سفريات انثون

Padang

2012-01-19T15:25:00.000-08:00

A late start, a couple breakdowns and more than a thousand kilometers of bumpy Sumatran roads stretched our bus ride even more than expected. After 40 hours on board, we stepped into Padang more than ready for some time at the beach.

Bandung to Lampung

2012-01-17T03:30:00.000-08:00

Before taking off for the western tip of Java, Joanna and I took some time to wander Bandung, one of Indonesia's liveliest cities: walked the scenic Dago Trail to the north, checked out all the budget dives, tried to navigate a few of its gigantic new air-conditioned malls and went out on the old Dutch downtown to wind up at a face-searing Bon Jovi tribute show. A flood hit the west of Java just before we boarded our next bus, and we finally reached the grimy little port of Merak late in the afternoon. Crossing the Sunda to Sumatra, the view south to Krakatau was smothered in heavy clouds.

A jolly young Justin Bieber fan drove us the 30km to Kalianda in his decked-out angkot, complete with spoiler, neon lights and a giant sub in the back thumping the likes of "Never Say Never" all the way to our dingy hotel. After a glorious visit to the beach we moved on to the regional capital, Bandar Lampung, where we soon became official guests of the governor. Although our business in town was finished the night we arrived, we were convinced to hang around another day to check out the swamps of Way Kambas National Park, home to a slew of endangered Sumatran species, among them elephants, rhinos and tigers. We did get to spot one of these groups, largely thanks to the chains clamped around their legs. Back in Bandar Lampung, we waited until late for our next bus to arrive. The trip to Padang, assuming the Sumatran roads were all clear our bus was in decent repair, would take just 24 hours.

Borobudur

2012-01-11T15:08:00.000-08:00

From an afternoon as a celebrity at Java's world-famous Buddhist complex, where it seemed more photos were taken of myself than of the temple.

Merapi & Prambanan

2012-01-09T18:16:00.000-08:00

After a couple days collecting information around Jogja, we took a scooter for the day to reach the base of Merapi, Indonesia's most active volcano. Hot ash from its 2010 eruptions burned and suffocated hundreds who'd decided at some point to settle on its slopes. We hiked to one of the destroyed villages then sped south through terraced rice paddies to reach the ninth-century Hindu ruins of Prambanan. We almost beat the rain on the ride home.

Gunung Bromo

2012-01-04T06:54:00.000-08:00

On our second morning in East Java, we hiked the last few hundred meters of Mount Penanjakan by the light of my cell phone to catch sunrise at Bromo, one of Indonesia's most famous active volcanoes.

Delhi to Rajasthan

2012-01-01T05:34:00.000-08:00

From a week of adventures with the Jackson family, all in one place for the first time in many years. After a day of racing through Old Delhi, we packed into an overnight train for the long ride to Bikaner. Between camel trekking, desert camping, wandering the old city and lazing around Gajner Palace, we even found some time to make a horror film, to be posted shortly.

Karni Mata: The Rat Temple

2011-12-31T06:24:00.000-08:00

Before heading back to Delhi, we made a final stop outside Bikaner, at a place that could only exist in India. Karni Mata is home to thousands of sacred rats which run freely across the marble grounds. Hindus come from far to pay respects to the reincarnated goddess Karni Mata and her army of healthy and happy rats, themselves reincarnations that have multiplied since temple's 14th century birth. For the temple's bare-footed pilgrims, it is believed to be especially auspicious to spot a white rat among the hordes.

Agra

2011-12-22T06:33:00.001-08:00

From a cold day at the Taj Mahal.

Gwalior

2011-12-20T04:16:00.000-08:00

From a day of exploring the Jain carvings and Mughal fort of Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh.

North Sumatra

2011-12-15T04:35:00.000-08:00

A week in Northern Sumatra.

Night in Paris

2011-12-08T04:43:00.000-08:00

From a night in Paris with two of my favorite people, en route to Sumatra.

Copenhagen

2011-11-13T09:28:00.000-08:00

A weekend in København.

Gdansk

2011-10-20T04:22:00.000-07:00

From a week visiting Joanna's family in Poland.

Back in Cairo

2011-10-06T04:05:00.000-07:00

Just under two months after saying goodbye, I stepped back into Cairo off an overnight bus, having traced the Nile all way from its source in the highlands of Ethiopia. This time around I only stayed a week, just enough to settle back into my downtown hostel, stock up on Felfela koshari and visit a few old haunts, including shisha at Feshawi and a late night felucca ride on the Nile. I also picked up a couple large framed prints from my exhibit back in April 2010, packaging them carefully for the long flight.

On one of my last days I made a visit to the slopes of Mu'attam in search of the ruined 16th-century mosque of Shahin Al-Khalawati. Barely hanging onto sheer cliffs above the eerie silence of the city of the dead, it was an adventure just reaching its base, winding through a labyrinth of tombs guarded by rabid dogs. I spotted people on the roof of one crumbling high-rise and they waved me to come up and join them for the view. They said I was the first tourist ever to stop by.

That night, doing some last-minute shopping in the Khan al-Khalili, I saw the mosque again in a little shop stacked with old postcards from as far back as the 1930s. The minarets on the card were still capped with green paint. It was 50 pounds, so I just took its photo as a free souvenir. A couple days later I picked up my backpack and a couple shattered frames from the baggage carousel in Copenhagen and boarded the next train to Århus.

Wadi Halfa

2011-09-30T03:53:00.000-07:00

I waited three days in Wadi Halfa, the last stop on the route north to Egypt. It was just long enough to pick up a routine. I stopped off each morning to visit my favorite shay lady, shared jugs of juice with fellow travelers and ate fuul three times a day at the town's top restaurant, where fuul was only one of the menu's three choices. My lokanda's wide courtyard was stacked with cots and bodies the night before the weekly ferry to Aswan. Deathly afraid of missing the boat and having to spend another week in Wadi Halfa, I arrived a few hours early as the port. By the early evening I'd claimed a sleeping spot along with Pierre, a French Canadian, on deck beneath the suspended life boats, and had made plenty of Sudanese and Egyptian friends onboard. Egyptian police boarded the ferry soon after, taking care of customs in the grimy cafeteria. That night we chugged past Abu Simbel, and by early the next afternoon we'd docked beside the High Dam in Aswan.

Karima

2011-09-25T04:37:00.000-07:00

I arrived just before sunset in Karima, another bland desert town along the Nile. Although nothing much to look at these days, it's built on the spot of ancient Napata, once capital of the Kingdom of Kush. In the 8th century BCE, Napata had managed to spread its control over both Upper and Lower Egypt, even extending the Kushite reach as far as Jerusalem and Tyre. The mesa of Jebel Barkal, long considered the southernmost boundary of ancient Egyptian dynasties, rises as the dominant landmark just south of town. It loomed between the the highway and the Nile as my bus sped past, complete a cluster of steep-angled pyramids in its sand-swept foreground, all glowing reddish-gold in the last light of day.

I wandered the new town's broad, dusty streets in search of the police station. My low-key lokanda wouldn't allow any khawaja to check-in without registration papers. On the way I met all the eager friendliness I'd come to expect in Sudan, both bearded old sheikhs in white gallabiyas and fresh teens in pink collared shirts pointing the way to the station, even when neither seemed to have a clue where it might actually be. Papers stamped, I picked one of the lively main square's handful of restaurants to get all my fuul and fresh juice for next few days in town. It was well-past dark when I settled into my lokanda, Al-Nassr, equipped with the standard set of earthen jars filled with cool Nile water, metal-spring cots spread out in a neat courtyard and surprisingly bearable bathrooms, just wide enough to crouch without scraping the grimy walls. Scrambling around within the little toilet hole were just under a dozen cockroaches.

I circled Jebel Barkal the next morning. Once holy ground, its eastern side is now graced with the ruins of an old Temple of Amun. Winding south out of town, I only recognized the ruins when I came close. A few toppled columns and a row of carved lions marked the entrance. Just beyond them flapped a large tent for the temple guard. No one was there. A pack of barking dogs on my heels sped up my walk to the mountain's eastern base. From there rose the pyramids I'd glimpsed from the road. Again I was alone in a cluster of pyramids. Another tent shook in the wind between the base of two pyramids, but it was also empty.

The following day I crossed the Nile on a minibus to reach Nuri, where most of Napata's pyramids were spread. A guard was laying in front of the post when I arrived, curled within its scant shade. He sat up as I approached, asking 25 pounds for entry. I explained my plight as a poor student with just enough cash for the ferry to Egypt and without a pause they dropped the price to 10. He went back to sleep when I passed.

Dilapidated pyramids spread out for nearly a kilometer before me, most easily-climbable. Again, no one was around. Buried beneath the sand before each crumbling pile stretched long stairways leading to ancient tombs, dating back as far as the 7th century BCE, once filled with elaborate sarcophagi, organs in animal-headed jars and thousands of little shawabtis, statues of servants the kings and queens hoped would do their cooking and laundry in the afterlife. From the weathered summit of one of the highest pyramids, I rested a while to take in the view. Across the Nile to the west, jagged mesas were scattered endlessly into the desert, their summits just high enough to retain an air of mystery. Even 10km from Karima, Jebel Barkal remained the obvious point of worship.

Alone at the Pyramids

2011-09-22T05:07:00.000-07:00

Three hours north of Khartoum, my bus pulled off onto the side of the road just long enough to let me jump off. There to the east jutting out of the horizon was a jagged row of ruined pyramids, half buried in a giant yellow ridge of sand. The Nile ran a few kilometers behind to the west, hidden by a faint strip of green, while everything in front of me was barren. I walked the kilometer towards the pyramids unsure about whether I'd encounter anyone at all. A small guard post emerged when I neared the base of the dune. Beside it, the encroaching sand had turned the chest-high barbed wire fence into a welcome mat. I stepped over it to pay my 25SDG. The guard said I could camp that night anywhere beyond the black mountain to the east of the pyramids.

I spent the afternoon alone, wandering the old Nubian ruins, no one around to stop me from climbing on top and inside of them. Many had been crudely restored in the 80s, but it was still easy enough to imagine being the first one to discover the place.

Reeling from the heat, I finally headed further east towards another fenced guard post. The first guard said I'd find water there. And Nile water I did find, still cold in a large earthen jar.

I raised my tent beside a lone acacia set between the pyramids and the guard post, then made another round at the pyramids to soak up the solitude as the sun set.

Suddenly the whole scene was crashed by a bus-load of kids streaming across the dunes. They quickly spotted me, and along with their teachers, ran towards me as though I were more fascinating than the pyramids. All were friendly, practicing their three English phrases and inviting me to their village. They asked for a photo then left as quickly as they'd come, leaving everything eerily silent again.

I spent the early evening drinking tea with the guards before walking through the dark to find my tent. Hyena calls kept me up late. When the sun rose I was still exhausted, but decamped in a hurry. A camelman was outside the tent waiting to join me for the walk back to the highway. Hailing a shared taxi to Atbara, I stopped for a another fuul lunch then made the long bus journey west to Karima, arriving just before sunset.

Crossing to Sudan

2011-09-20T04:03:00.000-07:00

From Addis, it took just two days to reach Khartoum. After crossing the Blue Nile I spent the first night in Gonder before busing to the border post at Metema, walking the bridge to Gallabat. The greenery lasted a few hundred more kilometers before vanishing a few hours outside Khartoum. I hopped out of the last bus late at night in Sahafa at the city's southern end. After one night in a grungy hotel I spent the next four camped by the banks of the Nile. I set up my tent in the yard of the Blue Nile Sailing Club, its office housed in the dilapidated wreck of Kitchener's old gunboat. Unlike other travelers, I was lucky to get my alien registration stamp in a single afternoon. The rest of my days were spent on fuul, falaafel and juice runs, relaxing with a handful of fellow travelers and drinking cool water from the Nile. We jumped in several times per afternoon, swimming against the current alongside rusted old boats. I was still caked in a film of Nile mud when I took off for the north.

Escape from Afambo

2011-09-05T12:12:00.000-07:00

After a candle-lit meal of injera and misri wat in the back of one of Afambo's filthy restaurants, we returned to camp in our fenced compound at the edge of town. It wasn't long before the police sent for us. Go'obo explained they were upset that we'd come without any official escorts and wanted to see our papers. We thought back to Semera, Afar's capital, where our travel permit had been issued. At the time we'd omitted mention of Afambo to avoid getting assigned official guides for the trek.

It was Go'obo's idea to forge "Afambo" into our papers. We found a blue pen that seemed to match and, as it was all in Amharic, Go'obo did the honors. Reviewing his work we all immediately regretted the decision.

The meeting with the chief of police took place just outside his house. Like Gura, Ali and Boha boatmen, the officer's tone was self-important and deeply serious, with long, drawn-out phrases that could have put us to sleep and short, emphatic bursts when he finally wrapped around to his point: it seemed we were both in trouble and in grave danger. We listened respectfully as he slouched on his cot in a blue shirt, scanning our forged papers with a weak flashlight and a lazy eye. He insisted we'd need two of his police officers to keep an eye on us through the night. We declined, thanking him for being so thoughtful. Just before standing to leave he mentioned we would not be allowed to leave Afambo the next morning until we'd met with the chief of tourism.

Heated discussion took place in the pitch black street outside. Several cops had now joined the party. Go'obo feared we'd all be arrested. Back at camp, Mohammed and Thoreau prepared for the worst, suspecting their own police force would send thieves to ransack our tents. With the aid of some fresh chat, they opted to stay up all night to keep a lookout.

Our Afar crew did end up staying awake throughout the night, but the second half was spent in jail. David woke me up around midnight to let me know they'd been taken, along with Go'obo, and that our camp was under police watch. It didn't register until morning when I woke up to see one of the cops laying in a cot outside the tents, watching blankly as we decamped. Mohammed, Thoreau and Go'obo's whereabouts were unknown.

While the cop whistled after him, David walked off to find this tourism chief. He returned with no luck and I soon took off to find our friends. The cop from our camp was in the guard post outside the prison, catching up on sleep. Without a word, he got up and led me through the drab complex, with cracked walls and barred little cells like Pol Pot's Tuol Sleng. At the very back, behind bars and spread out on a concrete floor was our Afar trio. Mohammed was most excited to see me: "Yufus! Sigara?" It was clear they hadn't slept, not did they have any idea what was going on. I promised we'd get them out.

Having confirmed that our three friends were being held in a jail cell, we began with the phone calls. David got on the sat phone in the back, hunched behind the camels, while I used my last battery to call Herman, a friend in Addis. Within the hour our situation had been raised as consular matter. About that time, blue-shirt man from the night before showed up wanting to see our papers in daylight. I refused, insisting he'd have to bring the so-called chief of tourism if he wanted to see them again. I put the officer on the line with Hermann. He translated lazy eye as saying that we weren't actually being held in Afambo. Just the other three.
He again demanded to see our papers. Again I refused. Desperate, he brought Go'obo out of jail to translate his demand. Go'obo did so softly, slowly and firmly, his face almost pale with fear, "Don't show him the papers." He finally left, but I assumed he'd be back in a less friendly mood.

Stopping back at the jail to pass our trio some cigarettes, I slipped our phone numbers inside the pack and told Go'obo we'd try and run to Asaita to get help.

Forged Papers: "Afambo" added to line 2.2

David and I packed our bags for Asaita and made for the main road. As usual, an Afar crowd gathered around us. The police were soon among them. They'd brought Go'obo to translate the conversation, explaining that we were not allowed to leave Afambo. A public debate ensued between us and an irate young officer, who tried repeatedly to take the discussion away from the crowd. Go'obo translated several times the question: "Why are you holding our friends in jail?" He had no answer to give and was fast losing public face. Lazy eye arrived on the sceneas backup, shouting and spitting for us to get back to the compound, still demanding the papers. He was fuming now.

Back at the compound, David headed out back to make more calls on the sat phone. It seemed we'd be needing some outside help.

The next official to make an entrance was Ali Mirah, head of the Eduction Office, (as the sign read). I wasn't at all sure how his field played into the whole matter of travel permits, but he drove a big SUV and wore a suit. He also spoke basic English and seemed friendly. He asked for the papers.

Trying my best to keep calm and collected, I pulled them out of my pocket. A suspicious huddle quickly formed around Mirah and the forged papers. Qalem (pen) was shouted several times as they hovered over the word "Afambo," written slightly smaller and in a slightly different shade of blue. The old white-haired man behind Mirah shook his head with a knowing smile. Mirah looked me over, then put his eyes back on the paper. Finally, he broke out, "Enough! They are tourists." Before driving off in his SUV he promised to call within ten minutes and have our friends freed. As the words came out a couple voices were still shouting wereqat! (papers). Ali ignored them.

Mirah's ten minutes multiplied into four hours. The town fell into siesta mode all afternoon. Ali's phone was switched off. Nothing to do, I checked on the jailed trio. No guards were in sight so I walked in alone, then returned with water and a plate of injera and misri. Up the street, Sudanese Ali charged my phone while David and I chatted the afternoon away with Yeyu, the boy we'd met weeks ago on the trek in -- he still wanted to be an engineer. Finally a clan meeting was announced and the appointed time came.

I kept an eye on our camp while David attended the fateful meeting with Go'obo. Yeyu kept me company. A half an hour later David walked back into the compound at a brisk pace.

I feared the worst, thinking they'd reached Semera and the original copy of our permit papers. All he said was, "get rid of the rocks!"

He then described the meeting as a chat-chewing bunch with the town's elders taking the lead. They'd asked why we were trying to hide from the police and why we'd snuck through the bush on the way in. The US Embassy had called at the height of the meeting. A couple voices has tried persistently to bring up the blue pen but David managed to change the subject each time. In the end, their only concern was that we might be thieves stealing minerals from Lake Abhebad. It was decided that if our bags were clean, we'd all be good to go. Before the cops came for the search, we quickly disposed of our handful of colored rocks. They weren't worth us staying in Afambo any longer.

The search was far from thorough. David immediately regretted getting his hands dirty to toss his beautiful stones down the toilet. Minutes later, Mohammed and Thoreau showed up, all smiles. Mohammed's family was all there, his frail little mother smiling with the same high, pointy cheekbones and wild eyes. We gave her our excess pasta, berbery, lentils, sugar and tea. Like every other Afar woman we'd passed on the trip, she loved the UNHCR cans. We arranged to meet

Mohammed and Thoreau a few days later in Asaita to re-sell the camels and celebrate the end of the expedition.

Backs at the road, we were horrified to learn there were no more buses to Asaita. The prospect of another night in Afambo City was dreadful but seemed likely. Unlike the day before, the town was completely dead, struck by an epidemic of boredom. Many occupied themselves with empty staring, most in our direction but some targeting the trash-heaped mud puddle at the town's entrance. A few seemed to mix things up by alternating targets from minute to minute. Unable to cope, one poor boy resorted to sucking on a balloon. We drank copious amounts of tea to pass the time, our eyes on the road.

Our hopes of escaping Afambo that night about dashed, we were on the verge of resorting to balloon-sucking ourselves when an Isuzu truck rolled along, a beautiful dust cloud billowing up in its wake. In a state of pure euphoria we hopped in back and watched the Afar countryside breeze by, mosquitos splatting in our faces all the way to Asaita. Lavly Kaafe and its ice-cold Mirindas awaited.

That night in our cot-filled courtyard, I sent a text to Denmark to say I'd made it back. Joanna woke me with a 23:30 phone call, after which I couldn't get back to sleep. Wheezing donkeys, vicious cat wars, whooping hyenas and what sounded like a man being torn to pieces by a pack of dogs kept me wide awake. Even Asaita, our longed-for beacon of civilization during the trek, felt like the edge of the earth, a world away from home. As for our days of berbery pasta and Harissa dates, they were already fast becoming a fond but distant memory. Within the next few long days in Asaita we sold Tony and Bolbirri, said goodbye to our Afar friends and began the trip back to Addis.

Abhebad to Afambo

2011-09-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

We made the return trek to Afambo in just three days. On the first we skirted the east flank of Dema Ali heading north to Hadola. Rising from the cracked earth just to the northeast of Harissa were clusters of strange limestone chimneys, the kind that surround much of Lake Abhebad. Keeping in nearly constant view to our right was the lake, its water blue and beckoning. From several vantage points under the crushing heat, its shimmering outline looked too good to be real. According to Thesiger, while the water looks nice from afar, up close it's a putrid cauldron of red and green, smelling of sulfur. All curiosity regarding Abhebad was outweighed by the thought of cold Mirindas in Asaita.

Gura and Ali made their last round the morning we left Harissa. In true Afar fashion, they requested some parting "gifts," reminding us of the milk and gambo they'd shared, as well as all the other hospitality and kindness they'd shown. We thought back to our last discussion in the stone hut, one in which the villagers had been adamant that there were no exchanges in Afar culture, only gifts (that must be repaid).

One of our greatest benefactors in Harissa, and certainly the fattest, had been another Ali, a man who'd traveled far from home in search of a lost camel. He conveniently happened to be in the neighborhood every day around lunch and dinner time, downing our pasta and lentils without a single gadagaye. Halfway to Hadola and camped for lunch beneath some scrawny acacias, Ali the Fatman showed up out of the heat mirage. And what luck! He'd found his long-lost camel and was just in time for lunch. Starting to run out of patience, we decided to act like Gura and request some return "gifts." As it happened, the Fatman's faraway home was our day's destination, Hadola. Stuffing his round face with our berbery pasta, he promised a showering of gambo and milk that night.

A small huddle of stone huts set beside the edge of a cliff, Hadola was even less distinguishable as a village than Harissa. Its huts and aris barely made a mark on the desolate landscape. We rested against a stone wall as Hadola's finest came to crouch around us, rifles slung across shoulders. A swarm of flies took to the bloody flap of flesh hanging off the tip of Bolbirri's hump. The poor camel moaned and snapped its neck as David doused disinfectant then together we taped a large dressing. Our reed mats weren't ideal for packing camels. The sun had just set when Ali the Fatman called for us.

A homeless beggar in Harissa, Ali was the king of Hadola. Sprawled in the center of our group and surrounded with men, women and children, he seemed to have the whole village at his command. I downed four cups of coffee and plenty of dried gambo chips with his people, waiting until dark to stumble back to camp, coming dangerously close to some very serious cows on the way. Later on the Fatman brought warm gambo and milk as promised. The hyenas called most of the night, coming closer than ever. Go'obo claimed to have seen one just outside my tent.

Another full-day trek followed the next day, crossing an endless hamada of odd-shaped, basketball-sized rocks. The terrain was ideal for twisting ankles as well as hiding giant hairy spiders, a couple of which scurried off the trail as we passed. We carried leftover breakfast dates for lunch, and stopped only for thirty minutes to purify some water. Thoreau said we could make it to the old Derg airfield by evening. Taking an alternate route, we followed a narrow canyon dotted with muddy rain pools, stopping for a swim late in the afternoon. Mohammad had hot berbery pasta ready when we arrived, to be shared with yet another unexpected guest. We then cooked up a plan to evade the Boha boatmen, laying out our bamboo poles and UNHCR jerry cans on the airfield. We'd built a boat.

We arrived at the Boha's banks by midmorning the next day and got to work. While Mohammad stripped down, tied the biggest jerry cans around Tony and prepared to swim him across, David and I started lashing together our flimsy raft. We spotted several crocodiles floating patiently between us and the opposite bank. Within minutes the boatmen were up in arms with shouting and threats, demanding that we dismantle the raft. We paused the building to meet a delegation of boatmen as a giant herd of bull cows swam across the river, fast filling our little beach with great moans and swinging horns.

It took another hour on the sweltering banks of the Boha to discuss the terms of our crossing -- just in time, as the shade had completely disappeared by noon. David proved a masterful negotiator. From the original demand of 600 birr, we finally shook hands on 100 birr and 10kg of pasta. Soon we'd loaded into the old iron boat and were halfway across the river. Not wanting to leave without a dip in the Boha, David took a leap off the back of the boat. Camped on the western shore, we treated several more guests with a helping of our last berbery pasta and took a dip along the muddy banks.

After a few more hours down the long, straight and dusty road beyond the river, we glimpsed our first power lines. Soon we'd reached Afambo City and its smattering of run-down shops, faded coca signs adorning mud walls and welcoming us back to civilization. On the evening of our arrival it was buzzing with life. Two kwasso matches were raging in a disused field. Hoping to join in as spectators, we soon became as much an attraction as the game. David made the most of it, challenging and beating the village's finest in arm wrestling, encircled by a cheering crowd. (I think they were cheering for the other guy.) Fueled by the prospect of injera that night and ice cold Mirindas the next in Asaita's Lavly Kaafe, morale ran high.

It would take a long dive shortly. Dodging puddles of filth on the walk down main street, we felt the stares of long-haired Afar tribesmen, dozens of ferengi-shouting kids and one naked infant leaning coolly against a barbed wire fence. The village was mostly made up of candle-lit wooden huts (electricity was a very occasional luxury in Afambo City), while a slew of silly-looking concrete buildings were scattered near our camp at the back end of town. One of them, I'd soon learn, was Afambo's jail.

Harissa

2011-09-02T05:51:00.000-07:00

Word of our arrival in Harissa spread fast. A small group of men met us at the oasis within an hour of stumbling in from the desert. Among them was Gura, right-hand man of Azim Ali, Harissa's chief. Intent on staying in Harissa, we decided to invite the group to share newly purified water and berbery pasta under shade of acacias and date palms. Go'obo helped explain the purpose of our trip, using Thesiger's Danakil Diary as a prop. Mohammed and Thoraeu joined them in leafing awkwardly through the book. All were fascinated by the old photos of their ancestors. Thoraeu even claimed to recognize one, a silhouetted figure from the 1930s.

With our old red-eyed man acting as arbitrator, we arranged to meet with Azim Ali the next morning. He was supposedly upset that no one had given him any warning of our arrival, thrusting on him the responsibility of hosting two ferengis. We camped that night between a pair of stone huts on the outskirts of the village. Go'obo seemed uneasy about the prospect of staying in Harissa.

Early the next morning I wandered into the village to buy dates from Gura. He led me into a giant stone hut stacked with burlap sacks of dates from the oasis. I took an entire bag for 150 birr. He indicated that I could return the sack when finished, a good sign that he and Ali had already talked, and would likely allow us to stay.

The clansmen's gathering that morning lasted an hour. All sat on their haunches in a wide circle, drawing figures in the sand. Azim Ali sat forward, almost in the center, balanced on a small rock and his long staff. Tall and with chiseled arms, piercing eyes and a taut, angular face, Ali had the look of a strong leader. Old red eyes began the talking, speaking slowly but with dramatic intonation, slumped in a corner of the circle, still recovering from the long trek around Dema Ali. Next went Muhammed and Thoreau, both by coincidence members of Gura's clan, and finally Gura and Ali took the stage. They weren't satisfied with our offerings of berbery and lentils, saying that they'd be responsible for our protection, no small task, as long as we stayed in Harissa. They wanted money. By the time we reached an agreement everyone had long ago finished their drawings in the sand, some had moved onto pebble tossing and others were dozing off, heads hung over knees. 300 birr ($18) was agreed upon for an indefinite stay in Harissa. Ali and Gura would invite us to take photos and video each morning. We celebrated in Gura's ari with four cups of coffee and warm, freshly-squirted milk.

It quickly dawned on us that life in Harissa would be slow. Our pastimes became fishing at the oasis, morning visits with Ali, Gura and their women, and chat. Our first afternoon as official guests in town was spent crammed into the chat house, all stuffing heaps of the bitter leaves into our mouths and chewing patiently. When it comes to chat, patience is certainly required. Back at the oasis, our fishing adventures always ended in failure, despite that giant catfish were everywhere. David and Go'obo sat on the banks for hours, spitting dates for bait and holding their knives ready, while I worked on my knife-throwing skills, perching on a branch over the water. Desperate, Go'obo tried building a fish-trap, what looked like a little tent out of some sticks and clothes, hoping in vain to lure a catfish inside. Every few minutes of sitting in the heat the idea of splashing in the water sounded new and amazing once again. Every hour or so an Afar crew would pass through quietly, seemingly aware of our deal with Azim Ali. Most gave hard, long stares as they waded through the water with their camels. Once it was a lone little boy with an odd tuft of hair sticking up just over his forehead. He sat watching us for a long while, perched on a rock with his small black kettle hung over a little staff. When a sudden sandstorm gathered in the desert to the west, our little friend led us back to Harissa and disappeared again.

Daily visits to the village core were highlights of our stay. Crouching in the darkness of portable aris, Ali explained the purpose of all the handmade utensils hung from the roofs above, from four-legged gourds to small leather cases of camel fat cream, great for rubbing on the skin. We checked out the scarred faces and sharpened teeth of the village kids as they shared giant bowls of milk, and joined Ali's women scraping gambo out of earthen ovens or braiding their hair for Eid. Thoreau did mine. One morning I joined the cattle on a walk towards lake Abhebad in exchange for giving medical advice for the cowherd's swollen red eyes. As usual, it was the kids that took to us the most. Towards the end of our stay they began visiting our camp, performing songs and dances and begging to see themselves on our camera screens. And no wonder: there was nothing to do in Harissa.

When there wasn't any chat, Gura and Ali were nearly as bored as us, wandering into our camp several times a day just to sit, eat dates and catch up on village events, which were mostly to do with eating dates. Dates soon became our number one pastime. We quickly invented a flurry of exciting new games, from the spit-the-dates-into-the-cup to make-the-world's-biggest-seedless-date-ball. Old classics like hit-the-stone-off-the-fence also came in handy. Sometimes the heat reached 60°C in the middle of the day, zapping all energy and forcing us inside the stone hut, where we'd eat hundreds more dates without the pretense of any game. Like an afternoon chewing chat, the minutes, hours and days in Harissa started to blend into one uncountable heap. I began to look forward to the task of purifying water. When Muhammed had smoked all the Business Royals, he resorted to reading David's Portable Thoreau, holding it upside down and staring in wonder at the strange barcode. Go'obo once even suggested calling the helicopter to come save us. Only on the afternoon before Eid, a day I feared would never come, was the boredom interrupted.

Issas (Somalis) had been spotted just across the Awash to the south. Suddenly all the village men took off in a sprint with their guns, headed towards the oasis. Some ran with only their staffs and curved knives. We were told to stay behind with the children and women, the latter ululating wildly, cheering on their men with piercing war cries. They seemed excited. David and I purified some more water.

Keeping our eyes on the oasis, we spotted Muhammed first, returning along with two black-clad boys, one with a big rifle slung over his shoulder and a finger-length gille. Muhammed's gait was as light-hearted as ever, a carefree spring in his little legs and his long, curled hair bouncing with each step. He was laughing. We soon learned that the skirmish had ended with three Issas and one Afar killed. Everyone seemed pretty content about the outcome.

Unlike every other night, there was no rain the night before Eid, and no wind. We sweated to sleep in our tents to the familiar sound of hyena calls, anxious for the big day.

One the morning of Eid, Harissa put on it's Sunday best: button up shirts, colorful sawrandas or skirts, bright green and purple plastic sandals and guns over shoulders. All walked in a solemn procession to Big Harissa, a few kilometers to the south by the outlet of the Awash, not far from yesterday's skirmish with the Issa. Instead of an actual mosque, our destination was a knee-high circle of black stones, divided into two halves for men and women. As in any church service, a small eager crew crowded to the front while most showed up late and stayed towards the back. The Quran was read purely phonetically as all tried to ignore the crying naked baby under a nearby acacia. Most looked bored, maybe hungry, and even though most hadn't actually fasted a single meal the last month, all seemed excited about the end of Ramadan. Following the service everyone filed out of the stone circle, then woke up to socialize and exchange daggu before heading back to their villages.

We bought our Eid goat from Gura. Thoreau cut its throat with my knife while David held its legs, then Muhammad strung its corpse from a beam in our stone hut. He and Thoreau then started the task of separating the meat from bone, holding their gilles between their teeth while sawing strips of flesh into manageable chunks. They made use of each organ and all of our zip-lock bags to store them. Blood was splattered across the dirt floor of the hut. I stepped outside to call Denmark on the satellite phone as it was Joanna's birthday. She asked about buying us Fleet Foxes tickets for November, reminding me for a moment just how far removed Harissa was from our world, one that I now appreciated on a new level. Stepping back into Camp Harissa, I scared off a dog trying to escape with the goat's head.

Late that afternoon we made a final trip to our beloved oasis, taking a last bath and soaking up the wild remoteness of the place. David and I agreed that while having been well worth the trip, Harissa could never be our home. We could sport our own sawrandas but neither of us would ever approach the life of the Afar. I was already starting to lose my taste for dates. Back at the camp, a troop of boys from the village showed up after dark for some spectacular singing, jumping and clapping. We later joined the half the village in singing and dancing outside the thorn-fence compound, all nearly invisible under the new moon. While the celebration had a bit more to do with Eid, we considered it our farewell party. The next morning would begin the trek to Hadola and onwards to Afambo.

Afambo to Abhebad

2011-08-24T04:16:00.000-07:00

It took almost three days to reach the Boha River. In that time we semi-settled into life on the road. A diet of dates, lentils and pasta, cooked in purified Awash River water, nightly Afar visitors, wind storms and dreaded hyena encounters. Although they never tried to enter our camp, they came close enough to keep me wide awake, one hand resting on my sharpened bamboo pole.

The banks of the Boha were buzzing with life as goats, cows and camels waited their turn to cross the crocodile-infested waters either by swimming or riding an ancient rusted boat. Long-haired, sharp-toothed Afar herdsmen huddled in the shade drinking shay and breaking gambo. All eyes were quickly fixed on the ferengis. Our crossing was a several-hour ordeal, at the end of which we were forced to pay many times the local fare before piling in the filthy boat weighed down with burlap sacks, stacks of reed mats and dripping boys falling over the passengers as they pulled us across by a rope connecting the other side. For the return crossing, we made plans to build a raft and bypass the Boha monopoly.

Once across we sat down beneath a cluster of acacias to reach on a deal with an Afar trio. Muhammad and Thoreau were both young and fit, only "essential flesh and bone" as Thesiger once described the Afar, and seemed much friendlier than the other candidates we'd met. The third was much older, and promised to contribute wisdom and an insider's knowledge of our route. After shaking hands on the our new fellowship, we never saw the old man again, but Muhammad and Thoreau proved essential to the expedition. Each carried next to nothing and was as confident with camels anyone in these parts. On our first night together we camped in an abandoned Derg airfield, not far from a ruined old tank. Heat rash from dirt, sweat and the baking ground made it difficult to sleep, and David and I welcomed a rainstorm that chased Muhammad and Thoreau off into the barren wilderness to look for shelter. The midnight rain came several times on the trip to Abhebad. Each time David and I rejoiced and our Afar friends scurried off into the dark.

Within just three more days we could see the glimmering strip on the southern horizon that was Lake Abhebad. Instead of taking the one-day route south, David decided we'd stick to Thesiger's route, circumambulating the volcanic mass of Dema Ali. Appearing out of nowhere, another red-eyed old man joined our team, also claiming intimate knowledge of the terrain we hoped to cross. His expert advice put anywhere from 4-6 more days on our trip to the lake. Together we circled Dema Ali's blackened wasteland, its jagged rocks drawing blood from the camels' poor feet, making the journey in just two days. Talk of Issa (Somali) raids to the south, hippos on the banks of the Awash, hyenas on the slopes of Dema Ali and a fierce "demon government" that ruled the area kept things interesting. On the second day, David's watch thermometer passed 40° by 8am. A few hours later it reached well into the 50's. Our water was running dangerously low.

Finally Abhebad came into view to the east, the Djibouti shoreline a faint watermark on the horizon. We paused to take in the view Thesiger once traveled so far and suffered so much to see. Next, like a mirage in the distance, a small patch of date palms came into view over a ridge called Hobo Mountain. The approaching sound of rushing water almost convinced me I was dreaming. Soon the camels were lapping up cool water from the Awash and our crew was stripping down to bathe in the oasis's flurry of streams, cascading into pools beneath the shade of date palms. We felt we'd arrived in paradise, a long-forgotten Eden at the end of the world. A cluster of aris and stone huts set a stone's throw to the north of the oasis was to become our new home: Harissa.

Road to Asaita

2011-08-17T04:20:00.000-07:00

After a week back in cold, rainy Addis, we boarded a bus heading east into the sweltering lowlands of Eastern Ethiopia. Just beyond Awash we crossed the bridge into Afar territory and made a beeline northeast to Logiya, a seedy trucker's colony sprawled along the main road to Djibouti. It was night by the time we arrived, but the heat was still oppressive. A dust storm forced us behind the concrete walls of a run-down hotel. Mosquitos made the most of our time together and sweat soaked the bed throughout the night. The next morning we rode to Semera, Afar's bland new capital, to secure our permits for traveling around Asaita. Back in Logiya, an afternoon walk back down the main drag zapped up my sweat and sent my head spinning on the brink of heat exhaustion. I was already beginning to think fondly of cold, rainy Addis.

A few days before I'd joined up with David, freshly arrived from the UK, and Go'obo, our expedition translator. Errands had kept us busy right up until catching our bus, rushing to all corners of the city to tick off each item on our list, a lengthy one that included memory cards, 2-meter bamboo poles and a battery charger to connect with our solar packs. Go'obo met with us each night as we discussed our preparations and route, a map of the lakes spread out in a Bole Road cafe. Despite having left Afar for the last time when he was just 13, Go'obo seemed un-phased by any of the concerns that every one else in Addis seemed to have about travel in Afar. Most people's first reaction to the idea of buying camels and setting off into its lawless wilds had to do with getting killed, castrated or both. One friend called it a "suicide mission." Go'bo's only reaction was to slump a bit further back in his chair beaming his casual million-dollar smile, "It's alright, man!"

When evening came in Logiya, we barely made it out of town, cramming into the last minibus along with about twenty other passengers. The landscape became completely barren as we headed southeast, then sparse greenery popped up again as we neared Asaita. Once again we arrived after dark. Setting up camp in the courtyard of a nameless hotel/brothel, we had our first meal at Lavly Kaafe, the only eatery in Asaita with its own generator (quite the handy feature seeing as the power was out just over half the time). Over the next few weeks we'd fantasize about Lavly and its ice-cold Mirindas.

Over the next few days we made the last preparations for the expedition. David and I scoured the Tuesday Market, a hodgepodge of makeshift stalls and tents packed with burlap sacks of dates, grains and spices. Planning to feed 6 people for several weeks, we had to hire our own gari (horse-drawn carriage) to get everything back to our place: UNHCR jerry cans, ropes, oil and hefty bags of berbery, pasta, lentils, onions and garlic. But the biggest purchase by far came just outside of town at the camel market. Go'obo and David worked patiently to get a decent price on two quality camels. In the end we settled on 14,000 birr for a strong young camel that was quickly named Tony, and 7,000 for an older one. The second camel got its name later that night when the old man who'd agreed to keep it until morning was caught trying to skip town with our deposit. Bolbirri, 100 birr in Afar, was the pitiful amount of the deposit. We sealed the deal that night in the candle-lit home of the bearded sheikh who owned Tony.

After shaking hands, we took the ropes tied to both camels' foaming mouths and led them through the pitch black streets towards our place. Someone held a torch behind us, casting my camel's massive shadow on the walls ahead, towering over mine. In a dirt lot just outside the hotel courtyard, we tied their front legs together and left them for the night.

Go'obo woke me early the next morning, shaking his head like something awful had happened, "Let's go." I guessed the camels stolen and ran after him down the street, still struggling to wake up. Hitting the main dirt road just beneath our place, I was relieved to see both camels hobbling around, hovering above the shops that were just opening and being their awkward selves. A growing crowd was staring as much at the camels as at me. Tony and and Bolbirri didn't belong there. We untied their legs and started to march them out of town. I soon felt far more out of place than the camels, the shouts of "ferengi" growing louder than ever. Go'obo wisely pointed out a detour to keep us off the main streets, recognizing that a ferengi leading a pair of camels out of town might attract a bit too much attention. Finally outside the city boundaries, we found a place to feed Tony and Bolbirri, both of whom Go'obo believed to be starving. We'd already covered a few kilometers and the day was fast heating up when I remembered that I too would eventually need some water. We led the camels another couple kilometers to the east, supposedly heading to the home of one of Go'obo's relatives. Perhaps a tad late, I decided to head back to Asaita to let David know where the camels had gone. I caught a brief ride on the back of a mule cart and stumbled into the hotel courtyard. David and I hit the market again to top up on supplies before hiring a couple garis to get our mountain of gear to where the camels were feeding. Like anything in Ethiopia, this proved a lengthy process. Asaita was under the afternoon chat spell and it was several hours before the garis were moving.

Go'obo was sitting under a tree not far from where I'd left him, way out in the countryside watching the camels strip acacia leaves. Himself starving and on the verge of collapse, he set off to fetch his relative from a nearby village. It was nearing dusk when he returned and camels were finally loaded. We took them to a small cluster of aris (dome huts) surrounded with an acacia thorn fence and set at the end of a dried up field. Bare-breasted old women and half-naked kids watched curiously as we approached. Go'obo's kin promised to keep an eye on the camels and gear until the next day, and the three of us made the trek back to Asaita as darkness fell. Four liters each and a final meal at Lavly marked our last night in civilization. The next morning would begin our trek to Afambo and the end of the Awash.

Ramadan

2011-08-07T05:02:00.000-07:00

From another long walk through Islamic Cairo.

Tahrir

2011-07-24T15:26:00.000-07:00

Although somewhat prepared for the moment, it was a shock stepping out of the Sadat metro station in downtown Cairo. Despite scattered groups of chanting protesters and hundreds of street vendors making the most of the crowds, Tahrir was strangely silent, blocked off from all but pedestrian traffic and guarded by an unarmed militia of sorts. I circled the island of makeshift tents and passed the campgrounds at the foot of the defunct mogamma before winding to my long-time home, Dahab Hostel. But not before some fuul and ta3mia from Felfela. It's good to be back.

Århus

2011-07-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

Two weeks in Denmark's most happening town.

ARoS

2011-07-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

From a stop in the colored room of the Aarhus Art Museum.

Oxford to Cumbria

2011-07-07T12:49:00.000-07:00

After a full day of Italian train travel to reach Milan, a late flight to Stansted and a night spread out on the airport floor, I hopped on a bus to Oxford. My first real trip to the UK, I expected nothing less than scenes from Harry Potter, keeping an eye out for Stonehenge, bowling hats or cricket matches as rolling hills sped by outside the bus window. May have just missed them when I nodded off. Although I felt smarter than the couple ahead of me at customs that painstakingly agreed to write "Caucasian" as their nationality, I'd realized that I knew very little about England, not least about English geography. For example, I'd assumed both my destinations, Oxford and Cumbria, were just outside London. Fortunately, a couple weeks before landing I'd decided to peek at a map. This proved helpful.

Following my google-mapped route off the bus in Oxford, I met David at Corpus Christi, one of dozens of stately colleges within the same square mile. Since our time together in Pakistan in 2009 he'd grown half a foot and put on 50 pounds of muscle. Now starting his third year at Oxford, he's also become chairman of the Oxford Exploration Club and led an expedition to the Pamir, among many other adventures. It was good to see him. I crashed for the whole afternoon in his Cowley Road flat before we passed the evening along High Street, planning. Among other notes, David explained how tough the Afar can be. They certainly don't joke around, their women tending to prefer men "who have killed someone." After dividing a pile of free gear to haul to Ethiopia, we said goodbye. The next morning I headed north.

After lunch in Manchester and an afternoon pit-stop in Preston I made it to Kendal early in the evening (slightly more than a short hop from London). There at the bus station were two of Cumbria's coolest people: Rich, a Staveley native, and his Dutch girlfriend, Famke. They offered a nice couch in Staveley, lots of good travel talk, a taste of mintcake and a glimpse of the Lakes District, including a scenic drive to Lake Windermere.

They also whisked me through the gray slate homes of Kendal to my outdoor first aid course, set amid rolling cow pastures in the middle of nowhere. I enjoyed both the course and the tea breaks, and was glad that instructor Dom was willing to discuss some scenarios relevant to my upcoming trip, namely what to do when your thumb is chewed off by a camel.

Rich and Famke saw me off at Oxenholme Station, after which I spent another night in transit: this time to Wolverhamption and London Euston before spending the wee hours outside the train station on Liverpool Street. Within a few more hours I was flying to Scandinavia, feeling a bit anxious to unpack my bag.

Sarzana

2011-07-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

From yet another English camp in northern Italy...
This time the train from Sanremo stopped in Sarzana, just beyond La Spezia at the southern edge of Liguria. By sheer chance, before heading off to Sanremo I'd stopped in at the same town to visit one of my hosts from last year, Carlo Mannucci. My new hosts lived just a stone's throw across the Tuscan border, their busy house complete with five boys, two dogs and an olive grove. Everything about the camp was ideal: 15 cute kids, five fellow-teachers, trips to the mountains and the beach, a weekend in Florence, a scenic flight over Portovenere and two weeks with another incredible Italian family. The camp theme being "Arthur and Friends," my kids' Lo Spettacolo was stolen almost entirely from Monty Python (aside from the usual zombie twist at the end), although I didn't get to see the glorious performance that last Friday afternoon. I'd already taken off on another series of trains, planes and buses that would eventually land me somewhere in Oxfordshire.

Expedition Prep

2011-06-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

I'll be heading to the deserts of northwestern Ethiopia in August/September. There I'll join a 6-week camel expedition to document the lifestyles of the Afar. Support will be much appreciated in order to make the film awesome. And of course, the more generous the better the rewards. Many thanks to those that have already stopped by!

Tirano II

2011-06-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

From Rijecka to Tirano for a short visit with one of my favorite Italian families: the Zambiglis.

Plitvice Lakes

2011-06-03T12:29:00.000-07:00

From a rainy day exploring Croatia's Lakes Plitvice National Park.

Hvar, Hvar

2011-06-01T12:23:00.000-07:00

From a lazy stay in Hvar town on Dalmatia's Hvar Island.

Dubrovnik

2011-05-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

From a lazy stay in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Crossing the Boot

2011-05-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

My week in Positano felt about as good as the month I'd planned to stay. By the end I was ready to move on, as was the hostel owner. My breakfast-making skills were crap. It was good to be on the road again, this time in a car heading south with two Dutch girls and a New Yorker.

Italy's wild, rugged south breezed by us in just a few hours. At a few points along the sole of the boot we paused to enjoy the scenery. At one stop, just outside a little ghost village somewhere in Puglia, an old whispy-haired WWII vet approached us resting on a bench. Hunched over his wooden cane and speaking to himself in some strange dialect, he was a man with much to say and no one to listen. Were he all there, he might have been disappointed that we could only offer smiles and nods in response to his ramblings. But he wasn't. Pretending to get about half of what he said, we understood a tenth of that: something about us being lost, a visit to the Netherlands and then Germans, in general, but mostly in 1972. He did point us a shortcut to the highway just before we took off for Brindisi.

Positano

2011-05-20T10:19:00.001-07:00

Last summer I had a quick glimpse of Positano from the window of a bus. Winding along narrow roads etched into the cliff-sides, I remembered the clustered pastel villages stretched vertically between mountains and white beaches, crammed with little cars and people, steep alleys, crumbling churches and loads of bougainvillea. Luxury hotels were hidden along the cliffs, their tiny elevators whisking the mega-rich down a dozen stories into the rock to reach private, sandy coves. Although high above the village in a humble little hostel, this time around I stayed long enough to unpack my bag, lucky to have free room and board for a week. Between making the morning coffee and pancakes at 8am, staying up with the bar until 3am and working on a guide to Phnom Penh, I enjoyed my time: a day-trip to Pompeii, a boat ride along coast to empty beaches hemmed in with limestone cliffs and plenty nights spent on the hostel's balcony with a couple good waves of travelers.

Pompeii

2011-05-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

From a day trip to the foot of Vesuvius.

Madrid

2011-05-11T03:40:00.000-07:00

A short stop in Madrid just before flying out of Spain.

Granada

2011-05-08T03:31:00.000-07:00

Granada & the Alhambra.

Sevilla

2011-05-03T02:51:00.000-07:00

From a quick road trip to Sevilla.

Montejaque to Ronda

2011-05-01T07:02:00.000-07:00

Semana Santa

2011-04-26T06:14:00.000-07:00

Semana Santa in Montejaque.

Montejaque

2011-04-18T06:56:00.001-07:00

Some first shots from Montejaque. The last one is the view from my room.

El Jadida

2011-04-09T08:22:00.000-07:00

From a quick stop at the Cisterne Portugaise in El Jadida.

Mirleft

2011-04-07T00:30:00.000-07:00

After a night in Tiznit's old medina, a shared cab dropped me off on Mirleft's main road, along with a couple Swiss travelers I'd met. The sun was out and a cool sea breeze blew through the whitewashed little town as we wound towards our guesthouse. For the next couple days I took to the beaches of Morocco's rugged southern coast. One cloudy afternoon was spent alone at Legzira, waiting in vain for the sun to reappear but enjoying for several hours the kind of windstorm that had been carving up the red cliffs for thousands of years. A pack of dogs came at me on the long and lonely walk back to the road, making me once again grateful to have invested in a weighty tripod.
The next day was spent surfing at Sidi El Ouafi. Outside my dread-locked Swiss friend and I, our group was a mix of French and Moroccans. Karim, our coach/the guy with the surfboards and wetsuits, had us run sprints up the beach before hitting the waves. Tall but chiseled, Karim had the look and swagger of the guy from the And-1 logo, and therefore everyone enjoyed taking orders from him. Finally exhausted, I crashed in the sand for part of the afternoon, then joined the Swiss man on the rocks for some fishing. A local fisherman had the only success, bounding along the rocks like a little boy and smiling wide enough to tear open his face when he felt the first tug. Chatting the night away with fellow travelers back in Mirleft, I was pretty content myself. The thought of reaching Spain [after the longest cross-country bus trip yet] was nice.

Tafraoute

2011-04-06T06:27:00.000-07:00

From Tafraoute, I took a 40km bike-ride through the Ameln Valley. I'd heard great things about the valley. One of the most underrated destinations in Morocco, supposedly. Scattered with medieval casbahs and lush palmeraies and bounded by vertical red-granite cliffs and the inhospitable Anti Atlas, it was also said to be home to some of Morocco's most kind and hospitable Berbers, the Cheuh. I may have passed through too quickly on the bike because I can confirm none of those things. A bit of red granite, sure. But after my time in the Ziz and Draa Valleys, the Ameln seemed as dramatic as North Texas. Within an hour of my ride my mind had already turned to the beach.
I rolled back into town in the afternoon to feast on some lentils and board the next bus to Tiznit. Beside Les Pierres Bleues and a good dose of endorphins, the best part of my short stop in Tafraoute was a much-needed new pair of Berber shoes.

Les Pierres Bleues

2011-04-05T06:15:00.000-07:00

It was just under an hour's walk from Tafraoute to the painted rocks. I knew I was off to see a bunch of blue rocks, but was still surprised when the first spot of bright color came into view on the horizon. The landscape was odd enough without the paint, a patchwork of savannah and giant sandstone boulders, piled in seemingly man-made clusters like the Devil's Marbles. Hampi came to mind, as well as the bright blue rock temples of Jabalpur. I hadn't seen another human since the last town a few kilometers back, the one below the Chapeau de Napoleon. The dirt road had petered off as well, somewhere in the tall grass behind.

But with 15 tons of bright paint doused over the rocks ahead, there was no chance of losing the target. Just over 25 years ago it had been the work of a Belgian artist, Jean Verane. Although simple, Verane's project managed to turn a few piles of rocks into a kind of fairyland, something completely foreign, the kind of place in which a traveler might feel they've traveled somewhere. If it weren't for the giant rip in my now-useless pants from losing my footing before launching over a blue crevice, I'd have liked to ask on the long walk back what the local Berbers, whose sheep still graze nearby, have to say about Les Pierres Bleues.

Agdz

2011-04-02T16:50:00.000-07:00

There are few places where I've felt as deep into the middle of nowhere as in Agdz. Just a couple hours up from Zagora, it sits at a wide and dramatic bend of the Draa, its palmeraie forming a broad arch along the river's edge, while beyond the palms the landscape turns to pure desolation. A good amount of traffic filters through, moving north to Ourzazate or south to Zagora, but few make a meaningful stop in Agdz. Which made it an ideal choice for getting my work done. A few kilometers down the road from Agdz's central square and its handful of street-side restaurants was the massive, refurbished casbah of Qaid Ali. Complete with pool, wifi and nightly live music in its little restaurant, Qaid Ali's place would be my home for the next four days.

On the final day I'd just finished up an "Insider's Guide" to another place I'd never been, leaving me free at last to explore Agdz. I took off into the palmeraie towards the tajine-topped peak at the valley's bend, searching for a crumbling casbah that supposedly rose just beyond the river's banks. Farmers occasionally popped out of nowhere, inviting me to soak in their cool water channels and offering directions. From the way their pointers turned out they seemed to be as lost as me. I never found the casbah, but returned to Qaid Ali in time for another swim. The next morning, my work complete, I'd head to the coast, leaving the the vast deserts and palmeraies behind.

Edge of the Sahara

2011-03-29T16:44:00.000-07:00

Near the end of the Draa Valley, my collective cab rolled into Zagora early in the afternoon. Twelve out of thirteen of us (four crammed in front, five in the middle row and four more in back) got out in the town center. I headed towards my place by the palmeraie, prepared to take a few days off traveling to get some work done. It was as peaceful a place as any, set between the dusty town and the giant palm groves that stretched as far as the horizon up the valley. I took a long walk along the river to put off working, then, for maybe the first time, made my way through the palmeraie without any confused backtracking. Exhausted to my heart's content, I sat back in a shady wifi-garden, finally ready to get started. A deadline was coming up fast. Still, despite all the pieces in place, I couldn't bring myself to work in Zagora. Within an hour of my sweaty afternoon jaunt I'd made plans to take off early the next morning into the desert.

Along with a pair of Dutch-Canadians and a couple young Berbers, Muhammad and Rashid, the trek began outside M'hamid. Passing through a ruined casbah at the edge of the village, its mud walls crumbling and half buried in sand, our camels crossed another barren wadi, passed a sign marking a prohibited military zone and pushed through a couple kilometers of stone-strewn hamada before hitting the dunes. They were untouched, not a single camel train but ours in sight. Far from the ATVs of Merzouga or the soirées of the Thar. Rashid and Muhammad prepared a meaty tajine, served tea on the dunes and played some Berber tunes around a fire. We slept under the stars before the long trek back to Zagora.

The Road to Nkob

2011-03-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

En route to Nkob, somewhere between Rissani and Zagora, my little bus pulled off the track into a stone village set by an empty wadi. After squeezing into shared taxis to Rissani, Alnif and Tazzarine, I was relishing the space of a full one-person seat, hoping this wasn't another passenger load-up. The long days had begun to blur in the desert: as the bus pulled up to a whitewashed mosque, the only painted building in town, I remembered it was Friday. All the men filed off the bus, adding their shoes to the massive pile outside the mosque while the women vanished around the back.
The village was left desolate, nothing stirring but myself and a handful of kids along the edge of a trash-strewn palmeraie. For a hundred miles in all directions was barren, rocky desert, and the sun seemed to weigh down on the little town like an anvil, flattening the color out of everything and forcing its residents to take shelter.
I headed for the kids and some basic conversation. Considering the intense boredom in which these kids had passed their lives, there wasn't a ton to talk about. I'd interrupted a game of dirt and rocks, and immediately the new hot activity became staring matches with the foreigner. Those Moroccan scenes from Babel could have been filmed here. The cliffs over the wadi could have been where the little boy had shot the tourist, and any of these kids could have been that little boy. I might have done the same had I passed my childhood in such a desolate place. Finally, one pulled out a grubby sack of marbles and all eyes turned back to the dirt.
Prayer time ended and the town's men poured back into the streets to disappear again behind mud walls and weathered wooden gates. No one new got on the bus when we pulled back onto the road to Nkob.

I spent another evening wandering deep into the quiet palmeraie, Nkob's earthen skyline hidden behind the palms. And as usual, I followed up the walk with a cafe stop, idling away the evening in the company of men. Along with a lively pair of local Berbers, I was befriended by a lone American serving time in the Peace Corps. We shared stories of life in the Middle East and related the lures of the deep desert and the comforts of home. He then joined me on as I attempted to find the auberge at which I'd dropped my bag, somewhere in the mud-brick maze of the old town. It took at least twenty minutes to find the place, just two minutes from where we'd sat. It wasn't that we were lost, but that buildings themselves were shifting places among the pitch black alleys. The next morning I waded through the smells of the Saturday meat market and caught a shared to Zagora.

To the Desert

2011-03-25T04:34:00.000-07:00

Dropping off my two friends at the airport, I took a walk to the main road in hopes of reaching the city for a late breakfast. Plenty of cabs but no buses drove by. It was a windy day, the rolling countryside a gusty sea of waves. Eventually I hopped in a collective, just a couple euros to reach Tangier. Small talk with my cab driver was just fizzling out as we pulled into downtown. At a stoplight he turned up the new Shakira song, sounding a lot like the old Shakira song, to drown out the drone of idling engines, flicking a cigarette out the window and concluding with "c'est la vie."
I spent the next hour at the gare routière watching the jets take off for Libya. An old Arab man had joined my little table for coffee, and when the time came walked me to the correct bus, carrying a bag of mine. Another full day and night on on the road lay ahead, an experience most travelers anticipate with horror. As for me, I was almost giddy. I had snacks, dirham and the very last Camus novel in hand while a sun-swept desert was waiting for me at the other end of a long trip. I waved to the old Arab before stepping aboard.
This cross-country bus trip had all the typical features: the gas station stop immediately after taking off, the late lunch break in a dusty transit town, the sweaty afternoon with the AC turned off, the frigid cold night with the AC on high, the thoughtful young man blasting a cell phone stereo at 2am and the pre-dawn wake up call in the middle of nowhere: I'd arrived.
Mountainous dunes soared beyond the thin palmeraie of Merzouga, a tiny spec against the sand from the main road by which I'd arrived. Just in time for breakfast, I wolfed down a berber omelette before checking into an auberge and crashing until the afternoon. It was as windy as Tangier when I woke up, and the sky was brown with dust. Stepping out to explore the village I found it dotted with converted hotels, pseudo casbahs fitted with pools and hot tubs. Although it still had an end-of-the-road, frontier town vibe, Merzouga was no longer off the map. Its dirt roads were clouded with dust from tourist buses, trailers and conspicuous land rovers decked with flag-sticker collages and EU plates. When the occasional camel caravan passed, each multicolor saddle was fitted with handle bars, the kind you'd find on a theme-park ride in Orlando. It was not the Sahara I'd hoped for.
Instead of tagging along on one of Merzouga's much-touted camel treks, I rented a bike and borrowed a laminated, local map and took off on a quest of sorts. One of many films that inspired my childhood awe of the Middle East was Legionnaire with Jean Claude Van Damme. My map claimed that the fort in which it was filmed lay just 5km up the road. Walking the bike through long stretches of sand, I soon learned why more people don't rent bikes in the desert.
Still, within an hour I'd reached what appeared to be my pilgrimage spot, set just between the dunes and hamada. Everything matched up on the map, everything except the fort. I circled the area a while, not sure how a giant fort could simply disappear. A nearby casbah had the answer: it was destroyed immediately after filming, all but one detached watchtower. He pointed the way to this old mud-brick relic (circa 1998) and i was soon resting above it on a dune, my mission complete.
The sun had emerged, and for that moment I could hear nothing but the wind. Far ahead in the dunes a camel train appeared for seconds at a time, popping up and over a swell, laden with tourists no doubt. I imagined the real Sahara, the one stretching from just under a hundred kilometers from here, beyond at the Algerian border, all the way to Dhakla, Bahariyya and Siwa in Egypt. I pictured all the black mountains and hidden oases tucked away in that expanse. I thought of Jean Claude Van Damme. Suddenly I could hear ATV's ripping off in the dunes towards Merzouga. I knew my search for the desert was far from over.

Chefchaouen

2011-03-21T14:06:00.000-07:00

Spent a glorious day wandering the quiet alleys of Chefchaouen with Kristen & Will. My most striking observations: here I'm "senior" rather than "monsieur," the town has an unhealthy number of cats and 90% of visitors come for hash. Also, the whole city is painted blue.

Fes

2011-03-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

On my second day in Fes the sun came out for good. I declared winter finally over and explored the old medina's winding alleys in nothing but a t-shirt (and jeans). Again I'd planned to take some time to work and again the weather had come in the way of my plans. More so than in Marrakech, I enjoyed my wander sessions in Fes: checking out the fountains, checking out the old Kairauine Mosque, getting lost, finding my way before realizing that I'm still lost, stopping for fresh juice, stopping for a tuna sandwich, accidentally running into the tannery and trying to get lost again before heading back to my hidden riad for some rooftop reading. On my third day in town, re-situated in the Ville Nouvelle, I met Kristen and Will, freshly arrived from Paris. The next three days we'd travel by rental car up to the northern coast.

Dadès Gorge

2011-03-18T02:58:00.000-07:00

The mountains to the west were still overcast when I decided to head into Dadès Gorge. Having arrive in Boumalne du Dadès just before lunch, the typical handful of touts had already done their best by the time I was through with my tuna sandwich. They all said it was too cold, too wet in the valley, I'd just have to stay at their hotel in Boumalne. The man leaning against the shared taxi nodded when I mentioned the name of my chosen destination in the valley, then half an hour up the rugged valley he told me we'd arrived. Stepping out with me, he led me to some riad that was clearly not what I'd asked for. It turned out we'd passed it 11km back. Ignoring the protests that his place was better than mine, I started off down the road, anxious for once to find lodgings without the "help." I was just starting to get soaked with I found my place to crash. A small concrete block on the side of the road, what claimed to be a hotel turned out to be a room in some guy's house. His name was Rashid, and spending the night with his little family turned into the best Moroccan experience yet. The weather cleared late in the afternoon. I took the chance to explore the valley, both on shaded paths by the river and up the switchbacks of the gorge. Rashid's family invited me to share their couscous, pouring endless cups of tea and nudging the most globulous hunk of meat to my side of the shared tray. After the meal, both parents doted on their spoiled little boy while the daughter kept herself outside. I said goodbye the next morning and began the long trek north. The desert would have to wait another week.

Ait Benhaddou

2011-03-16T05:33:00.000-07:00

From the pass it was another hour or two down the craggy canyons of the Atlas, an arid moonscape dotted with crude mountain villages. I asked the driver to let me out at the turnoff to Ait Benhaddou. A shared taxi and a short walk then landed me at one of the most picturesque casbahs in the country. An imposing cluster of crumbling mud-brick forts, it stood across from a mostly dry wadi, the white peaks of the Atlas barely visible beyond.
Posing as Tunisia in Gladiator and Tibet in Kundun, this stretch of Morocco has been a Hollywood backdrop quite often. I'm almost sure I circled the pit where Russell Crowe decapitated the net-wielding guy with two swords at once. I woke up early the next morning to catch the view just after sunrise before hitching back to the road to catch a ride to Ouarzazate.

Atlas Crossing

2011-03-15T05:18:00.000-07:00

Leaving Marrakech, the idea was to reach the dry side of the Atlas and eventually the Sahara. In that regard, the first stop was a failure: it wasn't even on the way to the pass. I only went to see Toubkal, the Atlas' highest peak, rising just above Imlil. On the morning of my planned trek to reach the viewpoint a rain and snow storm swept through, predicted to last a couple days, leaving my in Imlil with nothing to do but head back the way I'd come. I did enjoy a long hike the previous afternoon through the foothills and the best tajine thus far on the roof of one of the town's completely empty cafes before heading to my abandoned refuge. Nobody was in Imlil.
Backtracking to Asni and Marrakech, I spent less than an hour in the latter before boarding the long bus to Ouarzazate. We reached the snow-covered pass by the early afternoon, the High Atlas sloping beyond the roadside to the north and south, their sheer cliffs disappearing into the clouds. I thought the northwest foothills had been arid until the bus driver careened us down the desolate slopes on southeast side with all the reckless skill of a Himachali driver. I was halfway to the desert.

Marrakech

2011-03-14T04:32:00.000-07:00

I passed three cold, cloudy days in a tiny nook off Rue Riad Zitoun in old medina of Marrakech. Emerging from the narrow alleys into the chaos of the Djemaa el-Fna, throngs of tourists filtered through the already dense souqs dotted with street vendors, musicians and snake charmers. Motorbikes, donkeys and horse-drawn carriages added to the noise and confusion, nearly running over stragglers in the parting crowds. If Marrakech is Morocco's premiere calling card, I decided the call had been heard. Thanks to Ryanair there seemed to be at least a few thousand foreign visitors in town on the same day. My own little hostel was packed with bodies, many having to spread out on the floor at night.

I took a couple days to wander the medina's labyrinth of souqs, stopping off at another pretentious palace and the exploring the Saadian Tombs. My first couple nights were spent kicking back in the riad's courtyard with Mexican, German and Argentine travelers while the last was wasted wandering the Ville Nouvelle with a new Marrakechi friend. After three days of frequenting my alley's orange cart and filling up on tuna sandwiches and msemin, I cut my Marrakech plans in half and took off for the Atlas.

Casablanca

2011-03-10T02:33:00.000-08:00

My first Moroccan host had just one request from his American guest: a "cooking jacket." With an American flag on it. Since those are found pretty much everywhere, I put off the task until the drive to the airport. That morning, racing along with me through a Houston Walmart, Andy seemed to have a better idea of what we were looking for. We left minutes later with the closest thing we could find: an American flag badge. Andy suggested sewing it onto a plain apron (taping it in my case), which wasn't a bad idea. She also pointed out the airport shops just might have something. If not, the puny flag badge would have to do.Back outside, Billy swung the van around and we jumped in with his three smiling, strapped-in kids. They stopped smiling when I said goodbye at the airport. Billy's kids like me. Within the hour I was putting my shoes back on after clearing airport security. Medhi's jacket was still on my mind. Maybe Andy was right about the airport. After all, I was in Texas of all states. Sure enough, an entire rack was reserved in one of the overpriced gift shops for various red, white and blue items. No American flags, but lots of Texan ones. Among them were several giant aprons embroidered with the lone star. There are very few other circumstances under which I'd have bought one of those, but I didn't hesitate here. Medhi would be pleased, and I was glad not to be buying tape. A tiny old lady sat nearby with a magazine in her lap, but instead was staring up at me, a sad kind of smile on her dried up face. Our eyes met for a second, and as I walked by I imagined hearing her whisper something like "Go son, live your life," in a bit of a Kazakh accent. I took the old lady's unspoken wishes to heart as I headed for my gate.

Though neither of the things he'd asked for, Mehdi loved the Texas BBQ apron. We met outside Casa Voyageurs on my first gray afternoon in Morocco. The train ride into town had passed miles of slums, trash spilling over and under makeshift walls and washing up against the railway tracks. Drab apartment blocks were scattered here and there in the distance, eventually filling the frame of the grimy train window as it pulled into the crumbling downtown. Within a few minutes on the streets I'd passed the old collapsed Lincoln Hotel, gotten lost, been offered hash twice and realized I'd disembarked at the wrong station.

Eventually finding the correct one, Mehdi and I took a walk to his friend Khaled's house, our lodgings for the night. Khaled was putting the finishing touches on a giant model ship he'd picked up in the Gulf, but paused to chat with Mehdi and I for an hour or so on the shady veranda. Both cooks, their conversation tended towards food more often than not, though when it didn't it was Moroccan girls. They used the word "lioness" several times. Khaled joked in an I'm-only-serious-if-you-are kind of way that he'd like a couple wives. Mehdi thought one would do.

We took a long, long walk through Casablanca to pass the evening, from downtown markets resembling the Khan el-Khalili to Khaled's kitsch restaurant several miles down the coast, stopping off at the most massive minaret I'd ever seen. Across the enormous courtyard of Hassan II Mosque the tiny human figures were barely visible at its base. The world's tallest at over 200 meters, it was set barely the same distance from the ocean. The sun had set by the time we'd finished wandering the inner courtyard, every square inch of it intricately sculpted with geometric designs and 800 million dollars well-spent. Walking home late through the near-deserted streets of downtown Casablanca with Khaled, I was about to get my first good dose of sleep since Houston. But not until after Khaled had put the sails on his model boat.

Claiming an empty spot on the station's second platform early the next morning, I sat back in the sun to enjoy the waiting time, always the most anticipated moments of my day. I scarcely bothered to close my book as I hopped on the train to cross green, parched and finally barren hills en route to southern Morocco.