lots of mosques in France.

Finally the Major came back and offered no explanation for his lengthy absence (five and a half hours?). I didn’t want one anyway, and was delighted to see one of the brothers pull out a couple of mats and gesture me to accompany him into the other room. I was given a blanket and the mat to make my ‘bed’ and I did so eagerly, wanting to sleep early so I could get up and out of there as soon as possible the following morning. I fell asleep in the brightly lit room listening to a movie starring a man who laughed like Disney’s Goofy while the brothers lay around smoking cigarettes with the baby.

Into Iraq

2009-11-26T06:45:00.002-08:00

24/11/09

From Tehran I hopped on a bus that took me north to Orumiyeh, a city near the border with Iraq. I arrived after another overnight journey, exhausted and freezing cold in the sub-zero temperatures of the early morning. I waited a few hours for things to open up and found myself another bus that would take me through all the way to Erbil in northern Iraq.

It was a strange ride, as the only passengers were an older couple, an old man, the two drivers, and myself. Other than that, the bus was totally empty. After a few hours, we got to the border to find the road blocked by hundreds of trucks. They were manoeuvring through the mud around an electrical pole that was in the middle of the road. This caused a massive backlog as everyone competed to get through the space at the same time in typical Iranian fashion. The whole mess could have been avoided by simply stationing police at both ends of the jam to direct traffic through in an orderly way. Rather, twice as many police were detailed to wave at the cars and trucks that ad already managed to jam themselves into impossible positions on the overcrowded road.

When we finally hit the border, the experience was relatively painless. There was virtually no inspection on the Iranian side, surprising considering the usual headache when leaving a repressive country with a totalitarian government. Getting into Iraq required a few levels of questioning, much to the displeasure of the bus drivers. At one point, they apparently wanted me to skip the formalities of getting my passport stamped so that we could get moving. I thought better of it though and wasted another fifteen minutes getting the required clearance to go through.

Back on the bus we made our way into Iraq through an amazing setting. From the Haj Omaran crossing, the road follows a river valley down from the mountains and through all sorts of Kurdish towns as it winds its way toward Erbil. We stopped a couple of times en route in order to drop off passengers and eventually it was only myself and the drivers. I gazed out the window watching the sun set over the cityscape on a distant horizon as the bus slowly made its way down a mountainside on a series of switchbacks as the drivers smoked incessantly.

Soon night was upon us and I began to see signs for Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk. I really began to feel that I was in Iraq. It was not long before we were In Erbil, one of the “safe” cities in the northern region of this country. I hopped off the bus and grabbed my pack, ready to go seek out a hotel. I guessed the direction of the city centre and began walking through the night. I was alone and kept passing military men, peshmerga, a Kurdish military force that is presently responsible for my security in this most dangerous of countries. I walked for a while through the dark streets, and couldn’t find a decent place to stay. I was approached on a dark street by a ‘helpful’ Iraqi who promptly made homosexual advances toward me through hand gestures and attempts at grabbing. He was easy enough to get rid of though he nearly got a smack for his persistence. What a strange way to start my time in Iraq.

The hotels were surprisingly expensive, and unsurprisingly crappy. I wound up renting a triple room all to myself for $25USD which was a lot more than I had expected to spend, and more than an entire day’s budget for Iran. I can’t understand how it costs so much. There is nothing here, there are no tourists, and the property can’t be worth much. For some reason though, most of the places that I checked were full and I had a hard time locating one that had space available. I was tired of wandering around in the dark and decided to crash for the night. Finally I was in a bed that didn’t move and I took advantage for a great night’s sleep.

There is not much to see here in Iraq, just some very plain towns by the look of it, and some nice scenery up north. I had planned to get out of Erbil early and head for the border, but I woke up quite late and didn’t feel like moving. I paid my room one more night, and decided to check the town out at leisure. I was under the impression that there were no tourists around. This idea was dispelled when I ran into a Canadian guy and an Iraqi man named “Major,” who was a translator for the US army. They were taking a day trip down here from Dohuk, my next destination, and I spent a few hours looking around town and marvelling at how little there was to see here.

I was cut off at every turn by the Major who appears to be as assertive as he is idiotic. He spent a good deal of time telling me how easy it was to shag girls in Iran because they will “give you temporary marriage.” I don’t know why, but I tried to correct his misconception and explain that this applied mainly to prostitutes. He ignored me and forged ahead with the details of how his brother had married normal Iranian girls for a few days at a time and that generally speaking, Iranian girls do that. I have no idea how he could believe something so stupid.

I gotta get out of here tomorrow and really feel the urge to keep moving. The Major is a bit strange and overly controlling but he has offered me free accommodation up in Dohuk so I think I can put up with him for a couple of days. Now all I have to do is figure a way to get out of here without leaving the Peshmerga controlled areas of the country...

Iran

2009-11-26T06:45:00.001-08:00

It’s been weeks since I crossed that lonely border through the mountainscape and rocketed over the land toward adventure and unknown in this isolated country. It is hard to reconcile what I found with what I thought it would be. I am here now in Tehran, staying in a nice apartment with my friend Hedieh, a journalist who agreed to put me up for a few days while I get myself together.

I am off to Iraq, the autonomous region of Kurdistan to be particular, and plan to blast through there in a few days passing through Eastern Turkey before heading south to Syria and beyond. For the moment, it is still Iran that is all my mind, Iran in all its spectacular beauty, Iran in all its oppressive insanity.

The Boys:

The glory of the revolution is still rammed down the throats of the masses with the Boys looking out over everything from posters, billboards, and portraits. The Boys, of course, are my pet name for that pair of ‘friendly uncle’ characters that preside sternly over everything with Stalinesque authority. They are always watching. One’s got charisma (and once popular support) and the other’s got some loveable spunk and a nice beard. They are both religious conservatives who believed that everyone else should act like a religious conservative too. What a utopia they have created. Dare you to say its not...

Typically, neither one of them looks particularly happy, though when Khameni appears alone, he is sometimes smiling so wide that protruding front teeth give him that grampa woodchuck look. Sometimes they appear with their little pet, the one with the patchy beard and the dubious claims to legitimate authority, a minion of the well oiled apparatus of repression. They are on the highway, at the bank, and in the kebab shop. When a state begins to venerate its leaders with cult like adoration it puts itself in quite a special club. This club celebrates from time to time with massive street parties and lots of slogan chanting before the police kick some heads in and everyone goes home (some to all expense paid, state run dorm style accommodation with full board). Most pleasing to Allah.

The Revolution:

There is a certain irony to do with the revolution. A country where revolution is encouraged and glorified is presently in a position where revolution may once again be forthcoming. A discontented populace no longer supports the outcome of that 1979 revolution that brought the state that the conservatives enjoy today. They want new revolution. This produces a disconnected view of revolution in that it is favoured by both the state and the people though for different reasons. Regardless, there are Che Guevara posters available for purchase, right next to the Humphrey Bogarts and Al Pacinos.

Dangers:

The dangers come more from the government and its sympathizers than from the populace itself. My incident with the Basijie is a good illustration of this. Those guys were cowardly little twerps, human scum, filthy little chauvinists, misogynistic simpletons power tripping on some quasi religious righteousness vested in them by corrupt puppets with long beards and turbans. I don’t like them.

There is some instability from time to time in the South East of the country, and it shares borders with Afghanistan and the Baluchistan province of Pakistan. The potential for danger is there, though I did not witness any. It is easy to avoid these areas and I never felt the threat of extremists, militants or other groups that the Bush administration worked hard to have people believe the country seethed with.

I understand as well that there are some Taliban that come across the border for the purpose of army training. I got the information from a photojournalist I met in Tehran who had spent time among the Taliban in Afghanistan, impersonating a Talib himself. He had marvellous photographs of men posing with Kalashnikovs and RPGs, guards ordering him away from the scenes of attacks, and smouldering buildings blown up in Kabul. I asked him about them and was informed that their disposition is quite normal. Their politics is extreme and homicidal of course, but other than that, they smile and laugh, eat dinner, drink tea, and sleep just like anybody else. I couldn’t imagine what things must be like among such barbaric Islamic fascists, and since I am unlikely to ever meet these people personally, I was fascinated by his description of them. Though they are apparently in Iran, they come in only in small groups for training and are not otherwise active in the country.

On a side note, the reason for assisting the Taliban is essentially to harm the United States. Apparently Iran did not ‘get what it wanted’ from the United States and has decided to assist the Taliban as a result: a noble objective that could one day herald a second golden era of Taliban dominance in Afghanistan.

Having said all that, the traffic is probably the biggest danger in Iran.

The Traffic:

Driving in Iran is some of the most extreme and idiotic that I have ever witnessed. It is inconsiderate and fast, with drivers prioritizing their convenience over the lives of pedestrians. They do generally go around those crossing the street on foot, though it is not uncommon to hear the screech of tires as a driver slams on the brakes and skids up to a red light in front of a clearly marked crosswalk. In fact the screech of tires is common since people drive as if all obstacles in front of them will be out of the way by the time the car gets there. That is not always the case.

The Food:

Iranian food was always cheap and at times fantastic, though more often repetitive and boring. For some periods I survived on kebab with white rice and a charred tomato on the side. This is because eating here takes place more in the home than outside, an option that is seldom available to me. There are plenty of fast food spots, all of which have large displays and barriers that prevent any view of the kitchen, probably for the best. This creates a steady diet of sandwich and hamburger which gets surprisingly tiresome after a while.

The eating habits here are some of the most inflexible I have ever observed. It is virtually impossible to find a breakfast spot, and usually a search for one takes long enough that one of the lunch places opens (resulting in the consumption of more fast food). Dinner is not available before seven in the evening in most places, and many restaurants close in the afternoon. There have been some highlights, though overall the repetitive routine of fast food garbage began to wear on this weary traveller.

Fashion:

I turned up in Iran expecting a crash course in Islamic dress. After all the sight of a woman’s arms, ankles or hair would no doubt bring this utopian society spiralling down into a decadent hell where people wore whatever they chose. What I found instead was western looking men and women doing everything possible to subvert the laws of hijab. The Tehrani girls have it down to a science.

Getting around the clothing laws is difficult seeing as the head scarf must be worn at all times. The way to sexy up the hijabi look is to puff the front of your hair up really high so that the scarf rests at the back of the scalp on a bun designed for the purpose of holding it up. You can dye the hair blond, put streaks in it, and lots of product to really attract attention.

The hair and clothes are only one part of the equation. More important these days are nose jobs and breast implants. I kid you not. It is impossible to walk about in the streets for very long before seeing the first bandaged up nose. On the average day around town I see at least half dozen nose job survivors, mostly girls, but some guys too (though I am advised that this is a bit of a sissy thing to do). The breast implants are less evident to me, though I have been told that it is also widespread and know of a couple of girls who have undergone the procedure.

I speculate that these surgical alterations of the body are the product of a culture with such restrictive clothing laws. This results in extreme manifestations of individual expression, and increases the importance of a beautiful face, since that is the only part visible in public. The breast implants are something that can attract attention and get around clothing laws as it is impossible to prove that they do not represent the natural dimensions of the body. No doubt all of this is most pleasing to Allah.

All of this no doubt inflames the passion of a young man, feelings that are clearly the fault and responsibility of the women who cause them. Fortunately there is an “Islamic” outlet for men ensnared by the savage wiles of women’s hair.

Temporary Marriage:

This is one of the most idiotic institutions that I have ever come across. It is a way to legitimate prostitution in the eyes of Allah. I am not so sure Allah is foolish enough to believe this tripe:

A man cannot have sex out of wedlock so since men have a need for sexual intercourse there has to be some means for them to satisfy their irrepressible urges within the confines of marriage. Enter the mullah who will marry a man to a prostitute for a short period so that they are marred at the point of copulation and divorced shortly thereafter. Bravo. I would love to shake the hand of the genius who came up with this one.

It breaks down as such: Allah in all his omnipotence created a system by which sexual intercourse should take place only within the confines of marriage. Religious people thus want to remain within the confines of behaviour that pleases Allah. The entire purpose of marriage, a divinely sanctioned practice conceived of by Allah for a number of perfectly practical reasons, is inconvenient for men who just want to get some sex without all the hassle of a wife. Fortunately, the entire institution can be circumvented easily with the help of some Mullah who sees a loophole in Allah’s master plan and marries a couple temporarily. Allah can’t do a thing about it because he is the very one who set out the rules ha!

It is not the problem of the man or the Mullah that Allah did not have the foresight to see the loophole in his scheme. By logical extension, at the Day of Judgment, the scales will be unaffected by any number of temporary marriages as Allah will have no choice but to overlook the degrading and immoral victimization of prostitutes as it was done with the assistance of a Mullah by a good religious man insistent on technical compliance with the will of Allah. Most pleasing to Allah no doubt.

Making Friends:

I have nothing but good things to say about the countless modern young women that I have encountered during my time here. Granted that those in the chador are not going out of their way to speak with me, but I have never been in a country with so many friendly and flirtatious women.

I had the good fortune to spend some time in the company of these young ladies and was invited to several homes to meet family and friends. On each occasion, hijab would come off the moment the door of the apartment closed. The fact that everyone wears it creates a false impression of a highly religious society, when in actual fact this is not the case for a majority of people.

I spent a number of evenings laughing and listening to music, watching the BBC on satellite while sipping Shiraz, or perhaps some apple flavoured home brew. People always seem to find a way around rules they dislike.

At one extreme, my new acquaintance with some young ladies led to hilarious invitations to meet non-English speaking sisters for “love and marriage.” At the other, it lead to some real no nonsense conversations about the present state of political affairs and the future of women in Iranian society. Mercifully, most interaction rested somewhere in the middle. There were lots of laughs and some really nice times spent on long evenings of un-Islamic behaviour.

The Impression:

Inexplicable belligerence threatens the peace. It seems to me that this country has borne its share of setbacks on account of the actions of Western governments, but that it has not done anything to make things a little smoother. There is a real sense that of that Orwellian enemy that is a fiction arising out of propaganda and systemic hatred, a hatred that serves as a crutch supporting a sick and irritable old man who fears the reality of this world and cowers behind a cloak made of quasi religious fabric to shield himself from the horror of what he has done. He clings to power against all interests save his own.

The great Satan lurks across continents and out over the Atlantic and is responsible for all that is wrong with this world. No blame lays at the feet of the leadership, after all the pretender president has said he is open to ‘constructive talks’ with the west. It’s a wonder that great Satan has not yet seen the righteous path: the alienation and repression of a frustrated populace by a minority of male religious conservatives.

Decadence is the enemy of free people everywhere and should be destroyed through revolution and the imposition of strict religious based law. A society in which people can’t express their opinions is the optimal result of this utopian zeal. Throw in some hated dress laws for the ladies, and you have one hell of a utopia. So what if it only suits conservative misogynists. It pleases Allah, just ask them.

Notwithstanding all of the enforced religious rules, this country does not seem particularly religious. Few of the men wear beards and the call to prayer is barely audible in most places. It is not like Istanbul where five times a day, the minarets break out into a wailing and magical harmony that flows over life in the city. I have not heard a single call to prayer in Tehran, and the times that I heard it elsewhere, it always seemed far off and understated.

Rights:

All my travels through this country have me thinking about rights and the source of rights. Here the rights arise from divine will and are available only to the extent that they are interpreted and then recognized by the conservative religious establishment. It disgusts me to see so many wonderful people living under the rule of these stooges. The most basic of civil liberties don’t exist here. Police can stop a young man and woman walking together to probe the nature of their relationship. You can’t say anything against the government without risking serious reprisal by the authorities. You can’t leave your house without covering yourself up in a way that pleases old men with long beards. The source of rights is not god given. It resides in every human being from the moment he takes his first breath. I am frustrated to see a place where the people are forced to live in a way interpreted and determined by an incompetent, selfish and medieval worldview.

A Final Note:

I don’t know if it was the cult of virginity, the cult of martyrs, the inaudible call to prayer, or the conspicuous lack of faithful, but the Islamic Republic of Iran seems to be run by a group of old men hanging on by their fingernails.

They are imposing social and moral values on a country that is clearly ready to open itself to a more liberal worldview that recognizes the right of people to be the authors of their own fate. Exit the cult of virginity that is eroding the ability of women to pursue equality in this male dominated ass backward theocracy.

It is a revolution clinging to its martyrs. The martyrs are everywhere, on highway billboards, on murals in the cities, ın framed pictures in shops. Maybe it is time to give up on the martyrs who died in a pointless war – the Iran Iraq conflict – or those who died for the glory of defunct revolution. Hey Khameni, don’t know if ya heard, but the ink of a scholar is worth a thousand times more than the blood of a martyr.

Lets pump up that call to prayer because I don’t see people flocking to the mosques. That is not a criticism of Islam, that is merely a fact to confirm that the theocratic long beards are way out of touch with a young and educated populace that do not want to live under the yoke of religious edict and Sharia law.

There is a long way to go...