Upon arrival in Ohrid I was quite surprised by what I found. I had read a bit about this town and the lake, how it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site full of ancient buildings and how the Cyrillic alphabet was invented here in the ninth century AD. I had also seen a lot of photographs, nearly all of a little church sitting on a cliff above a deep blue lake. Well that is only half the story. Tacked on to the side of the old town is a lively modern resort. There are lots of restaurants, bars, cafes, shops, banks, [View Full Entry]

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I was in Bosnia last year but only had chance to visit Mostar. This year I only had time to visit Sarajevo but unfortunately seeing as my camera was broken here are a few snaps from 2006. One thing that struck me in Sarajevo, that was present in Mostar but not to the same extent, are the constant reminders of the war. I appreciate that Sarajevo was under siege for three years and four months and must have been a living hell after the Bosnian Serb military commander, Ratko Mladic, gave the order: “Shoot at slow intervals until I order you [View Full Entry]

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First of all a quick aside: my camera broke in Slovenia so none of the usual arty photography attempts for the next two blogs. I have to thank Dawn and Sara for these pictures. Right, I first heard about Pag Island a few years ago. A party island that not too many people know about, especially not in the UK, sounded very appealing. I expected it would be a bit like Ios, the Greek party island, that again very few Brits have heard of seeing as no package tour operators go there. It isn’t like Ios. There aren’t the packed little [View Full Entry]

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Ever since I first saw pictures of this little country I have wanted to pay a visit. But it looked so wonderful that I would have felt guilty going there alone. This funny characteristic explains why I have just spent three months travelling around West Africa when I actually really wanted to go to Ethiopia. Fortunately while pouring over the maps looking for somewhere less appealing to go to, my pal Dawn decided to come along. After the excesses of five days at EXIT Festival in Serbia a wholesome week of mountains, cool lakes and fresh air was just what we [View Full Entry]

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Around June time last year I can remember telling people that I was about to go to EXIT Festival in Serbia. The typical reaction was “you are going where?” After telling them the line up their interest perked up a little but few people were envious. This year the reaction was completely different. They were either very jealous or they were coming too. Despite being seven years old it took us in Britain a while to notice this festival but that all changed this year. And that wasn’t necessarily for the best. In the days of so many commercial festivals, started [View Full Entry]

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For a few weeks, climbing Mount Cameroon was the only thing I really wanted to do before leaving Africa. True there were other little trips and activities in Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin and Togo, but none excited me like the prospect of climbing West Africa’s highest mountain. Another reason it was important is because the trek was a present from my granddad. Sadly I never got the chance to meet my granddad but my mum received compensation from British Coal for the sickness that he endured after a lifetime working as a driller down the pit. Mum decided to split the [View Full Entry]

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It is not a fair reflection on Nigeria that the subject I choose to write about for this particular blog is how I left the country. Yet leaving was the most entertaining part of an entertaining couple of weeks crossing this big bewildering nation. Nigeria was never a country high on my list of places to visit. It has even less tourist sights than its neighbouring West African countries, and even they don’t have many. But the highlight, as for all of Africa, and the reason why I keep coming back, is the people. Travelling through Africa you get used [View Full Entry]

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At the border of Benin it is possible to get a 48 hour transit visa, thus saving a lot of time and money messing about at embassies. It isn’t as much of a race through the country as you might think because fortunately, the country is only 100km across and its two principal attractions lie quite close together. Ganvie is a town built on stilts in the centre of a large, shallow lake. The 27000 Tofinu people that live in the town, are descendents of a large group that escaped the Dahomey slave traders in the 17th century. It took half [View Full Entry]

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Initially, I acquired quite a dislike for Togo. This was entirely based on one particular day’s experiences: First of all the difficulties in getting a Nigerian visa continued. In Ghana, the Nigerian embassy had run out of passport stickers and in Togo the embassy, for some reason, was closed. Next I was threatened by a moneychanger who had tried to rip me off. He then accused me of ripping him off, and proceeded to follow me through town shouting thief and promising he’d kill me if he saw me again. I wanted to visit the fetish market to experience some [View Full Entry]

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As much as the French I learnt at school was coming back to me, it was still nice to reach an English speaking nation. This is probably one of the main reasons why I found Ghana to be the friendliest country in West Africa. It certainly has the happiest, smiliest people. Even simple tasks like buying bread or asking for directions invariably concludes with yourself and a huddle of local people killing yourselves laughing and vigorously shaking hands before moving on. It was also nice to bump into other travellers, quite a rarity since Morocco. Although it turned out that [View Full Entry]

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