An update

The last four months in Africa have been intense.

I kept asking myself if I was getting old or if the travel was really, really hard. Thankfully a few other travellers I encountered let me know it wasn't me but the conditions under which we were travelling that made it so difficult to relax for at least a day after getting out of the latest overstuffed ground transportation. I suppose you can't really expect a completely tarmacked, pot hole free road or car that doesn't lose a tire on the road or flip over or break down in the world's third and fourth poorest countries.

Most of my Africa posts will be written in hindsight I think. Internet was extremely difficult to come by...actually, let me rephrase that, an internet connection that WORKED was extremely difficult to come by.

The same goes for good food. I guess this explains why there are no great Malian, Gambian, Ghanian or Togolese restaurants back home. The Lebanese saved my hungry ass quite a few times. Thank God for felafel and hamburgers! It seems that our Arab friends have set themselves up quite comfortably in West Africa. There's a whole sub-culture of Lebanese people everywhere from Senegal to Togo. They run restaurants (thank the Lord once again for that) and grocery stores and generally stay away from the local population.

Travel plans have changed as some of you are aware. No longer will I be roaming the vast expanse of foodless Africa where the people are the kindest I've encountered in the world and the poverty breaks your heart like in no other place. A place were you pay 30 bucks a night for dirty low end hotel rooms and five to ten bucks a meal for a piece of chicken that consists of skin and bones with plain rice. This is the continent in which we had a tire pop off our car on a highway, where four by fours flipped on sand dunes on our way to Timbuktu, where we drove into an ambush on a deserted highway in the middle of the night and walked away unrobbed and unharmed.



We arrived in Mexico last week and spent an amazing week eating our way through the street stalls in the countries capital city. Here is a little review of what I've consumed in the last 7 days. I must say that my favorite thing, corn with lime and chili, is not pictured. I could never hold the damn thing in my hands without immediately devouring it.

Other than that I spotted a penis plant* and then one night we got the royal treatment from the Mexican police. We left with our wallets 30 bucks lighter for holding open containers walking down a dark, dark street. I suppose that's better than being kidnapped by them and held for ransom. We assumed drinking in public would be okay as we had just watched a very drunk cleaning crew holding large bottles of tequila being serenaded by mariachis in a public square.

I should be in Guatemala by next Monday ready to start my Spanish language instruction before making it by road down to Peru. Clearly, this is not what I expected of my travels this year but it is definitely what I want and am looking forward to.

*there was no real proper segway to that statement but I have a picture!