A Visit to Dominica September 1, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Caribbean, Hotels, Rail Pass, Restaurant, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Trip , 3commentsA strange thing happened this year. A man I’d met only twice, a bit of a loner, invited me to go with him to the West Indies. I fancied him so I said yes.
I knew of Dominica only as the birthplace of Jean Rhys, a writer I deeply admire. Now when I read about the island I discovered that it is volcanic and mountainous and is the last refuge of the Carib Indians, the descendants of proud cannibals who starved to death rather than accept the fate of slavery. It is one of the wilder places on earth and contains rainforest, and boa constrictors. (more…)
The Drums of Nefta continue… August 31, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Destination, Hotels, Sightseeing, Tickets, Travel Gear , 3commentsWe both met Walter a few days ago. He is a German working at a doctorate on the post-colonial development of the region. He has lived here for eight months and knows more about the town than the Neftis, who are infuriatingly vague when it comes to giving directions. He knows nothing of Brigitte Bardot’s visit but confirms that President Bourguiba used to stay at our hotel, though he now spends two months every year at the Sahara Palace.
Mercifully Walter and Marianne soon exhaust their mutual stock of Arabic and, in the silence that follows, we all become aware of a faint constant drumbeat in the medina. Walter says that it is probably a wedding but suggests that we investigate. We leave, and Marianne stays behind picking at a fruit salad. (more…)
Big Safari Game in the Okavango Swamp, Kalahari Desert Travel August 30, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Botswana, Cape Town, Europe, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, South Africa, Tanzania, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Travel Clinic, Travelling Bag, Trip, Vaccinations , 5commentsWe slid through the swamps while animals criss-crossed our path before and aft; kudu, zebra, buffalo, impala, and a herd of fifteen giraffe, splashing through the water with feet big as plates. Matata poled gracefully; he could have been punting down the Cam as his pole pushed blue and white water lilies aside. His ears were sharp as a jackal’s and he could spot the tracks of a hippo from an extraordinary distance. The lilypad sized footprints, at least one foot across, sank deep into the mud — heavy, purposeful tracks. (more…)
Big Safari Game in the Okavango Swamp, Kalahari Desert Travel August 30, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Botswana, Travel Clinic, Travelling Bag , 6commentsStranded in the Kalahari desert we had no water and half a packet of Marie biscuits. The bus from Francistown had broken down again and the passengers disembarked, squatting in the cumbersome shade of a baobab tree. They, like us, were shifty-eyed; there had been no rain in Botswana for four years and the lions of the Kalahari were getting hungry. In Gaborone, a week before, we had watched the mauled body of a German girl carried into the hospital. Her death reminded us of the dangers of complacency in Africa. In the shadow of the bus, a vulture wheeling overhead, I kept my eyes fixed on the bush behind us. (more…)
The Gulf of Finland on Ice July 29, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Cars, Destination, Estonia, Finland, Flight Schedule, Sightseeing, Trails , 6commentsPerhaps they’re penguins, I thought. But they were too far away for me to be certain, and the blinding light could have been playing tricks on the two of us. It doesn’t help your orientation one bit when the land is indistinguishable from the sky, nor indeed when you’re not quite sure whether you’ve left the land yet. Very soon we would not be able to see the line of tall evergreens that parted beach from cloud. (more…)
Not Memsahib July 14, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Beach Resorts, Cars, Destination, Europe, Flight Schedule, Hotels, India, Lodges, London, Motel, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Rail Pass, Restaurant, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Trip , 3commentsEvery time I heard the word memsahib I wanted to take an ice-pick to the user. I’d gone on the Hindu trail clutching my libertarianism to my bosom, a cosy cocoon from which I could rationalise and contain the INDIAshrieks from the inferno — not that Dante, I’m sure, ever went to Calcutta. Very right-on. Very arm’s-length. But keep your liberal sensibilities Gandhi-pure? Emerge unscathed? Forget it.
Sympathy, empathy, had long since given way to simmering hysteria, cringing shame and a seething, at times uncontrollable rage which was generalised in its target but oh so localised in its pain. It wasn’t even a consolingly righteous anger at the pulverising poverty, the callousness of caste or the stalinisation of women — more a deep-seated disgust and hatred welling up from deep down and spewing out over all humanity, most of all myself . . . Well, OK, you try and make sense of the matchstick people of Madhya Pradesh, the execrable excrement of Bombay and Dehli, the obscene opulence of Jaipur jewellers, the blinding, vivid hues of Rajasthani women’s skirts — and all of it sinking in one great ubiquitous quicksand of suffocating, strangulating bureaucracy. (more…)
Passing on Victoria Water Falls, Shooting the Zambezi, Escape into Africa July 10, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Botswana, Hotels, Lodges, Passport, South Africa, Tour, USA, United Kingdom, Victoria Falls, Zambia , 4commentsA white line still bisected the bridge, but its meaning had gone and the menace with it. Now the only sentry was a baboon sitting on a fence barking at a warthog on the other side of the road.
Early morning, sun up but cool, just two of us on the bridge at Victoria Falls, between Zimbabwe and Zambia. We looked down at the pale green Zambesi 300 feet below. Cecil Rhodes had wanted the bridge built close enough to the Falls to catch the spray. Usually it does. However, this was September and the “Falls” in front of us were just a curtain of rock. The rains had been good; not good enough, though, to make up for years of drought.
Only on the Zimbabwean side did the river reach over and plunge in. Its noise was like distant motorway traffic.
We were about to go down the river on a rubber raft. We were to start at the bottom of the Falls and travel six miles down the Zambesi through zigzagging gorges . . . and over nine rapids. Why on earth had we agreed to it? Sarah didn’t even like putting her head under water in the bath. As for me, the wake of a passing launch under a scull on the Thames was the nearest I’d ever got to white water. (more…)
Hindu Trail Clutching my Libertarianism to my Bosom, Not Memsahib July 9, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Europe, India, London, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Travelling Bag, Trip , 3commentsEvery time I heard the word memsahib I wanted to take an ice-pick to the user. I’d gone on the Hindu trail clutching my libertarianism to my bosom, a cosy cocoon from which I could rationalise and contain the shrieks from the inferno — not that Dante, I’m sure, ever went to Calcutta. Very right-on. Very arm’s-length. But keep your liberal sensibilities Gandhi-pure? Emerge unscathed? Forget it.
Sympathy, empathy, had long since given way to simmering hysteria, cringing shame and a seething, at times uncontrollable rage which was generalised in its target but oh so localised in its pain. It wasn’t even a consolingly righteous anger at the pulverising poverty, the callousness of caste or the stalinisation of women — more a deep-seated disgust and hatred welling up from deep down and spewing out over all humanity, most of all myself . . . Well, OK, you try and make sense of the matchstick people of Madhya Pradesh, the execrable excrement of Bombay and Dehli, the obscene opulence of Jaipur jewellers, the blinding, vivid hues of Rajasthani women’s skirts — and all of it sinking in one great ubiquitous quicksand of suffocating, strangulating bureaucracy. (more…)
Five days in Guinea, Discovering World Wide Attractions, Traveling, Fun, Tour, Rail Passing July 6, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Cash, Passport, Tour, Travellers Cheque , 5commentsDuring the night the rats stole my soap. A garrison of them lived beneath the floorboards and above the sagging, mildewed ceiling of my room. They swaggered about the place as though they owned it — which I suppose they did really: few people must have stayed in the old barrack-house since Nova Lamego was a beleaguered outpost of the Portuguese empire in Africa, surrounded by guerrilla-held bush, as the long war of liberation surged back and forth across the frontier with its neurotic Marxist neighbour, the People’s Republic of Guinea.
I rubbed the sleep of history from my eyes and stepped outside into the present: nowadays Nova Lamego is the peaceful market town of Gabu, in the east of independent Guinea-Bissau, and a couple of battered old civilian vehicles wheeze across that frontier each week.
Blinking in the unwashed light of dawn, I located the formidable old Russian lorry that came close to my idea of the archetypal truck. It had one headlight missing and was blind in the other; sported a complete set of bald tyres, and was incontinent on all counts: punctured exhaust, cracked radiator, and oozing a fuse of oil and petrol whenever it moved — which wasn’t for some time, as it took all morning to attract a full cargo of thirty passengers and their belongings. (more…)
Five days in Guinea, Discovering World Wide Attractions, Traveling, Fun, Tour, Rail Passing July 6, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Cash, Passport, Tour, Travellers Cheque , 5commentsDuring the night the rats stole my soap. A garrison of them lived beneath the floorboards and above the sagging, mildewed ceiling of my room. They swaggered about the place as though they owned it — which I suppose they did really: few people must have stayed in the old barrack-house since Nova Lamego was a beleaguered outpost of the Portuguese empire in Africa, surrounded by guerrilla-held bush, as the long war of liberation surged back and forth across the frontier with its neurotic Marxist neighbour, the People’s Republic of Guinea.
I rubbed the sleep of history from my eyes and stepped outside into the present: nowadays Nova Lamego is the peaceful market town of Gabu, in the east of independent Guinea-Bissau, and a couple of battered old civilian vehicles wheeze across that frontier each week.
Blinking in the unwashed light of dawn, I located the formidable old Russian lorry that came close to my idea of the archetypal truck. It had one headlight missing and was blind in the other; sported a complete set of bald tyres, and was incontinent on all counts: punctured exhaust, cracked radiator, and oozing a fuse of oil and petrol whenever it moved — which wasn’t for some time, as it took all morning to attract a full cargo of thirty passengers and their belongings. (more…)
Villages, Boats, Boulevards, Bars, Break in France and Italy, Aegean Tour continue… July 4, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Africa, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Cars, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Europe, France, Hotels, Library, Motel, Museum, New York, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant , 3commentsFabienne wakes us. She is pretty in a New York Jewish sort of way — cracked nose, olive skin, beautiful drooping eyes with lot’s of kohl, smoker’s teeth and bitten nails. Wrapped in a peasant blanket she talks of “le business” in Soho and Piccadilly — prostitution to pay for her drug addiction. Her arms are scars, dead veins with hanging skin which will take no more abuse, and so her ankles have become the focal point of her masochism. Corsica is vacation after hospitalisation in Amsterdam and, more importantly from her point of view, stamping ground of many Moroccans who come from the hash crops of North Africa to supply France from this paradise isle. (more…)
Villages, Boats, Boulevards, Bars, Break in France and Italy, Aegean Tour July 4, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Cars, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Europe, France, Hotels, Museum, Oceanarium, Paris, Planetarium, Restaurant, USA , 3commentsNapeoleon greeted us when we arrived in the palm-fringed port of Ajaccio and disembarked onto the jetty. Corsica’s capital exhibits boulevards, bars and boats in honour of its most famous son. The white-glossed vessels glide out slowly with their cargoes of rich French and Italian mariners, perhaps south to Sardinia or Sicily before venturing upon Poseidon’s homeland in the depths of the Aegean.
We wound up into the mountains for three hours at the back of a stifling minibus, rucksacks on knees, to arrive at Petreto-Bicchisano to au-pair and keep shop for two months. The villages of bleached stone are perched on crags, almost indistinguishable in the dense green forests. Grey stones on distant, wispy mountaintops become crosses and tombstones as one ascends. Every village has its protective saint and little dark chapel. Children play in the street with its one-thousand-foot drop to the bronze river below. The old women in black do not shout warnings. It seems that one is born to Corsica with an instinct of its precariousness. (more…)
Climbing, Riding, Sightseeing Midnight on Mont Blanc continue… July 2, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Cars, Europe, Germany, Greece, Hostels, London, Memorial, Mexico, Motel, New York, Travel Insurance, Travelling Bag, USA , 3commentsBernie pulled on the rope and cursed me for stopping; I plodded on. My feet hurt.
Four days later, the train heaved its way out of the valley towards the end of the Bionnassay Glacier. Through the glass I stared at the pine trees and the brilliant meadow flowers. The carriage filled with the perfume of tourists, up for the day, and the sweat of climbers, rucksacks balanced on their knees, all heading for the Blanc. When the track wound alongside a cliff the small girl sitting opposite looked out in disbelief as the trees gave way to nothing. She pulled her eyes away in fear and looked around the train — the view there was worse, rucksacks, hairy knees, ice-axes, unshaven climbers lost in contemplation of the weather.
We arrived at the top station and the train disgorged. Tourists wandered slowly across to the cafe or to the viewing platform from which they could look up at the great bleak sweep of the mountain opposite. Down the valley the world became more sane, as the stone desert below the glacier gave way to meadows and woodland. (more…)
