Article courtesy of Travel Just 4U, an Australia Travel Agency that specializes in tailored tours of South America. We Australians tend to have to travel long distances just to get anywhere. So much so that we like to think of ourselves as wizened travelers who know the tricks of the trade. Here are some of our favorite travel tips from the frontlines of baggage handlers at airports. When we travel it’s easy for us to take for granted some … [Read more...]
Kidnapped In Africa – Part 2
Before I begin, I want to thank those of you who have come back to finish the story of: ”Steve And The Unsuspecting Backpackers” Just a quick summation of where we are in the story: 1. We met a guy called ‘Steve’ 2. Steve seemed nice 3. We got a lift with Steve to a club that was, apparently, 10 minutes away 4. The car had blacked out windows and only one back door worked 5. After driving for nearly 1 hour a 'Titan' of a man got in the … [Read more...]
Kidnapped In Africa – Part One
For me, Tanzania is a tainted country. If you can believe it, we were kidnapped and robbed within 24 hours of arriving into the country. So... let’s begin the tale. The night before the ‘incident’ took place, one of my best mates and I touched down into Dar es Salaam (the biggest city in Tanzania). As soon as we arrived we did what any proper backpacker would. We rushed from the airport to our hotel, check in as fast as humanly … [Read more...]
Istanbul: Trapped in an accessory store!
I was trapped in an accessory store on a balmy Saturday evening. It was my last night in Istanbul. I had only a few hours to shop and eat doner kebabs one last time before going home to the States. Oh and sit in a Nargile cafe with a mint flavored hookah! … [Read more...]
Pencils In The Land Of Flowers
After hopping off our motorbikes we made our way down the dirt road leading up to the ocean. With the mid-afternoon sun blazing, the smell of yesterday's drying fish was stout. As we passed by the makeshift shops and shacks, we captured the local women's attentiond. They were all seated upon dusty edges raised above the junky, polluted streets (every other one with a newborn plugged into one of her breasts) and quietly began whispering. Stopping … [Read more...]
Encountering the COTONOU fetish tradition
As a young school boy growing up in the cosmopolitan city of Lagos, the thought of visiting neighboring Benin Republic fiercely fascinated me. In our history class during my secondary school days, we'd been taught about the great Dahomey kingdom which, at its loftiest height, extended to parts of Badagry which is now located in present-day Lagos, Nigeria. Now an Anthropologist whose core research interests lie in cultural evolutions, I was quite … [Read more...]
Capital of Ghosts
What was Parisian-Style Boulevards, Empty Eight-Lane Highways, and Chistendom's Highest Chuch-All Dead Ending in Jungle? I was working for a magazine in Abidjan, the principal city of Cote d’Ivoire (better known as the Ivory Coast), when some co-workers and I set off on a pilgrimage to one of the strangest ghost towns in Africa: Yamoussoukro. The official capital of the country since 1983, this modern “lost city” is the architectural … [Read more...]
The Kenya Not Many See
When I was in Kenya this May, I didn't go on a tourist's safari. I didn’t ride in a Jeep with a group of other people, traveling across wide open plains, snapping pictures of dozens of wild African animals. I experienced that seven years ago, and though I would love to do it again sometime, this year there was neither time nor money in the budget. You may be asking yourself, “So why did you go to Kenya? Doesn’t everyone go for the … [Read more...]
Death in Africa
While scouting for the first descent of the Baro River in Ethiopia, a tributary of the White Nile, I heard about a Peace Corps volunteer, Bill Olsen, 25, a recent graduate of Cornell, who decided to take a dip in the river at Gambella, a village near the South Sudan border. The locals warned to stay away from the river, which they claimed was busy with monsters. Bill ignored the cautions, and swam to a sandbar on the far side of the muddy river, … [Read more...]
The Mozambique of my youth, happening now
I'm walking on Maputo Beach, a beautiful, litter-strewn stretch of coastline to the north-east of Mozambique's capital city. It's overcast, so most of the tourists have stayed away. I am among a group of ex-pat stragglers, making their way to the ubiquitous piri piri chicken stands dotted all along the coastline. We feast on the chicken, sitting on plastic chairs on the beach. After we finish, a group of four children between the ages of six … [Read more...]
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