Click here to view Lu's fourth video, from Congo to Namibia. The tune this time is No Time, by P Square featuring bracket--bit of an N-Pop theme here. Check out their album, Game Over, it's great.

Click to Buy Game Over, by P Square

Click here to view Lu's third video, from Ghana to Congo Republic. The tune this time is Do Me, by P Square, another N-Pop band. Check out their album, Game Over, it's great.

Click to Buy Game Over, by P Square

Click here to view Lu's second video, from Gambia to Ghana. The tune is Masiteladi, by Amadou and Mariam, a blind duo from Mali. Check out their album, Welcome to Mali, it's great.

Click to Buy Welcome to Mali, by Amadou and Mariam

Click to view Lu's first Africa video, from Morocco to Gambia, featuring 'Yori Yori', by Bracket, an awesome Nigerian singer.

]]> http://www.alphabettravel.com/2009/12/morocco-to-gambia-video-by-lu/feed/ 0 http://www.alphabettravel.com/2009/12/the-complete-route/ http://www.alphabettravel.com/2009/12/the-complete-route/#comments Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:09:43 +0000 Seth http://www.alphabettravel.com/?p=600

The trinkets:

Agadir – a small amazig symbol, meaning ‘free people’ to the Berber
Berrem – an eraser with a picture of a doll wearing a headscarf on it
Chinguetti – some face cream called ‘I Love Garlic’
Dakar – a Gazelle Beer bottle top
Essau – a tub of strange yellow balm
Farafenni – a box of Mauritanian tea
Gao – a brass stork
Hombori – a Songhai necklace
Imasgo – a plastic flashlight in the shape of a pig (i do take responsibilty for this)
Jukwa – a tub of hair relaxing cream
Kouma-Konda – a stone Seth found in a waterfall
Lome – our two juju telephone fetishes, which may have protected us on our journey
Mamfe – a creditcard holder with a picture of Cameroon on it
Nyos – a stone – the only thing i could find
Oyem – a packet of plastic (glow in the dark?) fingernails
Point-Noire- an eight-ball keychain
Quilenges – a sachet of whisky
Rehoboth – the wick of a kerosene lamp
Seronga – a cowbell
Tsumeb – a sew-on patch with the town’s crest on it
Uis – a wire and bead parrot
Victoria Falls – a copy of the ‘Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare’ from a strange bookshop
West Nicholson – a packet of Zimbabwean tea
Xai-Xai – a box of matches
York – we were given a glass dolphin and an ornamental box by a kind family in a shop
Zagazig – a tacky plastic bust of Tutankamen

The feeling when we reached Zagazig was hard to pinpoint. In principle, travelling by alphabet sounds like a rather arbitrary idea, plucked from the sky as a kind of travel writing hook, which i suppose – in the beginning when we first thought it up (2004) – it was. In practise though, it takes you to so many places where tourism doesn’t exist, and with the right intentions, it is intense and very rewarding. By right intentions, i really mean travelling to discover the people and places of the world, and to treat them with respect and an open mind. I read a lot of travel literature and the worst of it is written by people who are insecure with themselves, and judgemental of others. The best stuff is written by modest, genuinely interesting people with curiosity in their blood. We’ve met a ton of fellow travellers, too, and in Africa almost every one of them fitted that description. They were gentle souls, adventurers, people with tales to tell, people who didn’t gab but who had really lived. (It was therefore a bit of a shock to suddenly merge with the gap year trail, in Namibia/Zambia/South Africa, and then the package holday crowds in Egypt. Nice people, doing their thing, having their own versions of an adventure (that sounds patronising but I’m keeping it in! come on, you know our adventure was better! i’m allowed to be a little cocky at this point!) but who, to us, seemed to have landed from another planet because we hadn’t encountered such souls for months. Tour groups do smell lovely with all that coconuty suncream on, though. And i have been a gap year traveller so i know where i came from… you’ve got to start somewhere!)

We never really dared at any stage of the journey to presume we could complete it. This is a mentality i was already familiar with from walking the 88 temple pilgrimage last year; you can’t plan far ahead, you can only plan as far as your next destination, because seeing the bigger picture makes the task seem too daunting. We had six months, and twenty six letters to collect, in order. Some countries didn’t have certain letters so we had to sit down with an atlas, the gps, the internet and any michelin maps we could find along the way, and check to make sure certain routes were possible. But it was not one smooth six month stint, point to point. It was a great journey punctuated by a collection of obstacles, each to be faced one at a time and not really thought beyond. To my mind, it went something like this (Seth’s version would be a bit different because we worry about different things):

1. Can we get thru Western Sahara without written permission from Moroccan government?
2. Getting through Mauritania – dangerous – al-qaeda – fco advises against all but essential travel there
3. Gambia – Is Essau really a town or just a suburb of Barra?
4. Mali – Any way we can find an ‘I’ that isn’t in touristy Dogon Country?
5. The Nigerian Visa – big one this one – if we couldn’t get it, we would be very stuck, as travelling around it, via Niger, Chad and dangerous north Cameroon not an option. Mission diverted to Ghana.
6. How to cross Nigeria quickly without entering delta region (failed.)
7. Can we get a visa for Gabon?
8. Can we get a visa for DRC?
9. If we get a visa for DRC, does that make us clinically insane?
10. Our passports are with the DRC embassy. We are definitely insane.
11. Gabon – hope country remains stable after death of the president
12. Congo – can we just show up at the border without a visa?
13. Congo – is there any transport in this country?
14. Congo – election results seem to have been rigged. hope it stays calm.
15. Congo – biggest obstacle of trip – Ninja rebels block our path to Brazzaville. We have to make ‘The Decision’ – the only one we can really make – and fly, breaking our overland mission. Numbing and depressing.
16. DRC. enough said.
17. the Angola transit visa – almost impossible to get – both of us worried about it for weeks. only town where it is issued is Matadi, DRC, a mountain port town on Congo river.
18. Angola. enough said.
19. How the hell do we get out of this country when our visas have expired and they have the right to charge us 150 US dollars per day, and how do we pick up our rare ‘Q’ along the way when we have no time left?
20. The ethics of hiring a car on a trip we have done almost entirely on public transport (without a hire car, you can see next to nothing in Namibia.)
21. Zimbabwe – will it be safe?
22. Zimbabwe excellent, people excellent, but there is no access to cash because of huge mess country is in economically (and otherwise). atms? no luck, travellers checks? no luck. must leave much earlier than desired.
23. South Africa – does York, our Y, really exist? The people of Pietermaritzburg live only 30km away from it but have never heard of it… worrying…
24. Egypt – with all these police escorts and tourist convoys we are forced to participate in, can we ditch the protection and get to unknown, untouristy Zagazig?

So, you see, after 24 there was a sudden moment of ‘huh! no more obstacles! Oh my God, we did it!’ it sounds kind of negative, but it wasn’t – it was just really hard work, not at all like a holiday (although there were occasional moments when it felt a bit like one, like visiting Vic Falls, Etosha National Park and the Okavango Delta – and we actually felt quite guilty on those occasions !?!)

So we find ourselves trying to look on the journey, for the first time, as a whole. Its very hard to do when you have trained your mind not to. We find we are able to start out best by constructing lists – our favourite places, least favourite places, the best and worst meals we had, the scariest moments, the most beautiful scenes – that kind of thing. I’m pretty sure, though, that the only way for me to solidify all this is to write the book. And so i will.

A final note to thank the people who read these blogs. There are so many thousands of people who share their lives on the internet. My travel blog is one floating in a world of millions. The thing i always love about writing them is that i know i am sharing them with people who actually want to be reading them. I hate sending ‘group emails’ about travel, i never do it, because even your closest friends may not want to be constantly subjected to your travel tales. By keeping a blog online, i know my friends and family can see it, if and when they want to, and when they do, i have the pleasure of knowing they do it because they want to rather than because they feel they have to. I’m really honored that so many of you do this, thank you very much. I’m also honored by the people who don’t know me personally but who read my blogs because of their keen interest in travel. To be honest, i do not try very hard stylistically and grammatically on these blogs, because i want to share the moment rather than choke myself with constant rewrites, but i do put a good few hours preparation into each one. As some of you know, i’m half way through my second manuscript – a book on my pilgrimage of last year – and when i finish it, i plan to write up the African Alphabet, and attempt to get both published. I’m given hope because both trips were so awesome, even a guppy could write a half-decent book about them, and it seems to me a lot lesser stuff gets published. Ultimately, you pursue what you love. If you want something, you need to be able to ask for it, work for it, give it all you’ve got. Whether i get to see my writing in book form remains to be seen, but i’ll enjoy trying, and I’ve promised myself I’m going to work even harder this time. Bring it on!

I’m not going to write any sweeping gushing statements about Africa, or its problems, its beauties, generalising about its people, etc. because that is a temptation that needs resisting. We may have just journeyed to 24 countries but one thing i can say is that coming to this continent for the first time and travelling through so many parts of it, it is really my ignorance that has been revealed to me – that i have been living my life without knowing about these places, or meeting these people, even really fully understanding that it all exists. I feel lucky that a light has been thrown on this part of the world for me, and i look forward to trying to understand it better, and to keeping up with its news and developments. Wherever we travelled, the less ‘touristy’ a place was, the easier it was to meet the local people and talk with them. My favourite times were always on minibuses, a gang of you thrown together, sometimes talking, sometimes in silence, sharing peanuts and music and watching the wide/potholed/dusty road roll ahead and behind us. Or riding three to a motorbike, over the hills and through the jungles of Central Africa. It was a set of places, a set of people, a specific route, a select six months in time, and there are not many conclusions that should be leapt to from so individual an experience. However, seth will want me to put this point across: we were not murdered, raped, held at knife or gunpoint, intimidated, seriously conned or deceived. It sounds dramatic, but many people were seriously worried about our safety on this trip. We, too, knew the risks involved in travel through parts of Africa. To be honest, i thought there was some chance of not returning. And you hear the horror stories – and some of them are true. The temptation is to say we got lucky. What we like to think is that it was not so much ‘luck’, as a real, tried-and-tested sign that travel through Africa is not as dangerous as people imagine. That there are always many, many more good people than bad. When the worst thing that’s happened to you on a six month trip is getting pickpocketed for £8, you start thinking the streets of England pose more problems…

Africa 2009 – a few lists

Scariest Moments

1. Charged by hippo in Okavango Delta. And, when they dive under water, damned if you can see where they are, you only know they are coming.
2. Fight on our bus in Nigeria, crazy guy grabbing wheel through window, bus driven into ditch.
3. Angola bus ride on which all three drivers and most of passengers were drunk all day and all night
4. Thief apprehended in Bamako market beaten up by members of crowd, blood flying.
5. Crossing the Congo River, because i was nervous as hell about Kinshasa on the other side

Most Beautiful Scenes

1. Smooth Saharan dunes, Mauritania
2. The Grassfields region of Cameroon
3. Rural Egypt, along the Nile
4. Sani Pass, up the Drakensberg
5. Pink blossom on trees in Lesotho valleys

Favourite Countries

1. Cameroon
2. Lesotho
3. Mauritania
4. Zimbabwe
5. Namibia
6. Nigeria
7. Congo
8. Egypt

Kindnesses

1. Romeo, driving us from Swaziland border to Durban and taking us on a safari
2. Louie and Louie, who helped us two ragged looking hitchers reach Big Bend
3. The Akandes, for showing us Ibadan and homely hospitality
4. Vincent, who let us ride with him from Mali to Burkina, and was as sweet as anything
5. Now that i’ve started this list, i realise there are so many…

Songs I Never Want to Hear Again in My Life

1. The Power of Love – Celine Dion
2. I wanna make love right now – AKON … ugh….
3. My Heart Will Go On – Celine Dion… ugh…
4. When a Man Loves a Woman – Michael Bolton… oof…
5. Unbreak My Heart – Toni Braxton… ugh…

Next time! – if we ever go back -

1. Ride that jungle train to Reserve de la Lope, Gabon
2. More time in Lesotho, learn to become a shepherd, wrap up in a blanket and put on a wicker hat
3. Timbuktu. Can’t believe we missed it. It is currently considered unsafe, but then so’s half of Africa.
4. Pack air rifle to keep pretty much everyone associated with the Egyptian tourism industry at bay
5. Leave two empty seats on the flight home

Having just come from Namibia, Mosi-oa-Tunya and Zimbabwe, we really had been going over a lot of his old turf from his year out in Africa back in 1999. He wanted to break free into new territory and I understood that, so I realized that I would have to make do with what scrolled past the window as far as seeing South Africa’s sights were concerned; for now, at least. We planned to get as far south as Pretoria on this first day, then bust east via Nelspruit to the Mozambique border the next. I scribbled notes on the map until you could hardly see anything but a tangle of blue biro. We’d crossed the Limpopo River to enter the country, and just a few miles in there were more baobab trees than we had seen on the whole African journey to date, bigger, too, than any of their predecessors. We passed scorched earth, and orange groves, and bundles of cut grass ready to be sold for roofing, just as in Zimbabwe. The journey continued south, crossing a rugged pass over the Soutpansberg, where cacti grew beside the road and there were striking bushes with bright red flowers. By a crowded, one-storey town, a mother and son squatted by the roadside to relieve themselves and watched the minibus roll by with bored expressions. The sun wheeled through the sky as the hours past. We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. Near Polokwane, a sign by the road read, ‘Chickens for Sale,’ only to be followed soon after by the confusing, ‘Chickens Needed.’ It soon fell dark. On the outskirts of Pretoria (at which point all passengers had long been snoozing or silent), our bus was pulled over by traffic police and when the driver ushered us out, I wondered for a moment what the hell we’d done wrong. It turned out we were being offered a lift.

‘You should pay him a little something when you arrive’, our driver mumbled as we said our goodbyes and loaded our bags into the boot of the fancy police car. I’ve never been in the back of one before. The flashing neon lights temporarily blinded me as I climbed in, but I just about made out the shape of our minibus heading off towards Joburg, some of the passengers waving. Our arrival at the backpackers lodge in a police car caused excitement. It was quite a hot entrance; the owners said it was a first. It was a nice little lodge in suburban Pretoria, but when they told us there was only space in the large dorm available, my heart sank. Sleeping in dorms when you’re nineteen is fun. Sleeping in dorms when you’re twenty-nine and celebrating your seventh wedding anniversary sucks. We dumped our bags and headed out to Pretoria’s lively Hatfield district, where we sunk a few beers and had to laugh at the impossibly non-romantic nature of the day. Our hearts and stomachs led us to a Chinese restaurant that was run by a family from Haerbin, a remote Chinese city that we had visited on our Asian Alphabet. They served us amazing food in a happy atmosphere, and we returned to the lodge cheerful, even propping up the bar for a few hours chatting to the owner about Namibia. Still, when the time came to separate and head to our respective bunk beds, I felt like an eight year old. It was pitch dark but for the shining lights of mobile phones – travellers texting internationally. Between the tapping of tiny keypads and clearing of throats, an eerie silence filled the stuffy room. The ceiling was so close to my face that there was a high chance of concussion come morning, should I forget where I was. This kind of claustrophobia is only worth it if you’re staying in a capsule hotel. At least then you score high on the kook factor and get your own coin-op TV…

It was early afternoon by the time our minibus set off for Nelspruit. While we waited we made friends with a young woman who dreamed of moving to London to earn some money and an old gentleman salesman who kept popping over to chat in between potential customers. The young woman had bought her son a new bicycle and was taking it home to Nelspruit.

‘What’s the town like?’ I asked.

‘You know, boring,’ she smiled.

The scenery was forever changing – at first we drove by fields of tall, butter coloured grass where cattle grazed, then suddenly there were signs saying, ‘Hijack Hotspot’ and ‘Crime Alert: Do Not Stop.’ The driver sped up and everyone was quiet. I tried to see what was so different between this area and the one we’d just left but couldn’t tell. There are many complexities that can’t be glimpsed by a passer by from a window.

Further on there were pretty hills and a river, and trees adorned with pink blossom like cherry trees. The late afternoon brought with it an incredible quality of light. A lone ostrich stood in a field. Train tracks ran alongside the road. There were hitchhikers stood by the roadside, sports bags at their feet, woolly hats on their heads. Nobody seemed to be stopping for them.

We could have headed on to Mozambique that evening, but the thought of arriving in its capital, Maputo, after dark was unappealing. Instead we stayed over in Nelspruit, its new stadium standing proud for next year’s World Cup.

‘SMILIES!’ I said to Seth the next morning as we studied a breakfast menu in the restaurant beside our hotel, ‘They have SMILIES!’ I had not encountered these smilie potato heads since Sunday brunch at boarding school, all of eleven years previously. Part of me really thought the school cooks had kind of invented them, and yet here they were, on a South African menu. Seth shook his head and chuckled, an affectionate acknowledgement that his wife may be a bit deranged. The waitress and the kitchen staff found my excitement equally bizarre but they all glanced over happily as I tucked in, grinning. There were green wood hoopoes and weaver birds flying from tree to tree in the garden outside. I knocked back a strong cappuccino. We had borders to cross and letters to hunt. Our ‘X,’ Xai-Xai, was almost in reach.