Shawn Was Here

It has been a long journey, but I’ve finally done it:  I’ve travelled all the way to Timbuktu.  Ah, Timbuktu, that mythical name of a legendary city in a far off place, in back of beyond.  A name I had heard as a kid but never knew it actually existed.  It does.  Here in Mali.  On the edge of the Sahara Desert.

About a year and a half ago I was in the Galapagos Islands and I had an idea (dream?)  that my travels should take me all the way to Timbuktu.  I really wanted to get there, just for the hell of it.  And now I have.  This is what travel is all about.

The proof.  It’s in French.  “Welcome to Timbuktu.”

As it turns out, my story about Timbuktu is about getting there, which, now that I think about it, is the way it should be.  I booked passage on a pinasse (an overgrown canoe with a roof and motor) from the city of Mopti all the way down the Niger River to fabled Timbuktu.  When buying the ticket, I was told the journey would take 3 days…  As you will see, we were a tad late.

The pinasse was dangerously overloaded, sitting VERY low in the water.  It was stacked to the brim with construction materials, sacks of food and cement, and everything else under the sun.  Further, the pinasse had taken on too many passengers, so there was a mass of people like me who were crammed into the boat as well.  Overloaded, overcrowed, and slow — this is classic African transportation.

My transport.  This is where I ate, slept, and lived for 5 days on the Niger, all the way to Timbuktu.

The pinasse comes with a cook, who doubles as the guy responsible for bailing the boat (a bailer?), as water leaks in at an alarming rate.  Actually, it seems to me he does more bailing than cooking, so I should say we have a bailer that doubles as a cook.

On the pinasse there is absolutely nothing to do but sit around on the sacks of rice, swat flies (the speed of our boat is not enough to shake them), and hope it doesn’t sink (which apparently happens from time to time).

At one point I ask our bailer/cook how long it will take to get to Timbuktu.  He gives me an honest look and a classic reply:  “I don’t want to lie to you.  I have no idea.”  On the bright side, no matter how long it takes, we won’t starve, as we have a mountain of rice on board (which, btw, is threatening to sink us).

Right from the first day, I see why the length of the journey is so uncertain.  It is the dry season in Mali, so the water level of the Niger is low.  This, coupled with the fact that our pinasse is so overloaded, causes us to run aground on sand bars again and again…  and again.  Each time we get stuck pretty good and the guys who work the boat get out and try to push and pry us off the sand bars with sticks.

Here is a log of this epic journey:

Day 1

– I become all too familiar with the sensation of our pinasse grinding to a halt as it runs aground.

– The boat tries to continue through the night, but we keep getting stuck and give up on trying to find a route through the shallows in the dark.  We anchor.  I sleep on the sacks of rice, lulled to sleep by the bailer/cook emptying water out of the bottom of the boat.

Day 2

– We  continue, passing village after village of mud-constructed buildings.  The locals kids swim and the women wash clothes in the river.  They wave.  I wave back.  It’s pleasant.

– At midday we pull over and anchor.  What’s going on?  My money says the pre-historic motor has died.  Actually, the captain has received word that far behind us, upstream, it is raining, so the water levels should soon rise, easing our passage.  He doesn’t say how long we will wait.  I don’t ask.  I go for a nap on the roof.

– Afternoon:  we have continued, but I can’t say the rain has helped.  After searching for hours for a route through the shallows, the call comes from the captain:  everybody out!  The boat is sitting too low in the water.  We passengers and a lot of the cargo are crammed into another tiny canoe, thus halving the load of our boat .

– In the falling darkness, we get separated from our original boat.  Uh oh.  We struggle for hours.  Around 11pm we eventually give up and go ashore.  At this point I realize that the original boat has the food, water, and all our luggage, and we have no idea where it is.  We sleep on the bank of the river.  The plot thickens…

Day 3

– About 10am, just as I am convinced I will never see my luggage again, our pinasse shows up.  We plow on.

– After a few more episodes of getting stuck, I realize that if I want to get to Timbuktu this year, I better get out and help.  I push and pry that damn pinasse.  That’s when I had one of those moments of pure joy I get sometimes when I travel:

I am waist-deep in the Niger with a bunch of Africans trying to muscle our boat off a sand bar so we can get to Timbuktu.  Right then, it occurs to me:  I LOVE THIS SHIT.  When we get it unstuck, we cheer our success then climb onto the roof to dry off in the African sun.  There is no where else I would rather be.

– Btw, today is the day we are supposed to arrive in Timbuktu.  I have no idea where we are, but I’m petty sure it is nowhere near Timbuktu.

Fishermen on the Niger

Day 4

– We stop at a village and stupidly take on more cargo.  We can’t get down the river.  The passengers are forced to get out and walk 3km down the riverbank in the hot afternoon sun so the boat can get through.  The locals are pissed.  I think it is hilarious.  In fact, I’m happy, at least I’m moving; besides, walking seems way faster than that shitbox of a boat.  At this point, if I had enough food, I would consider just walking to Timbuktu, it would probably faster.

– Later that day, while we are stuck again, I go for a swim with the local kids.  The people laugh at they white guy in the Niger.   I start swimming away and yell back that I’m going to swim to Timbuktu, it will be faster.  They laugh some more.  That’s me, Mr. Funny Guy.

Quick look inside our pinasse.  It was more crowded than it looks here, trust me.

– Late at night, we pull into a village.  The captain says he will take this boat no further, the water is too low (no shit).  I’m transferred to another (smaller) canoe.

Day 5

– 4pm, I finally arrive in the promised land, 2 days late.  Timbuktu!  Will miracles never cease.

What is on the menu on a pinasse down the Niger?  For breakfast, rice.  For lunch?  Rice.  And for dinner… wait for it… *rice*.  Rice, 3 meals per day, five days in a row.  No cutlery here.  Dig in.

All in all, the journey to Timbuktu was an awesome experience and I’m very happy I did it.  It was memorably uncomfortable, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.  (That is why they pay me the big bucks… wait a minute… I *paid* for this… ugh).

You might be wondering, what exactly is in Timbuktu?  Answer:  Not a hell of a lot.  It is a sandy town of mud-brick houses.  But, just beyond Timbuktu lies the greatest desert on the planet:  The Sahara.  The Sahara Desert rocks.

Some fellow travellers and I hired camels and did an overnight trip into the desert.  Riding camels and sleeping under the stars in the Sahara, what a life!

Abner (USA) atop his “ship of the desert”

Anyway, there you have it.  Timbuktu.  True story.

Before my Timbuktu adventures I did a 3-day escarpment trek in a part of Mali called “Dogon Country.”  It was a good one, but that story will have to wait for another time.  But, just because I liked it so much, here is a quick pic from that adventure:

Cliffs and baobab trees, this is Dogon country

My Dogon guide asked me to put lots of pictures of Mali on the internet so that people would know how beautiful it was.  I told him I would.  I’m a man of my word.

Until next time, this is your favourite World Traveller signing off from Mali.

That’s what “Burkina Faso” means in one of the local languages.  Cool, eh?

If you like that name, you will love the name of the capital city:  Ouagadougou! (Did somebody buy too many vowels?).  To pronouce this one, think “Wagadugu” with a long ‘a’ sound, as in “father”, and a long ‘u’ sound, as in “due.”  You should try saying it with me one time, it’s super fun.  Maybe you are in the office and people will hear you and think you’re nuts, but don’t worry about it.  Ready?  One, two, three… Ouagadougou.  Ahh.  Didn’t that just bring a smile to your face?  It does for me, every time.

The coolest name for a capital city ever.  (Nevermind that the sign is falling apart, this is Africa.)
Although people here generally speak their local language in the streets, the official language is French.  So, most people in the cities speak it as a second language.  And so do I.  I am once again reminded how being able to speak one the local languages really makes travelling better.  I was recently in the Middle East and Horn of Africa where I spoke none of the languages, and of course I got along just fine, but this is better.  I can read the signs, read the menu, talk to anybody and everybody on the street (huge), get directions, etc.

For example, I saw a guy walking around with 9 or 10 dead rats on a string (what the hell??).  Because this guy and I have a language in common, I could ask him what in the world was going on.  What I hadn’t noticed was that in his other hand he was carrying many packages of rat poison for sale.  The dead rats were a demonstration of the effectiveness of his product.  “My stuff is so good, look how many rats I have killed already!”  That’s genius marketing if you ask me.  Anyway, if this guy and I didn’t share a language, I would never have had the privilege of this conversation :)

Burkina Faso marks the happy return of street food back in my life.  For some reason, there isn’t any in Ethiopia.  But, here there is an abundance.  Few things bring a smile to my face like the sight of unrecognizable meat being grilled in the street!  yumm…

Here is something that’s not street food.  This simmered stew with chicken and vegetables is called “kedjenou”.  Or, as I like to call it, “goodness.”

What else can I tell you about this country?  Live music is big here.  I watch a live concert every night and I love it.  You should see these West African guys drumming, it’s crazy!

Dancing is also big.  For a few reasons, I stick out like a sore thumb on the dance floor here.  One is that I’m a terrible dancer.  I have been cutting a rug all over the planet, and I have yet to find a place where my moves are in.  (Although this never stops me.)  I don’t move my hips enough in Latin America, don’t shake my shoulders fast enough in Ethiopia, and now I have no rythm in West Africa.  I can’t win.

Btw, it’s hot here.  Damn hot.  It’s 42 degrees (108 for my farenheit-inclined friends) and I’m slowly melting.  To combat this, I am hitting the ice cream — hard.  Several times per day.  I don’t know the owner of the local ice cream shop, but I’m pretty sure I am putting his kids through college.

The mosque in Bobo-Dioulasso is made of mud.  Pretty impressive.  (Power lines photoshop’d out by MH, much better)

In the foreground an African woman is walking with who-knows-what-all on her head, as is common here.  The women balance impossible loads on their heads… and can still look both ways before crossing the street.

Here are a few pictures from Burkina Faso and Somaliland.

That’s all from Burkina Faso.  I’m going West.

Well, I’ve been in Ethiopia for about 2 months now and I’m due for a change of scenery.  I made an album of pics you can find here.  On this trip I’ve never had such a difficult time getting the album down to a reasonable size.  Actually, I think it’s still too big, but I don’t have the heart to cut any more pictures from it.  Enjoy.

Just recently I was walking around Addis Ababa and spotted a sign for the embassy of a country called “Burkina Faso.”  Wow, what a cool name for a country!  That’s a good enough reason for me to visit.  The next day I went in to the embassy, got the visa and bought a flight to this place.

Until a little over a week ago I had never even heard of the country… and tomorrow I’m going.  That’s how I roll… just like that.

See you in West Africa.

Some random guy asked me this at the Somaliland-Ethiopia border while I was crammed into the back of an SUV with 3 other people (this is how transportation is done here) .  I was thinking I must have mis-heard him.  “Excuse me?”  With the most serious face he repeated, “Are you a spy for your country?”

You have no idea how much I wanted to reply, “As a matter of fact, yes, I’m Canada’s James Bond.  My Aston Martin just broke down around the corner, so I am crammed into this SUV with the rest of this mass of humanity.”  But, at this sketchy border crossings, I find it’s a good idea to be on your best behavior, so instead I replied, “No” with a chuckle and he walked off.

That was just one of the interesting conversations I had in Somaliland, which is a pseudo-country east of Ethiopia.  In 1991, it declared independence from Somalia and claimed itself a country, but nobody else in the world, the UN included, has recognized it as such.  The situation is a bit weird if you ask me.  

This raises a good question:  what makes a country a country?  What’s the process?  Who do you talk to?  I have no idea.  I can’t remember where I read it or who told me, but apparently Frank Zappa once said, “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.“

Well, Somaliland doesn’t have a national airline.  I’m not sure about a football team, but I’m fairly certain they don’t have any nuclear weapons.  Being a Muslim country, I can tell you they definitely don’t have any beer.  So, according to the Zappa test, Somaliland is not a country.

The closest thing you can find to a beer in Somaliland is this malt apple flavoured drink.  It’s a bit strange.

In another good conversation in Somaliland, a guy asked me if I was Chinese.  I thought he was joking until, with a serious face, he gave me his second guess:  Filipino?  Hmm… well, they don’t see too many foreigners here.  The usual guesses from the locals regarding my nationality are American or some European country.  Btw, in these places, nobody guesses Canada.  Ever.  In fact, many people think Canada is part of the US.

What did I do in Somaliland?  Answer:  not a hell of a lot.  To be honest, there is not a lot going on here.   It’s another one of those places that is past the “No Attractions Past This Point” sign (to quote Mr.  Downie).  But, it’s cool to just hang around, be pretty much the only tourist (I saw one German guy while I was there), talk to locals and drink mango shakes.  

Maybe I didn’t give the place a fair shake.  It does have some beaches, which I tried to get to, but my transport fell through.  It also has some ancient rock paintings, but after seeing countless ancient paintings/sculptures/art all over the world, I don’t bother with such things too much these days.  Perhaps I was slacking in Somaliland.  I will tighten my game up!

The currency situation in Somaliland is hilarious.  Changing a mere $10 US gets you a stack of 500-shilling notes more than an inch thick.  If you change any more, you will probably want to bring a sack to carry the money in.  It makes me feel pretty bad-ass to be holding so much cash.  To give you an idea, $1 is about 5,000 shillings.  Any time you buy something, you are typically handing over 20 or more bills.  As a result, the locals are incredible bill counters, they can rifle through a stack and count it so fast it’s just a blur to me! 

I like the money changers here.   They sit in the streets with huge stacks of money.  This is nothing, right after this pic I saw a guy with so many stacks he could have built himself a small shelter of shillings.

Walking around Hargeisa you see most men have sticks in their mouths.  What are they doing?? Cleaning their teeth, as it turns out. Does this really work? I decided to find out. If nothing else, I really felt like one of the crowd when I was walking around with a stick in my mouth. This is how to clean your teeth, Somaliland-style.

I recently volunteered at perma-culture farm in Southern Ethiopia for 2 weeks.  At the farm there was a great mix of locals and foreigners working side-by-side.  I lived in a hut without electricity, did some carpentry work, put up some fences, fed the chickens, etc.

One example of the drama that would occur on the farm was The Great Rabbit Mass Murder.  One night, a fox (or something) got into the rabbit pen and killed 12 of the 15 rabbits.  Two of the survivors got loose on the farm.  Another volunteer and I had to catch them (damn rabbits are fast!), you should have seen that, it was a comedy for sure.

In response to this tragedy, we turned the rabbit pen into an impregnable fortress.  There isn’t another one in the world like it, I’m sure of it.  Nothing is getting in or out of that place now.  It’s a masterpiece.

Double-walled fencing, with the outer wall extended and angled-out.  Come on fox, let’s see what you got now.

I’m glad to have volunteered somewhere on this trip, but I was relieved when had I finished.  To be honest, after so many years of doing whatever I want whenever I want, doing what somebody asked me to do got really old and annoying after about, oh, 4 hours :)

One of my heroes, The Most Interesting Man in the World, once advised, “Find out in life what it is that you don’t do well.  And then don’t do that thing.”  At this point in my life, that “thing” for me is working.  So, after I had fulfilled the 2-week commitment I had made to the farm, I quit.  As the other volunteers soldiered on, I went back to doing what I do best:  having a good time.  I visited local towns and villages, drank beer, went to the market, chatted with locals, socialized with the volunteers, and sampled the local vices.  Let me show you a few:

Chaca is a drink that the locals love in the south.  It’s full of sediment.  Afterward drinking it, your teeth feel like you just ate a fistful of sand.  Every once in a while a bottle spontaneously explodes!  (My fellow volunteers call this a “chaca bomb”.)  This seems to me like a good reason not to drink it.  Plus, it tastes like shit.

Tej.  Now here is some good stuff.  It’s a honey wine of some sort.  I once went to a tej bar at 10am on a Sunday.  The place was packed and everybody was trashed on the stuff.  (Including yours truly… these Ethiopians are always filling up my glass again, you know how it is.)  The other volunteers and I went out for tej so often we turned the word into a verb, as in, “Were you out tejjing again last night?”

That’s an Ethiopian pour, right to the rim.  To do otherwise is considered bad luck.  I won’t argue.

Chat is a plant that grows in Ethiopia.  It seems like the locals are always chewing it.  If you want to fit in, there is no better way than to learn how to chew.  That’s where I got you covered!  In installment #24 of my “How To” videos on world travel, I enlist a local expert to show us how it’s done.  The leaves of the plant are supposedly a mild hallucinogenic. For the record, all I got was a stomach ache. The video is a bit long, but chewing chat is a … slow process.

Oh, btw, I was told after the video that chat is now illegal in the UK as well.  Sorry to get you folks excited.

As I have said too many times:  in travel, timing is everything.  I have been pretty lucky on this trip, but I think this one takes the cake:  I visited a village while the locals were digging their “30-year lake”!  That’s right, the people of this area dig a new lake for holding water once every 30 years… and I was there.  As was everybody else from the surrounding villages.  The sight of all these people working together, and the celebrations afterwards, was mesmerizing to watch.  (Truth be told, I only worked for about 20 minutes, then took part in the party :-)  Watch:

Here are a few other random experiences/observations:

– At the farm, local women do all the real hard labour.  I once spent an afternoon helping them carry rocks and sand from one place to another under the vicious African sun.  We couldn’t speak a word to each other, but we would smile and laugh together just the same.  I really liked those ladies.  But, the work was so tough it almost killed me.  After that day, whenever they invited me to work with them again, I would pretend I needed to go feed the chickens.

– The African sky has so many stars it’s incredible!!  Many a night, we walked home in complete blackness (the village rarely has electricity) after drinking too much tej, navigating only by the billions of stars that dot the sky here, from horizon to horizon.

– One day we walked 3 hours into the hills to visit a school that was having a celebration.  As we walked through the countryside we were followed by an ever-growing group of kids.  We lead them, as my friend Eddie put it, “Pied Piper style.”  If only I had a photo.  This school is another one of those places where I’m kind of a big deal (although, so were the 2 other foreigners I was with).  The younger kids hesitantly touched my white skin, like they thought it might be fake.  I would tell them, “Don’t worry, it’s quite real.”  The older ones asked why I was wearing glasses on my eyes.  I explained that the sun was too bright for my faranji (Ethiopian for “foreigner”) eyes and they laughed.  They asked why Eddie was wearing a hat — “Is there something wrong with this head?”  He showed the masses that his head was indeed normal, and every kid wanted to touch his hair.  Funny stuff (you had to be there).

– The locals in the rural areas have some interesting beliefs:  ie, moving air causes diseases!  Particularly TB.  So, in a hot, stuffy bus the people are afraid to open the windows.  So, instead we all suffocate and sweat, which is fine.  Or, in some places that see few or no tourists, the people are afraid of cameras — they think it will suck out their soul!  So, in these places, if the kids are bugging you and won’t leave you alone  (common in Ethiopia), one technique I’ve seen others use is to just point your camera that them:  they will run away in fear.

I’m heading east to a place that claims to be its own independent country, but the rest of the world doesn’t seem to think so.  I’m not sure who to believe or what to think, but I always find in these situations of uncertainty the best thing to do is go see for yourself.  So that’s what I’m going to do.

This is the Danakil Depression.  It’s the hottest place on Earth (check!), and also the greatest I have been to since Antarctica.  I spent 5 days visiting the Danakil, which contains a slew of strange sights.

The first was Erta Ale, a volcano that with a bubbling lava lake, one of only 5 in the world!  My group and I hiked through the night and after a few hours, we could see the glow of the lake.  The lure of the glow was unstoppable.  I was going to look inside the crater if it was the last thing I was going to do.  This is how it happened:

I hope you like the video, I almost had my eyebrows singed off trying to get it.  I’m not joking.  Every so often the lava lake would explode sending up a wave of heat that burned my face and a cloud of sulfur that stung my nose and made my eyes water.  (A German on my tour was smarter, he had a remote-operated camera; he set the camera on the edge then shot photos from 2m away)

Staring into the lava lake was hypnotizing.  It was like staring into a bonfire, but next level.  I sat by the lava lake for hours and staring into it, taking useless pictures.  Neither my camera nor my skills were up to the task.

Lava!
After the video above, I kept getting drawn closer and closer to the edge.  It wasn’t until the next day, in the light, that I noticed the huge crack in the edge of the lava lake.  In fact, the whole edge was a big cornice.  Very, very sketchy.  In our countries, no one would be allowed anywhere near this thing, it is way too dangerous!  But, this is Africa, here you can get as close as you like!

Visiting Erta Ale was an assault on all my sense:  the orange glow, the heat on my face, the wreak of sulfur in the air, the crack of solidified lava underfoot, the sounds of the bubbling of the lava.  It was truly awesome.  (Even as I wrote this I was sitting 10m from the edge and my ass was hot from the churning lava under the ground beneath me).

If we had gone home at that point, I would have left a happy camper.  But the Danakil was just getting started.  Here’s the roll call:

Rust-coloured terrain all the way to the horizon
Salt flat, for as far as the eye can see…
… and salt caravans, obviously
Bubbling pools amongst strange rock formations (I stuck my hand in, luckily nothing happened)
And then I saw the sulfur springs.  I won’t forget my first view of it as I climbed over the crest of the hill:

A bubbling green lake, yellow shores, strange rock formations, suffocating smell of sulfur, wow!!  (I stuck my hand in, luckily nothing happened)
Is this for real?
Mother Nature spouting sulfur
Mother Nature, as usual, just when I think I have seen all the great things you have to offer, you blow me away yet again.  The Danakil was nature raw and uncut, strutting its stuff a little.  It has lots of goodness crammed into one place, making it one of my world favourites.

In addition, I need to mention that my visit to the Danakil Depression was quite the adventure:  dust, sand, mud, lots of breakdowns (the Danakil eats Landcruisers for lunch), getting stuck countless times, lots of pushing, sleeping in the desert under the stars, getting lost in a sandstorm (not cool)… twice, only saved by local Afar guys.  I have lots of good stories from this trip.

An aside:  A long time ago I watched a movie called “Blood Diamond.”  In the movie, whenever something peculiar or unexplainable would happen, the main characters would just shrug their shoulders and say, “T.I.A.”, which stands for “This is Africa.”  At the time, I remember thinking it was overly dramatic, but after now having spent some time in Africa, I think I am beginning to understand.  Nothing is at it should be, nothing can be counted on to work, be on time, or anything else.  Even as I type this, the incredibly slow internet connection in Addis Ababa, the capital, is constantly cutting in and out.  Shrug.  This is Africa.

As a result of this phenomenon, Africa is a gold mine for padding my collection of “How To” videos on the Unique Art of World Travel.  I now have a bunch of them (of varying degrees of quality) up my sleeve.

In installment #23, one of our 4WDs is stuck in the desert of the Danakil.  When you’re in the desert, getting unstuck is key, as it not a place you want to be stranded for very long. Here is the little drama that was getting our 4WD unstuck. Enjoy.

This post has set the record for number of pictures.  I couldn’t stop myself :)  Given the slow internet connections in Ethiopia, writing this blog post was exhausting.  I’m spent.  I’m going for a beer.  And a nap.  Check you later!

You probably wouldn’t have chosen Sudan.  Especially not Northern Sudan where, under Sharia Law, the penalty for possession of alcohol is 40 lashings.  40 lashings!!  Shit!  No, Northern Sudan is not a party destination.

But that’s where I was for New Year’s Eve.  Needless to say, I didn’t get wasted or party like a rock star.  But, I still had fun.  Through some good luck I hooked up with some great people that took me camping on the sandy banks of the Nile River, which was very cool.  Definitely a NYE to remember.  We ate, danced and had a good time, just like I hope you did that night, just minus the intoxication.

Camping on the bank of the Nile:  Where the party’s at in Sudan

Half the fun of Sudan was getting there.  I had a very memorable an overnight ferry ride from Egypt.  I slept right on the steel top deck, which was a mass of humanity.  Every piece of real-estate up there was crammed with foreigners, Sudanese and luggage.  It sounds hellish, but for a traveller, it was a great experience, sleeping on deck with a whole bunch of people I had never met before, under the stars, swapping war stories with well-travelled people.  Ya, all the travellers on this ferry were veterans, no first-timers here.  The story-telling was awesome.

The Egypt to Sudan ferry.  A luxury cruise, it ain’t.

My accomodation for the night:  crammed on a cold steel deck, under the stars, with other travellers and Sudanese.

The big tourist highlight in Sudan are the Meroe Pyramids.  Although not as grand as their famous Egyptian counterparts, these pyramids were just as memorable when I realized that I was the only guy there.  Actually, the way the winds covered up the tracks in the sand, it looked like I had been the first guy there in 100 years.  Add to this the sand dunes that envelope the pyramids, it makes them look very cool (much cooler than, say, the parking lot of tourist buses that envelope the pyramids in Cairo.)

Before travelling to the Middle East, I never knew how beautiful sand dunes are… now I love them.  Check out the pyramid.

A few random Sudanese thoughts:

– The amount of buracracy to enter this country is ridiculous.   Upon landing in Sudan, I had to make about 10 stops in different offices to get all the required signatures, stamps, fingerprints taken, etc.  It took about 2 hours; there was no line-up whatsoever, that is just how long the administrative baloney required.  This is after we had already been stamped into the country on the ferry.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

– A fellow traveller opinioned that the less tourists that visit a country, the nicer their people are.  Sudan fits that theory — almost nobody travels there and the people are wonderful.

– Something unexpected for me was how eye-catching some of the Sudanese women were, especially those that were seemingly mixed Black/Arab.  In Muslim tradtion, their bodies and hair were covered, but their facial features were striking.

– Sudan has surprisingly good travel infrastructure.  The buses in the North are fast and comfortable, although they constantly play Arabic music videos at ear-shattering volumes.

– Celine Dion’s #1 fan is Sudanese.  I met a guy outside the pyramids who, after hearing I was Canadian, shouted, “I love Celine Dion!  Songs about love and emotion!  Very good, VERY GOOD!!”  He couldn’t contain his joy.

– You might have seen Sudan in the news these days.  The southern part of the country is having a referendum right now about whether or not to separate from the north.  I think it would have been VERY interesting to stick around Sudan to see what happens, but unfortunately I left soon after the New Year.  (I have other fish to fry here in Ethiopia.)

An observation on long-term travel:  a few months ago in Lebanon I bumped into a Czech couple who were half-way through a 2-month trip.  They actually wanted to cut the trip short and go home as soon as possible.  They really missed their house.  They missed their bed.  They asked why, after more than 2 years of travel, I wasn’t affected by the same feelings?  My answer:  “I don’t have a home.  I don’t have a bed.”  It occurred to me that my lack of a home or any other significant possessions had become a great advantage in the travel world.   My life of shirking responsibilities and obligations is finally paying of :)

I zipped through Sudan a little bit faster than I liked, but it was for a good reason – I am very excited about a few Ethiopian adventures I have planned.  Anyway, you already know what you will find at the other end of this link.

I hope your NYE was stellar and your 2011 is off to a great start!  Maybe we will see each other this year…