The plan had been a simple one. A one-way flight to Miami at the beginning of January, where I would spend a week or so marvelling at Art Deco architecture and exploring one of the world’s leading street art scenes. Perhaps a couple of weeks making my way down US Route 1 all the way …
[FIRST PUBLISHED 24.07.2016] A grand total of more than 21,000km travelled on public transport across an entire continent was always going to generate individual journeys that were more momentous than their eventual destination. Here are six of the best, and worst of this African Odyssey… 1: It can’t be done, they said. Meh, I said. …
[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 15.07.2016] 24 – 24 – 14 – 24 – 24 -85 – 1.33 – 14 – 949 – 2,907 – 991 – 4,475 – 134 – 29 – 8 – 12* One of the great masochistic pleasures of multi-country travel lies in the complex intricacies of currency conversion and the arithmetic pitfalls that …
[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 23.06.2016] And so it was that the last night of my second African chapter was spent in a Cairo dive bar in the company of a Ghanaian/Egyptian IT technician and a Kuwaiti prostitute. Both were off duty, unfortunately for me as I was rather hoping to get a minor bug fixed on my …
[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 26.03.2016] Power cut. Cold shower. No Wi-Fi. As warm embraces go, Mama Africa might have tried a little harder when welcoming me back to her bosom, particularly after twenty hours of travel, two entirely sleepless flights and a 6am layover from hell in the zombie wasteland ghetto fleapit masquerading as Addis Ababa International …
[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 21.02.2016] “The King, officer. Where is the King?” We are at a crossroads of dirt tracks somewhere in Eastern Swaziland and the last signpost to the Hlane Royal Residence was 27km back. With no map and two South African marijuana smugglers driving us in their battered bakkie, the chances of success in this …
[ORIGINALLY POSTED 22.01.2016] The time draws nigh. Disappointed by the non-manifestation of my much anticipated midlife crisis one entire year after my 40th birthday, and without the financial or legal means to acquire an appendage-extending Porsche 911, I have decided to take the matter into my own hands. So goodbye job of 14 years, au …