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PostcardJunkie - Christopher Vourlias

Chris is an avid traveler and hypercaffeinated writer, criss-crossing the globe and occasionally remembering to call home.

UPDATE, 9 June 2009: Work obligations - and, of course, travel - have kept me from updating this blog as often as I'd like. While I don't expect that to change anytime soon, I'll at least try to add new entries more often. There are 80-some-odd unfinished entries sitting on my laptop, begging for completion, and I'm hoping to slog through them in the next, um, couple of years. In the mean time, please bear with the odd chronological leaps and bounds (e.g., the fact that my four months in Mozambique are entirely skipped over). Also, anyone interested in seeing samples of my professional work - which has appeared (or will soon appear) in The Washington Post, The Guardian, National Geographic Traveler, and Forbes Traveler, among others - should feel free to contact me: christopher.vourlias@gmail.com.

Thanks for your patience and support!

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Joined on: August 29th 2006
Last Login: November 20th 2009

Blog Entries: 197
Photos: 1244
Recommended by 14

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Blogs & Travel Journals

by PostcardJunkie, order by Date newest first.

By PostcardJunkie
August 19th 2009

All the president's men. Africa » Kenya » Rift Valley Province » Turkana

Shade under the acacia

Chango was literally beside himself. The old, scarlet-bearded proprietor of the Cold Drink Hotel seemed to be everywhere at once: reassuring the customers, scolding the cooks, greeting the newcomers who came through the curtained doorway. His prayer cap was askew, his myopic eyes squinted into the gathering darkness, where a few chickens scratched at the dust in the yard. The news from the kitchen was grim. First came word that there was no more fish; then the goat meat, too, was finished. “Hakuna samaki,” he said apologetically to a table of frustrated clients. “[i [View Full Entry]

A Turkana woman on her way to the airstrip

The Turkana, Samburu, El Molo and Rendille tribes greeting the Prime Minister's plane

By PostcardJunkie
June 17th 2009

You cannot tell people to forget who they are. Africa » Rwanda » Province de L'Ouest » Gisenyi

Photo courtesy of Thierry Dushimimana.

Settled into my old room at Auberge la Caverne, sipping cappuccino at the Bourbon Coffee - Kigali, green and rolling, brushed by plump tufts of cumulus, receding like waves in the distance - I feel buoyed, at peace. New York is a memory, Vermont is a memory, the great emotional upheaval I’d dreaded these past few weeks little more than a slight murmur of unease. The apartment hunt is on, and the thought of making a home of this small, energetic city for the next few months is already growing on me. You feel something in Kigali these days. You see [View Full Entry]

By PostcardJunkie
June 14th 2009

The green hills of Africa. Africa » Rwanda » Ville de Kigali » Kigali

Somewhere over Africa.

Forty hours, seven time zones, and two dismal lay-overs after leaving New York, I arrive in Kigali at half-past three in the morning, a somnolent mess of rumpled clothes, dried-out contacts, and skin like wax paper. The bunch of us debarking in Rwanda shuffle through the airport’s halls like refugees; apart from a young, eager barrista manning the bar at the Bourbon Coffee shop, the place is lifeless. You can’t help but feel like a fugitive creeping into a country under the cover of darkness. I think of my first visit to Rwanda last year, whisking across the smooth tarmac from [View Full Entry]

By PostcardJunkie
April 1st 2009

Homecoming. North America » United States » New York

Meanwhile, somewhere in Africa...

And so on a sunny Wednesday morning in Maputo, waking up for the last time in an apartment I’d only just begun to consider home, I’ve packed the last of my bags, washed the last of my dishes, polished off the leftovers, exchanged a few brisk farewells, sighed at a life that had seemed so full of promise, and hauled my things into the back of a cab for the start of a very long trip home. It’s hardly where I would’ve pictured my life heading just a few weeks ago. Ten days ago I was shopping for groceries and stocking [View Full Entry]

By PostcardJunkie
December 22nd 2008

Namialo and the essential Cyndi Lauper. Africa » Mozambique » Northern » Island of Mozambique

Saying goodbye to Ilha.

In the morning Johannas and I toss our packs into the back of Gabriel’s pick-up, and with a few toots of the horn and a handful of merry waves, we bump along through the streets of Ilha. We’re undoubtedly a curious sight - at no point this week have I seen more than three or four other white tourists on the island - and there are plenty of barefoot kids in varying states of undress to chase our clouds of dust. At the bridge to the mainland a chapa idles near the checkpoint, four haggard faces peering from the rear. It’s [View Full Entry]

By PostcardJunkie
December 13th 2008

The Frango King. Africa » Mozambique » Northern » Nampula

The train to Nampula.

Rui is wrapped in a bedsheet and sleeping under the cashew tree when I set off for the train to Nampula. He wipes the sleep from his eyes, raises half-heartedly, offers to walk me to the station. I pat his shoulder and thank him for the offer, but tell him to go back to sleep. “Estou bêm,” I assure him. The early pre-dawn blue has begun to show in the sky, and sleepy Cuamba doubtless has few surprises between here and the train station. The askari opens the gate and wags his hand and sends me off, no doubt grateful to [View Full Entry]

By PostcardJunkie
December 6th 2008

America is too much violence. Africa » Malawi » Southern » Mangochi

The road to Mozambique

After a brief, boozy farewell at Doogles on Thursday night, we leave Blantyre in high spirits - me, ready after ten weeks in Malawi to move on to wider and wilder pastures; and the others - Marie and Eline from the Kabula Lodge; Richard and Melise, two ex-pat friends - at the start of a ten-day holiday to the Mozambican coast. Spend enough time as a freelancer and you begin to forget what it’s like to live a life of early-morning commutes, workplace politics, nine-to-fives. In short, you forget how much of the world lives. But now, with the others giddy [View Full Entry]

By PostcardJunkie
November 14th 2008

Under the kachere tree. Africa » Malawi

The kachere tree.

Under a kachere tree in the village of Mtunthama, ninety miles over rough dirt roads from what is today the Malawian capital of Lilongwe, a young Kamuzu Banda sat in short pants, waiting for the day’s lessons to begin. The beating of drums called the students from miles around; like Banda - the future Life President - they came and sat in the shade of the kachere, daydreaming at the puffs of cloud drifting over the treetops, reciting their ABCs. It is hard to imagine one of Africa’s most resilient Big Men growing up in poverty in turn-of-the-century Nyasaland. But the [View Full Entry]

By PostcardJunkie
October 21st 2008

Meet the press. Africa » Malawi » Lake Malawi

The beach at Mango Drift.

After a rigorous trek across the Nyika Plateau and a few days of licking my wounds in Livingstonia, I’ve slumped back to Mzuzu in time for a cold drink, a hot meal, a hearty welcome - and, after a couple of days, an equally hearty farewell. It’s been a lovely and laid-back fortnight in this pretty, jacaranda-studded city, but at the risk of missing the ferry to Likoma - and having my backside firmly planted on the bar stool at Mzoozoozoo for another week - I’m off with a few cheerful waves and adieus, leaving the convivial scene at the ‘Zoo [View Full Entry]

By PostcardJunkie
October 2nd 2008

Party animals. Africa » Malawi » Northern » Mzuzu

Twilight, Mzuzu

By the strange whims of Malawian transport, the 12:30 Axa bus to Mzuzu - the poshest of the country’s bus lines - pulls into the Lilongwe depot at half-past eleven, its seats already full, its aisles crowded with buckets and bags of produce leaking onto the floor. After a placid morning at Mabuya Camp, a cup of coffee and a lazy hour spent sending emails, the day’s taken a turn for the oh-shit. Undeterred by the crush of bodies inside, the conductor is happy to take my fistful of kwacha, unswayed by my insistence that maybe anyone forced to stand for [View Full Entry]

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PostcardJunkie | Christopher Vourlias | Travel Blog

PostcardJunkie - Christopher Vourlias

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