Westwards

The Kindle test – slow reading in fast times

All these books! Not only that they don’t fit into the bookshelves, they always take up half of the airline luggage allowance. We hope to reduce the bulk with the help of an e-reader, and decided on a Kindle because of the broader range of books available (at least in English; and these are noticeably cheaper, too).

So far, it has been a mixed experience.

The most obvious concern is the quality of the display. Who would always want to squint at a kind of computer screen, and even in daylight? But we had seen people using e-readers at the pool in Upper Egypt, 45 °C and scorching sun. The display does indeed look like paper. It’s not backlit and not reflecting, it doesn’t hurt the eyes, and it doesn’t take 10 minutes and a jingle to start the system.

The Kindle is also lightweight, easy to hold and easy to use. You could store a whole library on it, and the battery seems to be running forever. For straightforward reading – one line after another –it is perfect. It only gets tricky when you want to navigate in a text or between texts. The TOC is always several different button clicks away, some e-books don’t even have one, and converting your own files into a useful format does take some effort.

Everything digital has the image of being fast. That may be true for letters and shopping – but just as digital cameras tend to click only that moment too late when whatever had been happening is already over, the Kindle has its slow moments. For a real page-turner, that moment it takes the display to flick on a new screen feels painfully long. Flipping through a few pages to check how far it is to the end of the chapter takes a small eternity, flipping back another one – and then you have to find the spot where you stopped without a finger to leave between the pages. The next edition will definitely need an instant bookmark button for that purpose.

Researching a Guide Book in Egypt

The Omar El-Khayam rose to the occasion
(for more Egypt photos, click here: March 2007,  June 2011, July 2011)
After six weeks travelling through Upper Egypt, Cairo and Alexandria we are now back in Berlin. Working in Egypt was quite a different experience from just travelling independently through the country. As there were not many tourists due to the summer heat and the revolution, people were quite eager to show us around and present their hotel, restaurant or ship at its best.

Once we visited a cruise ship that was not in operation. We had to enter a special harbour area in Aswan and then a small boat brought our small party out to the ship, where the captain and one other staff member were already waiting. We were prepared for dimly lit cabins, and a semi-dark dining hall with the chairs put up on the tables. What a surprise when we found the ship in full operation and fully lit. The Jacuzzis and the pool were filled, some of the cabins prepared as if guests would arrive within the next hour. Only the giant fridges in the kitchen were empty except for a few sad tomatoes and some La vache qui rit cream cheese.

Later we found out that the fleet manager accompanying us does not visit all that often and so this was a chance for the crew to impress.

In total we visited and compared about 30 ships and joined two cruises: One classical Nile cruise and one on Lake Nasser south of Aswan. We enjoyed both – especially the lack of mobile / internet connection on Lake Nasser! But alas, the book is still not written…

 

Tribe spotting: Ethnic Minorities in the Lower Omo Valley

Meeting Ethiopian tribes people can feel like quite inappropriate and like a zoo experience. But at other times, it seems that perhaps both sides can profit.

(for more Ethiopia photos, click here)

The young man is nervously eyeing the the small band of bulls. He is completely naked and shaved, except for an odd fizzy hair style. Once the other young men from the tribe have pulled and shoved the bulls in a straight line, he will have to run across the bulls' backs. It is one of the initiation rites in the run-up to his wedding. The selection of a suitable bride will depend to some extent on his performance in this bull-jumping ceremony.

“There are always white people in the background!”, we hear a French tourist complain to her guide, while her companions aggressively defend their prime  position in the first row. “Can't you do something against it?”. Altogether there must be nearly a hundred white tourists who have come to watch the bull-jumping ceremony and the festival put on by a village of about 80 Hamer tribes-people. The Ethiopian guides and drivers, in jeans and baseball caps, also stick out from the Hamer people, who wear nothing but traditional decorated goat leather loin-clothes and lots of glass beads. Nevertheless, the Hamer are apparently thoroughly enjoying themselves dancing and singing. Probably not least because the tourists contribute nicely to the wedding expenses.

The next day, we sit in a round Hamer hut, made of wood and mud, in a village a few kilometres off the main gravel road. The only stone building is the primary school, not widely attended as there appears to be no teacher. The daughter-in-law of an elderly chieftain serves us an awful brown liquid in huge dusty calabashes. ”Coffee!” It is the pride of a woman to own many calabashes so that she can serve coffee to many guests, the Hamer say. The teenage children watch us curiously as we try the gritty, unsalted sorghum bread. We probably look as alien to them as they do to us, and yet they scrimmage and joke with each other (and sometimes with us) and occasionally even defy their elders, just as European youngsters would do.

Besides the Hamer there are numerous other tribes living in the south of Ethiopia. They have become famous for being relatively untouched by civilisation. “Go and see them now, because in 20 years their culture will have disappeared”, the guidebook advises. So we go along for more tribes-people watching.

At around 10 am, a cavalcade of about 50 four-wheel-drives is streaming down the bumpy dirt road from Jinka into the Mago National Park. Like us, each day hundreds of tourists follow the advice and come to see the exotic Mursi tribe. Traditionally, marriageable women used to insert large wooden disks into a slit in their lower lip, which they continued to wear for festive occasions.

We stop at the third village along the road.

A dozen skinny old women are waiting by the road-side in front of some diminutive empty straw huts. Their stretched lower lips are dangling, revealing a large gap in their lower front teeth. Some have smeared their faces with white paint, and they wear all manner of things on their heads: goats' horns, pottery, scrap metal and plastic beads. Most are naked apart from a loincloth and a lot of plastic jewellery, but their dangling leathery breasts evoke no sense of nakedness. Some hold babies, so they cannot be so old after all. Small boys are naked and painted with white lines, imitating the traditional body-painting reserved for hunters and warriors.

As the tourists get out of their cars, the women and children recite their prices for pictures without moving so much as to wave the flies out of their eyes. Two birr! Two birr!

Evidently, the culture we have come to see has already (at least partially) ceased to exist. The attire, the headgear, the war-painting – all this is competitive exoticism geared towards tourists who will select (and pay!) the most spectacular Mursi people for their photos. Whether any of it is indeed traditional is not clear, and after some probing our guide admits that most of it is just dressing up for the tourists. After 20 minutes we get back into the car and leave. The whole visit leaves us with the sad feeling of visiting a freak show. We have seen enough tribal culture and cancel the planned afternoon trip to an Ari village. Later that day we meet the Mursi men (who had supposedly been tending to the cattle) spending the day's cash income on getting drunk in town.

Extending a tourist visa in Ethiopia

For a black African country, Ethiopia is very modern and organised. But bureaucracy can be a challenge.

The camera has to be left at the entrance to the immigration office (for other photos from Ethiopia, click here)

„Who am I“, the official with the silver-coloured stripes on his sleeves spreads his arms theatrically, „to contradict government policies?“. Under no circumstances, he insists, would it be possible to extend the duration of our visa unless it is within five days of expiring. We don't quite understand the contradiction in this. “Who am I ...” he repeats. Well, he is the Head of Foreigners' Reception in the Addis Abeba immigration office and certainly quite pompous about it, but we agree to come back four weeks later to apply for a visa extension.
The historical circuit around the north of Ethopia, including trekking in the Simien mountains, would easily merit 5 weeks, but the only immigration office is the one in the capital Addis Abeba and tourist visa are only issued for one month.
Thus we had to shorten our planned itinerary, and after 4 weeks we are back at the immigration office. . We receive a waiting number in front of a huge screen showing CNN in silent mode. “Passport photo”, a waitress-type assistant barks. The Polish tourists next to us didn't bring one. “No problem” the assistant assures them and staples our pictures onto our application form. One hour later someone checks our application form and sends us to the Head of Foreigners Reception. “Who am I.....” we hear him talk to some Israelis who now have to change their travel plans completely. After a mere glimpse on our form he sends us to to another pompous official residing in room 78, who gives us back our passport photos, files our cases into the computer and sends us into the next room to pay the visa fees. “Tomorrow, 11 am, room 90!” The whole procedure has taken us almost 3 hours.
We will need the passport tomorrow morning for another visa application, so we head back to room 80 and the pompous official. “I know what you have come to ask me,” he says, “it is about arrh-gent. But I cannot do anything...” “No no,” Natascha doesn't even bother to listen to him, “we just want to ask you whether you can speed things up a bit.” Not surprisingly he cannot.
The next morning, we present ourselves in room 90. “11 am,” a grumpy official thunders and refuses to check whether the visa might already be issued. But this time for a change, after some cheerful small-talk, the who-am-I captain is cooperative. He writes a short note for room 90, and 10 minutes later we clutch the visa extension and rush on to the Djibouti embassy. And yes, we managed to get the Djibouti visa in time.

The Ethiopian Connection

Ethiopia has the best coffee in the world and a number of other highlights.

However, its Internet connections are among the worst in the world.

In nearly two weeks, we haven’t managed to upload a single picture, and we don’t expect this to change in the less touristy regions. Thus, our travel photos will have to wait until February.

Countryside, South – North

 

Moving on slow trains from South to North, we encounter a lot of countryside – not always voluntarily.

 

 

(For more photos from Germany, click here: May/June 2007  May 2008  August/September 2008  October / November 2008  August 2009 October 2009)

 

After a number of unmotivated stops, our train comes to a halt in Uffenheim. Three people disembark. The train does not move. The conductor, a stout man with a red puzzle piece on his lapel and a name badge (P. Roth), is walking up and down the train talking into his phone. “Will you send one?” Finally, he decides to tell us that we are standing still. “Thank you for your patience.” Another ten minutes later, he returns to the microphone for a new announcement: “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention please … An important announcement! Errr… I guess we’ll have to wait for a new locomotive.”

The about 80 passengers have to leave the train and wait behind the station building, because the platforms in Uffenheim are too dangerous to stand while faster trains are passing through. The graffitied waiting room is completely empty except for a waste separation box, and outside the station, no town is to be seen. Two women browse through the leaflets in the room where the ticket window used to be. “Your mobility is close to our heart,” they read out and send everybody laughing hysterically. An hour later the next regular train arrives, and Mr. Roth, now wearing an orange safety vest, leads us all to platform 4. The other train is still standing on platform 3.

"The doors on your right will open. We wish all our guests a pleasant onward journey." A week later, the Metronom to Uelzen arrives punctually and leaves a crowd of passengers on the platform waiting for their connection 15 minutes later. This time, the non-smokers at least would have happily accepted a short delay and less time to spend on the windy, if Hundertwasser-designed platform. But this is where Northern Germany clearly beats the South, usually so smug about their efficiency and competence: The Metronom is not only punctual; the trains also offer snack vending machines and regular seats for commuters, and the staff treat travelers as customers.

 At least this area of the North has better weather, too: with a lot of wind but much sunshine, too. The first frost is on the grass, and Thorsten is earnestly checking whether all his hens are scratching for snacks. They are the veterans – Polly and her friends, last year’s newcomers, have all died this summer. Meanwhile Esmerald the gander is devouring the leftovers from their regular food, the floury stuff that the chickens don’t like. This happens to be the power part of the power food they need because they are still programmed to lay too many eggs.  No wonder then that Esmerald is strutting over the pasture as if the Metronom had been his idea.

A quest for power

(More Mali photos? Click here!)

 

               “Or is the rumour of thy Timbuctoo

               A dream as frail as those of ancient Time?"

               (A. Tennyson, 1829)

The streets are paved with gold, every day there is music and dance. Rich traders have their marvellous houses here, and libraries and dozens of Islamic schools attract students and professors from as far as Cairo.

In the early 19th century, Europe is enthralled by stories of Timbuktu, the legendary caravan town in the West African desert that Non-Muslims are not allowed to enter. In 1824, the French Geographical Society offers a prize of 2000 Francs for the first explorer to reach the town and verify the splendid accounts by Leo Africanicus and other Arab traders. The European fascination with Africa is still strong when two years later the topic set for the Cambridge University poetry prize is Timbuktu. The prize-winner is Alfred Tennyson, then an undergraduate student.

“It’s broken,” the grey-bearded silversmith, who also does repairs of electrical appliances, affirms, pointing to our laptop’s charger. He has tested the electric plug and cord, but repairing the charger itself is beyond him. We start out to explore the “electronics” shops around the market. Most of them only sell torches and radios; some offer us dusty chargers for mobile phones. A lengthy telephone session by the owner of the Internet cafe confirms that there is no charger for a DELL laptop available in Timbuktu.

When the French adventurer Rene Caillie finally reached Timbuktu in 1828, he described it as a run-down village full of dust and crumbling mud houses. Back in France, he was duly awarded the prize by the Geographic Society, but he also attracted resentment by the romanticists for destructing the myth. 25 years later, the German geographer Heinrich Barth validates this observation.

Today Timbuktu still resembles a sprawling village more than a well-established trading hub: It has three paved roads, a hospital and an Internet cafe. In front of the central market, a dark two-storied building, in which old women sell onions and peanut paste, a few kids are playing table football all day long. When we ask for cheese spread in the little shops, the owners repeat hesitatingly “Fomage?” and reach for the Maggi stock cubes.

Exhausted we sink into a Tuareg tent set up on an empty lot in the middle of Timbuktu. Mohammed is pouring tea. “Strong as death” he says as he hands out the first glass, a concoction of half a glass of tea leaves, one glass of sugar and two glasses of water. The second brew, again with a new glass of sugar, is “sweet as life,” and the third one “sugary as love” and practically not drinkable. Mohammed likes the third brew best.

The Tuareg still use camel caravans to conduct the salt trade through the Sahara. From the salt mines in Taoudenni they transport the slabs hundreds of kilometres on the back of rocking camels to towns in Morocco, Mali and Niger. If they are not with the caravan, they earn some extra money by taking tourists out into the desert. We arrange an overnight camel trip with Mohammed and his cousin Mohammed to put the broken charger out of our minds.

Back in Timbuktu, as expected, no charger has materialised, and we spend 12 hours in a crammed 4WD and minibuses going back to Mopti, a bustling market town in Mali’s north, where the salt coming from Timbuktu is reloaded for its final destinations throughout West Africa. We are guided to a small knick knack shop, where the owner hauls out a big plastic bag full of laptop chargers from between pasta machines and musical toys: Hewlett Packard, Toshiba, some never-heard-of Chinese brands, but no charger with the correct output and plug. At a shop called “DEBO Electronic” the object of our desire can be ordered from the main store in Bamako, or so the owner tells us repeatedly for days. “Tomorrow it will be here, no problem! Small mistake, you must understand!” We decide to go back to the capital ourselves, which means that we have to spend another day in a dusty hot bus.

In Bamako we can buy a fitting charger in the second shop we ask for it, our power supply is restored, and we look forward to writing blog entries happily ever after.

Short on food in Northern Senegal

(Click here for more Senegal photos)

At the turn-off to Podor, a village at the banks of the Senegal river, washed-out signs announce half a dozen different organisations with lengthy acronyms: AHMP (Association handicapé motorique de Podor), Maison FED etc. A battered pick-up fitted with benches in the back is waiting for people returning from the market that has been taking place at Tereji, on Senegal’s No 2 Highway. Over the next days we understand why they went all the way to the highway 30 km away to buy food.

After a lengthy walk around town we finally check into the guest room at the Maison de la Femme. The “House of the Woman” once obviously was an ambitious project – a purpose-built meeting place with a large seminar room and guest rooms. A badge on the house wall indicates the formation of a women’s mutual savings association, but the compound is deserted and overgrown now, and the room has not been cleaned for weeks or even months. Furthermore, we have the occasional cockroach as our roommate. The family in charge of the keys – and entitled to receive the rent – lives next door: In a pleasant courtyard Deck chairs are arranged, and a boy just opens a laptop computer.

 Since we are always hungry we venture into the market, which is in full swing: About 20 women in voluptuous robes sell fish. A few others have a bowl of mint leaves placed in front of them or a napkin with small piles of pumpkin or carrot cubes. Each heap of three or for cubes costs about 10 or 20 cents – most buyers apparently can not afford a whole carrot. Shops in the wooden huts around sell onions, potatoes, milk powder and concentrated tomato paste by the spoon. Twice a day the bakery offers fresh and very tasty baguette, but nothing else.

The Muslim holiday of Tabaski is near, and in front of every house and in every courtyard, a sheep or goat is lashed to a withered tree or an old tyre. The next morning, boys are bringing the animals for a bath in the River Senegal. While a little boat ferries passengers in bright orange life vests to Mauritania on the other side, they struggle in pairs to lead their white goats and sheep into the water, scrubbing them vigorously with soap. Men in colourful boubous are walking to the mosque with their sons. Little boys proudly carry their prayer mats. By now, the only free space is in the uncovered street leading up to the mosque, where the Imam is going to cut a sacrificial sheep’s throat. It is a symbolic re-enactment of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaak. When the prayer is over, everybody returns home. In each courtyard there are a few animals awaiting their fate. Pits have already been dug in the soil to take up the blood. In some families, the pater familias does the work himself. If not, young men working in pairs are ready to seize the sheep and quickly draw their freshly sharpened knife across its throat. Children swarm after them, keen to watch but shocked when the blood suddenly spills out. The mother is holding down a dead but still kicking goat when the butchers have long moved to another courtyard. Apart from a woman selling small bananas, the market is deserted today, but the baker sells warm and fresh bread as always.

Because of Tabaski, all transport has stopped,and we were stuck in Podor for three days. We found a much nicer room with balcony on the river side (sometimes even a W-LAN wafted through the air) and lived mainly on bread and bananas until transport started again and we could continue our journey.

From Puerto Natales (Chile) to Bariloche (Argentina) in 54 hours

The main plaza in Bariloche (Click here for more photos from Patagonia)

When we enjoyed three days on the Navimag Ferry sailing to Southern Chile, we did not imagine how difficult and time-consuming it would be to get back to the North on the overland route.
Saturday, 6 am: Our alarm clock rings. We wake up in Puerto Natales, a small town in the far south of Chile.
Saturday, 6:30 am: A number of people are already having breakfast in the Hostal Nancy. Their bus for the Torres del Paine National Park leaves at 7:00 am. We, too, slurp down huge mugs of Nescafe, have some Haalulas (Chilean rolls) with cheese and walk out into the pouring rain in order to catch our bus to Calafate in Argentina.
Saturday, 7:30 am: We take seats number 14 and 15 and sink immediately into a well-practiced bus slumber. After just over an hour this is disrupted by the border formalities when we cross into Argentina and move into the next time zone, losing one hour.
Saturday, 1:50 pm: We have arrived in Calafate and are now researching the possibilities for going north by bus. All the direct buses are booked days in advance.
Saturday, 3 pm: We finally decide on a “combination ticket,” a euphemism for having to change buses and bus companies several times and for having to take a detour. “You can leave your bags here if you want,” offers the attendant. 13 hours to go before the first bus of our combination leaves for Rio Gallegos.
Saturday, 5 pm: The Casablanca offers wireless internet access and a rich delicious chocolate mousse cake. We order our third espresso that comes in white Italian style designer cups but without the Italian taste.
Saturday, 8 pm: We stroll along the main street of Calafate: A casino, three Internet cafes, two supermarkets, about a dozen souvenir shops and some more shops selling outdoor clothes. We have inspected all of them and continue walking up and down now narrowing our dinner choices.
Saturday, 9 pm: We have entered Rick’s for the all-you-can-eat salad buffet. The hunchbacked waiter with his drooping eyelid, ill-fitting suit jacket and a dirty beige frottage towel draped over his left arm looks like a character straight from a Kaurismäki movie. We order a bottle of Argentinian Malbec and heap beetroot and egg salad onto our plates.
Sunday, 1:30 am: A middle-aged couple enters the Café Balcarce for a quick cappuccino. When they have left, we are again the only customers. It was difficult to find a place that would let us use the electricity for our laptop. 
Sunday, 2 am: Some of our fellow travellers have been waiting on the wooden benches in the bus terminal for hours by now. It is rather chilly and, when the last bus offices have turned their lights off, too dark for reading.
Sunday, 2:30 am: “What are you doing here??” an Asian woman sitting on one of the benches cries. We have met Miss Jeong months ago in a backpacker hostel in Costa Rica. She has just returned from Antarctica and enough photos to show and stories to tell to keep us awake.
Sunday, 4 am: The reclining seats in the „Interlagos” bus don’t recline at all, but we fall asleep before the overheated bus has even left the terminal.
Sunday, 8 am: It is still dark and cold when we arrive in Rio Gallegos. Some people have stretched out on the floor, and the crowded waiting area smells of sweat and cheesy feet.  We flee to the overheated cafeteria on the second floor for a morning coffee.
Sunday, 9 am: Our Tramat bus for Comodore Rivadavia leaves. After 30 Minutes, right outside town, the bus stops. For an hour, we wait without any explanation, until finally a police car pulls up, and one of the passengers is called out.
Sunday, 2 pm: A brief stop in Piedra Buena is a welcome opportunity to escape the sweaty black leather seats of the bus and the air-conditioning that switches between freezer and sauna. After the stop we are handed a plastic package containing pressed white triangles filled with yellow and a brownish layers. A cheese and ham sandwich, we figure out, after hearing an elderly Brit behind us complaining about “double bread in the middle.” Luckily, we brought some food. Outside, the same flat landscape of dry grass with occasional ledges of dry grass has been passing for hours. The second hilarious film starts.
Sunday, 9 pm: We arrive one hour late in Comodore Rivadavia. In anticipation of the next bus ride, Isa runs for an open supermarket to stock up our rations.  At the extravagantly scheduled departure time of 22:18, our bus to Bariloche is nowhere to be seen. After another 20 minutes of uncertain waiting, the destination sign of a nearby bus is changed from Rio Gallegos (!) to Bariloche, and we can enter and devour our dinner.
Monday, 8 am: We have to get off the bus at the bleak bus terminal in Esquila for half an hour, still before daybreak.
Monday, 10 am: Two yoghurts and some leftover cheese and soft rolls have to do for breakfast. The coffee available on the bus is a heavily sweetened dark liquid and decidedly not drinkable.
Monday, 1 pm: We arrive in Bariloche (our scheduled arrival time would have been 12:38). We easily find the local bus that goes to the centre of Bariloche, where it takes us only about an hour to find a small holiday apartment with hot shower, kitchen, and well-stocked supermarkets nearby.

Around the Darien Gap

Our Twin Otter arriving in Puerto Obaldía (click here for more Columbia photos)

At 8:30 am, the ground staff at the domestic airport in Panama City still struggles with the Monday morning sleepiness. Only a few indigenous women in colourful skirts and bead accessories and a number of business travellers are waiting for their flights to the San Blas Islands or to David. We are far too early for our flight to Puerto Obaldía, a small settlement deep in the jungles of the Darien gap, near the Colombian border. At the check-in counter a poster showing gas cartridges, oil canisters, rifles and paint buckets informs us that "hazardous items must be properly declared before being taken onto the plane." Susana Ponce, our check-in assistant, is wearing her orange security vest leisurely over one shoulder, an invalid 2007 id and security card for the airport dangling around her neck. We decide not to think too much about the safety procedures at this airport.

In the checked-in waiting area we slump into the dark blue plastic chairs and try to ease our nervousness about the "light aircraft" (the term used on our ticket confirmation) with a free cup of Duncan Highland Instant Coffee. The walls are painted in an non-matching different shade of dark blue and decorated with four tourism promotion posters, all at a disturbingly different height and variation to the right angle. By 9:30, the plane to David has left. All the remaining passengers - a local family in bright blue and neon green shirts, two young Spaniards and couple of solo-travelling men - are like us clutching the heavy plastic boarding passes labelled Panama – Puerto Obaldía.

"To Colombia?" A greying officer in a light yellow shirt beckons some of us to his makeshift desk. In the absence of a proper immigration office at the domestic airport, Miguel Juvirez is doubling as an immigration inspector, noting down our data in a faded ledger. "There are usually five or six people going to Colombia every day that there is a flight to Puerto Obaldía," he willingly answers our questions. "But in the other direction, the plane is always full, and the majority of passengers come from Colombia."

The light aircraft turns out to be a Twin Otter (300 series) with only 20 passenger seats. We take the two front seats, from where we have a free view into the cockpit. It looks rather well-used, and the pilot sets to work as if steering a ride-on mower over a weedy meadow.

In Puerto Obaldía, we land on such a short stretch of tarred road that it seems at first that the plane might run right into the palm trees ahead. Next to the airstrip there is a playground, and a few houses line the only street of the village. "Where do we get our exit stamp?," we ask one of several men standing around. "I will give it to you when the Colombians have given their ok" he answers and tips meaningfully to his red baseball cap. It has "Panama migracion" embroidered on it.

We do the round of offices, consulate, military checkpoint, exit and provisional entry stamps, chat with everyone remotely involved and with the only local woman wearing a T-shirt instead of traditional garb. She misjudges our age by 20 years, and apparently our gender, too. How else should we interpret her question whether there are a lot of effeminate men in Europe?

Then we follow another guy with a red baseball cap and three young local women to the boat that is going to leave for the beach resort of Capurgana in Colombia. A few other passengers have already assembled on the beach where the open outboard motor boat is landed and are wrapping their luggage in large black plastic bags. A sensible precaution, since the sea is rather rough and the one-hour boat ride wet.

The next morning we are waiting for the next boat, which will bring us from Capurgana to the town of Turbo. "Are you speaking Portuguese?," a girl asks us curiously, assuming that we must be Brazilians if she doesn’t understand the language. Sharon has been in Capurgana for a week of snorkelling and beach holidays with her family. In the evening they strolled along picturesque streets lined with juice stalls and jewellery vendors and had dinner in one of the fish restaurants.

Today the waves are even taller, and we sit in the front row of the boat. After ten minutes, the fun part of the rollercoaster effect wears off, and we and the happy holidaymakers behind us fall silent for the next two hours. When we alight in Turbo, we still face a 6-hour bus ride over mostly unpaved roads before we reach Montería, a stop-over for the night. A modern Pullman-bus then brings us to Cartagena: a dreamy walled town on the Caribbean coast, with pastel coloured colonial houses in palm tree-shaded streets. Tropical fruits are sold in veritable mountains from little carts, and tiny cups of coffee are offered at every other corner.

We liked the Caribbean coast of Colombia so much that we stayed on longer than we had planned, including visits to the Tayrona National Park and the beach resort town of Taganga. We have now made our way to Villa de Leyva, only four hours bus ride from the Colombian capital city of Bogotá.

Look at Camera: Procedures For All International Visitors

Frankfurt/Main Airport: Departure Hall

“The computer tells me that I need one more travel document from you.” Sandra Gebhard-Fitzgerald stares at the screen and swipes the passport once more through the reader. We have already handed her all our flight tickets for the next months, but the computer stubbornly insists that something is missing. “Hm… let me get my supervisor,” Sandra finally murmurs helplessly. Next to us, an Eastern European couple is repacking their suitcases, while bored children patiently wait beside their parents in the check-in line. After 5 minutes, the supervisor arrives and takes control of the situation. “No, US immigration won’t let you into the country without a return ticket!” Although we are planning to stay in the US only for a few days and have an onward flight from Bogota, there is apparently a danger that we might overstay the 90-day visa.  “But wouldn’t a prospective illegal immigrant buy a return ticket in the first place?,” we argue, but to no avail.

Half an hour later, we present an (except for the 90 Euro processing fee) 100 per cent refundable and thus absurdly expensive “Houston-Bogota” ticket and are allowed to proceed to the check-in counter. Wearily we mention that we are carrying a petrol camping stove, of course without fuel. We had called Delta Airlines in advance, enquiring about the risk that the stove will be confiscated as a dangerous object. If the stove is cleaned and doesn’t smell of fuel, there should be no problem, the woman at the call centre had assured us, after checking with her supervisor. Today, however, several staff members dealing with our tickets had given us a different answer. “To take a stove? That’s strictly forbidden.” By now we are ready to explode, but luckily the check-in officer is more relaxed. The backpacks, with stove, are wrapped in plastic and disappear in the depths of the airport building, while we worry not only about the ticket refund but also whether we will see the stove again.

In Cincinnati, we have to pass the dreaded immigration. On large posters screaming “Welcome!” and “US-VISIT,” Homeland Security informs us about the “Procedures for All International Visitors”:1. Left Index Finger, 2. Right Index Finger, 3. Look at Camera. “Yes, Officer,” we think, remembering Central Asia, and try not to stick out. Pathetically  the immigration officers have a list of “pledges to the visitors” pinned to their booth. “We pledge to greet you cordially…” Our immigration officer affably comments on his digital snapshots, nobody asks to see our return tickets, and we get a 90-day visa for the US without any further problems.

Beyond immigrations, we have to haul our backpacks through customs before we can check them in again for the local onward flight.  Long queues of passengers file to the x-ray machines, where they patiently remove their jackets, belts, purses, shoes and nearly everything else. Progress is slow because only a few airport officers are busy scanning too many passengers. “Ladies and gentlemen, let me have your attention! The reason why you are being subjected to this screening is that you have had access to your check-bags,” a bully security staff roars, and the passengers further lower their heads like prisoners submitting to punitive measures after a revolt.

By the time we have arrived in Houston and returned our onward tickets, the airport is quite deserted. It is nearly 8pm, and only a few employees board the public bus towards downtown with us. Nearly all of them are black. When we change into Houston’s only tram line, again nearly all the passengers are black, and most are visibly poor. Although a city of 2 million, Houston looks like a never-ending industrial district without much of a centre.

“We did it!” Two middle-class women in starched blouses congratulate each other on taking the tram to the Museum of Fine Arts. Besides the fabulous permanent collection, we visit the “Red Hot” special exhibition dominated by very kitsch Chinese pop art. The excellent technical execution of the Chinese works largely obliterates their tameness. While the commentaries try to link the art objects with political issues in China, we notice, just as we did in Beijing, that none of the artists working in the PRC (and so visibly exhibited) dares to criticise the current situation. Visiting the magnificent Menil Collection and the interreligious Rothko Chapel, where progressive talks and meditations are held, we found that there’s much more to Houston than the Mr. B’s.

Nice Weekend

(For more Germany photos, click here: 2007, May 2008, August / September 2008, October / November 2008.)

“Letzter Halt: Osnabrück“ roars the automatic announcement through the local train. This train ends in Osnabrück. “Halt” can also mean “support”. Osnabrück as our last remaining support? Sceptically we watch the small number of people get off the nearly empty train.

It is not only the local train between Münster and Osnabrück that seems deserted. We are surprised that few people travel by train in Germany, not only during the day but also on evenings and weekends. Regular train tickets have become far too expensive for anyone in their right mind to go to the station and just buy a ticket on a whim. “A flight costs half as much and is twice as fast” our friends tell us. As we have more time than most people, we make use of cheap train offers such as the “Nice Weekend” ticket that allows unlimited travel on local trains for a whole day (only on weekends). This way, the journey from Cologne to Berlin took us 9 hours on 5 different trains, but even the discount airlines can’t beat the price of 33 Euro for both of us.

Our fellow travellers on the local trains are amazingly friendly, considerate, and occasionally even talkative. “That’s 5 Euro, then.” Wolli is standing in the aisle and turning to a passenger wanting to pass through. He and his friends are on a day excursion to the Zoo in Münster. It is 11 o’clock in the morning and they just had a few cups of red wine mixed with Fanta. “I’ll pay on my way back,” the old lady grins and shoves him aside.

We had expected more of a culture shock – Germans having a reputation of being stiff and dull – but our friends remind us that it’s summer, and that people are more relaxed and friendly now.

Relaxed is also the predominant attitude to alcohol. The Rhein-Ruhr Transport Agency has noticed the same. “We want all our customers to feel comfortable in our trains. Alcohol and warm meals are now prohibited on all our trains.” Nevertheless, on Saturday night, half of the tram passengers swing their beer bottles, shouting at each other or their dogs, or fall asleep in their seats, snoring. At town festivals, every overheard order of “another Caipi” makes us cringe. It seems that almost seven months in Islamic countries have made us quite sensitive to the public consumption of alcohol and its unpleasant effects.

We also see more women wearing headscarves, and more men sporting knitted skull-caps and prophet style beards. But perhaps they have always been there, and it is only us who failed to notice them before.

We indulge in German food – quark, white asparagus, poppy seed and nut pastries – and have to browse through every large bookshop. Whereas printed information is available in abundance, we have difficulties to get online for the first time since we left Japan. Public hot-spots are obscenely expensive, and private wireless networks are habitually password-protected. In the Internet cafés, we often search in vain for a USB slot to up- or download information. “We had that for a while, but then people stuck chewing gum into the USB slots, so we gave it up,” an attendant tells us.

Well, if everything fails, we can always return to Osnabrück (with the “Nice Weekend” ticket) to claim that last support.

On Hold in Cairo

 

The Nile at Maadi (Cairo) (click here for more Egypt photos)

 

 

“How long have you been waiting?” smiles Sayed, our contact man in the Libyan embassy. “Only three-and-a-half hours – no problem,” we smile back. “Three-and-a-half weeks,” we think and try not to let the tension show. Sayed then produces our passports and incredulously, we stare at the 10-day transit visa.

“At most we will give you five days!” he had said almost four weeks ago, when we handed in our visa application. Since then, we have time and again come back to Zamalek, a leafy island on the Nile in the centre of Cairo, where the Libyan embassy is situated. It has neither a sign in English nor does it show the Libyan flag, and we recognized it only thanks to the posters of Colonel Kaddafi with his characteristic old-fashioned sunglasses.

Two pharaonic guardsmen in short blue-golden skirts stand at the entrance of a building society next to the Libyan embassy. Both are made from plaster, and one is facing backwards, towards the wall. The real guards are drinking tea. We have decided to ask our own embassy for a note verbale (a letter of recommendation) to increase our chances of getting a visa, and now we are back to re-enforce our application. “Come back in two weeks!” Sayed doesn’t even imply that we might get a visa then. In fact, he never implies anything.

Two weeks later, no answer has been received from Tripoli yet regarding our admittance. This is obviously not a good sign, but is it necessarily a bad one? At least we could obtain a mobile phone number along with the permission to call again the day after tomorrow. On the way back to our hotel in downtown Cairo we pass the Opera House and on a whim buy tickets for the evening performance: “Zenobia, Queen of the Desert” staged by a Syrian dance company. The story of the two-hour ballet is quite difficult to follow, even with an English synopsis, but we feel tremendously metropolitan. Afterwards there is a buffet reception. Eating our way through potato pies and toxic-looking green meringues we watch the Cairene elite. Ladies in elegant costumes try not to spoil their fur jackets while dipping strawberries and marshmallows into the chocolate fountain that has been set up in the lobby. Although we know nobody in Cairo we move through the crowd eagerly looking for acquaintances, as everybody does, hoping that our traveller trousers and faded shirts will not stick out too much.

Since we have ample of time we visit a lot of mosques and madrasas. At the Mosque of Mohammed Ali, two veiled women take photos of each other with their mobile phones. They have climbed over the chains fencing off the Qibla wall and are posing in front of the carved wooden Minbar. A young man is lying on the carpet in the middle of the mosque, trying to photograph the green and golden dome and the hundreds of lamps. Outside, groups of schoolchildren are marched to the next attractions on the citadel hill: The carriage museum and the mamluk An-Nasim Mosque.

Two days later still no news from Tripoli. On the verge of a nervous breakdown we consider flying straight to Tunis. An employee at Utopia Travel suggests the cheap “Mother’s Day Special tomorrow - just two seats left!“ But instead we take a bus to Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast.

“I’m sorry, the system seems to be down,” apologises the young woman at the help desk, where we enquire after books about Libya. The new Bibliotheca Alexandrina aspires, in memory of the ancient library of Alexandria, to become one of the leading libraries in the region, if possible in the world. Most of the shelves are still empty, and the handful of readers sitting at the pleasantly arranged reading desks are far outnumbered by tourists who are led to the best viewpoints on level F2.

A few days later, when we call the Libyan embassy, Sayed is in high spirits: “Natascha, how are you? We received invitation from Tripoli! Bring your passport!” Again we rush back to Cairo. This time we are even allowed to pay the visa fees and leave the embassy, moderately hopeful, with a tiny slip of paper that seems to be our receipt for the passports and visa fees.

Two more days in Cairo. Time to visit more museums, mosques and bookshops and to feel the pulse of this large city. At night, the streets of downtown that were just stinking thoroughfares for ramshackle taxis during the day liven up. Families, gangs of young men, and groups of giggling girls push each other between the T-Shirt and underwear stalls that have been set up at dusk. Droves of people gather around the street window of the famous Kuweider bakery, everyone holding up their receipts and shouting their favourite ice-cream flavour at the shop assistants: “Mango and Cassata! Vanilla and Hazelnut!” All around, satisfied customers are smiling and obliviously licking their ice-cream. Then they return to shopping.

When we returned to the Libyan embassy we finally got our visas. We are now at Marsah Matruh near the border and plan to enter Libya tomorrow.

”I wants house!?”

  (click here for more Syria photos)
“Telephone, washing machine, satellite TV, two bedrooms and salon.” Ahmad translates what the two slick young agents explain about the flat we are going to see. Rents of between 400 and 500 Dollars are discussed, far more than we are prepared to spend, but this is the best that Ahmad could find so far. He works in a real estate office in the modern part of Damascus.

We had spent one hour asking around for a real estate agency until someone showed us into a dimly lit office. A few middle aged men were hanging around, smoking and talking. One of them, wearing a woollen cap and a leather jacket, was apparently the boss. “I wants house?” we ask hesitantly in Arabic. “Lâ mushkilla, no problem” he assures and waves us towards a black leather sofa. “Aleppo? Hama? Homs? Damascus?” Yet when he continued to make driving wheel gestures we figured that this was a car rental office or perhaps something entirely different. So after about 20 minutes of fruitless “conversation” we thanked politely and left. To our relief, we met Ahmad in another real estate office, just a few meters down the road. “Of course,” he answered our question whether he spoke English.

The flat is in the central part of Damascus, 4 floors up in a dark and grimy staircase. Two teenage boys show us – Ahmad, the two local agents, and the two prospective tenants – around the flat. The first room is cramped with an iron bedstead, two 1960s sofa beds, and a huge refrigerator. By contrast, the furniture of the salon consists only of a green carpet, about twelve chairs upholstered in cheap green chintz and lined along the wall, and a cabinet with the TV. Satellite, of course. A huge double bed with a pink bedspread completely fills the remaining room. The kitchen – with a gas oven and dishwasher – is encrusted in soot and dirt, and one disgusted glimpse into the bathroom is enough for us.

In the past few days we have seen several similar dark and dirty lodgings. At the moment flats are difficult to come by in Damascus as an estimated three million refugees from Iraq have streamed into Syria. Half of them stay in Damascus, willing to share a flat like this among several families.

While Ahmad promises to keep his eyes open for us, we leave in a hurry to be in time for our meeting with Ghazwan, a private Arabic teacher. “If you want to study with me, you have to stay in Southern Damascus, near my house,” he insists. A few phone calls and ten minutes later we have an appointment to see another flat the next morning.

Although it is in the basement and rather dark, it is better than we had come to expect. “We will clean up and fix everything,” the landlord Fîraz promises. The rent seems to be fair enough and we like the neighbourhood, so we decide to move in.

Now, one week later, the oil stove is still not fixed, but we have nonetheless settled into  some of our too-many rooms (two bedrooms, salon, dining room, kitchen and bathroom, front- and backyard). Around us, the festivities for the big Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha – that included slaughtering lots of sheep and eating mountains of sweets – are ebbing away, so there is hope for a repair of the stove. Our Arabic lessons with Ghazwan are progressing, and we enjoy cooking vegetarian dinners and making delicious Arabian coffee with cardamom.

 

 

 

It’s a Traveller’s life

“Oh, have you found the yoghurt?” “No, I think this word means “fat” – 28% can’t be yoghurt… I guess it’s some sort of sour cream… But wait, this one ends in ‘–oni’! Matsoni is yoghurt, isn’t it?”
We spend hours in supermarkets pondering over contents lists in strange languages trying to figure out if there is gelatine in the yoghurt or beef extract in the vegetable can. And that is supermarkets. In Central Asia we usually had to start by finding out where the Green Bazaar (the food bazaar) was. Where are the three shops with refrigerator that might sell cheese? What is the normal price for a kilo of apples in this town? Could we possibly buy less than a kilo of salt somewhere? Shopping is one of the things that take more time than we thought. Other time-consuming activities are:
·    Editing photos
·    Finding an open post office that sells stamps
·    Writing a travel diary
·    Staring at the map in the guide-book trying to remember the layout of city XY (never try to find a hotel with the Lonely Planet in your hands, or you forfeit your bargaining option and are prey to every tout and taxi driver.)

In the Soviet style hotels in Central Asia, every floor has a floor lady who guards the keys and may or may not hand out toilet paper and extra blankets, depending on her mood. One morning in Taraz, Isa ventured into the floor lady’s room to ask for hot water to make us some coffee (well, instant coffee). The rusty old kettle was not on, but another hotel guest, a lady with a single hair curler in her fringe, was just walking away, presumably fetching water for the kettle. After a short while she came back with a shiny new electric kettle and gestured towards Isa to fetch water. Meanwhile, a stout woman in a morning gown appeared with her cup and a used tea-bag. She turned out to be one of fringe-curler’s room-mates who wanted an extra cup after the group had returned the borrowed electric kettle. [….] 20 minutes later, when our coffee was ready, we knew all the guests on the second floor.
The next day, we bought a tiny immersion heater “made in Taiwan” that takes just over two minutes to make a cup of hot water. It cost only 60 cent and is an addition to our luggage we don’t want to do without anymore, although we now sometimes spend our time holding a cup of water close to the only socket in the room that is high up in the wall.
Some other things we came to like or find very useful and that now fill our backpacks:
·    “Islamic Architecture” by Robert Hillenbrand, an extensive (and heavy) book about medieval Islamic architecture that makes visiting mosques and madrasas a delight
·    A pink clothesline, 5 pegs and a bar of curd soap (cleaner and easier to use than washing powder)
·    A box of mosquito coil
·    Red adhesive tape to seal open food packages or cheap envelopes without a self-adhesive strip
·    One of those typical German cotton bags (“Kiepert – Bücher für alle“)
·    Leather wax for our hiking boots
·    Ziploc freezer bags for our tea and coffee
·    Salt and pepper, oat meal, raisins and nuts (for breakfast in hotel rooms).

Although we love (almost) every day of our travel, there are of course a few things we do not like about travelling. We miss to cook our own food (and compromise by self-catering a lot) and yearn for good conversations with other people. Many of the travellers we have met tend to talk about how cheaply they managed to stay, where, and for how long. “And the people were so friendly!” We earn astonished looks when we mention corruption, dictators, or political discontent that may not be immediately visible. Perhaps we do miss political science, after all (although not work!).
Unlike travellers during the 19th and 18th century who could load their travel library on five camels, we had to think about different solutions. We had prepared some books and photocopies to be sent poste restante to post offices along the way. So far everything has arrived. For the first part of the journey (China, Central Asia, and Turkey) we have taken a lot of articles and excerpts on file. In addition, we download information from the Internet about the sights we are going to visit or we have visited. When there’s a chance to buy an interesting book (rare enough so far) we do. And again the backpacks get heavier and we start looking for an open post office to send one of the read books to Germany…