Traveling through Africa with Border Jumpers

A very cool blog contacted me last week. It's called Border Jumpers and it's pretty much what it says on the tin. Bernard Pollack and Danielle Nierenberg are on a mission to visit nearly every country in Africa, writing about their experiences with a special focus on community groups, NGOs, and local people. Sounds a bit like the Africa Heartbeat project I've covered here before.

They started in Addis Ababa last year and so far have made it to an impressive list of nations. They've talked with conservationist farmers in Ghana and written about using traditional crops to fight climate change in Zimbabwe. These are just two of the dozens of projects they've covered.

As I discovered on my recent trip through Ethiopia and Somaliland, Africa thrusts beauty and poverty at you simultaneously. Just look at the above photo, courtesy of Border Jumpers, of a palm oil processing center. It's little more than a bunch of grotty drums and a lot of hot steam in an already hot climate. Yet the woman standing in front radiates grace, beauty, and pride.

Border Jumpers, Africa Heartbeat, and I are headed the same direction with our writing. We're experienced travelers who have learned that the world is not the big, scary place TV tells us it is. It's big alright, but filled with intelligent, kind people doing all sorts of interesting things. The single most important thing a travel writer can do is communicate that simple truth to as many people as possible. So check out those sites for some uplifting reading, and some facts about Africa the mainstream media don't bother to cover.

Choosing my next adventure

We're getting to the halfway point of 2010, so it's time to start planning trips for 2011! Besides the usual research/pleasure trips to Oxford and Missouri, I'm thinking of going back to Harar, Ethiopia, for two months. I absolutely fell in love with this medieval walled city of Sufis, and I know someone who will rent me a house in the Old City.

As I've been planning my return, an old problem has cropped up. If I return to a country, I don't get to see a new country. This was always a problem with my return trips to India, another place I love.

Here are some alternatives. For the price of a two-month trip to Ethiopia, I could do three or even four shorter trips. One would be to The Gambia for ten days, a trip made cheaper by since my wife gave me a gift of a free ticket whenever I want to go. That was almost two years ago and I still haven't used it! Another trip would be two weeks hiking around Montenegro, with its beautiful coastline, rugged green mountains, and historic hilltop castles and monasteries. Even after these two trips I'd still have enough money to hike across Luxembourg and do some easyJet long weekend somewhere!

Tempting. . .but Harar is calling me.

I'm torn. What should I do?

Photo of Kotor, Montenegro, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Missing Ethiopia

I've been back from Africa for a bit more than a month now and have just finished my Gadling series on travel in Ethiopia. Now I'm feeling some serious post-travel restlessness. This is common enough. A Swedish photojournalist I traveled around Somaliland with is feeling the same thing.

When the going gets tough, the traveler gets going! Now that the weather is getting nice here in Spain I'll be doing some hikes in the mountains, plus possible trips to Toledo or other interesting spots. I'll also be headed to Segovia, a beautiful medieval walled city not far from Madrid.

Speaking of beautiful medieval walled cities, I'm in the early planning stages of a two-month trip to Harar, Ethiopia. I spent some weeks there during my Ethiopia trip and totally fell in love with the people and history. There's an entire library of books that can be written on Harar, and I want to write at least one of them.

Looks like I have a travel bug that just won't die.

Two ways to drive across Africa

My two months of travel in Ethiopia was an epic trip, but it was nothing next to the African voyages of some people I know.

Previously on this blog I've mentioned my friend Thomas Tomczyk, who is motorcycling across Africa. He started in South Africa late last year and is now. . .I'm not sure where. When I was in Ethiopia he emailed me from Kenya, but he's since dropped off the map. I'm sure he's all right, though. He's like me, with a talent for getting into dodgy situations and then getting out of them.

Thomas' website, Africa Heartbeat, contains his stories and pictures of various NGOs and charitable projects he's covered along the way. His latest article is about Tunaweza ("Yes we can") a group of handicapped musicians in Tanzania who are pulling down barriers not only for handicapped people, but between religions--the members are both Muslim and Christian.

Hopefully he'll get in touch soon because I'd like to hook up with him later this year when he passes through the Sahara. Nothing like a reunion with an old friend in a scorching desert in summertime.

When Almudena and I were relaxing with a drink in a hotel garden in Gondar, Ethiopia, we met a South African couple who are driving around the coast of Africa. Steve Lorimer and Roxy Harvey converted a British Army truck into a cushy living space and set out to circumnavigate Africa from Morocco down the west coast to South Africa and then up the east coast, around the north and back to Morocco. Their website OverAfrica recounts this 25,000 km journey. They've had some tough spots, with breakdowns both mechanical and physical, but their journey has been mostly positive. I was especially interested in their account of The Gambia, where I plan to go next, and Namibia, which is also high on my list. Their site also gives lots of advice for doing your own road trip across Africa.

All this is making me want to hit the road again. . .

Settling down in Madrid

After two months in Ethiopia and Somaliland, and ten days in Oxford, I'm finally back home in Madrid. Actually I've been back for a couple of weeks but things got a bit unsettled when Almudena got stranded in England due to the volcano, so it's only now that I feel I'm settling.

I won't be doing any traveling until late June, when we head back to Oxford. I was planning on going to the Italian army archives in May, but a contact in Rome tells me I have to apply three months in advance! Now I'm planning to go in September.

So how will this grizzled old traveler deal with not being on the road for two whole months? Well, I have a lot of book writing to do, plus finishing up my series of travel articles on Ethiopia, plus keeping up with this blog and my writing blog. I'll also be enjoying Madrid's nightlife, hiking, and literary scene. So stay tuned, I may be at home, but I can still explore!

Coming next: two adventurous ways to cross Africa!

Photo of Plaza de Cibeles courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Frightening flags

As I've mentioned before, my son loves flags, so sometimes we check out Flags of the World, a great site where we can fly around the globe in an imaginary plane and look at all the colorful flags. This one, thankfully, is not among them.

It's is from the Benin Empire, and dates to the early 19th century. That empire is now defunct, probably because they weren't as good at chopping people's heads off as the competition. I have to say it's an odd flag. A nation's banner is supposed to symbolize its very essence, what it means to be part of that nation, and this is what the leaders of the Benin Empire came up with? Ah well, that was a while ago, and the world has changed right? Nope. Exhibit A: the flag of Saudi Arabia.

The Arabic is the Shahada, the Muslim article of faith, saying, "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." No problem there, but what's with the sword? Is this how they want Islam to be depicted? How about giving money to the poor, which is one of the five pillars of Islam, unlike lopping people's heads or hands off. Then we have Exhibit B, the flag of Mozambique, also a modern example:

Yep, that's a Kalashnikov! The flag was adopted in 1983 and is based upon the flag of the Liberation Front of Mozambique, which fought for independence from Portugal and eventually won. A Marxist party, it incorporates as its symbol a hoe, book, and gun, a common Marxist collection to show the unity of various parts of society. In the 90s the party dropped its Marxist ideology but hasn't changed the flag. Opposition groups have called for a new image, but so far nothing has changed.

Now I know it's not politically correct to criticize anyone's culture but your own, but I have to say, "People, change your bloody flags!" And I do mean bloody. How am I supposed to explain flags like these to a four year-old?

The travel bug that just won't die

Sorry for the long silence, but if you're a regular reader of this blog or any of my other social media outlets like Facebook or Twitter, you know I've been in Ethiopia and Somaliland for the past two months. Besides writing, my greatest love is travel. I previously posted about my travel year of 2009, which included a lot of shuttling back and forth between Spain, England, and Missouri, plus a hike across England along Hadrian's Wall and a short trip to Holland. Fun stuff, but nothing truly adventurous.

This year started well with some adventure travel. Thanks to two of my publishers, I had the money to go to the Horn of Africa, a place I've always dreamed of visiting. When I was ten I read a National Geographic article about the monastery at Debre Damo, a medieval Ethiopian monastery on top of a cliff. The only way to get there is to climb up a dodgy-looking leather rope. I thought that was the coolest thing ever and thirty years later I finally got to do it!

Almudena joined me for the first three weeks and we celebrated our tenth anniversary in Ethiopia. We did the popular historic northern loop, taking in ancient sites such as the monasteries on Lake Tana, Gondar, Axum, and Lalibela. Then she went home and I headed east to the medieval walled city of Harar and further on to Somaliland, an unrecognized state that comprises the northern third of what used to be Somalia. It was cool to visit "Somalia" and find it peaceful and friendly, but my favorite place by far was Harar. There's a special feel to walled cities that I've noticed in Damascus, Jerusalem, and Segovia. They comprise their own separate worlds, and their inhabitants are very aware of their history and culture.

So is my travel bug satiated? On the contrary, it's just woken up! I'm off to Italy in May, and hopefully The Gambia this autumn. Also, I'm going to try to convince my publishers to send me back to Ethiopia next year. I made lots of friends in Harar and I'd like to visit soon.

I'm writing a series of travel articles about Ethiopia for Gadling, and when that's done in about a month I'll do a series on Somaliland. Plus I intend to get back to blogging here on a regular basis. The Internet connection in Ethiopia was terrible. Most of the country was on dialup! Stay tuned.

What to read when you're on the road?

I've been nattering on about my upcoming trip to Ethiopia for some time now, but with less than a week to go, I'm busy getting sorted. One vital bit of travel gear requires serious thought--what to read?

Since I'm writing a book on the Battle of Adwa for Osprey Publishing, I'll be bringing a map of the battlefield and photocopies from Berkeley's excellent but sadly out-of-print 1935 volume The campaign of Adowa and the rise of Menelik, as well Marcus's A History of Ethiopia. These are essential for work, but what do I bring for pleasure?

The ideal travel novel should be compact, mass market size rather than trade paperback, thick so that it will last a while, engaging but not too dense. It should be a classic or current bestseller so that I can ditch it with the confidence that I can get another copy ten years from now if I want to.

After much searching through the chaos that is my personal library I've settled on The Reprieve by Jean-Paul Sartre. It's a mass market paperback (check), 345 pages of small print (check), intellectual but not obtuse (check), and since it's by Sartre I'll never have trouble finding another copy (check).

Now I need to find a hotel in Addis Ababa. . .

Image of Adwa tapestry courtesy Joshua Sherurcij via Wikimedia Commons.

The Killer Vespa

This has got to be the coolest Vespa ever.

Introducing the Vespa 150 T.A.P., a girly Euroscooter painted a less-than-girly olive drab and equipped with a manly M20 75mm recoiless rifle!

I discovered this gem while blogging about tank museums, and was impressed by the clever mix of an inexpensive scooter and dangerous firepower.

France developed these in the late 1950s, when it was strapped for cash and mired in a bitter war with their colony Algeria. Vespas were fast, cost only 500 bucks, and light enough that they could be airdropped on parachutes, making them good rapid infantry transport. The shaped charge warhead on the M20 could penetrate 100mm of armor, capable of punching through pillboxes, buildings, and lightly armored vehicles. Since there was no recoil, they could be fired from the Vespa, although ideally they were dismounted and set up on a tripod. About 800 saw use in the war. Despite this, the French lost and Algeria became a nation.

For more pictures, check out this site, and this site (the second one is in French).

My travel year: a look back and a look forward

So here we are on the penultimate day of 2009. It was a pretty good travel year for me. I spent six months in Oxford and made a lot of friends there and got to hike the length of Hadrian's Wall. I also spent some time in Missouri and spent a long weekend in Amsterdam, doing some research in Delft and a couple of Dutch castles.

The year 2010 is shaping up to be even better. In fact, it will be the best year since my big Kumbh Mela year of 2001! I'll be spending seven weeks in Ethiopia, and Almudena will be joining me for three weeks so we can celebrate our anniversary. I'll also be headed to Rome for some research, doing the usual stop in Missouri, a couple of months in Oxford, and another long weekend in Amsterdam. I can't miss Amsterdam, after all! I'm also hoping to meet my friend Thomas somewhere in North Africa as he's on his final leg of his trip across Africa as part of the Africa Heart Beat Project. If we can't make our schedules jive, I'll probably end up spending a week in The Gambia.

What will 2011 bring?

Christmas in Swaziland

Like I mentioned in my last post, my friend Thomas Tomczyk is riding a motorcycle across Africa as part of his Africa Heart Beat Project. He started out in Johannesburg, broke down in a shanty town 25 km into his journey, got his bike fixed, and is now on his way.

Right now he's in Swaziland, a small country nestled between South Africa and Mozambique. Actually, he may be in Mozambique by now, or somewhere else entirely. The last I heard he was in Swaziland. He recently posted an interesting article about animal conservation there and there are more articles to come as he will be featuring a different project for every country he visits.

You can follow Thomas' journey on his website and Facebook page, and here of course!

I'm off on an adventure of my own soon. From Feb. 9-March 27 I'll be in Ethiopia working on a book and a series of articles for Gadling. Almudena will be coming for part of the trip so we can celebrate our tenth anniversary!

I'm going to get back to studying the map of Ethiopia. Merry Christmas, Thomas, wherever you are!

Riding across Africa on a motorcycle

OK, I'm officially jealous.

I've done a lot of adventure travel in my day but I've been outclassed as an adventure traveler by an old friend of mine.

Thomas Tomczyk has just started out on a motorcycle tour of Africa, starting in South Africa and passing through 22 countries before ending up in Spain.

He says that he's past the stage of travel for travel's sake (I know the feeling) and so he's set up Africa Heart Beat, an online project to showcase various innovative NGOs he meets on the way. I've already blogged about his project here for Gadling, as well as the array of gear he's taking along to keep in touch with his Facebook page, his blog, and his YouTube channel.

Thomas is a professional writer and photographer, so you can expect some good stuff coming out of Africa for the next eight months.

I'm looking forward to hearing his insights on such projects as an AIDS theater group in Botswana, and a Muslim-Christian vocational center in Mali. I'm also hatching a plan to meet him in May or June of 2010, probably in Niger, Mauritania, or Western Sahara. Stay tuned. . .

London Book Fair Attracts Global Publishing Community

As I mentioned in my last post and my other blog, I recently attended the London Book Fair. This year's theme was India, and the Indian companies had a large section in the middle of the exhibition area. Not only were there lots of publishers, but there was also a concerted effort by Indian printers to become a rival to China for affordable printing services. The Indians put on some good cultural events like interviews with prominent authors such as Vikram Seth, and a troupe of Indian dancers would pop out of nowhere at random moments to do their thing. I just wish they gave away free curry like some publishers gave away free beer!

Lesser-known countries were there too. Iceland had a big booth with some beautiful books. Azerbaijan had a booth promoting both its publishing and its tourism. Dubai was promoting an upcoming children's book fair. And despite being in the "United Kingdom", Scotland and Wales had booths of their own!

Two other booths caught my eye. One was for the Muslim Writers Awards, taking place May 27 in London. The shortlisted titles were on display and included a lot of interesting work by Muslim women. I also liked the booth for the African Books Collective, which distributes African books to overseas markets. They had a huge range of titles from all over the continent, but sadly none from The Gambia. I guess I'll have to wait until I get there to find out more about that country's writers.

Forgotten Lands Remembered

I recently stumbled across an excellent site called the QSL Museum, featuring old QSL cards. For those who aren't familiar, a QSL card is a postcard acknowledging receipt of transmission from an amateur radio operator to another operator or shortwave radio listener. QSL cards were the Facebook of the pre-Internet era, reflecting the creator's life and surroundings, and are still used today. The QSL Museum has hundreds of them online, dating back to the early years of radio in the 1920s. The ones that really caught my eye were from countries that no longer exist. Many thanks to Thomas Roscoe of the QSL Museum for permission to post these.
From 1895 to 1958, French West Africa was a federation of colonies that included the modern countries of Mauritania, Senegal, Niger, Mali, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and Benin. It went through several political permutations, but most of the time was administered by a French governor in Dakar, now the capital of Senegal. When I go to Gambia this year, I’ll keep an eye out for ephemera from French West Africa. It was a British enclave in the middle of this vast colonial federation.
Somalia has been in the news recently because of the continued fighting and the rise of piracy, but it’s always been a contentious area. This region has strategic importance but it seems that no one power is ever able to control it for long. When the colony of British Somaliland existed from 1884 to 1960, it was surrounded by Ethiopia, Italian Somaliland, and French Somaliland (now Djibouti). British Somaliland gained its independence in 1960 but only kept it for a few days before deciding to join Italian Somaliland as a bigger nation.

Somalia is theoretically a unified country today, but after the central government collapsed in 1991 the area that once was British Somaliland declared itself the Republic of Somaliland. No country or international body has formally recognized it and the republic’s government hasn’t ruled out reunification with the rest of Somalia. It appears everyone is waiting to see if the Horn of Africa can get its act together. In the meantime, the republic’s citizens are enjoying a stable currency and relative peace. Do I see a trip in my future? Almudena and Abha are willing to go to Ethiopia, but will they follow me to Somaliland?

While not technically a country, the Penguin Islands caught my eye because I'd never heard of them. The reverse of this card gives a good description of the islands and the DX (long range transmission) expedition. Amateur radio operators like to go to obscure places and send commemorative cards to those they talk to. The colonial cards were probably not from a DX expedition, but rather Europeans working in the colony.

All 22 of the Penguin Islands are uninhabited and measure in total 10 sq. km. There's some sort of shared rule over them by Namibia and South Africa. The card doesn’t mention which island they went to, but I bet they went to Hollam’s Bird Island (S 24° 38' 0 E 14° 31' 0) which is the largest and furthest away from the shore. If you’re going to go off into the wilderness to do some Dxing, you might as well go as far as you can!

A Classic Novel from Ghana

I just finished reading All the Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born, by Ayi Kwei Armah. It's an excellent read and the second-best book I read all year, after Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. Armah wrote this novel in 1968, only eleven years after Ghana got its independnece, and he is often considered to be from the "second generation" of African writers. The first generation wrote around the time of independence and was filled with optimism. Things went bad quickly, though, as Armah's book shows.

The story follows an unnamed man who works in a railway office. He refuses to take bribes or be in any way involved in the corruption that's enriching his friends and destroying his nation. He knows his stance is pointless, because the corruption will continue with or without him, but he stands on his principles. It's a relentlessly pessimistic book, although the writing is beautiful and one corrupt official gets a hilarious comeuppance near the end. I highly recommend it, but not if you're in a good mood.

When Your Child Scares You

Julián's obsession with flags continues. He likes looking at our visual dictionary because it has pictures of all the world's flags (along with lots of cars, his other obsession) and he also likes the Flags of the World site because it has an interactive map, a coloring section, and lots of regional and city flags too. I never thought a three year-old could get so focused on something. A couple of nights ago we were on the website, flying around Africa in our imaginary plane, and I showed him the flag of Chad:

He asked me, "Where's the crest?"

"There is no crest, kid," I replied.

He hopped off my lap, pulled the visual dictionary off the shelf, opened it to the flag section, and asked, "What flag is this, Papa?"

He was pointing to the flag of Andorra:

OK, now I'm worried.

When Will I Get To My 26th Country?

I just added a fun new gadget at the bottom of this blog, showing the countries I've been to. I think 25 isn't too bad, huh? But it's only 15% of the world's countries! There are huge swathes of the planet I've never even glimpsed. 

Well, this year I'm going to see country number 26. For Christmas my wife has promised me a flight to The Gambia. Spanair does cheap flights from Madrid in partnership with the Gambian government, which is trying to promote tourism. Most people go to the beach resorts, but I'll be heading up the River Gambia to see the interior. I'll also be trying to meet Gambian writers. And I'm sure my friends on Postcrossing will be bugging me for Gambian postcards!

But when? I'm not sure. Writers tend to be poor at the beginning of the year, when there are few deadlines. I need to go to England next month to research an article, and then we'll be living in Oxford from April through September, so guess it will have to be in the fall, unless I get an unbearable travel itch (and an unexpected windfall) that sends me off to Africa early. 

In the meantime it's looking to be a good travel year for me. I need to go to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam for work, and I plan to hike the length of Hadrian's Wall when I'm in England.

So what did I get Almudena? She took me to El Corte Ingles, the big department store chain in Madrid, and picked out an espresso machine. This is a great deal for me. She doesn't want to go to The Gambia, but I get to share the espresso!

Reading A Book Twice By Accident

Over the holidays I started reading Gorillas Were My Neighbors by Fred C. Merfield, a big game hunter in the French Cameroons during the first half of the twentieth century. It's a fun little book from a different era, when hunters led huge safaris through the little-known jungle blasting away at animals with gleeful abandon.

As I started reading it I recognized a couple of the stories he told, but I figured they were common tales from Africa and I had read them somewhere before. It took until I was a third of the way through the book before I realized that I had read them before, in this very book. It had been sitting on my shelf since I bought it at a library sale twelve years ago, and for some reason I'd forgotten I'd read it. I guess this means my library is getting out of control. I've met people who have bought the same book twice because they forgot they already had a copy, or they simply couldn't find it on the shelves!

Remarkably, Merfield was a bit of a preservationist, calling for limits on hunting seventy years ago. He also had a lot of respect for the local cultures, although he also pointed out any flaws he saw. This is a refreshing change from modern political correctness, which sees only the good, and traditional (and modern) racism, which only sees the bad. Merfield spent most of his life in Africa, and unlike a lot of colonial officials he worked and lived with Africans. This book is well worth a read for its engaging style, exciting anecdotes, and insights into traditional cultures. Affordable used copies can easily be found at all the usual online outlets.

Madrid Travel Tips

This week's postings are up on the Madrid section of PlanetEye. I talk about an upcoming film festival, my favorite plaza, and my first experience with Guinean food. If there's anything you'd like to see me blog about on PlanetEye, drop me a line or leave a comment here.

Great Movie About Illegal Immigration

I watched an excellent movie about illegal immigration to Spain last week titled 14 Kilómetros. The title is taken from the shortest distance from Morocco to Spain, a route traversed by thousands of illegal African immigrants every year. The film follows three people from Mali and Niger as they trek across vast deserts and several borders trying to make it to the First World.

This is a seriously depressing movie. Almudena couldn't even watch it to the end, despite its good acting, beautiful scenery, and a soundtrack that we intend to buy. What struck me was the similarity to movies and documentaries I've seen about illegal imigrants crossing the desert from Mexico into the U.S.--the same natural dangers, the same hostile and occasionally helpful policemen, the same exploitative smugglers. The only things different were the culture and language. It would be interesting to see how a Central American audience would react to this movie.

Highly recommended, but not if you only watch movies to escape reality.