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Luke
Travelled in Germany, France, Holland, Spain, Italy, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Morocco, Mauritania, Western Sahara, Mali and Senegal. LukeIRL
Lived in Malawi for 8 months in 2006, teaching in a secondary school. Went back to Africa in summer 2008 travelling overland from Paris through Morocco, Mauritania, Mali to Senegal. Maybe will visit Eastern Europe next, or ideally Russia and Siberia!
Travel Blog Posts
August 22nd 2008
The journey from Bamako to Kayes by train and then from Kayes to Kenieba by overlanden truck had been fun but tiring, seen as it was rainy season, so we rested up in Kenieba for a while. Beautiful town situated where a glen comes out between two falaises. None of the hassle present in other Malian towns. We then organised some motorbikes to take us across the river and into Senegal to Tembacaounda. The problem was it was rainy season and the normal route was flooded. So we had to follow some interesting shortcuts to get to the river and then - motorbikes and all - persuade two canoeists to paddle us across the swollen river. Scary stuff, but we got there safe enough. From there on it was easy - they are building a big ... read more
August 5th 2008
We took the boat. It was great. Slept up on top deck, out in the open. Took 4 nights from Korioume to Segou. Saw a lightning storm attack the river, got beached on sandbanks, played lots of cent-cinquante-et-un (malian card game) in the bar, drank the bar dry twice, ate wonderful galley food, watched dubious Portuguese soaps dubbed in French, had showers in showers that inexplicably went on and off.... read more
July 30th 2008
The land cruiser taxi we got from Basskounou to Lere, on the Malian side of the border was driven by a madman. He was in competition with another 4X4 driver for passengers, and when we stopped to pick someone else we would be overtaken. Therafter, he would try to catch up with the other taxi, driving crazily off road, hitting sandhills, swerving to avoid trees and camels, and all but losing his own passengers. As a result, we went through 3 tyres that day, probably simply exploding as a cause of the sheer speed. It was a great day though, everyone got into the spirit of the chase, and the countryside remained nice and green. We spent the night in Lere, a town exclusively made of mud, where we were invited to sleep in a family’s ... read more
July 29th 2008
We were told that this route wasn’t passable in the rainy season, but there was a track going up on the escarpment that was being used by 4X4s at the time. We left Nema around midday, and drove straight up a track going up the escarpment, which led us to scrubby pastures populated by many goats and camels. The tracks were quite waterlogged and we got stuck quite often - we pushed of mud holes, just to get covered in mud from the skidding tires! At lunch / prayer time, a berber family brought zreg (camel/goat milk) to us from their camp on a hillock above the grass, which was shared among all 16 or so passengers, and a fire was prepared for tea, which once again was shared out evenly. The day went on like ... read more
July 28th 2008
We took a mercedes grand-taxi from Nouakchott to Nema, 1000km away near the Malian border. The trip took 25 hours through rain storms, lightning storms, sunshine and darkness. At one stage we were crawling through a flood in the very middle of a thunder and lightning storm, with water around our feet from the flood around us and coming through the roof from the rain. For a while we lost the road but eventually found it again. Our taxi driver was an absolute legend - in those 25 hours he drove for 23 and slept for 2 - and he kept the car ticking over, bending the radiheater pump upwards when we were driving through deep floods to create a sort of snorkle for the engine. At times floods were too deep and we had to ... read more
From Nouadhibou to Atar
Published: January 7th 2009Africa » Mauritania » Dakhlet Nouadhibou » Nouadhibou
July 18th 2008
This was one of the best stretches of the journey - taking the empty iron ore train from the coast at Nouadhibou to the desert outpost at Choum, and then travelling by pickup over the escarpment into Atar. We waited all day for the train to pass by the station outside Nouadhibou, and then it was all rush to pile foodstuffs, oil barrels, furniture, animals etc into the open wagons. We ended up in a wagon full of wooden doors travelling to Zouerate. It was 9pm by the time the train headed into the desert. We went to sleep on the floor of the wagon, to the sound of the train shuddering into the night. In the morning we woke to open desert and big black hills looming over the landscape. The train was so long ... read more
July 15th 2008
We leave the beach at Taghazoute early in the morning, having sardines and baguette for breakfast. We thumb into Agadir, just miss the morning bus to Laayoune, and have to wait 9 hours for the next. Standard. Get some pizza, check the internet, people watch a bit in the bus station, and the 9 hours are over. The bus travels through the night to Laayoune. Occasionally I woke up to see us driving through arid valleys with strange tunnel-agriculture schemes dotted around. It became more deserty, and by dawn sand took up most of the landscape. We spent a day in Laayoune washing clothes, ambling about and hanging around the local pool hall. It’s a very fast growing town - tax incentives are offered to Moroccans who live here, and there are well paid jobs. I ... read more
From Ain Leuh to Beni Millal
Published: January 7th 2009Africa » Morocco » Tadla-Azilal » Beni-MellalJuly 4th 2008
We got a lift over the mountains from Ain Leuh to Les Sources del Oum er Rbai with Big Mo in his spacious mercedes. It was our first experience of the Middle Atlas, and I was surprised how many pine trees and stone walls there were at first. Sort of like a dry version of Scotland. After a while this gave way to drier, open landscape full of goats and berber herders, grouped around wells. The Sources de L’Oum er Rbai (Morocco’s longest river) are made up of 45 cool springs, which in summer is a great respite from the heat. They are in a narrow gorge, and terraces have been built into the gorge lined with carpets where we sprawled for hours, eating and chatting with Big Mo. The river is also good for swimming ... read more
July 1st 2008
Asilah is a beautiful town. The Medina is perfectly built for the climate - narrow passageways, open rooftops and courtyards, communal corridors in houses and all painted in perfect white. There’s an old palace with an open balcony 20m above the rocks once used to execute infidels and christians along the beachfront. Another beach 3kms to the South of town is larger with big waves good for surfing, and amazing fish restaurants where we had a huge 3-person Tajine. We got here by train from Tangier. Trains in Morocco are really efficient, on time, and there was even a teaman! ... read more
June 28th 2008
Our Eurolines bus took us halfway across Europe from the Paris suburbs to the Spanish port of Algeciras, beside Gibralter on the Southern tip of Spain. We passed through endless French countryside in the evening, stopping in a peaceful lay-by in the shade of some windmills where plums were ripe on the trees beside the road. As night closed in, we crossed the Pyrenees to San Sebastian, where the old man sitting beside me departed, on his way to Pamplona to see the running of the bulls. He had travelled all the way from Germany by bus to do so. By morning we are near Vitoria, and change buses in an annonymous bus depot in the middle of the countryside. By midday we pass through Madrid, and it becomes oppresively hot. Lunch is taken in the ... read more
Tot: 0.166s; Tpl: 0.007s; cc: 16; qc: 81; dbt: 0.0744s; 1; s:apollo w:www (50.28.60.10); sld: 2; ; mem: 6.5mb
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