http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/kirkley/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from kirkley en-us Sun, 29 Nov 2009 23:28:18 +0000 Sun, 29 Nov 2009 23:28:18 +0000 Escape from Nouakchott a poemI just realized itrsquos April Foolrsquos Day.I have no one to tell.I rode back to Nouakchott on the back of a truck. I introduced Malcom the Canadian to the fast talking BostonMauritanian millionaire Sidi Boya. Hersquos been hired on to work on the presidential elections.Irsquove taken to wearing gris gris.The Auberge erupted in madness.Frusturated marriag http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mauritania/blog-416093.html Nouakchott Mauritania The southern edge of the Sahara. The sands and the scrubs the chaos and nonsensical logic the diaspora of hungry souls coming to a hopeless place looking for opportunity. The slums of sand and fermenting piles of garbage and animals that looks like Bombay to the cultureless nouvelle riche mansions of cheap fabrication reminescent of a suburb of San Diego. Either way th http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mauritania/blog-382193.html desert kingdom orientation Mauritania for those who donrsquot know and I know many outside do not is a large mostly unpopulated country on the West Coast of Africa. It hovers like a pause a broken sentence in between Arab Morocco and Black Senegal. It is here that the unrelenting Sahara gives way into the scrubby Sahel where Orthodox Islam confronts mystic Marabout brotherhoods where the http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mauritania/blog-363432.html A blistery wind front roars through the town and the sky is blotted out with clouds of orange and grey. One could call it a dust storm but any storm in the Sahara is worthy of that title. The wind merely lifts all the particulate that's always present into frenzy. Maybe you just don't see it until the storm.The landmass of Western Sahara is a region sparsely populated but largely contested. This http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Western-Sahara/South/Dakhla/blog-352864.html It's the end of November two days after Thanksgiving. What herein follows is a much delayed and succinct transcription of travels since last updatingAfter arriving in America I floundered about in the Northwest a bit before tying my shoes and hitching Eastward to New York City. Here I ended up living for a year in BedStuy Brooklyn surrounded by a great number of even greater people. I http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Morocco/Souss-Massa-Dra-/blog-349722.html Manaus AM In what is probably my last entry I find myself once again pounding out words in an internet caf. Travel weary I now await my flight to return to the states to the city of my birth to another great unknown an excellent opportunity to wax philosophically about lifechanges and the future.We arrive into Manaus as usual by riverboat. While the concept of travelling down the A http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Amazonas/blog-150629.html The city of Anapu lies rougly 140km east of the river Xing along the Transamazonic Highway. The city is literally spread out along the road the commerce and hotels scattered over a paved section of the infamous dirt highway that stretches across the Amazon. There are roughly 20000 people living here almost everyone is from somewhere else. Thirty years ago the city was no more then a small vi http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Par-/Altamira/blog-144487.html In Belm I've booked a hotel straight out the Lonely Planet guidebook. It's justly full of tourists from every corner of the world that all speak English. The hotel staff is like the Adam's family but if they were really indescrivable monsters and not family friendly comedians with a laugh track the old woman a stout ball of anger the shape of a stool her grey haired giant son lurks clad onl http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Par-/blog-140567.html A quick update of the following months from which I seemingly vanishedI leave Pernambuco and head North into Paraba traveling throughsmall dusty towns of the deep interior and into the state of Cear.Greeted as a curiousity as always I recieve loads of stories aboutwhatever person from another country once passed through. I never oncemeet another foreigner or tourist. I make a beeline to Forta http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Par-/Bel-m/blog-134661.html The Northeast of Brazil is known for its beaches white sand swaying coconut palms bluegreen water massive dunes giant capital cities of festivals and sleeping fishing villages. But this is merely the crust. The mass of the Northeast begins only a few hundred kilometers inland as you pass the vibrant green of the coastal strip fades the rolling hills transformed into rocky crags. In plac http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Pernambuco/Serra-Talhada/blog-107062.html I'm in a city called Caruaru slightly into the interior of Pernambuco. The coast here is beautiful green rolling hills cane and coconuts swaying in the breeze. It's only a short trip inland before everything turns brown rocky. But this isn't the serto yet. That doesn't truly begin until Arcoverde further interior still.The city survives on clothing.Yesterday was the day of the Tuesday stre http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Pernambuco/blog-105143.html The past month has blurred together in a whirlwind of traveling as I crossed through Bahia from Bom Jesus da Lapa to Chapada Diamintina to Salvador and exited into the northern coastal state Sergipe. The common thread that ties these experiences together is tourism.Bom Jesus da Lapa my first stop. A long one. I waited here for the arrival of a new camera and due to some difficulties with http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Sergipe/blog-99049.html Foremost. The other morning I lay dreaming. In the dream I was traveling and reflecting on my experiences transcribing my thoughts onto paper. Gradually the sunlight filtering in through the mosquito netting draped over my bed and the ongoing calls of roosters brings me into consciousness. And I realize that reality is far stranger than anything I could have possibly dreamnt. My location a sma http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Bahia/blog-94038.html I bang out these words on a beaten keypad in an internet caf in the city of Manga named for the mighty fruit the manga or mango. The region is full of said fruit albeit it early in the season and they dangle like green potatoes or giant lima beans. Popular myth suggests there is a danger in approaching the mango at this time in Itacaramb I met a woman who claimed her 4 year old cousin d http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Minas-Gerais/blog-92769.html Traveling without an itinerary is freeing. At the same time it can be exceedingly difficult to buy your bus ticket without a destination.I left the uninteresting town of Capelinha and headed to Turmalina 40km north. The further I travel in this direction the hotter it gets and the city was toasty. I spent most of my time in the city sitting around the central plaza which always contains at l http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Minas-Gerais/blog-90252.html I left Diamantina headed toward a point on the map the city name was in bold which meant that it was a muncipal larger then a village but smaller then a city. It appeared to be a short distance on the map so needless to say 3 hours later chugging along a dirt road I realized it might be more then I bargained for.After arriving I sought out the local pousada and wandered a bit around town. Th http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Minas-Gerais/blog-89163.html I left BH after a wild night out culminating in me wandering through the worst neighborhood of downtown Belo at midnight at one point a man wandered past me clutching at a towel wrapped around his arm soaked in blood from a recently inflicted wound. On the bright side this has imbued me with a heightened confidence that some may call naiveity. Thursday was Brazilian Independence day so for http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Minas-Gerais/blog-88338.html After more then 4 months here in Belo Horizonte I'm departing. In due course Ive spent the past days saying my goodbyes and realizing exactly how many people I know here. My work has brought me into contact with a huge number of people as I found myself working with some 200 children. Perhaps it speaks to the hospitality of the Brazilians or perhaps its just my good luck that Ive had the o http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Minas-Gerais/Belo-Horizonte/blog-85896.html Ive been here in Brazil a little over 3 months now. Ive tried to avoid writing too many of my subjective interpertations here and let friends and family draw their own conclusions from the observations. But true objectivity is a myth. Suffice to say that everything here is so drastically different that its impossible to communicate even between my own eyes and brain. This drastic difference c http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Minas-Gerais/Belo-Horizonte/blog-79256.html I woke up today covered in bugbites from some unknown critter that lives in the room and feeds on me everynight. No one else in the house has this problem it must be my rich foreign blood. But immediately it calls to mind the expression of sleeping tight and not letting the bedbugs bite to which Ive been puzzling over how one sleeps tight and how exactly you can not let them bite you. I gue http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Minas-Gerais/Belo-Horizonte/blog-68784.html