Well, Nigeria has without a doubt been the most anti-climactic destination on my trip so far, as it is not even remotely dangerous in any way, and corruption has yet to affect me in any way. Driving through the country though did remind me of "Baby Police", as every few miles police officers stopped the car and collected money without saying anything. I was thinking about the Nigerian police academy and what their curriculum must look like "How to Collect Money" or "How to maximize pocket space to fit the greatest number of bills inside" seems to be all they [View Full Entry]

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Well I haven't written for a long time mostly because Alana who is travelling with me has been writing so I didn't feel the need to but there is one island I went to that she didn't so I will describe it. It was Roxa in Portuguese but Canhaba in Bijago. I went with an English banjo researcher we met at Bubaque, the most developed of all the islands. Bubaque seems to have seen more prosperous days. Laundry dries on old sagging power lines, and the only electricity is by generator. There are a lot of ghostly old ruins of [View Full Entry]

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So difficult to write here but out of respect I will try to. I am here in Senegal, though Mauritania is for all purposes other than geography part of sub-saharan Africa it's not really. Here is the Sahel. I spent some time in St. Louis, and now I am in Dakar. This country is the most touristic in West Africa, and for this reason I really didn't enjoy my time in St. Louis very much. Aside from all the very aggressive people who sell things to the tourists, I also escaped an attempted mugging. Which wouldn't have bothered me normally [View Full Entry]

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I made the same trip I had intended before but without any catastrophic car accidents, happily. So I am seeing a lot of familiar faces and back in Nouakchott spending some quality time. But I am starting to become very sick of French. It makes two months now that I've been speaking very little english and while I am getting quite good at French I want to study a different language now. Ahh the ride through the desert was long but pleasant, lots of good conversation. It's a bit hot but not too. On the bus in Morocco I sat [View Full Entry]

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I am in Rennes practicing French and studying with my fellow students, my logic being that I will be able to travel more safely in Africa if I am fluent in French, also I just get along very well here, I get along well with everyone; the food is very good and at least no one says I am arrogant. French people at least. So France is a much better known country, brittany is a distinct region with it's own culture and language but I don't feel the need to write a long blog on the time I am spending [View Full Entry]

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Since I last wrote I went through Marrakesh, Agadir, Laayoune, Dakhla, and then across the border into Mauritania where I have so far been to Noadhibou and Nouakchott. Marrakesh was pretty and interesting but too touristic for me. Laayoune and Dakhla are in Western Sahara, which is disputed, and there seems to be some tension between the Moroccans who are sort of occupying it, and the Saharans. The desert is really beautiful, and unbelievably huge. The main even of this segment of the trip, however, occured between Dakhla and Noadhibou, where I was attempting to cross the border. I left [View Full Entry]

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I can't help but enjoy Morocco. It feels so good to be back in an Islamic country. I got a 60 euro ticket from Paris to Casablanca(very cheap), and as soon as I left I might as well have arrived, with the Arabic and Berber music blaring in my ear, the smell of foreign food and sweat. It occurs to me that my friend Muhamad said he thought I was Moroccan before he talked to me on the bus, and I was going over all of the nationalities I've been mistaken for in the last year: English, Spanish, Portuguese(today), Afghani, [View Full Entry]

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Now that I am out of Ireland, I'll make a short summary of my trip there, though the fact that I am using a French keyboard will keep it short. I left from New York and landed in Dublin, intending to stay a few days before moving on to France and West Africa, or wherever, though I stayed one month. First thing I noticed, of course, was the huge amount of cranes that now dominate the skyline of Dublin. The first few days I spend in any country are usually very silent, and I just listen, watch the way people [View Full Entry]

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Hmmm, I'm now in a relatively cold and peaceful mountain town in Northern Pakistan... in the NWFP where the sensationalist aid workers told me I'd be murdered and I could buy a kilo of heroin in the bazaar at a bargain. But again, unsurprisingly, it's pretty tame. All of this danger hype is just justification for continued US military build up, I think. The military is like an organism, and like any other organism, it doesn't want to die, or shrink, now that it's not as needed as it was in the cold war, so it sends out propaganda about [View Full Entry]

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Last time I wrote I was in a life or death struggle to obtain a Pakistani visa, and after 6 days of waiting, I was finally told I'd have to go to Kabul. I threw an enormous fit that I'm not particularly proud of, that included ripe phrases like "Fuck Pakistan!" and "The Consul General is full of shit!" There is only one thing in this world I hate more than bureaucrats, and that's nuclear war. Which explains why I particularly hate Pakistani bureaucrats. In the time I'd been waiting, I'd been staying in one of the filthiest, most run [View Full Entry]

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