Excellent blog Very perceptive blog - Seeing Brits on holiday in groups is not advisable, but thankfully many Brits can be a little more sophisticated. Hopefully booze culture and lads mags won't be with us forever! I loved your comment about the Canadian in the previous Blog - I've seen that sort of thing many times travelling. Good luck
Hi,
Just wanted to say that I find your blog very interesting, and that I really admire what you're doing! I'm from the French Alps, and know only too well how steep some of our roads are!!! I hope I'll follow in your steps one day... At the moment I'm being a bus-riding kind of traveller... But not as stereotypical as your Canadian backpacker I hope!
Keep on having fun (hopefully in the sun!) and meeting great people!
Hey,
I liked your thoughts on how we just have to keep ourselves busy in order not to have to deal with loneliness (or ourselves). It is so true, but kind of hard to admit.
Ha, the encounter with the backpacker prototype was really funny.
I really like the way you write. Keep on cycling, keep on posting.
woeha! Hey Marco,
nice to read about the cycling trip! Can't wait for the Belgian chapter...hihi. Hope you are well! Following your stories from Gent with a little light in my eye. Cycling is the best! Keep on pushing those pedals and enjoy the trip my friend!
Vanetsa
Have a nice trip Hey, loved your trip idea and loved even more the reason for it: Staying away from television....hahaha I´ll be checking your blog. Have a nice trip.
load of bollocks It's curious how this article was published almost a year ago and now, all of a sudden I start receiving comments and messages against its veracity and in favour of the gambian government that has miracously solved the problem.
It must be a coincidence...
load of bollocks Its obvious you have done some sort of cosmetic surgery to your story, you need to know that people like ibrahim never speak as elquent as you portray him, matter of fact its comfortable to say they dont speak English at all. True bumstars exist but you need to be fair in your article by saying the efforts of the Government in curbing it. You are obviously a biased tourist, from the way you painted the beaches in uncouth words. By the way if you needed to be in a world where everything is perfect why didnt you remain wherever you came from,
ah, Creta! e pensare che ci siamo quasi incrociati quell'inverno! io però mi sono beccato tutta quella neve il 14 febbraio, durante una delle mie campagne di studi geologici, e sicuramente non si poteva girae in pantaloncini. eh si, quando ancora avevo uno dei miei famosi "studi geologici" a Roma...
a proposito, mi ricordo benissimo che da quelle parti si coglieva l'ulivo per tutto l'inverno (date anche le enormi quantità e le sempre meno braccia a disposizione); ecco il perchè di quelle reti...
d'altronde questa abitudine si ritrova anche in italia, soprattutto nel versante tirrenico, meno freddo (vincenzo di Cori docet...)
Re: freedom? Well, to hope for something means in most cases to be disappointed or, anyway, to risk to be disappointed. Consequently our behaviour changes to avoid/limitate such a risk, hence our freedom is reduced. Same logic applies for fears.
Anyway, those words were written on Kazantzakis's tomb, not on mine :-)
To Lamin I never stated, neither in this blog nor in any other of mine that there aren't young man/older woman couples in the West. More important yet, I never expressed any sort of moral judgment on the issue, just plain facts.
And about me writing what I wrote because some sort of secret agenda... well, do I seriously need to answer to that???
Holes! Holes! I read this story with utter disbelieve. The whole episode with ibrahim seems fake to me; the story is full of holes. I wont deny there is sex tourism in the gambia but some of the things you just mention are just not true.
Maybe you have an agenda besides even in the west it is not uncommon to see an older woman being with a younger man.
Steve McQueen? Ciao Marco-Steve McQueen,
Come prosegue il viaggio? leggo sempre con piacere le tue storie anche se noto che ultimamemente scrivi con parsimonia. Resti comunque il mio poeta nomade favorito :-)
Re: Our hero Falc, 450$ to fly from Agadir to Dakar is pure madness. Is infinetely more expensive than the overland crossing, plus you would miss out quite an adventure (albeit boring in some of its parts).
An idea, if you are planning to do it in january, why not to wait for the Paris-Dakar rally crossing and try to get a ride from one of the trucks following the competition. It might work.
Good luck.
Marco
Our hero Bravo! You did good... and saw that all it takes is that one voice crying out against the tyrant, and others quickly join in, rendering him impotent. (Would that it worked with George Bush!) (Of course, he could also have pulled out a knife and gutted you, were he a madman, so choose the time and place of your battles as well as the means of fighting them, but... :) )
I was looking for info on traveling from Agadir to Senegal.. and this about the Sahara is promising... though the rest of it makes the $450 USD they want from Royal Air Maroc seem like it may be a sensible choice. I'd miss some rich memories, but even in January, Western Sahara sounds a bit like a new kind of hell. Perhaps I should explore that after I've got a base settled on in Dakar?
Thanks for sharing the info. It's a disappointment to realize you're headed back, as it seems you'd have been a good travel companion for a bit along the way.
In Mali, did you happen across any of the Toureg tribes and their Azawakh dogs?
the written version of the train story... The difference between your African train stories and my Indian train stories? Yours are based on true facts! You even have to fotomaterial to prove it! hihi... I really enjoyed reading this story again. Especially because this time, I also had the privilege of hearing it live while you were in Belgium!
Big hug from your little friend in Gent, who's leaving for Buenos Aires this weekend!
Well Written You have great material to draw from evidently but you write it well and succinctly. We've been considering going to western Africa and you give a good taste of it.
memories... Hi Marco,
just nice to read this again, knowing that you wrote it at my place, thinking of the small panic attac we had when the computer broke down....
nice to see you were able to save everything! Hope you are well! And happily trippling through life!
Big hug,
your Belgian friend,
Vanetsa
The chubby, long-haired little boy of the picture is me back in the '70s. Today I look a bit different, but deep down I kept the same level of suspicious curiosity. I Travel in no hurry and this blog is the instrument to tell my story. I'm not english mother tongue, so please be indulgent with any grammatical/structural awkwardness you might stumble upon.
ITALIANO
Ecco il link alla versione italiana del mio blog: Marcoelitaliano... full info
adrien de la touche
non-member comment
Excellent blog
Very perceptive blog - Seeing Brits on holiday in groups is not advisable, but thankfully many Brits can be a little more sophisticated. Hopefully booze culture and lads mags won't be with us forever! I loved your comment about the Canadian in the previous Blog - I've seen that sort of thing many times travelling. Good luck