Formerly known as Upper Volta, in 1984 President Thomas Sankara renamed the country Burkina Faso. In the dominant Burkinabe language this means "Land of the Incorruptibles", and was one of many steps taken towards improving the economy and the lives of increasingly poor population. His reforms worked too, until in 1987 another army coup led to Sankara's arrest and execution. Recently in a league table taking into account health, GDP and development, the United Nations ranked Burkina Faso 175th out of 177 countries. Compared to my last blog for Mali where I struggled to know what to leave out, for [View Full Entry]

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If I pass someone I know on the street, I might say "hello", "ay-up" or "alright?", the person would probably reply with the same, then we would either stop for a chat or keep walking. In Dogon Country it is a little different. A quick greeting between the Dogon goes like this: aga po (good morning) oh (yes) oh sewa (how are you?) sewa (fine) oh mano sewa (how are the family?) sewa (fine) oh gari sewa (how is your house?) sewa (fine) oh le be rally (congratulations) oh aah (welcome) You could also squeeze in "how is your mother?", [View Full Entry]

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There are numerous terms, of varying political correctness, to describe the stage of development of African countries. To give you an idea of where Mauritania is at, the election campaign pledge of the recently appointed president was “to stamp out slavery for good!” The slave trade was only outlawed here in 1980 but apparently it continues. Mauritania is a fascinating country to travel through, the population being some of the hardiest people on earth. After driving for hours through empty and unbroken sand seas you often come across small villages, desperately trying to stay afloat above the shifting sands. The [View Full Entry]

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Western Sahara rarely features on lists of the world's countries anymore. Even on most maps, this large area of northwest Africa generally appears as part of Morocco. However, even in the eyes of the United Nations, Western Sahara is a seperate entity. The country used to be known as Rio de Oro after it was grabbed by Spain during the scramble for Africa in the late nineteenth century. They grabbed it as a protectorate mainly because other European countries were claiming new colonies so why shouldn't they. It was soon realised that the land had little economic worth and never [View Full Entry]

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I had met quite a lot of people who had visited Morocco and it seemed that you either love it or hate it. Even people who had travelled together, sharing the same experiences, one could not leave fast enough while the other couldn't wait to go back. Personally, as with most love/hate things (such as marmite), I am left feeling quite indifferent. After the couple of weeks I spent travelling around Morocco I think I can understand why tourists end up with such polarized views. Take the food. I was already a fan of Moroccan cuisine after dabbling a little [View Full Entry]

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I wasn't going to do a separate blog for Gibraltar, I thought I would just include it with Spain. Then I realised that would be playing into the hands of the Spanish so here it is stuck out on its own. I felt that I had to visit Gibraltar while in the area, seeing as it is one of the last remnants of the British Empire. As I walked from La Linea, across the runway and into Gibraltar, I wondered why I had bothered. It is like the worst of southern Spain. Construction sites everywhere, ugly tower blocks, busy roads. This [View Full Entry]

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The Andalucian Experiment is coming to a close and I am pretty sure I was right all along. It wasn´t part of the plan to spend any time here, just zoom through on the way to North Africa. But wouldn´t that be a waste of an opportunity to travel around somewhere as rich as southern Spain. The first two months in East Africa, likewise the next three months in West Africa, have been pretty well researched. I have guidebooks that I virtually know by heart, read other books on the histories and politics, have looked at lots of websites and talked [View Full Entry]

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The Kenyan coast was somewhere to while away the time in between trekking up Kilimanjaro and meeting mum and dad. I didn't expect it to become my favourite part of the whole trip. I was already fond of the East African coast after visiting Zanzibar in 2001 but that was mainly because I had never been anywhere tropical before. Given the pure white sand that crunches like snow, the excellent diving and the fascinating little towns and ruins, you have to be thankful that the holiday companies restrict themselves to Malindi and Mombasa and the rest of the coast is unspoilt. [View Full Entry]

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You hear many reasons why you shouldn't climb Kilimanjaro. Likelihood of not making it to the summit due to insufficient time to acclimatize to the altitude, likelihood of getting sick due to insufficient time to acclimatize to the altitude, Africa has more beautiful mountains that you can climb for a fraction of the cost, there is no technical difficulty involved in the climb, there are hoards of ill-prepared tourists purely climbing for the glory of telling their friends back home that they have scaled Africa's highest peak, etc, etc. These reasons are probably all valid. But I did it anyway. And [View Full Entry]

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I don't know how many reasons you need to visit a country. For Burundi I had two. See the title of this blog to discover the two reasons. Maybe you could add a third, the fact that I didn't know anyone else who had been here, but it is principally cakes and beaches that led me to board an overcrowded minibus for the arduous journey south from Rwanda. Cakes: Burundi is the most Francophone of the East African countries. Consequently, in the hot, dusty capital, Bujumbura, there are a lot of excellent little patisseries catering for the hoards of French and [View Full Entry]

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