roel krabbendam
Here's a synopsis of my trips to date (click on the trip names to the right to get all the postings in order):
Harmattan: Planned as a bicycle trip through the Sahara Desert, from Tunis,...

Fun in the Sun
Grand Canyon Village, United States
The letter from the National Park Service accompanying our permit suggested we were fools to be hiking in the Grand Canyon in May. Something about the heat. Salient quotes:
“May through June is a time when hikers have traditionally headed to the mountains. You have chosen to hike in the desert at the hottest and most dangerous time of the year. In order to survive you must limit the amount of time that you are exerting in the direct sunlight. This is done by walking in the cooler hours near dawn and dusk and also by walking at night. Do not underestimate the intensity of the 9am desert sun".
Well...we didn't really pay attention to that at first...
“Start your hike well before sunrise. Plan on reaching your destination by 9am. Rest in the shade between 9 AM – 4PM. Plan your hike to accommodate this siesta”.
Blew that off too, at first.
“Your body expends tremendous energy while hiking and trying to stay cool. Doubling your calorie intake helps to maintain your energy. Eat double the amount you normally would.”
Eating has never been a problem, personally.
“[The Clear Creek Trail] is the only trail traversing the Tonto Platform on the north side of the Colorado River. Because the slope is south-facing, the hike from Bright Angel Campground to Clear Creek is warmer than most trails in the fall and spring, and is nearly impassible during the summer months.”
We routinely ignored this kind of language when we were younger...and you're only as old as you feel, right? Wrong.
“The nine mile stretch from Phantom Ranch to Clear Creek is south facing and consequently is in the sun from sunrise to sunset. Expect neither shade nor water for the entire length of the trail. During spring, summer, and fall months it is best to hike this trail in the extremely early morning or in the evening.”
Well. we'll get to that.
I drove up to Phoenix, picked up David at the airport, and we drove north to Flagstaff. The Sonoran Desert gave way to conifers and the temperature dropped 10 degrees. At a final stop for food and supplies we found our permit, that permit we had applied for, and paid for, and been admonished by the National Park Service to have with us at all cost or face punitive consequences…that permit, had been left lying on David’s desk in Nashua, New Hampshire. For this, fortunately for us, we have fax machines and helpful wives.
We spent the first night car camping at Mather Campground near the rim, amid families and college students, eating steak, drinking wine, taking stock, packing up.
Mather Campground
written by  roel krabbendam on May 9, 2009 from Grand Canyon Village, United States
from the travel blog: Heat

Begin
Tucson, United States
We get a call about a possible architectural project, I hop a flight to Tucson to, you know, "take a meeting", and three days later after a veritable orgy of client decisiveness, I'm booked on a flight to Bhutan where I will nominally join a pre-arranged tour group. I have just enough time to buy some T shirts, a new electrical transformer and plug converter, and a junky novel for the plane ride. It's a long one.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 28, 2015 from Tucson, United States
from the travel blog: Bhutan

Expectations and preconceptions
Boston, United States
Results of a year spent reading up on Africa:
1. I will meet:
kidnappers ("Niger captors threaten to kill Italians:radio", Reuters, 25 August 2006)
child soldiers (www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/features/childrensrights)
drug smugglers ("Austrian tourists missing in Sahara", BBC News, 5 April 2003)
voodoo worshipers ("Is Voodoo a force for good or bad?", BBC 1 January 2006)
snakes, scorpions, mosquitoes and flies (The Great Sahara, Wellard)
2. I can buy:
contraband meteorites (www.saharamet.com/meteorite/data/sahara/nwa/html)
children ("Shameless Star Buys African Souvenir", NYPost, 12 October 2006)
3. I can't buy:
uranium ("What I Didn't Find in Africa", NYTimes, 6 July 2003)
4. I can sell:
hazardous waste ("UN Warning on E-Waste Mountain", BBC News, 27 November 2006)
...should be good.
written by  roel krabbendam on December 14, 2006 from Boston, United States
from the travel blog: Harmattan

Reindeer?
Boston, United States
The three of us are exhausted, school and work and house renovations taking their toll. We race separately to the airport from different directions, the girls and I, and meet at the Icelandair desk just an hour before the flight to Reykjavik. A somewhat disapproving young woman assigns us the stinky seats next to the rear toilets, but we fall asleep immediately upon settling into the plane, completely beyond caring. We feel triumphant to have made it at all.
Beautiful stewardesses sternly serve dinner, efficient but unfortunately disapproving, their bustle waking us just in time to snag a meal of reindeer stew, crab salad and a chocolate chip brownie. The reindeer is slightly odd but would have passed as unidentifiable mystery meat were it not for another passenger, who felt it was…not the best reindeer she had ever had. Polly and Mia pass me their crab salad to finish (reindeer AND crab???), Mia drapes herself over us, and we all go back to sleep. We wake up again on the approach to Reykjavik, wondering if we missed breakfast.
Note to Icelandair: Hold the reindeer.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 24, 2007 from Boston, United States
from the travel blog: Heaven

"C"
Framingham, United States
We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it. ~John Steinbeck, America and Americans
The letter for today, Elmo, is the letter C.
To the Romans it meant 100, but I’m thinking more about Consuming Caffeine and Copious Quantities (Cheating a bit there with the Q, I know) of Cholesterol, in Cheap Cafes, Cruising Cross-Country, in a Convertible (Car, not Castro…), to see Canyons, and Cactii…I originally named this trip Cholesterol, but I’m really thinking about Change. Colossal Change. After 10 years on the east coast, we are moving to tuCson.
Arizona.
No C. This essay would work so much better if we were moving to Connecticut, with 3.
We’ll be living near my mother and my brother. Otherwise, what’s the point in having them? My top secret master plan is to build a compound and install my entire family around me, so that later, when I’m older and even grouchier there will be lots of kids available to keep me focused on something other than my impending demise.
Thinking strategically here, people: focusing on the future.
What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
Among other reasons for leaving our life here behind is a sinking feeling that our efforts to get ahead left us simply elsewhere in a maze of corridors all the same. It is an awkward kind of security, knowing too much about tomorrow. For all of our striving with time ticking by, one place looks and feels exactly like the last, each day the same, no sense whatsoever of progress beyond an accumulation of gray hair. We suffered from a diminution of hope, a hardening of our habits, a clotting of our vital juices, a cholesterol of the psyche.
Hope requires faith in the possibility of change, and change is what we’re betting on to restore our trust in the future. It seems slightly archaic or simply naïve to believe in change, as if we wouldn’t be dealing with ourselves whether we moved or not. Perhaps this is a way, on the other hand, not to find ourselves but to lose ourselves, or to get beyond ourselves: to fuss less in any case about our own nest and pay more attention to the horizon…and what better place, than the wide open space, of the wild, walmart west? West, with no C.
For Sale. $399,800. Acton’s original 1798 Schoolhouse. Now 3 bedrooms and 1½ baths.
The schoolhouse is right on the town common, and the town mows the front yard.
The Town Hall and the Library are right down the street.
The schools are some of the best in the state.
Good bye.
written by  roel krabbendam on July 24, 2007 from Framingham, United States
from the travel blog: Spare Change

Change of Pace
New York, United States
Traveling by bicycle provides ample time for observation and reflection, and affords contact with a rich panoply of individuals that alas, a car immediately denies you. That satisfying “cha-hungk” of the driver’s side door, so carefully considered by car manufacturers, seals you like Tupperware behind the windshield, whether your top is up or down. It is the secret source, I suspect, of that peculiarly American shallow over-friendliness, a sure sign of isolation.
We are in a lime green Saab convertible traveling typically between 60 and 90 Miles per hour, a speed friendly to feline wildlife found not at all on this continent, and to fellow citizens in air conditioned Continentals. It lends itself not at all to casual contact.
We will see what we can nevertheless, even if it ends up a mere flip book of shots through the windshield, and I will rely a little more on what others have written: Bernard-Henri Levy with his peculiarly French musings on everything American, (American Vertigo, c2007, Random House), and Michael Eric Dyson on New Orleans leached of its poor (Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster, c2007, Basic Civitas).
written by  roel krabbendam on July 24, 2007 from New York, United States
from the travel blog: Spare Change

Haute Cuisine
Los Angeles International Airport, United States
Sit on a plane long enough, this starts to look great!
The flight to Los Angeles dips down out of a liquid blue sky into that gross sepia yellow Summer fog perennially smothering the California coast, we get left in some remote terminal and shuttle to the main building, and then we endure hilariously bad signage to finally find the Bradley International terminal and the flight to Osaka. All the available seats at the gate are marked handicapped and I occupy two of them without embarrassment. Actually, I walk to the wrong gate and try to figure out why I’m not on the flight before realizing my mistake and then occupying the handicapped seats at the correct gate.
It is an hour layover, and I read my junky novel until the flight is called. A small stab of jealousy hits me as one guy in jeans simply saunters through the business class entry, no luggage or anything, as if he does this every day, this flying half-way across the world. As I step through myself however, this same guy flashes a badge and tells me to come with him. It’s the handicapped seating police! Busted!
It turns out he’s drug enforcement, along with an incredibly large black man standing there with his arms folded, and I apparently fit the profile for drug or money smuggling into Japan. It's a fact: I attract police attention wherever I go. I've met some of the nicest cops though, in just about every country I wander into. I’m so surprised by the takedown that I can’t remember the answers to his questions: how much money do I have, where am I going, am I a permanent resident, what's my name…tough questions like that. I’m sure he’s still wondering if he should have let this idiot go.
The flight is 12 hours, 3 movies, 125 pages of technical reading and 60 pages of techno-thriller long, plus two meals and a lot of green tea and water. Very nice Mocha chip ice cream, rather tasteless rice pudding topped with scallions and shrimp, and no crunch at all to the croissant. The Chicken was good, the coffee wasn’t. A mixed bag from a culinary perspective.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 28, 2015 from Los Angeles International Airport, United States
from the travel blog: Bhutan

Mister Blister
Phantom Ranch, United States
Top of the South Kaibob Trail
Reassuring us that a faxed permit would suffice, the ranger shrugged at our concerns about heat. "Shouldn't be a problem for a couple of tough guys like you". I'll have to have a talk with that guy. Checking that out, in any case, gave us a late start. We left the car in a lot, took a shuttle to the rim, and threw ourselves down the South Kaibob Trail.
The Colorado River, photo: David Boothby
I thought a big canyon might make hiking dull, the view never changing, no unfolding vistas, a monotony however picturesque. Well, that was simply ridiculesque. The hike down through strata of reds, tans and greys, the terrain sometimes steep and other times not, the sun arcing slowly from right to left, and the ever rising temperature and pain in my feet all made the experience quite...vivid.
The Colorado River and Phantom Ranch from the South Kaibob Trail, photo: David Boothby
Like driving nails into your feet might be considered vivid. Just one pair of socks was definitely a stupid mistake, and I should have known better. Near the end of the day I felt like I was walking on a waterbed, the blisters were that monstrous...only the pain felt more like walking on hot coals. Hot sun above, overheated rocks radiating the torso, hot coals below...you get the idea.
Tunnel and Bridge to Phantom Ranch (Bottom of South Kaibab Trail)
After we finally hit bottom, walked the tunnel, crossed the bridge, soaked our bodies, pitched the tent, ate some dinner, treated the blisters and unpacked the gear, a herd of deer gracefully grazed right through the camp area, the only sound a bristle of fur, a rustle of grass, a snapping of twig. Then silence.
Bright Angel Campground at Phantom Ranch
Two kids recently jumped into the Colorado from the bridge, and have not been seen since. A sign read "Danger! Falling Rocks!
written by  roel krabbendam on May 10, 2009 from Phantom Ranch, United States
from the travel blog: Heat

Heat
Clear Creek Campground, United States
When I was younger the sun was a beautiful thing. Radiation, Desiccation, Dehydration, Carcinoma: they meant nothing to me. Nothing to the point that I would spend 1978-79 riding my bicycle around Europe and Morrocco without hat or sunscreen, roasting my lumpy little nose until the skin there toughened to a red crust that flaked and hardened and lifted away from the subdural structure and it felt like I was wearing a mask. I get queasy thinking about it.
Information has made my relationship to the sun has more complex.
Nonetheless, we left Phantom Ranch too late and with insufficient water, and we didn’t figure that out until it was too late to turn back. We wasted precious and cool morning hours as I dealt with my disastrous blisters and tried to decide whether we should postpone continuing for a day. Then, an hour into the hike, after climbing the 1200 feet out of the shade and onto the Tonto platform, the sun hitting us like a fever and already well into the first water bottle, we found two bottles we had forgotten to fill. A couple of cute girls distracted us as we were filling up at the communal pump before the hike, pathetically confirming all of your male stereotypes. You’re welcome.
No Shade (The Tonto Platform) photo: David Boothby
The 9 miles to Clear Creek Campground were advertised as shade and water-free, and that was very close to the truth. The heat slowed us down and wiped us out. A couple of large boulders along the way offered shade and kept us going for several hours, but we finally collapsed under a tiny overhang in a dry wash, literally digging ourselves in, still miles from our destination and with less than a pint of water each. David’s assessment: “We are FU#K%D”.
He’s rarely so pithy.
Sitting still meant drying up, but the withering fatigue paralyzed us. We moved our stuff under a rocky overhang further down the wash, and slept some, and ate, and lethargically debated exactly how far we had to go, and whether we should wait for nightfall. We wondered why, exactly, we hadn’t brought a map. Something about just hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and taking a right…What little shade we had managed shrank as concern and dehydration argued for action, and finally we dragged ourselves up, and hit the trail. My legs quivered, and though I tried to ration my last bit of water it didn't last long. I guess we were 52 year old guys who hadn't quite gotten the hang of that yet, relying on what we knew about our younger selves, reaffirming any other masculine stereotype you were hanging onto. Glad to help.
Lucky I had blisters from yesterday. Big frigging blisters with a lot to say. Nagging blisters. BITCHY blisters. Mountains of throbbing pus all over my aching feet blisters.
Useful distraction from the lack of water.
The conversation with my feet went on for an hour and forever, the sun really got down to business, we saw no more large boulders, but we did not stop until we finally looked down on Clear Creek Campground and found another little hole to crawl into. No more water, and two miles down off the plateau to the creek: at our pace it would take us an hour or more. 20 minutes of further dessication and we started down, two raisinettes in boots and blisters, down a steep and narrow set of switchbacks across dark red dirt on a south-facing slope that had been baking all day.
Clear Creek Campsite
written by  roel krabbendam on May 11, 2009 from Clear Creek Campground, United States
from the travel blog: Heat

Death by Itinerary
Osaka, Japan
Osaka is leaden grey and so is the Fancy airport terminal.
this flight is just crazy long
Mercifully, there’s free wifi and a set of plugs to recharge the laptop and the phone. Hideously, my layover is 6 hours long.
way at the end there...starbucks...beckoning even here...
Mostly I walk laps down the terminal’s length, all the way down to Starbucks, then all the way back, past Hermes, Gucci, Chanel, Mont Blanc, Ferragamo, Bottega-Venetto, Zegna, Omega, Cartier, Rolex, Tiffany, Burberry, Coach and Duty-Free and Victoria’s Secret. Past café’s and restaurants and self-serve automats and money changers. Also very nice single occupant bathrooms with automatic sliding doors, intended I suppose for the handicapped. It’s a theme. The truth is, with no language I am handicapped.
I’m dozing off as I write this and slightly paranoid I’ll miss my flight because of it. Do I sit down at that restaurant and try some local sake? I have this niggling feeling I'll fall asleep, the thought of missing my next flight so disturbing I just keep walking. 26 hours awake: this is death by itinerary.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 28, 2015 from Osaka, Japan
from the travel blog: Bhutan

Youth
Reykjavik, Iceland
The airport is just as we remember it from previous trips: modern and inspiring. We are surrounded by tall, beautiful people speaking unintelligibly, wander through tilting stone and glass terminals to customs and passport control, and enter the European Union.
Actually, it's not the European Union but the "Wengen" group of countries, who seem to have a customs agreement. The customs security personnel look impossibly young to have any responsibility, suggesting that I’ve become impossibly old. We buy bottled water on a credit card (still have no idea what Iceland uses for currency) and board a flight to Amsterdam.
Our seats are slighly further from the toilets. We fall asleep yet again.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 24, 2007 from Reykjavik, Iceland
from the travel blog: Heaven

Minor indignities
Paris, France
7 hours in a dark cabin feeling the blood flow cease to your legs, eyes closed but unable to sleep, simply waiting: to arrive, to start, to cease simply imagining this trip. I remember a time when flying fascinated me, and I could sleep on a flight. No more.
Air France charged me $125 extra to send my bicycle. Could have been worse...
The TSA allows one quart-size clear plastic ziplock bag filled with containers each holding no more than 3 ounces of liquid, as long as this bag is not concealed. A tube of Tom’s toothpaste holds 6 ounces: who knew? They confiscate my toothpaste in Boston, and to get my sunblock through I go through the entire routine twice.
Dinner menu:
1. Supreme de poulet au paprika
2. Haricots verts
3. Pommes de terre a la lyonnaise
4. Camembert
5. Gateau avoine-raisin
6. Vin rouge
I watch a French movie about a French president corrupted by power: I think it ends with him considering the murder of his own daughter to protect his agenda. My French is exceptionally bad. The movies are unedited for content: no American prurience regarding what your kids see on the screen of the stranger sitting next to them.
When Paris arrives, it is as lights in the darkness outside, surprisingly close. It looks just as Boston did when we left, and for the briefest moment it feels like coming home. It isn’t Paris, anyway, but suburb after suburb until we touch down.
Airport
At Charles de Gaulle I suddenly discover that I’m booked on a different flight for Tunis then I purchased over the internet, and that my 8 hour layover is now only an hour. I was watching my bike box and my toothpaste tube instead of my ticket, I guess.
written by  roel krabbendam on December 19, 2006 from Paris, France
from the travel blog: Harmattan

Changing Direction
Washington, United States
There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place. ~Washington Irving
The news out of Washington often as not involves change: embracing change or holding the course, more of the latter since we entered Iraq, and screw the consequences. We will never know, I suppose, if offering this country as an easy target over there spared it from assault over here. Its actually not a horribly bad theory, as much as I despise serving up teenagers and the poor to something as theoretical as that. Does possibly improved security at home merit 3 or 5 or 10 definitely dead teenagers a day? It feels a little like voodoo, a little too much like Aztec virgin sacrifice, the kind of ritual that makes us feel so superior when we read about it in high school history class.
Washington Monument
Meanwhile, young interns arrive in Washington every summer, swearing allegiance to the cult of change, finding meaning in the possibility of it, and it’s undeniable: there’s no inspiration in “staying the same”. Conservatism thrives where fear erodes faith in the future, except when its fear of the status quo I suppose. Hillary and Barack sprinkle fairy dust of the past and of possible futures, and I say: “good for them”. Politics without hope is no more inspiring than a junior high food fight. The politics of fear is undeniably worse.
White House
Personally, the only thing I expect of politics is an effort to get everyone on the same page: a little inspiration, a view to the future, a sense of hope. The economy does what it does, and frankly I’ve never quite understood the relationship between who’s in charge and what I earn. What I do understand, however, is the embarrassment I currently feel when I tell a foreigner I’m from the US. It feels like an act of kindness when they don’t blame me personally for the failings of this country and the dishonesty of its administration, because I know perfectly well that I too bear some responsibility, sipping these frappaccinos and driving this convertible.
written by  roel krabbendam on July 24, 2007 from Washington, United States
from the travel blog: Spare Change

Sleep, Eat, Leave
Bangkok, Thailand
On the plane to Bangkok finally, I watch a movie and read my book and treat myself to a glass of wine until Thailand reaches out with mysterious patterns of lighting on the land: straight lines and curlicues of dots. The airport is modern, I exchange $100 for about 3,000 baht, walk up to the wrong customs desk (“visa on arrival” sounded like what I needed, but no…) and eventually find myself in the long, long line of foreign passport holders.
30 minutes later I’m wandering the hall in search of an information booth that will call the hotel for a pickup. A kind lady helps me with her personal cellphone, and after loitering at the curb for a bit longer than expected (am I in the wrong place?) the van arrives. The man at the wheel says nothing to my apology for getting him out so early, and so we ride in silence as the sky turns peaches and rose.
The hotel is a small oasis in a rather dense and working class neighborhood near the airport. Even at this hour, the lady at the front desk is gracious, and a young man shows me upstairs. In front of the chair at the desk in my room it says “Do Not Sit”. It seems a little bossy. At the toilet paper in the bathroom it says “Do Not Place Paper in Toilet”. I’m still wondering exactly how paper and water hose are to be deployed for anything but a pee. The whole thing just makes me anxious. A shower feels pretty good, the air conditioning blows right onto the bed and feels uncomfortable, but 3 pages into my book I fall asleep. Outside, a rooster sounds reveille.
Voices outside wake me at 10:30am and again at 2:30pm before I crawl out of bed and head downstairs. The tour group is out seeing Bangkok says the note slipped under my door in the night, and I’m slightly annoyed with myself for losing the opportunity. Instead I read and write and do some research on spas in Bangkok in case my Bhutan visa and tickets don’t arrive in time. Miraculously though, over the next few hours I get email confirmation of both. What should have taken a couple of weeks my host has produced in 3 days.
The tour group wanders in, some lathered in sweat from the heat and humidity, and the others just off a tuk-tuk. I guess that’s the way to travel around here. We all walk down the street to a restaurant for dinner, the place covered but outdoors and recessed from the street so that it feels wonderfully apart. I choke on my order (chicken and basil), but the guy next to me orders an amazing fish that arrives whole and way too large for him to eat alone. Wait, I don’t literally choke on my order: it was perfectly good. I just wasn’t very adventurous. The fish was delicious.
I’m awake at 4am the next morning, and the same silent chauffeur bundles me off to the airport. I wander around looking for Bhutan Airways and find it finally, do the ticket-visa-passport shuffle, get herded onto a bus, and get bundled off to the airplane. I’m unusually aware of Americans in this environment, and there are several. I wonder if we’re all trying to ignore each other, the shared language an immediate bond, but really not enough to simply chat with a stranger, everyone here for a different kind of experience anyway, not some flock of geese travesty. In the US you wouldn’t give it a second thought, talking to any one of these people or not.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 28, 2015 from Bangkok, Thailand

That Creepy Feeling
Clear Creek Campground, United States
Two guys from Boston waiting for sunset to leave suggested we take their campsite to avoid the rattlesnake in the next one over. Rather than live on top of something that could kill us, we could live right next to it.
Clear Creek, photo: David Boothby
As reassuring as this was, it left me abnormally focused on wherever I set my feet…leaving me worried about how well snakes blended with their backgrounds…leaving me with a memory of that woman in Tucson who died from a snake bite while walking her dog…leaving me mindful that I had never actually seen a rattlesnake in the wild…because...aren't they designed to be invisible???
This feeling of unease felt strangely familiar, like it had been building for a while.
It certainly hit me at the end of the first day, when we were warned about the Colorado River and its potential for menace, the example two kids who leapt from the Kaibob bridge and simply...vanished. The river suddenly felt powerful and threatening and even malicious.
It was building yesterday as we got hotter and hotter, our water dwindling with the shadows, our momentum dwindling until we simply had to stop, the recognition that we would continue to dehydrate even as we dug ourselves into an embankment to escape the sun casting an appalling shadow of futility and stupidity.
Clear Creek Campsite
The feeling went deeper though:
To the preparations for the trip, when I realized how out of shape I was and how unlikely I was to fix it. I had been worrying for months that I wouldn’t keep up with David, who I knew to be in great condition…worrying, but too busy to attend to the issue and stupidly left with this niggling concern at the periphery of my consciousness, sapping my self-confidence.
And deeper still:
To the office, where the recent lack of success in our interviews with potential clients left me frustrated and tentative. I felt as creative as ever, and as excited about the projects as ever, but I wasn’t making these interviews successful and for the life of me I couldn’t explain why. I was losing my edge, my touch, my zing, and this creative anemia was undoing me.
Most fundamentally though was a growing sense of dread as the economy collapsed under our collective feet, a glacier of financial doom crushing opportunity and possibility and all of the idealism I try to muster every morning on my way to the office. Watching opportunities diminish frays the nerves. That I would evade obliteration seemed more and more unlikely, and the corollaries to that eventuality slowly clouded my perspective and obscured the horizon. Up and down no longer felt secure, the avenues of escape ever diminished. This hike felt like running away.
David encountered the snake later that evening. It was getting dark, we needed more water, he was heading down to the creek, and I heard only a grunt. I can’t speak for David’s state of mind, or just how close things got, but reptile and mammal managed a standoff and no harm done.
written by on May 12, 2009 from Clear Creek Campground, United States

Watch Your Step
Clear Creek Campground, United States
Clear Creek, photo: David Boothby
Between the shade and the creek and the pleasant company of other campers, in the absence of further close encounters, and with a sense of vast distance between ourselves and the world at large, my frame of mind improved.
A hike down Clear Creek canyon never quite got us to the Colorado River, but the three snakes we met in the clear light of day lacked menace and the creek was truly beautiful.
We spent our days walking and soaking and cooking and catching up.
I watched my step.
Clear Creek
written by on May 13, 2009 from Clear Creek Campground, United States

Everest?
Kolkata, India
It’s a few hours to Kolkata, which I’m determined to spell that way forever in deference to the Bengali. Expecting dense smears of slum, I see only palm trees and puddles and diffuse development, a garden suburb at least from the air.
The airport is a grim huddle of hangers, we don’t disembark, and I’m not sure finally what we actually saw of the city. We ascend up into a White Cloud, catch a short glimpse of a blue horizon and what may have been Everest or may have been a cloud, and then dive down a narrow valley into Bhutan.
that little ripple in the middle there...everest? cloud?
Had the windows opened I might have grabbed some leaves off the Cypress trees on the way down.
written by on May 28, 2015 from Kolkata, India

Change Agent
Washington, United States
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi
The Lincoln monument is among my favorites here, a strangely reassuring figure commemorating an assassination perhaps, an emancipation certainly, a man and an ideal most of all.
Lincoln Memorial
I went to a hypnotist years and years ago, when I had still not passed the oral component of my California state architectural exam after three tries, and when she asked me to imagine two things that would help me pass the exam, one image that came to me was my grandfather on my father's side with his hand on my shoulder. The feeling of that, of comfort and security and strength, was exactly what hit me as Mia and I walked the steps of the Lincoln Memorial late at night, all kinds of people gathered here unexpectedly at such a late hour, the darkness framing our approach and focusing our attention on the brightly lit figure inside, Lincoln imagined by Daniel Chester French in the early years of the twentieth century. That 28 blocks of carved stone should elicit such emotion, that is a remarkable achievement.
"IN THIS TEMPLE, AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM HE SAVED THE UNION, THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN IS ENSHRINED FOREVER".
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. 100 years later from these steps:
"Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon of light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity....."
....."I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character...."
"....When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village, every hamlet, from every state, and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual,....Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
My thanks to http://www.epinions.com/content_118944272004 for the facts.
written by  roel krabbendam on July 24, 2007 from Washington, United States

Schiphol
Amsterdam, Netherlands
I remember or imagine feeling the plane taking off and later touching down, but in truth registered nothing until we emerged from the gate into the terminal at Schiphol. Tulip bulbs and Dutch accents and beautiful advertising graphics and endless moving sidewalks: just as I remembered it. Not like coming home, but certainly familiar. A thousand childhood memories swamp my addled head, and we head to baggage claim and the family here to pick us up.
The baggage handling is delayed, so we sit on our carry-ons and listen to mysterious languages from tanned girls in bikini tops and small children in yellow rubber boots and men in blue suits on cell phones, flights from all over the world landing simultaneously and sharing this same luggage belt.
For Mia at eleven years old, an indelible adventure…for Polly and I, a welcome break. We pass through what used to be customs, see family ahead, and know we have arrived. Outside finally, it rains.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 24, 2007 from Amsterdam, Netherlands
from the travel blog: Heaven

Sleep
Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia
The sun rises as I board the flight for Tunis, and when we land it is without my bicycle. The one I paid $125 extra to send…I guess I forgot to pay for it to arrive. It is overcast and cold here.
My fluent Arabic comes in handy as I describe a very large cardboard box containing a very important toy. Everyone is very nice, and the bike will be here at 7pm. I find a very entrepreneurial cab driver…well, he finds me…and I overpay him to get me to the hotel, where the room smells vaguely of unwashed toilets. The promised internet access is unavailable. I call my wife and discuss my day with her answering machine.
Hotel Dar Said
(Look ma...no hair)
Sleep. The fact that I just left the two girls I love the most for this hare-brained adventure won’t feel as awful in the morning, but it certainly does now.
Sleep.
written by  roel krabbendam on December 20, 2006 from Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia
from the travel blog: Harmattan

Secret Agents
Richmond, United States
"They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." Andy Warhol
Tunnel under the Chesapeake
There’s nothing particularly elegant about tunnels typically, as hard to admire as an esophagus, self-effacement verging on complete invisibility.
Tunnels are secret, and mysterious and grounded, and deep: digging to the heart of matter.
While a bridge will dazzle with impressive connections vaulting all obstacles, a tunnel impresses by dealing with every little impediment along the way.
The best bridges: elegant, inspiring, full of grace. The best tunnels: not so much. Tunnels are evasive perhaps, but also profound. Whether you call someone "shallow" or call someone “deep”, it may well be they are tunnellers: change agents from below, secret agents.
written by  roel krabbendam on July 25, 2007 from Richmond, United States

The Queen Mother and monks in passing
Paro, Bhutan
arrival in Paro
Some monks in orange prison garb wander by. Wait, that’s not right. (Their robes are actually a gorgeous orange). We’ve been sitting in the airport for a while now, waiting for the plane to Bumthang, only to find out that that it’s cancelled, probably for the next few days.
the Dzong at Paro
We had lunch earlier, near the Paro Dzong: an imposing sight even from a distance.
still life with Dzong, Chortan, Alter...and students
Much discussion about Plan B ensues, an intricate necklace of connections and hotel reservations and festivals and plane flights suddenly laid to waste by the early monsoon and a drizzle on the runway. Already tired, we finally opt for a 4 hour bus ride to Punakha.
Reconstructed suspension bridge out of centuries old iron chain. Mysteriously, the stuff doesn't rust.
Just before dusk we reach Dochula La for tea and cookies as the clouds moved in and the Queen Mother drives by in a low-key entourage. The 108 chortan commemorating 10 deaths in the Assam uprising of the early 2000s were her daughter-in-law the Queen’s project.
108 Chortans at Dochula La
The road down off the pass is a treachery in the dark, all mud and construction and barely one lane, but our driver is unfazed and finally I fall asleep. Then I fall off my chair. My spine feels well-exercised by the time we get to the hotel, where dinner awaits and a fine room and finally, finally some sleep.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 29, 2015 from Paro, Bhutan

Meat
Phantom Ranch, United States
When it was finally time to leave, we knew to eat early and hike out at dusk, making half of the Tonto traverse before slapping down our bags and sleeping out in the open. The one snake we met on the trail rattled softly and contrasted sharply against the green scrub. We gave him some space. By 10 the next morning we were back at Phantom Ranch, and we spent the day at ease among river rafters and marathon hikers (rim to rim and back again without stopping for example) and just-one-nighters and park service rangers and employees.
My feet felt like hamburger meat might. Somewhat abused. Yards of gauze I had been carrying for years found their calling on this trip, encasing my patties snugly. If my boots were a bit too roomy and that's why I got all those blisters now there was thankfully room for both feet and gauze.
Returning to Phantom Ranch
We caught a lecture on the history of Phantom Ranch, and trooped into the lodge for our prearranged steak dinner. I had been wondering what those mules were kept busy hauling, and now we were eating it…unless that was the mule…
Returning to Phantom Ranch, photo: David Boothby
Phantom Ranch feels like a remote outpost, and the people that run it have a somewhat otherworldly demeanor. As it did at Clear Creek, the world at large feels incredibly distant and indistinct and irrelevant. If my daughter ever admitted that being a teenager was too much, and college felt like a burden, I might suggest to her a while in this protected and beautiful place to gather herself together and imagine her next step. For all of my feelings of unease on this trip, Phantom Ranch at least feels safe.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 14, 2009 from Phantom Ranch, United States

Emerge and See
Grand Canyon Village, United States
We climbed rapidly to Indian Garden up the Bright Angel Trail the next morning, embraced there after so much dryness by shade and water and lots of green plants.
Approaching Indian Garden, photo: David Boothby
The mule trains we passed held uncomfortable people that all looked like they would rather be walking. It turns out that having a donkey's spine slammed into your crotch and buttocks 8 times a minute on a steep incline is less fun than it sounds.
Indian Garden, photo: David Boothby
A family sat down next to us, all mute but the father, he eager to discuss his literal interpretation of the bible. Like a professional plate spinner he ducked, from observation to observation, spinning a fact with some random and unrelated theory, the minutia somehow sounding almost reasonable but the whole show an unmitigated train wreck.
Despite the evidence all around us of erosion over unimaginable time spans, he was pretty certain the Grand Canyon was shaped by a single flood-like event. He insists the Earth is about 4,000 years old. It was both horrifying and humbling: the gymnastics involved, the sheer effort and willpower exerted, the commitment demonstrated to these ridiculous ideas in truth a towering achievement.
squirrel vs snake (surprisingly, a standoff) photo: David Boothby
The jaunt to the top was hot and exhausting, the only relief a comic altercation between a squirrel and a rattlesnake. They were both taking their disagreement pretty seriously though.
Half way up Bright Angel, photo...somebody. Tired guy to left: me
A yard of gauze on each foot solved the blisters some days ago, but the weight of the packs and the heat of the day conspired to suck the stamina right out of me. David I think held up better. Despite leaving the bottom at Sunrise, we didn't reach the top until mid-afternoon.
makes you want to just drop a ball...photo: David Boothby
After a week in remote and silent places, we emerged to see hordes of eager tourists browsing gift shops and amassing trinkets as if they were accomplishments. We waded right in and bought ourselves an ice cream.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 15, 2009 from Grand Canyon Village, United States

Mothers, Fathers
Punakha, Bhutan
Punakha is famed for its Dzong or castle. It is massive and beautiful, strategically located at the union of the Mother and Father rivers, accessed from a cantilevered bridge over the Mother.
Wide stone steps lead steeply up to a portico sheltering 2 massive golden prayer wheels.
Inside are three courtyards, the first administrative and secular and the last strictly religious, and at the end of the last courtyard is a temple accessed through two simple curtains. You are asked to remove your shoes and refrain from photography, and enter a hall filled with golden columns and light filtering down from a second story in the center. Every surface is intricately carved or embossed or painted, the walls depicting the life of the Buddha in intricate pictograms. Gleaming in the semi-darkness at the end of the room are a series of massive golden statues, thrones for king and monk, lines of bowls with water offerings, and alters lined with money left by supplicants. The floors are dark wood and the smell is of wood. Among the golden columns are low carpeted platforms for seating. Monks wander in and out, as do tourists and a cat. Two Korean monks surreptitiously snap pictures.
This temple is so strangely moving. I thought about the 10 years of work it took to restore the temple after the flooding that almost destroyed it, a glacial lake bursting through its ice dam in the 1990s. I thought about being a craftsman producing just a tiny piece of the intricate work inside. I can’t explain this awkward feeling of sadness in there, a feeling I last felt at the delicate singing of the nuns at a Catholic Center in Benin. Leaving I felt wrung out, and sure I would neither capture the experience in words nor ever forget it.
Bhutan is described as a tripod: a governance of consensus between an electorate, a king and a religious leader. I asked what the politics was actually like to witness, and our guide described it as very English, with laughing and passionate debate and nose to nose confrontation. That description at least felt more real than a tripod.
Later in the day we hike up to the monastery at Chimi Lhakhang, the rituals there designed to promote fertility. We walk among the rice fields below, slipping here and there on the muddy and narrow berms between them. The fields are flooded and everywhere there is mechanized tilling and hand planting. The monks are chanting inside the monastery, women are receiving blessings, and I feel like an intruder.
Many of the buildings on the walk back to the hotel are painted with huge pink phalluses and hairy testicles, and the prices in the trinket shops are very high.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 31, 2015 from Punakha, Bhutan

Change of Clothes
Williamsburg, United States
Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed. ~Irene Peter
Mia
Here on the left is a gentleman pretending he is from the 18th century (an actor?), or perhaps he is merely dressing up for our benefit and he is still being himself (a mannequin?), or perhaps he really feels more comfortable in an 18th century ambiance, (a transvestite?), or perhaps he is truly frustrated in this era and craves the means to live as an 18th century man, a trans-epochal you might call him. 80 families apparently live here in Colonial Williamsburg, and they probably all feel differently about it. We didn’t ask them.
Levy accuses Americans of collection without discernment, the museumification ofthe banal and a preference for modern simulation over historic artifact. “Defeat of the archive. Triumph of kitsch” (Levy, p29). Williamsburg would not dissuade him.
I see it more benevolently as the triumph of theater over dry facts, a movie culture rejecting 8th grade history class in favor of a little more drama. Who can blame them, these mythical average Americans? They didn’t have the benefit of Mr. Winslow Smith as an American History teacher, and for them it never really came alive. I read Mr. Smith’s obituary last year, and immediately his dry and dramatic manner came right back to me, 30 years now since I graduated from Junior High. For Mr. Smith, history was drama, and for one short school year I feel privileged to have heard and felt his point of view.
Mia wanted to see Williamsburg because of the American Girl dolls collection, a collection of hideously expensive popettes I fruitlessly swore we would never buy her, each evoking an epoch of American history. “Felicity” peeked her interest very early in her life, lending this visit the overtones of a pilgrimage. Mia’s satisfaction at trying on straw hats and visiting the millenary and trying her hand at calligraphy with a quill pen was our reward. She left exceedingly satisfied with the visit.
written by  roel krabbendam on July 25, 2007 from Williamsburg, United States

Youth
Maarssen, Netherlands
Rested and ready, we drive over to show Mia the house I lived in as a child. My dad's sister lived in it for 40 years after we left Holland for America, and when she died three year ago, my mother sold the place. I remember a brown brick rowhouse, the corner unit with yard on two sides and a separate one car garage, the largest unit in the row...
The smell of freshly cut grass on handmower blades, the smell of algae on the surrounding canals, the terror of lying in bed upstairs as bats dive-bombed the windows, the peaceful majesty of sitting on the living room floor with my sister one Saturday morning as my parents slept, lighting matches because we liked the smell, the opulence of receiving not one, not two, not a few, but the entire set of Okkie learn-to-read books...all these memories sweep in.
I stare at the neighboring house, the house where my friend Wim lived, and wonder what happened to him. I had heard disapproving comments from my parents at one point years ago, Wim in trouble or drifting astray, but who knows so many years later. I am staring at the life I didn't lead. The confidence and optimism and fearlessness I had then...
Mia sees a duck on the street outside, naming him and photographing him within minutes, the duck finally choosing algae in the canal over a movie role. My dad and I once skated on that very canal, following it to a larger canal and then finally out on an adjoining lake...or did that adventure sneak into the panorama of actual memories from my imagination one day, imagination now indistinguishable from reality?
The house looks impossibly small. The new owners have transformed a meager lawn and garden into an opulent terrace paved in brick and surrounded by a wall of ivy. Inside, kitchen and living room are now one room, a wall removed. The garage is transformed into living space, home to an older child. There is no smell of cut grass. I have not lived here in a very, very long time.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 30, 2007 from Maarssen, Netherlands

Smell
Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia
Still here...sleep and open windows do wonders. Thanks for your comments: they really make my day. I woke up to the smell of the hotel soap I used last night (fabulous), and stepped outside to the smell of Orange trees in full fruit (wow!). Jump into an ocean of perfume, swim to the bottom, and then swallow until you are ocean inside and out: that was the smell of Orange trees.
Hotel Dar Said
The bicycle arrived as promised: intact and, with minor adjustments, running beautifully: thank you, thank you, thank you to John and Larry at Pedal Power in Acton, Massachusetts, with kudos to the folks at Independent in Somerville as well: this bike rocks!
I did have a frantic 20 minutes (20 minutes!!! You think you know 20 minutes? Pay $2,000 to fly to a foreign country where you don't speak the language to find that you might have come for nothing: then you'll know 20 minutes!!!) looking for the pedals in my bike bags, thinking I'd left them at home, thinking honestly that it would be quite typical of me, thinking of the incomparable hassle I would face in finding the same clip species here as my Algerian visa slowly expires...but no, pedals found, trip intact.
Adel
Here's Adel: former boxer, husband, father of 2 girls, my cabdriver to the airport to pick up the bike. He charged me half of what I paid yesterday, shared some great political cynicism, gave me his phone number and told me to call. Instead, he's immortalized here.
George Bush
Here's George Bush. I think he went to the same barber I did. He may be missing some teeth as well...maybe he hasn't been flossing.
Things I wish I'd packed:
1. Dental floss (can't find the damn stuff anywhere!)
2. French dictionary (I keep blubbering in Spanish)
3. Arabic dictionary (just kidding)
Considerations while grocery shopping:
1. What packs more densely: spaghetti or macaroni?
2. What cooks faster and uses less fuel: rice, spaghetti or vermiccelli?
3. What the hell do you add to rice/spaghetti/vermiccelli for flavor?
(answers at the end, and no peeking)
Met two motorcyclists back from the desert. Here's more or less what they were carrying:
(spare parts, gps, satellite phone, clean underwear).
Here's my stuff:
(tent, sleeping bag, pad, stove, gps, satellite phone, laptop, 2 cameras, tripod, solar collector, transformer, 2 spare tires, 2 inner tubes, bike tools, chess set (couldn't resist), maps, more maps, windbreaker, 4 wool hats (don't ask), bike helmet, 3 sets of clothes, long underwear, 2 eyeglasses, prescription goggles, (did I mention long underwear? Who knew it could be freezing in the Sahara? Really: anyone?), 4 tupperware containers, 4 ten liter water bladders, water filtration device, medical kit...I know I'm forgetting something...toothbrush...)
Answers:
1. Space is tight: spaghetti.
2. Higher surface to mass ratio: vermiccelli. Rice is a close second...but still seems to take forever to cook...on the other hand, rice+beans=protein...I gave up and bought all three.
3. Raisins. Who knew?
written by  roel krabbendam on December 21, 2006 from Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia

Eternal
Kill Devil Hills, United States
All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward. ~Ellen Glasgow
Lighthouse
Here near the site of the first Wright brother’s flight, we spend a morning on the beach at Kill Devil Hills. The hike over the dunes puts all signs of man at our backs, and for a while we waddle in the waves. The dogs are a little less eager. The eternal song of water on sand is a welcome break from the clock and the road and our destination on the other side of the continent.
Beach
Memories from my last visit here clobber me rather unexpectedly, a break from college twenty-five years ago, leaving Ithaca, NY in a Spring snowstorm, driving an Orange Hornet non-stop to the warmth of this very place…did we camp somewhere, Laurie and I? I did not know then that she would move down here a short time later, and that I could not help but follow, and that this was an early chapter in a very long and emotional book.
The Atlantic Ocean
The dogs bark, bringing me back to the present, and I look around at the sun glittering on the water, and at my two girls shrieking with pleasure in the waves, and at a sky, a sky of the most unusual and surprising depth and color, and I am reminded that this now, this-here-now, this instant and this instant and this instant, eternally, this is what matters.
Sometimes I forget.
The Atlantic Ocean off the Outer Banks
written by  roel krabbendam on July 26, 2007 from Kill Devil Hills, United States

Yakkity Yak
Tongsa, Bhutan
Hotel Vara, Lobesa: view from my balcony
The bus leaves early, the drive to Trongsa easily 8 hours on a single lane highway handling two way traffic. Rising slowly through deciduous forests along a steeply sloped river, through Wangduephodrang and Chuzomes and Samtengang and Nubding, to the turn at Ngesa where we crest a pass into a coniferous valley of yak and wild boar.
so...we met this guy wearing a yak outfit...
Below lie alpine meadows and sprinkled houses and the Gangtey Monastery.
road leading to Gangtey
We eat lunch in a second floor restaurant, the room dark and low, eating fiddlehead ferns and potato and rice and carrot and kale. Also thousand tiny bones that could kill you if you're not careful chicken, the market ripe for new slaughtering techniques.
entry to Gangtey Monastery
The monastery is another forbidding and courtyarded affair, the perimeter lined with monks quarters and the center occupied by a temple. Young monks scurry about, each intent on their mission, though I did catch two red robed kids gleefully mocking the tourists inside the temple.
On one side, a number of monks on the ground were preparing sacrificial cakes for the ceremonies of the Buddha’s birth the following day, a number of supervising monks standing to the side as if it were a public works project. Inside the temple, the layout resembled the temple of yesterday at Punakha, though smaller and less maintained. Perhaps I was fatigued by too many landmarks, but I left to sit outside the complex, happy to feel the breeze and stare down the valley.
next time you're in Switzerland you can tell them it reminds you a lot of Bhutan...
We climbed back to the main highway and continued the ascent to the pass at Pelela, where a small monument and a smaller crafts stand offered a break.
chortan, incense burner, trinket stand...prayer flags.
At 3390 meters I expected to feel the altitude, but there were no noticeable effects. Downwards now, chatting about our lives in the US and Costa Rica and everywhere else the group is from, we wound past overhanging rockcuts and waterfalls and stream crossings, stopping once for the King and Queen and their entourage. The guides were ecstatic to have encountered both Queen and King on this trip, the karma quotient set almost impossibly high now. The Queen Mother only got two escorts the other day, the King and Queen at least 18 or 20 including personal chef, bodyguards, provincial governors and ministers and a van from BBS, the state broadcasting service. The monarchs had been east apparently, meeting with nomads.
hydroelectric project below Trongsa: more power for India
We reached Trongsa at dusk, winding around the massive hydroelectric project under construction in the narrow valley below, up past the massive fortress and new courthouse, to a hotel besieged by clacking frogs and plagued with lousy internet service. Dinner was delicious. They have this cheese and chiles dish here, a national dish of sorts we've had everywhere, that balances spicy and mellow in the most spectacular way.
the Dzong at Trongsa, from across the valley
written by  roel krabbendam on June 1, 2015 from Tongsa, Bhutan

Fast Food
Morehead City, United States
A gentleman on the ferry recommends El’s in Morehead City, NC for dinner, and that’s where we pull in around 8pm after a drive through the marshes from Cedar Island, through Smyrna and Beaufort, night slowly obscuring the landscape until our world narrows to the beam of our headlights, the story on the CD player, Mia’s hiccups. We are road weary, and our eyes sting, the Bright lights assaulting us like hallucinations.
El's Drive in
Pulling into the darkened lot, we are careful to douse our lights. A line of cars fans out, each facing in towards the kitchen, which glows supernaturally. A door opens. A woman steps out clutching menus, and several attending dogs weave ornate choreographies behind her as she approaches. I raise my eyes from their stupor, roll down my window, accept the menus. “Do you know what you want to eat”? The dogs kicking up dust behind her disperse as we give her our order.
El’s is the self-professed "Home of the Super Burger": coleslaw, mustard, ketchup…perhaps some secret ingredients…that and the onion rings were surprisingly good. The waitresses take orders at the car and deliver it, a triumph of infrastructure minimization (its all kitchen and a very large exterior garbage can), maintenance minimization (no messy customers spilling coffee and catsup (which is it: ketchup or catsup?)), and good old American suburban isolation. Like home delivery, there is practically no opportunity for communalism. Everyone sits in their cars, in the dark, facing forward.
written by  roel krabbendam on July 26, 2007 from Morehead City, United States

We begin our bike trip
Amsterdam, Netherlands
The horizon is a straight line, the land a mere smudge, and the sky immense. You grow self assured here, I imagine, or feel very inconsequential under a sky this large, a clue perhaps to the Dutch character. It keeps dumping rain on us, then plays gray, then teases us with blue sky. In the afternoons it clears and the wind dies and the sun and stillness last until 10:30pm. We go to bed feeling like we really accomplished something just to have experienced a day like this.
We take the boat out of Amsterdam up to Hoorn, loosely following the coast north. The Ijsselmeer is flecked with sailboats of every vintage fluttering about like moths under a dark sky. Wind turbines stand in the water in vast arrays, dutiful and beautiful. The objections to a wind farm of the coast of Massachusetts are proven ridiculous.
We are aboard the Stijlebank, a cement freighter converted to passenger use, and it will be our home base for a week as we ride a big circle around the Ijsselmeer on our bikes. The basic form of the boat is quite fluid and beautiful, though it is somewhat cluttered by the passenger use: I imagine it was exceedingly handsome as a freighter.
The boat is captained by Albert, and his wife Anina will cook for us. A young Danish guy named Soren is studying to be a sea captain for Maersk in Copenhagen, and is spending the week helping Albert. Bram is our bicycle tour guide. There are 16 of us: all one Dutch and American family.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 30, 2007 from Amsterdam, Netherlands

4mm allen wrench
Bou Jerga, Tunisia
First, I'l admit to a certain level of anxiety as I finally set off on my bike: what am I going to find, and worse, what will I accidently leave behind? The answer to the second is easy: something crucial.
I left Sidi Bou Said at 2 pm, after dealing with the certainty that my maps were inadequate. Actually, I didn't deal with it: I convinced myself I was OK with what I had. I put my feet to the pedals for a stylish takeoff (hotel staff and tourists were watching), and promptly discovered that both trailer tires were flat. No holes, just flat. Filled those up, put my feet to the pedals for that stylish takeoff, got around the corner, and discovered I'd forgotten my helmet (yes, Polly, I'm wearing my helmet). Back to ask the hotel staff what they did with my helmet...and finally back to those feet on the pedals.
The plan for this trip was wind at my back (the Harmattan blows south in these parts). The first 20km was wind in my face across a long causeway to Tunis, which I hit at around rush hour. The beauty of that was I inhaled enough particulates to call it dinner. By nightfall I had barely exited urbanity, and found a campsite next to a highway.
Never camp next to a highway. After snuggling in and then wrestling with the idea of digging into my bags for more clothes and some ear plugs for about two tiresome hours, I finally got up the energy to do it. It didn't work. I didn't sleep. Great start.
Campsite under the bridge outside Tunis
JVC plant to the left, shipping container yard, tent and bike and trailer, water retention basin, highway. Big, loud, noisy all night highway.
Toothpicks, by the way: the only alternative to floss that I could find. More than you wanted to know.
written by  roel krabbendam on December 23, 2006 from Bou Jerga, Tunisia

Changing your mind
Atlanta, United States
The only difference between a rut and a grave is their dimensions. ~Ellen Glasgow
I’ve always wanted to visit New Orleans, and this trip seemed finally to offer that opportunity. Unfortunately, we changed our minds. Somewhere just north of Atlanta we realized we needed to be in Tucson within 2 days, and that’s a long, long way to go. 1,736.2 miles according to Yahoo Maps: 25 hours and 14 minutes of drive time. To get ready, we stopped at Polly’s college roommates house north of Atlanta and drank some of their fine scotch.
Levy celebrates Atlanta as a triumph of capitalism over racism, a “showcase of peaceful desegregation” (Levy, p.159), a city successful in elevating blacks into every nook and cranny of power where the mayor proclaims Atlanta “Too busy to hate”. Then he wonders, considering the enormous crimes perpetrated against blacks, if it isn’t a façade or willed forgetfulness, a decision not to bear witness. Our brief stop in the northern suburbs, where we actually see no blacks at all, begs the question “desegregation”?
So we changed our minds about visiting New Orleans.
I used to equate “changing my mind” with “failure”, but this led to a number of corollaries with disastrous implications. For example, on bicycle trips it became impermissible to ever retrace steps. This led to some fine(?) adventures in sodden farm fields, but also compounded navigational errors. In renovating condominiums, it became impermissible to sell before the renovation was complete. I learned some fascinating woodworking techniques, but the venture resulted in marital and financial toast. Now “changing my mind” gets filed with “breaking out of a rut” and/or “improved understanding”, and I work a lot harder at improving my understanding before making up my mind.
Anyway, while visiting New Orleans offered a textbook example of grappling with my current obsessing on “change”, going there seemed rather akin to shamelessly examining a car wreck or a cripple: we weren’t coming to help, we weren’t going to spend much money, and we weren’t staying long enough to achieve any real understanding.
Route 20 headed west
Bridge over the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
Route 20 Rest Area
We headed west on the I-20 instead of south to the I-10, across Georgia and Alabama and Louisiana, crossing the Mississippi river and managing 800 miles before calling it a night in Dallas, Texas.
Jim's BBQ and Catfish
As we left Louisiana, at the first Texas exit, an exit numbered a daunting 600 something to give you just a little taste of the miles to come, with hunger etching little curlicues in our stomach linings, off to the right stood a tall pole announcing "Jim's B-B-Q (and Catfish)", and how could we possibly resist?
The appearance evoked more authenticity than it inspired confidence, but we entered anyway and the staff and customers were terrific and funny (Polly almost backed our car through their plate glass and into the booth with the owner), and the food...the food...that was some incredibly delicious beef barbeque.
written by  roel krabbendam on July 27, 2007 from Atlanta, United States

Construction
Jakar, Bhutan
Today we’re visiting construction sites: restoration projects, historical expansion projects, new construction, whatever we can find and barge in on.
We start at another monastery, this one expanding with a new two story residential wing as well as a new temple that artfully swallows a much smaller temple originally on the site.
I learn about statues made of clay and paper containing scrolls and sandlewood and precious stones all hidden from view.
I learn how to make mud bricks, the process exactly as I saw it in the Sahara only with pine needles here providing the tensile strength.
I learned how they carve wood and fabricate ornate reinforced gypsum panels.
For a moment we consider a good CNC machine, a computer driven cutter or router that could produce elaborately carved wood in a fraction of the time and expense of traditional carving, but then we imagine an entire craft laid to waste by the power of those machines and the whole enterprise feels obscene and quite antithetical to gross national happiness.
Afterwards we stop at a new Thai hotel under construction, a vast complex devoted to only 9 guest rooms charging thousands of dollars a night when complete. The site superintendent allows me to review the construction document set, and he offers details as well about material pricing and labor cost. The complex is almost alarmingly modern, with huge expanses of glass, but in the end it is only selling a room for the night, albeit a room with its own private courtyard. I feel that our project will be selling a powerful, visceral experience, not just a room, and that distinction feels important.
Next we find the Aman hotel, easily the most refined and modern interpretation of traditional Bhutanese architecture we’ve seen. The manager happily spends an hour with us, showing us the entire hotel, explaining the financial picture, offering us coffee and cookies, and relating his own background.
After training in the army he started in the laundry of the hotel, working hard and moving up slowly until he was offered training so that he could eventually become the manager. It’s what we might recognize as the American Dream: only it’s universal. No surprise. I only wish we’d chuck this American exceptionalism…which is just another name for nationalism…which is probably also universal. I’m glad we’ve had this talk.
We stop at a handicraft store to buy trinkets, and later that night there’s traditional dancing and way too much arra, this time mixed with hard cider in glasses rimmed with honey and salt. We name the drink “thunderbolts of infinite wisdom”, though I doubt I’m any smarter for the encounter. They have this awesome bowl of fried potato shavings with a touch of red chile in it that is better than potato chips. In any case, despite overindulging I feel only slightly buzzed and later feel no hangover at all. It’s a miracle.
The dancing is highly stylized, relies heavily on hand gestures, and to my untrained eyes and ears feels very repetitive. When I ask if their dances ever express masculine energy or ever celebrate randomness, I’m told that’s a different category of effort. I also get dubious looks from the group, all of them aware that I’m not a practicing Buddhist and really should try meditating for a few years before asking questions. They’re very nice about it though!
Something about seeing the dances in the hotel feels inauthentic or strange. Perhaps the problem with inviting dancers into a hotel for the guests is that it makes the dancers the visitors instead of the tourists. If we were to visit the dancers outside of the hotel, then we would be the invitees on their turf, and perhaps the relationships would feel less awkward. Or perhaps the lack of a stage, a backdrop set apart from the audience, infected the performance with the mundanities of real life even though the costumes and music set them apart. I don't fully understand the problem, but I do know these dancers brought a lot of effort and talent to bear, and they deserve a venue free of these social or psychological impediments.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 5, 2015 from Jakar, Bhutan

Delay
Thimphu, Bhutan
We are scheduled to fly back across the country to Paro, but the 10am plane is said to have diverted to Kathmandu. Since this is in the opposite direction from that flight's origin in Paro, we assume business interests intervened or possibly relief efforts. In any case, after sitting at the airport for a while, we head back to town. If the plane doesn't come today at all, we face the rather nauseating prospect of driving all the way back the way we came.
I end up walking around, looking at trinket stores, stopping in at a weaving shop and chatting with the ladies before buying a small wallet from them. My client has suggested I wear the traditional Gho, and the result is that everyone does a double take when I walk by. It's a fairly functional garment, but I find it absolutely impossible to don alone. I'm told every time that I've done it all wrong, and then no matter where I am, public street or private room, have to take it off for reassembly. I finally started wearing shorts and a t shirt underneath just in case, and then discovered that's what everyone does. It wasn't in the instructions, people!
The group eats lunch in a small restaurant behind a store, the usual and tasty rice and chile cheese and thousand-bone chicken and broccoli and fiddlehead ferns, plus some pineapple for dessert.
Back at the airport, and a few hours later, the plane does arrive and we soar up out of the overcast into a bright blue sky, Kula Kangri to the right of the plane, or possibly Gangkhar Puensum, at 7570 m (24,836 feet) the tallest unclimbed peak in the world. The peaks are sacred: no climbing allowed.
Just writing that gives me pause: sacred. Is anything really sacred anymore? I’m reminded of a moment in my youth, when I was admonished for mowing my aunt’s lawn in Harmelen, the Netherlands on a Sunday. It was a hand mower (no noise, hardly!), but mowing was forbidden on Sundays. Sundays were sacred! I could never quite figure out, however, if Sundays were literally considered sacred (my family was never very religious, my mother’s protestations notwithstanding…she married a Protestant after all), or if this was a form of community policing. I might disturb the neighbors. I remember the admonishment in any case as a real affront: I had in just a few years abroad fully absorbed both the work ethic and sense of freedom or perhaps entitlement demanded by life in the United States. It never even occurred to me that I myself, or at least my industriousness, might be an affront to the Sunday tranquility expected by the neighbors.
The peaks in Bhutan, in any case, are sacred. Climbing them would be an affront to…again the question: community norms, an actual religious belief, a practice born from experience that life stops at the treeline…? So many religious tenants taken on faith today apparently stemmed from the practical requirements of ancient life, it is easy to imagine a culture naming the peaks sacred in acknowledgment of the fact that they were deadly. Research for another day.
The plane ride is so unnervingly bumpy, they hand us our snacks as we disembark in Paro.
It's a 90 minute drive to Thimphu, and though we drove it on the first day in the country it looks and feels completely undiscovered. I don't recognize a thing and keep looking at a map to see if this is some other route, but there is no other route. Its possible the trip here from the US had put me in a hallucinatory state. Thimphu at least looks like a place I've been to before.
There aren't enough rooms in the hotel, so I get a room a few doors down from the main group. Its immediately clear that very few people wear a Gho here, so I put my regular clothes back on, take advantage of the free 20 minute chair massage offered by the hotel, and then get whisked off for dinner with one of the partners of the project that invited me here. At his home we drink way too much beer, the alcohol heavy "11000" type, chat about the project, munch on yak and chicken and asparagus and salad, top it off with ice cream (It's been weeks!), and then finally, hours after the ladies have retired, head back to the hotel.
...just pretending I don't need that windowsill to hold me up...
The headache hits me the next morning, an 8 hour delay.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 6, 2015 from Thimphu, Bhutan

Change of Venue
Dallas, United States
Roadside restaurants
The fact is, neon enhanced motels and greasy spoons are very hard to find. The very premise of this trip was undermined from the start by the triumph of corporate standardization over the unique. Reliablility trumps Individuality. We've stayed in the following so far:
1. Holiday Inn Express, north of Richmond, VA
2. ...it will come to me...a beach hotel...the Holiday Inn was full..., Kill Devil Hills, NC
3. Red Roof Inn near Fayettville NC
4. La Quinta Inn north of Atlanta, GA
We are traveling, mind you, with two rambunctious dogs cooped up in a car all day: not every innkeepers dream guest. Most places added $10/dog to the bill if they accepted us at all.
Only the Red Roof Inn was disgusting, proving perhaps that corporate standards are no panacea, and the La Quinta north of Atlanta was absolutely wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that when it came to finding a hotel in the Dallas area we dialed 411 to find another one along Rte.20, and were directed to Arlington, Texas where there were several. When we arrived however, tired from the 12 hour, 850 mile haul from Atlanta, they were completely full…all of them. Family reunions and visiting athletic teams had every single room. There was a moment there of…not despair really, but…uh.
With the help of the desk clerk, we landed instead at Best Western just down the street.
College students drinking beer on the corridor veranda outside our room kept waking us up.
900 Miles to go, on not very much sleep. It’s a big country.
Route 20 headed west
written by  roel krabbendam on July 28, 2007 from Dallas, United States

Clouds
Hoorn, Netherlands
We arrive in Hoorn in late afternoon, eat dinner on the boat, and then take our bikes out for a 15 km. trial run.
The sky clears a bit, and becomes a spectacle, and we stop just to bear witness as if this were some religious event.
Possibly it is.
The bikes and the kids perform wonderfully.
It is the 650 year anniversary of the town of Hoorn, and we take a walk into town to listen to some music when we get back. The town is dense and historic and quaint, a real tourist draw. A five piece band sings and plays in the town center, and the cafes are open, and a crowd is drinking beer on the street. We all fall asleep before midnight.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 30, 2007 from Hoorn, Netherlands

Rain
La Sebala du Mornag, Tunisia
About that 4mm allen wrench: its crucial, and I left it in Sidi Bou Said. It is sitting on a low wall on the terrace of the hotel where I locked my bike and where noone will see it for the next 2 years. Next time you need one, you know where to look.
John and Larry at Pedal Power: the first time my bike fell, the weight of it caused one of the Profile bottle cages (selected for its flexibility to hold wide Nalgene bottles) to shear right off. The bike world needs a metal version of that design. Of course, to get rid of the shorn remains, I needed a 4mm allen wrench.
I stopped at a motorcycle repair shop in Mornag to ask about a 4mm allen wrench, but could only get the guy to unscrew the broken bottle cage with his wrench. Charge: 50 cents. At the next shop I could get the guy to understand I wanted the wrench and not the screwing, and he handed me his to keep. Charge: Free.
Back to those possibly inadequate maps. I'm relying on Michelin maps at 1:1000000 and printouts from Google Earth with placenames for my route only imported. Unfortunately, the roadsigns and the placenames don't match. I admit to the following idiocy, and don't tell anyone:
Michelin says take a right in the middle of Mornag. I saw the turn and decided it wouldn't get me where I wanted to go. I went straight, saw a left to get to the freeway, and thought that going straight might be what Michelin meant by taking a right. (OK, this explanation gets no easier from here: skip ahead with the knowledge that I'm an idiot if I've lost you already). I kept going straight, saw no recognizable placenames, and decided finally that I was on a different road that was less scenic but would also get me where I wanted to go. Rain began to fall. I thought that the road was awfully narrow to be the road I now thought I was on, but kept going anyway. All day. Buckets of rain. I decided what I really needed was one of those tourist hotels in Hammamet, on the coast. If I was on the road I thought I was on, then I had only 10 km to go. Night fell: I was so completely miserable that those hotels were now irresistable (ever try to set up a tent in the dark in the rain?) and I kept going by sense of smell and weak headlights. I met some police and asked them if the next left would get me to Hammamet. Oui. How far? 30 km. I thought: "They don't know what they're talking about". Off I went in the dark. 10 km. Mountains ahead. Something was wrong. I found a lonely cafe, walked in to see George Clooney selling Nespresso on French TV, and was instantly adopted by the owner. We reviewed the maps: my instincts in Mornag were correct and I had been on the originally intended road all along and Hammamet was another 20 km. away and I had been completely wrong all day. You promised not to tell.
Cafe Ranim
Skipped all that? Pick up the narrative here: The cafe owner bundled me off to the local natural hot spring public bath for 2 hours of soaking and detox with Hammam Salah, the local electrician. Turns out Hamam Salah is his cousin and also sleeps on a mattress on the floor as a kind of night watchman, but mostly because he is not getting along with his wife.
I am put up for the night: on another mattress on the floor right next to Hammam Salah. I admit to some anxiety around the sleeping arrangement, what may have been the difficulty betwen the electrician and his wife, and what he might be expecting of me. Those of you who have heard one of my stories from Morrocco will be following this, and the rest of you will have to use your imagination. All went well, and nothing transpired except that it was very cold, the cafe was unheated, and neither of us slept well at all. Shame on me for thinking anything else.
Talking to the electrician was like being at an American construction site, only in French: cashflow is always an issue and the architect thinks he has all the answers but doesn't.
Hammam Salah and friends
That's Hammam Salah on the left, one of his card-playing cronies in the middle, and the son of the cafe owner to the right. The little guy got one of those four knit hats I'm carrying (and now you know why I'm carrying them).
Hammam Salah's father fought with everyone, lived apart from his wife, but visited once every 9 months from the time she was 16. The electrician has 14 siblings and his mother is my age.
written by  roel krabbendam on December 23, 2006 from La Sebala du Mornag, Tunisia

East and West
Thimphu, Bhutan
Invited to see a new hotel opening soon as part of a school for hotel management, I'm driven to a site dominated by a huge stone building punctured by irregular windows and somewhat encumbered by huge wood protrusions. Austrian design, Austrian engineering and Austrian money made it happen.
The construction manager is on site, and happily gives us a tour of the building. The stone and wood are local, but absolutely everything else came from Austria and India: steel, insulation, door and window fittings, bathroom fixtures, solar and mechanical and electrical equipment...the works. The problems of procurement, detailing and construction suggest an attitude not at all interested in what the local economy has to offer, but the problems run even deeper. The local architect failed to assert himself against the will of the Austrian architect, the government procurement policies prevented wood chip making machinery from finding a home here to support the heating plant, some of the equipment requires maintenance expertise unavailable in Bhutan, and some of the double-glazed panels on the ground floor are misting as their seals were broken in transport from India.
Inside, entering some of the rooms confronts you with clear glass panels into the bathroom. I can't think of any culture, no matter how libertine, that might love that. The rooms do have nice big windows.
Upstairs, the huge cantilevered roof offers a reinterpretation of the traditionally open Bhutanese attic. I can imagine the architect searching for a modern expression of traditional Bhutan typologies, and I’m in exactly the same boat as I consider the project that invited me here in the first place, and there is no denying the drama of this incredible roof: my stingy Dutch Calvinism rebels at the expense while my secular devotion to visceral placemaking stands in awe: getting this project built took guts. Hopefully furnishings, the hot tubs and a full bar will make the attic more hospitable then it is now. I leave the project after a cup of tea determined in any case to find a local architect who will kick my butt if I do anything that makes no sense here even if it might in the US.
Afterwards we visit the Amankorra resort, and it is sensible and sensual and beautiful, without the ambitions of the Austrian project but also without the unfortunate problems.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 8, 2015 from Thimphu, Bhutan

Rain, robbers, bliss
Hammam Jedidi, Tunisia
We woke up at 5am to prerecorded and very loud religious incantations that went on for about 30 minutes. No snooze button.
Cafe Ranim in the rain
It's raining. Hard. The road's out up ahead, until around noon 2 cop cars zoom by on the trail of 10 men who robbed a bank in Hammamet, to indicate that the flooding has subsided. I decide to find one of those hotels in Hammamet, get all my wet clothes back on (its worse than it sounds, but fine once you're out in the rain), and head out.
written by  roel krabbendam on December 23, 2006 from Hammam Jedidi, Tunisia

Ouch
Hoorn, Netherlands
It is raining when we wake up, it rains through breakfast, and it is raining as we finally start out on our bicycles. We wind out of town behind Bram, most of us on 7 speed upright bicycles of a rather classical Dutch style, the kids on 3 speed models, and the youngest on a 1 speeder. Bram has his own racing bike, a model doubtlessly bursting with gear options, but in truth it is not necessary: we are in flat country with the wind at our backs.
The Ijsselmeer is gray and flecked with whitecaps, the sky is grey and flecked with white clouds, and the land is an intense green: we follow the coast north.
Modern wind turbines stake both the land and the water here and there. We travel in a loose line, the teenagers eager to stay in the lead, the youngsters happy to chat and putter along, the adults chatting among themselves or with the kids or enjoying some solitude. It rains, it stops, it rains again.
The wind helps us when we turn due north, and challenges us otherwise. We are pilgrims under a capricious sky.
In early afternoon Polly finds a house she wants me to photograph, chases after me at full speed, and flips here bike on the edge of the pavement. She lands hard on her head, scraping ankle, thigh, elbow, shoulder and face as well. We are aghast at the damage, and loathe to show it. Nic goes for ice from a nearby farmhouse and Wil pulls out antibiotics and bandages, keeping Polly warm and low against shock. She does not lose consciousness. A tremendous lump grows beneath the wound on her head, incredibly half as large as a baseball within minutes, but the ice from the farmhouse begins to reduce the swelling.
We are less than 10 km. out of Enkhuizen. There is no traffic or ready transport, so when Polly says after some time that she wants to continue we are inclined to let her. She keeps up a steady pace, she and I continuing ahead when the rest of the group is stalled by other bicycle problems. The boat should be waiting for us: we focus on that.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 30, 2007 from Hoorn, Netherlands

Buddha Day
Tongsa, Bhutan
We spend the next day in Trongsa Castle. Its Buddha’s birthday, so merits are worth a million times their usual value. Kindness pays today! I’m helping little old ladies up stairs, I’m handing out bits of cash at alters here and there, and I’m thinking only benevolent thoughts. I’m banking some serious merits, but it also starts to feel a bit burdensome. Later in the day though, I discover I can dedicate my merits to all sentient beings with the proper incantations. It’s a big relief.
It's also my mom's birthday. Gefeliciteerd moedertje!
We sit in on the monks and their Buddha birthday ceremony, which I record on my phone. Photography is not allowed, but honestly it feels like watching a group of goofy guys eating lunch; except for this one guy in a yellow robe with a whip and a chain of wooden beads who maintains pacing and discipline. In any case, it’s an interesting spectacle, I root for the guys having fun when the disciplinarian steps out, and we finally leave them mid ritual. It can go on for a couple of hours, and we don’t understand a word of it, but it feels like a privilege nonetheless.
We head to Jakar, another long drive on the same impossibly narrow national "highway", squeezing past oncoming traffic, dodging cows and dogs, past crenelated precipices and flag festooned chortans, over another fog shrouded pass, until we meet the governor of Bumthang prefecture along the side of the road with his wife, and we stop for a few bowls of arra. It tastes like pine, but pleasantly so, this version slightly pink and poured from a 2 liter Fanta bottle, packing a hefty kick in the pants. A couple of people can’t drink it, but you know I hate to see anything go to waste. It’s a Dutch thing.
The governor (actually he’s not elected but appointed, the role similar to a French Prefect) is a partner in Tharpaling Norbu, the company that invited me here to help them plan and design a resort. I leave the group on the bus for the guv’s chauffeured 4x4, and 4 of us now head to the proposed site for the project. Down a rutted dirt road, past farms and farmhouses, we turn off suddenly to an even worse mud logging track, fording several stream crossings until we rise up into a vast clearing surrounded on all sides by pine forest.
It is a damaged site, cleared and farmed once for buckwheat, then converted to a dairy operation and finally left for itinerant grazing. High on the site stand some older trees and vestiges of the original forest, with new growth beginning to fill in the flanks. A healthy stream borders the west edge, a more tepid and marshier flow to the east. The entire slope faces south, towards more distant hills and a distant temple and of course the sun. To use the project to repair this place, to make it whole, feels like a truly worthy intention.
We head to Jakar after dark, the journey quite jarring but only an hour, get lost in the darkness but finally locate the hotel, share a small meal, and call it finally a night.
written by on June 2, 2015 from Tongsa, Bhutan

Drinking it all in
Jakar, Bhutan
We’re up at 4:30 am at my insistence that we experience the site at dawn. The valley is such that your first experience of the sun in the morning is not facing east but facing west, the light illuminating the western edge of the bowl: the fir trees on the western crest. Obvious intellectually, but now made visceral by simply being there and seeing it.
There’s a lot of manure on the site, and not many mature trees, and the sound of the adjacent stream provides a soft and reassuring…not musicality, but perhaps aurality? In any case, the sound of falling trees and chainsaws obliterated it. The logging is prescribed and not at all like the commercial clearcutting we might expect, and a story recognizing the many perhaps responsible uses of land may resonate, but there’s nothing remotely pleasing about a machine killing trees. There’s a challenge to this project.
The former owner of the land, a lady who lives nearby, walks the perimeter with us so that we might understand the boundaries of our plot. I have a Google Earth image and I have a site survey, but I need help overlaying the two. Slowly, simply by spending time there, a conception of how to organize this project starts to take shape in my mind.
We are invited to have breakfast, and find ourselves at a tall and imposing farmhouse arranged around a courtyard.
We shed our shoes on the second floor, and find seats on thick and colorful rugs just off the kitchen. Our hostess offers tea and bowls of rustic maize flakes and cookies, followed by red rice and chile cheese, the latter quite common but here absolutely delicious. One of two sisters lives here alone, the place untenably huge but maintained nonetheless by what must be an absolutely cast iron will.
One room of the house is dedicated entirely to an altar, a candle lit perhaps always, the walls papered with newsprint, musical instruments lying here and there. The house is the opposite of modern, dense and old and rich in color and detail, and while I feel painfully enclosed and claustrophobic, I leave both grateful and impressed. No breakfast is apparently complete without a stiff drink, and so we end our visit with a bowl of arra.
Later we stop at a local brewery to taste hard cider and apple brandy, because, you know, one bowl of booze in the morning will barely get you through to lunch.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 3, 2015 from Jakar, Bhutan

Music
Thimphu, Bhutan
Inspiring musical performances at 4:05am, 4:45am and 5:30am from the dog in the alley outside my hotel room window, with a dramatic chorus of his compatriots shortly thereafter, offer yet another perspective on the Thimphu art scene.
While the musicality of the event proved erratic at best, the sheer power and emotional depth on display immediately captured my full attention. Plaintive high notes punctuated a bass line with real gravitas, and the resulting groove really connected with this audience. These artists evoked some powerful emotions.
Packs of these musicians roam the streets here in Thimphu, with impromptu performances a common daily occurrence, and all of it apparently free. God knows how they eat unless it's each other, Buddhism notwithstanding. Gentrification of this artistic scene has not been a problem.
I felt a strange but palpable relief when the performance finally ended around 6am. Musicians paint with silence, it's been said, and I’ve never appreciated it more than early this morning outside the Seryna hotel in this boogie capital of Bhutan.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 9, 2015 from Thimphu, Bhutan

Hospital
Enkhuizen, Netherlands
By the time we get to Enkhuizen, Polly is feeling nauseous and we need another plan. I'm kicking myself that I let her continue biking, plant her in a café and go looking for the boat without success. It is about 45 minutes since the accident, raining now. I ask for a doctor, but find there is none. There is only a medical post in the town we left this morning. I ask for a taxi, but there is only one and timing is uncertain. We abandon our bikes at the café and I walk Polly across the street to the train station. I fumble with change at the automatic ticket machine, a train employee warning me the train is about to leave. Seeing Polly and recognizing the urgency, she kindly gives me the 10 cents I’m short, then helps me get Polly on the train with moments to spare. It is only 25 minutes to Hoorn, an excruciating 25 minutes. The hospital is just over a pedestrian bridge from the station.
Polly sits down on the platform, unable to continue.
I leave her sitting on the train platform and sprint for a wheelchair, finding one in the hospital and hauling it up and down the pedestrian bridge stairs to pick her up. There are no elevators, and Polly barely manages to pull herself up and down the stairs. We careen across brick plazas, every bump telegraphed to Polly’s head, her moans mortifying. Arriving at the hospital, we are directed to the medical post in an adjacent building. More bricks, more moaning. We are asked to pay 101.50 euro and then directed to a waiting room. There are 9 people waiting. I return to the desk and explain that Polly can’t wait. We are directed into an examination room where she can lie down. I turn off the lights and hold her hand. She says nothing.
A young doctor arrives within 5 or 10 minutes. He is young and relaxed and direct, jeans, sneakers, polo shirt, asking Polly questions in English about the accident, and about the contusions. A nurse begins to wrap the scrapes. He feels around the lump on her head and decides there are no fractures, Polly having hit one of the thicker parts of her skull. She did not lose consciousness, nor is she at all disoriented. He discounts a concussion. The nausea results from blood pressure fluctuations and shock, and it ultimately comes down to a prescription for pain and a prescription for nausea.
I pick up the drugs at the hospital pharmacy, and after 90 minutes of rest we are somewhat abruptly kicked out of the clinic: the room may be required if someone has a heart attack for example. “Maybe” trumps misery it appears, and we are slightly miffed as we head back to the train. Bricks again…and pedestrian bridge stairs, and finding the right track and waiting for the train. I call ahead to finally advise the group on events, the 650 year anniversary celebrations around us loud and irritating, almost drowning out the call.
Enough was understood that Nic is waiting for us when we get back to Enkhuizen, and a taxi is arranged to take us to the boat. Finally, 5 hours after the accident, Polly is able to sleep. The café owner where we had abandoned our bicycles that morning had communicated with the group, they had reclaimed our bikes, and everything is already loaded on the boat. Albert, the captain, is concerned about crossing the Ijsselmeer and decides to leave immediately for our next port. Mercifully, the crossing is uneventful, and we finally finish our day on the northern shore of the Ijsselmeer, in the port of Lemmer.
Headache
Polly will be OK...she's always been slightly unusual, in a good way.
written by  roel krabbendam on May 30, 2007 from Enkhuizen, Netherlands

Change of Scenery
El Paso, United States
In Texas, finally, the trees drop away and the horizon recedes and space expands further and further until we look around finally at scrub and sand and distant hills and know we have found the desert.
Route 20 headed wes
The sky has changed as well as the land, the color deeper, the clouds pronounced and discrete, bands of rain in the distance clearly distinguishable, distinguishable that is until we drive straight through the middle of one and lose our bearings, pulling over finally with Hazard lights blinking to avoid mishap.
Route 20 headed west
A car pulls up with flashing lights and the officer that leaps out into the drenching rain knocks urgently on our window to insist that we get off the highway entirely, the risk of collision profound even in the median. We comply.
The storm passes quickly, but we will dodge others throughout the day. The 20 dies into the 10 at the western edge of Texas, and we head north towards El Paso. To our left, the great Mexican expanse, ahead of us the Sonoron Desert and New Mexico and Arizona. Ahead, a new life. I drive with a growing sense of strangeness, thinking about myths, and of Cormac McCarthy.
written by  roel krabbendam on July 29, 2007 from El Paso, United States

Christmas Eve
Al Hammamat, Tunisia
I'm ensconced now in a Sheraton with wireless internet access, my gloriously overheated room is festooned with drying clothes, I'm about to have a gourmet Christmas dinner, I'm going to sleep for 12 hours, and the hell with camping anyway. Merry Christmas!
Tonight's menu:
1. pate du canard with figs and fruit sauces (very, very nice improvement on plain old pate)
2. consomme de...some seafood...
3. Turkey rolled around some kind of leafy vegetable: indescribable and great
4. creamed potato tower: think whipped cream, only potato...
5. custard with chocolate lines drawn on it, and english pudding
6. cafe au lait
I showed up so late, they gave it to me for 1/3 of the price, which, because I'm stingy as all hell except when I'm not, naturally quadrupled my pleasure.
Bonne nuit Mia.
written by  roel krabbendam on December 24, 2006 from Al Hammamat, Tunisia

Almost
Bangkok, Thailand
Driven to Paro from Thimphu to catch my plane to Bangkok, I couldn't help falling asleep on the hour long trip. Not very good company for the driver.
I managed to compress all of my augmented belongings into two bags again, folding the Gho really carefully (the thing is huge), even folding my dirty laundry, finding room for this huge book of data on Bhutan and all of the other presents I've been given as well as the tchotchkies I've picked up here and there. Unfortunately its all so heavy now I can barely carry it. Exquisitely planned this trip was not, at least on my part. How my visas and tickets and transportation got arranged in 3 days by everyone else I have no idea.
I almost made it 2 weeks without getting sick. Almost!!! Now, on the last night, I feel like crap.
Paro airport waiting room and trinket showroom
In the airport it's impossible to understand the announcements, so when a large number of people head for the door I assume its time to go. When I find my seat on the plane however, the video monitors show a 25 minute flight to Guwahati, India...not a much longer flight to Bangkok. Have I told you about once hopping an expensive overnight ferry from Mallorca to Barcelona, only to wake up in Ibiza? That was my 21st birthday. Anyway, some anxious inquiries suggest I'm on the correct flight anyway, and off we go. Bhutan slowly disappears into mist and then clouds, and I feel a little nostalgic, a little grateful, and a little eager to be home again.
We are warned that photography is not allowed at Guwahati, the same warning we got in Kolkata. A steward comes through after some passengers disembark, verifying that every bag in the overheads has an owner, and I suddenly realize they are very concerned about terrorism. I thought at first that they didn't want the rather forlorn state of the infrastructure to become public knowledge.
Lunch is served on the next leg, chicken or veg, rice with more veg, roll, salad, yogurt, carrot cake (not too sweet or frosted thank god)...coffee...I sleep the whole way to Bangkok. There, we're loaded onto a bus, delivered to the terminal, ushered with very confusing directions to immigration, directed to belt 10 for bags, I change $60 because I don't know what to expect even though I'm only here for a day, and then I wander off to look for a phone to order up the hotel van. Only, when I'm directed to a phone, I can't for the life of me figure out how much money to stick in it since it obviously isn't free. I wander some more, find a guy who directs me to a guy, wander some more, get redirected to another guy, who calls the hotel on his cell, and then 10 minutes later escorts me to the van. "Wandering" seems like an inadequate system, but it worked for me.
BANG! TV taking me into the late-night...
Thai television is very...saccharine. It's 6:30 pm. I have to get up at 5:30am to catch the flight to Tokyo...find the most amazing cup of coffee in Bangkok, which is 30 kilometers away, or catch a quick dinner locally, or simply call it a night...hmmmm.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 10, 2015 from Bangkok, Thailand

Someone else
Tokyo, Japan
Forgot about the time change last night: it was 7pm before I got outside and I wouldn't have gotten to the awesome coffee downtown in time to enjoy it. Instead, I wandered around the neighborhood and ended up getting a beer and dinner. My pepto bismol moment last night argued otherwise, but what the hell. One cheapo Chang beer and some awesome fish and a dessert featuring coconut milk, corn, "sago" (no idea what that is), tapioca and a little onion, served hot...surprisingly satisfying considering I picked it all at random from the menu.
The streets were loud with open restaurants blaring local rock, live bands competing with karaoke, radios and televisions. Somewhere, Stevie Wonder was still getting air time. It was hot and sticky simply walking around, shorts and flipflops definitely in order even at 10pm. I got back to the room, brushed my teeth, noticed the sink wasn't draining, fumbled with the drain until I accidentally got it to work (press down, don't pull up), considered once again what do do with the toilet paper (deposited into bags marked "sanitary bag" which then went into the trash if you must know...hope I was correct for the maid's sake), set my alarm, arranged for a wake-up call, read about 2 pages,,,that's all I remember.
View towards the ocean on the van ride to Suvarnabhumi Airport
I woke up at 5, got the wake up call at 530, got the van to the airport at 6, got through boarding pass and immigration and bag check by 630, hit the gate before 7, got kicked out of the gate at 715 (wasn’t open yet), got on the plane at 8, got to Tokyo by I can't remember Tokyo time, deplaned and went through yet another tedious bag check even though it was a transfer, got to the American Airlines desk just 20 minutes before flight time for my next boarding pass, ran for the plane and was the last one on, stewardesses shaking their heads at me, hit LA 12 hours later on the same day I left so I could live through this all again, got through immigration by 1230pm local time, got my checked bag and passed through customs at 130 (long, long, long line), had all my paperwork in order and a valid green card (unlike the last time several years ago, which took some negotiating: these people are more agreeable than they appear) got to Terminal 4 by 145, passed through bag check TSA preapproved by 2 even though they made me disassemble everything after all (I'm telling you, I look suspicious to them), took the bus to the remote American Eagle terminal and waited 2 hours for the plane that left finally at 4, slept until we hit Tucson at 540pm local time, got home at 630 thanks to my exceptional brother (the mature one), took a shower, threw my clothes in the washing machine, unpacked the rest of my stuff, and sat down to write about it all at 8.
The trip already feels like it happened to someone else.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 11, 2015 from Tokyo, Japan

Spare Change, Part 1
Tucson, United States
I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed. ~George Carlin
Back in 1986, when I lived in Boston the first time, and after a condominium renovation had become endless and my wife had left me, and I had dropped out of night school, and getting laid off from my job seemed a definite possibility, I would walk around the city late at night handing my loose change to the men and women lining Arlington and Boylston near the park, or the doorways of Kenmore Square. I was hoping to buy some better luck I suppose, or maybe virtue to trade back later. God knows I needed a change.
You’ll say I should have saved my coin or bought a lottery ticket instead, because change was inevitable either way. I say, I went to bed feeling a little less sullied and a little more grateful for what I did have, and it’s rare that a small handful of quarters will buy you that.
This all comes to mind after meeting the guys a temp agency sent us to unload the moving van. After a last night in El Paso, in a La Quinta no less, though not one as delicious as north of Atlanta, we woke up early and made the final dash into Tucson to meet the moving van, arriving with 2 hours to spare, enough time just barely to call an agency and hire two guys to help us unload. At the end of the day, after 4 hours in triple digit temperatures, and a thorough soaking when a tiny little thunderstorm sidled over and spewed, these guys went home with $7/hour from the agency and a little extra I didn’t tell the agency about.
These guys sign in at the agency in the morning, arriving as early as possible to stand a better chance of a good place on the list, and then wait for the call. It’s marginally better than waiting on a street corner, something I remember from the years I lived in Los Angeles, but the agency gets half the money, and there’s still no assurance that the call will come. They are working, in any case, these two men, and they are poor. Strange to put a label ("poor") on two people that are no longer nameless or faceless. Strange and quite possibly insulting, categorizing, abstracting, sifting away their individuality.
That contrast between what little I can imagine of their life and what I know about my own, it gives a truly sordid “satisfaction”. Worse, it is based not on their real life, but on the life I imagine they have, a life I probably imagine in such a way as to maximize my own relief, that I am me and not them. Relief, not satisfaction.
Poverty and charity, the relationship between them, feels pretty simple. The emotions behind them suddenly feel very complicated.
Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine. ~Robert C. Gallagher
Levy says this on poverty in America, and the fact that large numbers of the poor are incarcerated in this country:
”And should we…conclude that [the US] has chosen to set up the penal state against that of the providential state, proposing a net of control that involves first police, then prison, as against a minimum income and guaranteed medical care? Of course not. I will not go so far as to say that. But that America is, just after Russia, the world champion of imprisonment is a fact. That it does not, however, actually have such a large number of major criminals incapable of rehabilitation into society is another fact. And that its prisons are participating in this way in a global system of producing and concealing, manufacturing and then condemning to invisibility, a population of the absolute poor, excluded from the space of the polis, who are turning into zombies, troglodytes-a physician would say “foreign bodies”-in a society that finds here the insurmountable defect in its armor and its image-that is a third fact, and one that is not the smallest result of my investigation”. (Levy, p245)
written by  roel krabbendam on July 30, 2007 from Tucson, United States

Goodness
Tucson, United States
Got up at 5 this morning, no jet lag, on fire about this project. I grabbed my first latte in 2 weeks (don't tell me I don't suffer for my craft), and then a few tentative sketches in my notebook from the trip erupted into pages of ideas. The project begins to gather some momentum. Sometimes design feels like a punishing dance with a really obnoxious partner...and sometimes it feels like...I don't know. Something really good.
Some thanks are in order:
To Charles Simmons and his wife Marla, for trusting us with the future of Tharpaling Norbu
To Kim Fernandez, for so kindly recommending us to Charles
To Sherab Tenzin and his wonderful wife Sonam, for hosting and for their generous gifts
To Thuji Nadik, for his time, Wisdom and a great night at his House (that yak was tasty).
To Kezang for outrageous organizational skills and a gentle spirit
To Brother Yeshi Sempa for sharing his truly breathtaking knowledge of Bhutan and of Buddhism
...and finally to Pala for driving all over the country for us, and always with a sly smile.
Kuzuzampo to all, and I hope to see you again soon!
written by  roel krabbendam on June 11, 2015 from Tucson, United States

Spare Change, Part 2
Even if all the poor aren’t in jail, or perhaps because of that, you can always retire to Sun City, Arizona up around Phoenix or to Sun City Vistoso just north of Tucson, where my mother makes her home, and where we will camp out until our house sells in Massachusetts. There are only old people here, and this is by design. The streets are empty except in the early morning, when the golf carts head for the club and the dog owners get taken for a walk. Noone under 55 need apply here, and it is rumored also that even children may only visit for so long. We may yet find ourselves kicked out of the neighborhood, too young, too lively, too broke…the rationale is hard to come by. These people have protected themselves against their own children, or everyone else’s kids. In so doing, they have also excluded anyone unlike themselves.
It is, I suppose, their privilege, but it strikes me as a foretaste of oblivion. Levy visited Sun City near Phoenix and wrote this:
“The problem, in short, is that all this implies a profound break with the very tradition of civic mindedness and civility-I won’t even say of compassion-that was responsible, and continues to be responsible, for this country’s greatness. And this experiment in privatizing a public space at the expense of a community cannot fail to create a terrible precedent…if we ratify the principle of this gilded ghetto based on membership in a certain age and income bracket, then by what right can we tomorrow prevent the development of cities forbidden to the old?...In whose name can we resist the definitive balkanization of American space that could well result? (Levy, p 129)
“…I leave Sun City with a feeling of unease, no longer knowing if you come here to save or to damn yourself, to banish death or savor a foretaste of it”. (Levy, p130)
Of course, the Balkanization of American space is an old story. North of Atlanta, the experience of the poor black in New Orleans, now this “retirement community”…all products of fear or preference or probably both. This distancing from the “Other” leaves me profoundly conflicted. Were these insular communities active in the production of culture: unique, rich and interesting lives contributing to some larger communal and inclusive vision, then it would scare me less. New Orleans may be the exception, but I do not think that this is what is going on.
Personally, for now because who knows what I'll feel like at 80, I choose the “Other”. I choose variety. I choose difference and conflict and friction, the new. I choose a challenge. I choose dialectic and synthesis without end, each new result juxtaposed with each new opposite and engaged in discovering a new synthesis. I choose change.
I will admit to waking up now with the unsettling knowledge that we have lost our moorings. It is a peculiar vertigo, if I may borrow one last thought from Levy. If it takes some time to figure out this new life however, if we encounter boredom and frustration and indifference and feelings of unease, if sometimes we look at each other and ask “what the hell were we thinking”?, at least we will know this: we are alive, we are engaged in the world, we are trying something new and we are actively searching and ultimately, we will find our way. I am sure of it.
written by  roel krabbendam on July 30, 2007 from Tucson, United States

Two heads not better than one
Jakar, Bhutan
Above and to the east of our site lies the Tharpaling Monastery that gives our company in part it’s name. We spend the day there, the event a bit of a pilgrimage for the rest of the group.
The hour drive from Jakar has become familiar to me now, winding through the Blue Pine forests of Bumthang and ultimately turning off the main road onto the farm track that leads past the entrance to our project site, up past some new paving work, past the Monastery’s gift shop, winding up finally to the main gate where we park. That paving job had young children and nursing mothers on a public works crew unlike any I’ve ever seen anywhere. I keep noticing that the women do all the heavy lifting in this culture, on this paving project but also on all these construction sites I visit. If it’s rammed earth then its the women lifting huge bags of earth and tamping with these heavy tools, with the men standing around pointing. Sort of like my house…(hi Polly!)
The Monastery sits on a steep slope, and though it looks modest at first we discover there are many more buildings sprinkled up the slope. Far above, on the ridge line, there’s a modest chapel commemorating the site of one particularly important monk and his notable meditations, and that’s where I set my sights. The climb is steep, the altitude is high, and I could frankly be exercising more, but I take it slow and easy all the way to the top. Along the way, a variety of monks check out the white guy in a Gho (Kazuzampo-La!), but at least I’m wearing it correctly today. Somewhere around 11,000 feet my head begins to suggest alternate plans, but some other head disagrees and both heads and I continue up. The unheard head starts to throw a tantrum as I hit the tree line and then the ridge line, and its obvious the argument will not be settled. Stubbornness prevails, and finally all three of us make it to the final alter somewhere around 12,000ft I’m told.
There’s a great view into the next valley, which the Buddha statue turns his back to in favor of the way I came. Far below lies Tharpaling, and were it not for the headache I might have lingered. Unsure of what the rest of the group might be up to, it seems just as well that I head back. As it turns out, they got an audience with the head monk and it was an incredibly emotional experience.
We eat a late picnic lunch up there at the monastery and head back to town, the hour late enough that we skip another visit to the project site.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 4, 2015 from Jakar, Bhutan

Junket for Junkies
Lemmer, Netherlands
We were directed to wake Polly every 2 hours during the night, the possibility of bleeding inside her skull of some concern to the doctor. After 2 uneventful wakings however, I set the alarm on my cell phone incorrectly and we both sleep through the rest of the night. I wake up swearing at myself, but Polly is fine. The lump is diminished, the purple is migrating southward, and she shrugs off our suggestions that she remain on the boat today. We leave Lemmer under cloudy skies, Polly among us, 16 ducklings behind Bram the Guide.
It is Monday, and we pass through miles of open countryside, farms, small villages all closed and quiet. Those of us tuned to Monday morning industrialized country frenzy find it a little eerie. Echten, Echtenerberg, Munnekeburen, Scherpenzeel, Spanga: all closed. By 10am, concern mounts, and by 11am we have a serious, serious problem: where are we going to stop for coffee and pastry?
Ritual caffeination is deeply engrained in this culture, and 1030am is time for “koffie”. I always assumed “koffie” happened whenever you dropped in on someone, “I’ll be there for koffie” a frequent refrain, but when I once showed up at an aunt’s house at 1130am after suggesting I’d come for some coffee, I discovered punctuality was expected. These people need their fix ON TIME, or things get irritable.
Luckily, just before noon, at Ossenzijl right next to the bridge in the center of town, 4 hours after breakfast and 26 hours since the last coffee break, we finally find an open café. Koffie, Cappuccino, Koffie Verkeerd (Latte): all hastily ordered; appel taart met slagroom (apple pie with whipped cream) smoothes ruffled feathers. Mutiny averted, though some are already writing complaint letters to the trip organizers in their heads…they could have…they should have…
We leave the streets and enter National Park “de Weerribben”, a beautiful sanctuary of waterways and bike paths. Lunch is a picnic beside a canal, the kids focused on feeding the ducks. It rains occasionally. We meander through the park, enjoying the quiet, the birds, the solitude…OK, there’s 16 of us…maybe not the solitude. Occasionally one child or another lags, and we become practiced at pedaling while holding hands, the stronger pulling the weaker, so that we all generally move along as a group…Kalenberg, Wetering, Baarlo…from our vantage point these towns appear to have no cars. There are signs for a town called “Mosquito Bite” (Muggenbeet), but we pass to the west.
In Blokzijl we get back on the roads, but the 4 hours far from civilization have seriously taken their toll: shopping spasms hit some of the women. Those of us unaffected try to stay calm and patient, but our nerves fray as we consider the possible cost. Some of the group continues on and we lose group cohesion, but the condition luckily passes quickly. We don’t ask how much. We move on. In late afternoon we reach Vollenhove, and the boat.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Lemmer, Netherlands

Eat with me! You won't eat with me?
Kairouan, Tunisia
Mohamed el Amied Ben Hedili Ben Mohamed Ben Romd’hane, storekeeper
This is Mohamed el Amied Ben Hedili Ben Mohamed Ben Romd’hane, storekeeper, father of 2 children (ages 2 and 3), devout Muslim, and gentleman of real character. I approached him simply to buy a spoon.
"Une cuiller seulement"?
"Oui, une".
He quickly had one of the 2 guys working for him find an old spoon. While they were cleaning it and I was wondering what an old spoon would cost me, he invited me to eat with him. Though I told him I must go, he quickly set up two packing crates inside his store, brought out dates, olives, olive oil, chili paste, milk and water, and told me to have a seat. I did as I was told.
About the milk: apparently fresh from the cow. I admit to some reticence. Lots of solid material that tasted kind of cheesy, with a slightly sour tinge and just a hint of the flavor you expect from the pasteurized, homogenized stuff. I was assured it was vital to keep me strong on my trip, and finally dug in for a couple of cups full.
Center for Disease Control advisory on traveller's health: "Avoid dairy products, unless you know they have been pasteurized".
Mohamed proved to be open-minded, but suggesting strongly that I read the Quran so that I might afterwards allow myself a choice. It definitely made me regret not bringing an English version along on this trip, if only to set the context. As far as Mohamed is concerned, there is no book with as many good answers to life’s important questions. I thought: why not?
Western culture fears Moslem culture, let’s face it. Facing the strange, the unknown, the “Other” requires a certain sense of security and trust, which seems to be diminishing despite everyone’s best efforts. The Netherlands just banned the burkha, for example, a move that frankly reminded me of the old dress code we had in Junior High. No jeans children!!
It wasn’t the jeans but what they represented, and so it is with the burkha. Holland is impoverishing its own culture, and nullifying one of it’s most generous and well-known tenants: tolerance.
Back to Mohamed: we ate and chatted as he and his employees dealt with a jostle of customers, and when it was time for me to go, he handed me 2 plastic bags filled with groceries and took not a single Dinar. I said “Mohamed, il y a une difference entre l'amitie et l’argent. Laisse-moi payer pour ces choses”. He told me “Une autre temps, peut-etre”. I bicycled away and found a scooter at my elbow not 3 kilometers later: it was Mohamed with that spoon I had originally approached him for: no charge.
written by  roel krabbendam on December 26, 2006 from Kairouan, Tunisia

Past Present Future
We start the day at the National Library, which turned out to be way more interesting than expected. As a repository of its past I expected the usual and very stuffy vault of books, but we found instead a building with no books at all except in the shop: only scrolls.
The one exception was the largest book in the world (created at MIT and certified by Guinness). Just the other day,100 guys planted 49000 trees in an hour, breaking another Guinness World Record. It's something this country seems recently rather interested in.
The library had large and very interesting photographs of historic events, displays of a variety of scrolls, a wonderful alter on every floor, and down in the shop some material on the construction of the Dzongs, and how to plan for a fortuitous construction project that I snatched up as a present to myself.
Up the hill, at the School for the 13 Sacred Traditional Arts, I had hoped to see metalwork and claywork and glasswork, crafts and craftspeople I could imagine working with on the resort project, but none of that was in evidence. Carving, weaving, embroidering and painting were the dominant arts, each primarily concerned with preserving ancient motifs and techniques.
The mindset is so intriguing to me though: devoting your life to repeating a series of works from hundreds of years ago. I think of every project I start as an adventure for which I have trained my whole life, but the outcome of which I have absolutely no preconceived notions. In the beginning, projects feel a bit like wandering: looking, seeing, exploring, questioning. I start projects with the same tremendous feeling of hope and possibility I feel at buying a new sketchbook. This is the exact opposite of what these students are learning and devoting themselves to. They approach each commission with certainty, destination, pre-conceived outcome, and answers without questions. I couldn't do it. The very act of making architecture is predicated on change: changing at the very least a site, and hopefully for the better. These students signed on instead for stasis.
If art prepares a culture for change, and this culture focuses its art on the past, I wonder how it will cope with the tidal wave of western influence the country has invited upon itself. Perhaps a focus on the past, on the other hand, is exactly the antidote required to survive. Perhaps politics is the way to address change, and art is a connection to the roots required to sustain you here. I certainly hope so.
At the School of Traditional Medicine in the late afternoon, preserving knowledge is everything, and rightfully so. As we demolish ecosystems and hie species to extinction, recognizing the value of herbal and mineral remedies and preserving the knowledge of their uses seems almost painfully germane. I could not get a sense of whether the school continues to develop new knowledge, but I left with one little axiom stuck in my head:
Traditional Medicine: slow result, no side effects.
Modern Medicine: fast result, severe side effects.

Gross National Happiness
Tongsa, Bhutan
On the way to Trongsa, we stopped in at a primary school in a small town along the way. Despite the admonishment to dress appropriately, we invited ourselves in (politely!) for a visit.
The buildings were beautifully constructed, the administration wonderfully accommodating, and the students…well…polite of course. Out on the basketball court, a class was widely and evenly dispersed to take a test: that way there was no cheating.
I walked into one class managing without a teacher that day and noone was acting out at all. They were all studying. Seeing that they were busy with math, I walked up to the blackboard and whipped off some completely incorrect equations in an effort to get them riled up, but noone took the bait. I’m sure they now believe that foreigners do not understand math. Lately though, and I did not admit a word of this to them, I lie awake at night trying to remember how to solve differential equations…I can’t for the life of me remember how to do it.
The principal acknowledged that 45 people in a single class was difficult on the teachers, but this far from a significant town it was difficult to recruit more of them. Class in any case, is still taught as a sage on stage affair, the internet and alternative teaching methodologies not yet making an impact. The computer lab did not have internet access. What interested me the most was the focus on Gross National Happiness. While we didn’t get any insight on the impact it had on lesson plans, the prominent signage suggested it was taken very seriously.
I wonder if, instead of the Pledge of Allegiance or perhaps on top of it, we had our American kids take a minute every day to consider Happiness…what would happen to our collective national neuroses. It makes me wonder, actually, what the point of all our teaching actually is. Are we interested only in making productive workers and steadfast warriors? Are we interested in developing contented adults? Is there actually even room for Happiness in our national agenda, or are we only interested in the pursuit of it…Happiness being that bus that never seems to notice you chasing after it…exhausted, burdened, desperate to catch the ride…but keeping you running. I suspect deep down that the Puritan spine of the American psyche disapproves entirely of happiness, or at least has its suspicions: equating it with extravagance, or sloth.
Do contented nations meddle with neighbors and antagonize strangers? Of course, you say: Happily!
written by  roel krabbendam on June 1, 2015 from Tongsa, Bhutan

Condensation
Bi'r 'Ali Bin Khalifah, Tunisia
A hotel appears as the sun suggests rest...stay? go? another 25 km and then a muddy Field? Stay!
25 Dinar buys a room without heat in a hotel under renovation, but hot water runs from 8pm to midnight. It's enough, and a hot bath and dinner downstairs of couscous and chicken and bread (baskets of bread!) and pastry and cafe au lait make it perfect.
Here's the view out of my window in the morning. Unheated room = lot's of condensation.
Early morning without heat in the room, Bi'r Ali Bin Khalifah
written by  roel krabbendam on December 27, 2006 from Bi'r 'Ali Bin Khalifah, Tunisia

Dancing with the departed
Vollenhove, Netherlands
That evening we are treated to a walking tour of the city by author Wim Willemse. He explains that Vollenhove was once a port on the Zuider Zee, a prosperous Hanseatic League city with an important fish industry, and later a peat industry. 600 years later, fleeting fortune, the sea is turned to polder, these industries have died and Vollenhove is a pleasant but very small town on a canal. They build very expensive yachts here. What used to be shore looks out over farmland.
The Bishop of Utrecht once kept a summer residence here, attracting other noblemen who built elaborate houses. We walk through the formal grounds of one noble residence, the gardens in some disrepair and half of it dead. A small monument honors WWII dead. We walk quietly and whisper in deference not to the departed but to a theater company rehearsing an upcoming production. Nearby, in the forest, a castle lies in ruins on a small island and a large wooden stage stands in the water in front. This was the home of a nobleman who died suddenly, his home left to ruin. The theater company will perform here, past and present dramas juxtaposed, a dance with the departed.
Later, in the boat, the conversation drifts to an acquaintance who lost a foot to parrot disease, to the surprising challenges of navigating the Ijsselmeer, and to a German who sank and drowned by underestimating the conditions on the lake. A cousin I greatly admire and appreciate has disappeared with some inheritance money, and we discuss the abyss he seems to have entered and our inability to coax him back into the family. I tried to enlist him as a cameraman for my Sahara trip, but he didn't respond to my emails, and now we discover, except for flowers his mother received on her birthday, that his immediate family hasn't heard from him in a very long time. How can this end well? I fear for him, I miss his humor, I wish he would call. It seems slightly morbid, the present tide of our thoughts, and I can’t help thinking it is the town that has affected us so. The sun sets.
My sister and I sit down and play chess until late into the night.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Vollenhove, Netherlands

Things
Vollenhove, Netherlands
Polly’s purple lump is moving south, descending towards her left eye, and I harbor ignorant concerns about what happens when they collide. We head north to Giethoorn, tourist mecca. The day is hot and sunny, and I will end the day with the sunburn I never got in the Sahara.
At Jonen we run into two American couples on matching foldable tandems, hop a tiny ferry, and discover a fabulous little café out here in what feels like nowhere. The inhabitants would no doubt disagree.
Coffee, pastries, ice cream, hot chocolate with whipped cream: we treat the kids and ourselves to a moment of gluttony, and with cholesterol levels satisfyingly elevated, wave goodbye to the storks and continue our travels.
Giethoorn, the touristy part in any case, lies amid a network of canals and a lake.
We rent two little electric motor boats and skim through the canals and onto the lake, my younger brother steering competently from the start while I ram banks and other boats until I get the hang of things…emblematic, emblematic…
Some purchases are next, trip remembrance beckoning at the pottery place or the stone place next door. The ceramic that catches my eye is not for sale however, and as we ponder the issues of carting some fragile piece back home, we uncharacteristically dissuade ourselves from a purchase. Its easier somehow in Ayacucho or Oaxaca or Cotonou, where artifacts speak in stranger tongues, to find something indelibly intertwined with your experience…something to hold and protect and give back to you in future years that experience.
Modern industrial objects it seems, servants to repetition and abstraction, remember little and speak even less. They seem reflective, not absorptive. Even handmade objects produced in modern, industrialized cultures have the same problem, infected no doubt by that infatuation with abstraction. It is difficult to find a trustworthy repository for your memories.
The ride back is uneventful, though the kids are noticeably tiring and require a boost here and there. When I trade bikes with one of my younger nephews and race clown-like on the tiny bike to catch up with the faster crowd up front, the humor falls flat. They band together though, these seven kids, and I am heartened both by their fortitude and there easy affection for each other.
Dinner at the boat is wonderful, as always, and so is chess with my sister. We take back our stupid moves and debate our strategies, fighting fatigue to finish the game finally at 1:15am.
Say THAT 10 times fast.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Vollenhove, Netherlands

Regression Therapy
Bi'r 'Ali Bin Khalifah, Tunisia
Here's how to bicycle the last 48 km of the day when your tri-deltoids are killing you, and this little bunch of muscles that you never knew you had right behind your left knee is turning to stone...regression therapy.
48: Africa
47: Car accident...mid-life crisis
46: A million trips to Middlebury, Vermont
45: New job: working with Middlebury College in Vermont
44: No more school construction funding in Massachusetts...job crisis
43: Project manager for Acton schools: Mia's school, the school I went to
42: Starting work on the Acton schools: second most rewarding career experience
41: Trading self-employment for a day job
40: Designing Franklin's Hawaiian pad: still not done
39: Designing Franklin's Hawaiian pad: most rewarding career experience
38: Boston, Massachusetts: a million trips to Washington DC for work
37: Los Angeles, California: bad move professionally. Mia arrives!!!
36: Marriage (I finally say yes).
35: Cambridge, Massachusetts: working with Polly. Designing Franklin's first house.
34: Las Vegas, Nevada: working on Treasure Island Casino. Polly says "yes"!
33: Los Angeles: Architectural degree at last.
32: Ticino, Switzerland and Rotterdam, the Netherlands: thesis.
31: Los Angeles, California: school. Dad dies.
30: Divorce. Only 30 kilometers to go!!
29: Boston, Massachusetts: Condominium renovation horror. Quit school.
28: Night school, day job, condominium renovation: what was I thinking?
27: Somerville, Massachusetts: starting school again
26: Raleigh, North Carolina: designing water filtration plants and branch banks.
25: Marriage. A year in the Amazon basin.
24: Raleigh, North Carolina: my first job.
23: Quiting school to be with Laurie.
22: Cornell Architecture. Working as a cafe manager (much better!)
21: Cornell Architecture. Working as a janitor and then a dishwasher in a restaurant.
20: A year on my bicycle in Europe and Morrocco.
19: Flunking out of Cornell Engineering.
18: Cornell College of Engineering.
17: High School graduation.
16: Driver's licence (fender bender in Registry of Motor Vehicles parking lot: good start)
15: Tennis camp.
14: Being a teenager is miserable!
13: Being a teenager is great!
12: Summer in Austria with Niekje.
11: Junior High misery.
10: Graduating elementary school: a major triumph.
9: Less than 10 kilometers left: I'm going to make it!
8: Forcing everyone to stop calling me "Roll" and start calling me "Rule".
7: The pinnacle of my academic career. Unfortunately, I peaked early.
6: Moving to Acton, Massachusetts. I remember the smell of school paste.
5: Moving to Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Making maps with my gang from the hood.
4. Moving back to Holland. Awe at the maps and globes in the 5th grade classroom.
3. Moving to Wildwood, Illinois.
2. Falling down the stairs. Lighting matches with Niekje...lots of matches.
1. Come on: does anyone remember 1?
0. I've made it. My back is killing me!
written by  roel krabbendam on December 27, 2006 from Bi'r 'Ali Bin Khalifah, Tunisia

Pink bathroom
Gabes, Tunisia
I'm staying in another hotel tonight: heat and hot water and a completely pink bathroom and a very large, deep tub to boot.
Pink bathroom at Hotel Oasis
I pulled in at 6pm, just after dark, my first 100km day. I'm here for 2 nights to give myself time to buy some crucial stuff:
1. a new knife (this trip keeps eating utensils, have you noticed?)
2. some warmer sleeping gear (seduced by the weight of the lightest Marmot sleeping bag-rated to 30F and weighing only 1lb-I supplemented with a Dupont liner-rated an additional 15F-and thought I had the problem elegantly licked. In fact, I didn't factor in just how little heat I'm generating at the end of a long day on the bike: I am FREEZING and have a new appreciation for hypothermia.
3. warm socks
By the way, that spoon I lost...it came back. Now I have two. It was hiding under the fold of one of my outer pockets, and it wasn't until I unpacked absolutely everything last night in trying to find my knife, that I found the spoon. The knife (with attached bike lock key and handy LED light) is definitely history. Two theories: this guy I met two nights ago stole it, or I accidently threw it away with a bag of Orange peels and empty yoghurt containers. Full story:
After leaving Kairouan (and NOT staying in the 5 star hotel that beckoned so...so...seductively), I bicycled another 25km into the middle of farm country. Mud absolutely everywhere. I was about to plant my tent on a concrete cistern to get out of the mud when a 15 year old kid bicycles by and suggests I follow him. I do. For half an hour. It gets dark. Suddenly he says goodbye, and leaves me standing there wondering what that was all about. 20 minutes later I find a house that looks like its under construction, and plant the tent on a concrete pad. Dogs begin to howl, and they don't stop for an hour. Ensconced in the tent, I implant some earplugs and hope for the best. Half hour later, flashlights and muttering outside the tent. I ignore it and they go away. 15 minutes after that, more flashlights and muttering, and this time I'm rousted by the owner of the house and his ne'er-do-well brother. They suggest I make myself at home inside the house where it will be warmer. Up comes the tent and everything in it, to be placed in the house.
I'm left there with the brother: he can't stay in Tunisia, he wants to travel and work abroad but can't get a visa, and can I help him find work in the United States or Europe? He hasn't been to school, he drives a truck occasionally but doesn't have a job, he speaks some rudimentary French, but he has no skills whatsoever. He doesn't want to work on the family farm. He's evasive about his name and address, but gives me his telephone number, and promises to see me in the morning. Next morning he's a no-show. I leave the house, the door locks after me, I realize I don't have my knife. I force the latch on the door (15 minutes with a stiff piece of cardboard: I was desperate), search the house, and don't find a thing.
When you're carrying as little as I am and everything has been considered for weight and size and utility and cost and secondary uses, losing any one item takes on an inordinate importance (I've been planning this for over a year!). I was really, really depressed for kilometers. I started using the back of my spoon as a knife (spoons: they're the new knife!), and got through the day, and finally came back to my senses: I can get another knife. Furthermore, I have a spare light and a spare bike lock key and this isn't the catastrophe it felt like in the heat of the moment. XZ$%&@! happens. C'est la vie.
Dental floss: that problem I thought I solved by buying toothpicks? It wasn't working, I'm having some swelling in the gums, and finally ask an Australian studying Arabic here in Tunisia if she could give me some floss. She hands me a whole roll. Ca, c'est aussi la vie.
written by  roel krabbendam on December 27, 2006 from Gabes, Tunisia

Rock Mobster
Zwartsluis, Netherlands
The kids are tired, Polly's purple lump has swallowed her eye (oh my!) and today the Tucson clan stays on the boat. The clouds are back to help us with that sunburn, and we set out this morning for Sint Jansklooster (Saint John’s Parish), Zwartsluis (Black Locks, for the locks on the Black River), Genemuiden (I have no idea: my Dutch has its limits) and finally, Kampen (Camps). As always, Bram takes the lead, whoever is directly behind him stops and directs everyone else whenever we change direction at a corner, and someone serves as “sweep” to mark the end of the line. Evil nephew Tommy takes glee in directing stragglers in the wrong direction when he gets the corner job...R...E...T...A...he knows what I'm talking about...
The old windmill at Sint Jansklooster is unfortunately closed, and we are left to view this little bit of history simply as an artifact, from the outside. A few kilometers down the road I notice a small marker, however, and pull into a clearing to find odd solitary rocks and glacial detritus. I am alone here for a few minutes, the rest of the family not at all tempted by this peculiar place, and it feels as if I have stepped out of the ordered, measured, functional world into the past. It is slightly creepy.
I am staring at a rock transported thousands of kilometers from its origin, left here alone, alien to this place, weathered, graying... Seduced by its peculiar gravity, I'm lured into anthropomorphic thinking. Sometimes I feel like that rock.
Getting back on the road feels like time travel. At Zwartsluis our fearless guide leads us to Hotel Zwartewater for “koffie”. From the street it looks like a bowling alley, but we reserve judgement in expectation of, at least, a spectacular terrace or garden. Instead, we get an unimaginably banal hotel with elevator music and wall to wall carpeting. The place is deserted, but the coffee and pastry is luckily just fine, as is the view of the river. If there are Dutch mobsters shopping for an ideal conference locale however, this is the place.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Zwartsluis, Netherlands

Potatoes and Smoked Eel
Genemuiden, Netherlands
We take a ferry to Genemuiden, a small, conservative town with a few canal side eating establishments. Rudely occupying their outside tables to eat our box lunches, we at least order a round of beer, with sips going to the more curious kids. We can’t resist some patat frite with mayonnaise as well, and this deserves a few words.
French fries in the Netherlands are frankly fabulous, almost as good as in Belgium where they were invented. They’re made from whole potatoes, not ground and reconstituted, and this gives them an authentic flavor and consistency. The potatoes are deep fried twice, crunchy on the outside and moist inside, a beautiful tan color, that crunch an elegant counterpoint to an eggy mayonnaise, which doesn’t dominate the experience as ketchup might. McDonalds makes a great French fry, but these are so much better.
Late in the afternoon we arrive in Kampen, another Hanseatic League city, but one of significantly more enduring stature than Vollenhove. There’s a boat on the river devoted to serving fish: paling (eel) and haring (herring) and even salmon, and this is our first stop. Smoked eel may not come to mind first…may not come to mind at all…when your taste buds get testy for something gourmet, but it is really something delicious. My father had a friend who caught, smoked and smuggled the stuff into the States inside hollow walking canes, it was worth that much trouble. Its just not something Americans eat, and I wonder if they even exist here.
Gunter Grass once wrote graphically about eels in the Tin Drum...something about yanking eels out of the severed head of a horse...imagery not likely to ingratiate the eel to anyone I suppose. I read this in high school and still haven't forgotten it. Herring on the other hand...who can resist? Straight from the vendor and down your gullet. Only in Holland...
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Genemuiden, Netherlands

Solitude
Gabes, Tunisia
End of a day of shopping:
1. Electrical tape: Larry, the handlebar wrap just isn’t holding up at the bar end.
2. Scrubbie/sponge: Lots more cooking happening soon.
3. Wool socks: At least, the guy said they were wool…
4. Knife: From the cutlery bin at the department store.
5. Corkscrew/can opener/bottle opener/mini knife: Just like I lost….only...different.
I took the Polly Dithmer approach to shopping: see something more or less like what you need, and grab it. No exhaustive survey of the marketplace, no price comparisons, no research regarding alternative models, nothing. I’m a new man.
Tried to find the Quaran in English, but only found Newsweek.
Found a Polartech burnoose (Polartech! Manufactured in Lawrence, United States! The guy told me wool was too heavy and impractical!), perhaps as an alternative to some kind of additional blanket or comforter, but couldn’t convince myself it was quite right.
Here’s the bottom line on traveling alone, at least for me: it’s fine in the morning as long as you have an agenda in place (ride 100km, buy wool socks, whatever), but it is terribly painful in the afternoon as the light dwindles. I miss familiar things and people. I miss my family and friends. I physically ache for connection. By the time it gets completely dark, I feel reduced to a client, a target or an outcast, depending on the situation.
Travel: it's a mental game.
written by  roel krabbendam on December 29, 2006 from Gabes, Tunisia

New email address
Gabes, Tunisia
I hope you'll all feel free to continue adding comments to the blog, but I've also set up the following email account for the duration of the trip:
rkrabbendam@yahoo.com
Hope to hear from you.
Cheers, Roel
written by  roel krabbendam on December 29, 2006 from Gabes, Tunisia

Kiss
Kampen, Netherlands
We found my brother’s family in some souvenir shop, (matte, very wide landscape postcards: irresistible), followed the three glasses of wine of just an hour ago with a couple of beers on the main square, and after dinner on the boat got a walking tour of the city from Bram.
I couldn’t get anyone else interested in buildings under construction, but I think they’re pretty cool.
There is a very nice shopping street here, with some interesting art nouveau details here and there and a wonderful scale to it all, plus interesting city gates and walls...
City Gate
...and some nice gardens.
The romance of those gardens swept Sophia off her feet it seems: we were privledged to be there for her first kiss at age 10.
It will get better, Sophia, believe me.
Bridge
The main bridge is mechanically unique, lifting the entire roadbed up instead of hinging it, and it is lit rather dramatically after dark.
Later that night: more chess. Junket for junkies.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Kampen, Netherlands

Soup
Zeewolde, Netherlands
Today, Polly and Mia and I stay on the boat. The girls are exhausted, Polly is more resolute than unaffected by her accident, and I am loathe to leave them. The others set out and we sail forth, toward the new town of Zeewolde through a light soup of mist, past bevies of swans and columns of turbines, the diesel steady with a low one-two beat.
Zeewolde was built in the 70s and 80s and is too well organized to be truly interesting. Two shopping streets establish an organizing cruciform, residential streets march into the countryside, it is all polder exposed by pumping the Ijsselmeer. As I understand it, that pumping is continuous, sea level and rainwater pressing constantly to inundate the low lying land. It explains all these beautiful wind turbines.
Note to Ted Kennedy: come to the Netherlands, embrace the beauty, Nantucket Sound will be just fine. Wind energy is worth it.
Here's a pump station from earlier in the trip...in this case, no nearby turbine. The lack of a chimney suggests that the pumps run on electricity though.
Zeewolde does have one noteworthy bit of architecture: an abandoned library. I didn’t get what all the fuss was about, but there’s a model of it at Madurodam, and that appears to be one of the impediments to its demolition. Madurodam is the entire country of the Netherlands modeled in miniature on a few acres in Den Haag, a place I remember my grandfather taking my sister and I as kids…though I probably remember it more for the extravagant ice cream sundae he bought us (colorful umbrella AND monkey on a straw)than for the miniatures…This is the same grandfather that once parked his car on a hill, put on the parking brake, told his grandson under NO CIRCUMSTANCES to touch the brake, then had to run and dive to save his car when curiosity took the better of me: my first driving lesson.
We buy some books in English at the bookstore, the girls shop, I write a little: a lazy day. Just what we needed. For lunch, Anina makes us a wonderful cup of soup.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Zeewolde, Netherlands

Lunch
Medenine, Tunisia
Iraq rings out the old year with a hanging, the Krabbendams are making deep fried Dutch treats, and I’m watching Al Jazeera from a hotel room on the main square of Medenine, Tunisia.
I spent the morning with Google Earth, addressing my concerns about navigating the desert just south of here, and then took off for the 75 kilometer run down to Medenine. Gabes was a ghost town: everything closed down for Eid. I bought a baguette and a big bottle of water from the Oasis hotel before I left (pink bathrooms notwithstanding, a great little hotel: very nice people, heat and hot water on demand, deep bathtubs, pretty good buffets for breakfast, lunch and dinner, wi-fi in the reception area, and they even gave me the 10% very-tired-Dutch-biker-stumbling-in-after-dark discount).
The roads were empty. No trucks, infrequent cars, and a sunny, clear day as well. Nonetheless, with only 6 hours of daylight left to cover 75 kilometers over hilly terrain, I was moderately concerned about arriving before dark. In Arram, 35 kilometers from Medenine and just beyond a town named Mareth, as I stopped for a drink of water, a man accosted me and would not let me go on. I tried reasoning with him, to no avail. It was have a meal with his family or else! (I know that was cheap, preying on all your fears).
I put away my little plan to get to Medenine (heat, hot water, security…), eased my mind into accepting a night out in the tent, and accepted the invitation. The whole clan was gathered at the ancestral home: the son from up north, the cousin from Paris…all hanging out on mattresses in the shadow of the house in the yard.
Lunch was eaten on the mattresses: grilled mutton, couscous, some kind of mildly spicy red sauce, tea, more tea…the father of the clan had some kind of technical job, the guy that pulled me off the road, Karboub Mohamed, works for the water utility SONEMED in Sfax, and the brother, Karboub Belgacem (always the brother!) had studied at the university, spoke some English, and couldn’t find a job.
The Karboub Clan of Arram
The Karboub Clan of Arram, Tunisia
I took pictures of all the men, who were hanging out separately, and when mom demanded to know why I didn’t take a picture of the women, I took pictures of the women. One young girl appeared seriously disturbed, and I was somehow heartened to see her ensconced, protected, embraced in the middle of the female clan.
As I left I got the pitch to find some work abroad for Belgacem. With the sun already setting, I made a try for Medenine and arrived an hour after dark. A young guy on a bicycle challenged me to a race up the last hill (gasp!), and then helped me find a little hotel on the main square where I watched Hussein’s hanging on TV. Al Jazeera left little to the imagination.
written by  roel krabbendam on December 30, 2006 from Medenine, Tunisia

New Years Eve
Tataouine, Tunisia
Left waiting in Tataouine for 2 days until government offices reopen to get a special permit to cross a restricted zone to the Algerian border, I heard of a New Year’s celebration up in the hills and caught a ride from the hotel.
It was in a granary (or "Ksar" or "Qasr") built like a fort, all stone and arched openings, a single entry portal, and command of the surrounding countryside. Inside, open fires provided smoke and warmth and light, and we sat under draped tents of wool cloth as food was served in 8 courses and a band played to a crescendo at midnight. Italians, Dutch, Canadian, Tunisian, Portuguese…managing in any number of languages to share this cloudy night.
When we finally stepped outside the sky had cleared and a radiant moon illuminated the countryside around us: stone and dust and here and there a house or tree. Two Italians from Torino gave me a ride back to the hotel, and maybe it was the two bottles of wine we had shared, but the silence on the way back felt good and the music still haunts me.
Happy New Year.
written by  roel krabbendam on December 31, 2006 from Tataouine, Tunisia

Steile Bank
Spakenburg, Netherlands
This is the Steile Bank, the boat and crew that has supported us on our bicycle trip. "Steile" means "steep" and "Bank" has all the meanings in Dutch that it has in English. The boat is owned by Albert and Anina Koers, a couple that has been sailing together for most of their long marriage. They took a break when the kids were young.
Albert
Albert is a man past 60, a grandfather, and an Elvis Presley nut. He played for us an incredible CD of relatively unknown Elvis tunes: gospel and blues from his younger years I had never heard him sing. Even the kids were dancing. Albert expressed pride in a small plot of land he and Anina have, originally a camp of sorts, that recently got an occupancy permit as a permanent structure. He spoke a bit about banks, the power banks have, and the way they distort lives with their rules and their inevitability. He is getting ready to head down to France with Anina: he likes the life down there.
Anina does the cooking, and lays down the rules. It is not permitted, for example, to store water bottles purchased elsewhere in the boat refrigerator...She is gracious about it though. Anina made expansive breakfasts and dinners. When my sister Nic expressed a desire for certain peculiarly Dutch vegetables, Anina found them and made them in the traditional style. Recognizing that we had lived in America for a long time, and that some of us had never eaten real Dutch food, she cooked an entire meal of traditional Dutch foods. Anina does the books for the couple, and it's obvious she keeps her eye on that ball. She also told us about her son and daughter, both of whom work on the water, and her son actually came on board to visit when we arrived at the same port one night.
Anina
Soren
Soren is a Danish student, friend of the Koers', studying to be a ship captain at the Maersk school in Copenhagen. He will eventually be given command of the biggest container ships on earth. In the meantime, he reads a lot and goes out to bars when he is in port, and states that he will frankly be lucky to find a wife as a sailor. He expects to be at sea for 3 months at a time, the disruption to family life obviously significant. Soren says that when Maersk experimented with shorter stints however, family disruption was worse. Couples and families didn't have a chance to re-acclimate to each other before the man left again, and so there was constant turmoil. On the Steile Bank, Soren takes shifts sailing the boat, and helps both Albert and Anina with errands and chores.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Spakenburg, Netherlands

Dissolution
Almere-Haven, Netherlands
It is our last day on bicycles.
The boat drops us off on a small dock near Almere-Haven, we wade through a throng of kids playing voetbal, and soon find ourselves cycling through exurbations of slowly increasing density.
The bike paths are pleasantly bordered by mature treerows, we play hide and seek with the Ijsselmeer, we intersect with the first highway of the trip, the buildings and freighters along and in the canals increase in size…we feel the dissolution of our tranquility.
We take a break in the town of Muiden.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Almere-Haven, Netherlands

Ruin
Tataouine, Tunisia
When the Arabs swept into northern Africa in the 11th century, they not only destroyed the last vestiges of the great Roman desert farming systems, but they also drove the Berbers into the desert. These Berbers managed to carve and construct entire towns out of rock cliffs, and established “ksars” above to protect their grain and offer refuge. A system of dams across the narrow necks of large rainwater catchment areas created the conditions to support agriculture and feed the town. Douiret is one such town.
Douiret
Ruins of this extensive development cover the hill to the left, but also follow a seam of softer stone around an entire valley. Houses are partly dug into the softer material, and fronted with masonry construction that supports the opening. I was amazed at the extent of the construction, now completely abandoned.
The architectural highlight of this area is the ksars, one of which hosted the New Year's party I attended. One ksar being renovated into a hotel is Ksar Ouled Debbab:
Ksar
Notice the fiberglass dinosaurs, a hint that I'm not in Africa at all (haha!), but lounging at the Sony Picture Studios in Burbank, California.
Chenini is the remnants of another town.
As if living off a corpse, the few residents of Chenini still making their home there seem to get by on the tourists that come to see a world-class archeological site. What I found was a decaying pile of rubble festooned with electrical wiring, plastic flotsam, trash and the usual handicraft stands. People do still live there, in what little is habitable, but there are not enough of them to make this a vibrant town and too many to call this a park or monument. I sensed no pride in the vast effort it must have taken to build this place from stone in the 11th century, nor embarrassment that it is so utterly left to both neglect and the ad hoc infrastructures of modern life. Instead, in the aggressive approaches by the guides, and the pleading of the children for a dinar or just a caramelo, I experienced only opportunism and desperation.
I cannot resent their need and desire to make a living, but do wish them the resources to take a decisive step: abandon and preserve, or reoccupy and renovate. Either way would support them better than the unhappy mess that supports them so tenuously today.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 1, 2007 from Tataouine, Tunisia

Medieval Interlude
Muiden, Netherlands
Stalling for time I suspect, and also eager to escape an impending downpour, we visit the castle at Muiden.
Former home of another treacherously assassinated nobleman, it is now filled with displays (this is how they poured hot burning oil on the heads of invaders…) and medieval video games (virtual jousting, anyone?) and medieval dress-up…
Outside it does pour for a short time, but the sun follows and after some hanging and milling around...
...we exit for lunch and for a demonstration involving falcons and owls
…the kids immensely pleased to handle these beautiful raptors.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Muiden, Netherlands

Italians!
Tataouine, Tunisia
Luca and Tiziana at Douiret
Meet Luca and Tiziana, two Italians from Torino on vacation in southern Tunisia. I met them New Year's Eve when I was seated at their table, and they were kind enough to let me tag along on their tour of the ksars and villages around Tataouine. Luca is an engineer for Mondo (the company that did the athletic flooring for the Atlanta, and now the Beijing, Olympics)and flies all over the world working on their projects. Tiziana is a graphic artist for the City of Torino and doesn't get to fly anywhere. The drama of these two (She doesn't love me enough!) reminds me of what I like best about Italians, and especially about these two. They made my stay in Tataouine fantastic.
Hotel Sangho, Tataouine
Now, I know everyone is feeling sorry for me out here ("Doesn't this guy have a job"? "All he does is ride around and take pictures"! "Didn't I hear he was actually in Burbank, United States"?), so here is the Hotel Sangho, my retreat in Tataouine, Tunisia. Boo-hoo me.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 2, 2007 from Tataouine, Tunisia

Graffiti
Amsterdam, Netherlands
We enter the city.
Beautiful graffiti, skateboard parks, large housing complexes, modern architecture…traffic.
We reach the docks where we first met the boat and our bike trip is done.
We sleep on the boat one last night after a walk along the canals and through the red-light district, after a delicious dinner of archetypal Dutch food, and after multiple toasts to Anina the cook, Albert the captain, Soren his assistant, Bram the bike trip guide, and finally to my mother, who promised this trip to her grandkids years ago, who imagined this trip in all of its detail, and who finally made it possible.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Amsterdam, Netherlands

Existential Despair (short-lived)
5pm Permission denied to enter the restricted zone to the south, and forced to head northwest to another crossing into Algeria. I’m angry at the official denial, embarrassed by how much I counted on getting permission, annoyed at the time and money I’ve wasted coming down here only to be denied, reluctant to backtrack, frustrated by my inability to craft a substantial petition in French, concerned about what I’ll run into in northern Algeria, and finally, focused on what is now my only available route to Tamanrasset: the road that caught my attention 28 years ago.
Around me tourists of various nationalities, all here on a comfortable tour bus or in organized expeditions, all here with friends and family, all quite comfortable with what they will see and what they expect and how they will return to their normal life, if they even feel they have left it. The contrast leaves me in utter despair.
Why do I feel I need to do this? Why don’t I just go home? Why am I putting my family through this? What could I possibly get out of this except pain and misery and loneliness? A tan? A workout?
Ksar Ouled Debbab
6pm Polly on the phone: her jokes totally ruin my funk. I hate that.
7pm Two American women, mother and daughter, and their Tunisian guide invite me to dinner, and it helps immensely. The Tunisian is a professor of history with a wonderful sense of humor, and the women have traveled widely, so that our discussion goes from Roman agriculture in the Sahara to riding busses in Honduras to coyotes eating the pet dog in Napa Valley where the family grows wine. A Canadian woman stops by to say hello, mentions she is renting a house in Douz, and says yes when I invite myself to lunch in a few days. Something to look forward to.
8pm. Plotting the new route. I'll tack west much further north that I had originally intended, but I have to backtrack 120km. I'll wake up at 5am and try to do that in one day, back to Gabes and the Oasis (pink bathroom) hotel.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 3, 2007 from Tataouine, Tunisia

Moment of Reflection
We wake up early for our good-byes, send our stuff to Doorn with the contingent headed there by car, and then walk through the rain to a diamond dealer for my sister, who we count on to make all our jewelry, and to the Anne Frank house for the kids, by way of some souvenir store. I head to a coffeehouse for a few moments alone with my thoughts (translation: I was feeling grumpy…I will spare you my tirade about overpriced souvenirs we still can’t seem to resist) and then stroll through the north market looking at vintage books and records. A small embossed silver box catches my eye, and presto, I’ve bought Polly a souvenir too.
We all get together at a café for lunch, watch ourselves eating in the mirrors and then head to the Centraal Station for the train to Doorn. The last time on a train was to and from the hospital for Polly, and I am chastened by how easily things can go wrong in even the easiest and most comfortable of circumstances. Our bicycle trip is over, but there’s another week to our journey and we adjust our sights to that.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Amsterdam, Netherlands

Agony
I was determined to keep my back-tracking to a single day, and set out for the 126 km ride north at 7am from Tataouine. The 53 kilometers back to Medenine were done by 11am, and I took an hour in a cafe to drink water, OJ and coffee. What I didn't notice sitting there was that a ferocious headwind had developed that would punish me for the rest of the day. It stopped me in my tracks more than once, as the hilly terrain, the oncoming traffic and my own increasing exhaustion took an additional toll.
Koutine 1, early afternoon
By 130pm I was in Koutine 1, where the guy standing over the yellow crates sold me the cheapest bottle of water I had found to date, but also kicked in a free pack of gum. 330pm and I was in Arram, where I had been treated to lunch by the Karboub clan: 35 km to go. It starts to rain. All day I've been staring at this band of clouds, and now I'm in them. By 5pm I was in Kettana, and couldn't move anymore. I had a half hour of daylight left and 20 km to go, but I stopped at a stand selling pomegranates and met Selmi Lamine.
Selmi Lamine
Selmi Lamine sold me a pomegranate for (I suspect) the tourist price of .6 Dinar, but he then showed me how to eat the darned thing and then treated me to a coffee as well. As we sat in the cafe, he told me about going back to school to study tourism, that he had almost finished the 2 1/2 year curriculum, and that he would soon start his 2 month internship at a hotel on the island of Jerba. He speaks English and French and is studying German (very hard, those long German words!), but his job prospects are dismal. Tunisia won't let him travel unless he can find a job contract in another country or unless he marries a foreigner. A story I have heard too often now, and one that makes me fear for this wonderful country. Isn't this the fuel feeding fundamentalism? How long before this generation of underemployed students begins to express their dissatisfaction, turning to extremism or violence or hopelessness and self-loathing? I fear for them.
6pm I turn on my lights and head out into the dark. The wind sucks the breathe out of me, but I'm determined to make it to Gabes. Every time I see on-coming traffic I scoot off the road, but I feel secure that with my blinking lights that I am very visible. It takes me 2 more hours to get to Gabes.
8pm When I arrive at the hotel I am unable to write my name on the register, and the manager immediately calls for some Orange juice. I am in incredible pain, my neck and back having seized up completely some hours earlier. I get into my room, fill the tub with scalding water, fumble out of my clothes, and here, parents, you may want your kids to skip a paragraph:
Many of you may know that the male privates diminish and contract considerably when the organism experiences stress. What I had never seen before however, was their complete and utter disappearance. I looked down as I was about to slide into that achingly hot bath and found...nothing. Nothing! I paw around, and it is all unfamiliar terrain! I admit to a moment of concern. I get into the tub, however,and that's all it takes. The little fellow takes a peek, gets a little tangled in the hair down there, and then pops out as if there was never cause for concern.
OK children, pick it up here: I lie there for an hour, can't lift myself out of the tub, and lie there for another half. When I finally stumble off to the restaurant, dinner is over. The food manager fixes me grilled Turkey and potatoes anyway, with dates and Oranges for dessert.
10pm Done. I sleep for 12 hours. Good pills.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 4, 2007 from Gabes, Tunisia

Reunion
Doorn, Netherlands
It is the morning of our family reunion, a big barbeque out on the lawns of a formal mansion that my cousin Peter operates as a conference center and event locale. He is both exceedingly professional and impressively low-key, my cousin, and he has flawlessly arranged both our stay here in Holland as well as this party.
The kids have started building a primitive hut, and architectural services are called for. That’s my excuse anyway to go play with them. They need no help whatsoever of course, and I let them boss me around as we gather sticks and leaves, the hut taking shape rapidly.
The family arrives in threes, fours, and fives, aunts uncles cousins, in-laws and new wives and new kids and old kids and many married people with children who I only remember as kids: we are all recalibrating and taking stock, even of ourselves. I have never felt older. We have had these reunions whenever my family came back from “The States”, more than 40 years worth of visits, and as a child I assumed these parties were typical. The family to my mind was monolithic, my father’s side bound to my mother’s side doubly by the marriage of my mother’s sister and my father’s brother. Only slowly have I come to understand and appreciate some of the fissures and alliances that define this family, the details that make this family so interesting and also so important to me. Those 40 years of reunions I now know only happened when we came to visit, but I also know for certain that they were not just for us.
It is all over too quickly. My sister’s family needs to pack and in the morning is gone, evil Tommy of wrong directions fame headed to China for a month. A day later I drive my brother’s family to Brussels to catch their flight back to Tucson, and then we say our good-byes to an aunt seen rarely since her divorce from my uncle, headed for a hospice for the last weeks of her life. We will not see her again. Once it was weddings that precipitated our visits, but funerals are frankly more common of late.
I spend a day with Peter, walking through the estate he operates and discussing his expansion plans. We visit similar estates in the area, all of whom sadly built expansions quite badly, new construction destroying any of the original elegance. He will not make the same mistakes. Peter drives us to the airport, and we are off to Iceland.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Doorn, Netherlands

Technical bulletin: Bicycle
Bike
Some of you asked about my equipment, and so I thought I would start with the bike and occasionally add some other technical tidbits as I go along. The bike was designed by the good people at Pedal Power in Acton, Massachusetts (with a lot of "what if's" from me). The frame was measured to my body and fabricated in Somerville, Massachusetts by the Independant shop from Reynolds 853 steel tubing. Specs follow:
Reynolds 853 - heat treated
"This seamless air-hardening steel tube sets new standards for professional cycle frames and proves that steel still has a future at the highest levels. It is suitable for TIG welding and brazing, using lugged or lugless construction. The production process ensures tight tolerance, gauge tubes. The strength to weight ratio of 853 is close to that of quality titanium frames. A normal chrome molybdenum steel will lose strength in the joints after the heat has been applied.
This material (853) INCREASES in strength as the frame cools to strengths well in excess of the delivered values shown above. This unique air hardening property of Reynolds 853 provides additional stiffness through reduced microyielding at the joints, allowing stiffer frames with excellent fatigue strength (when compared to standard chrome molybdenum) and a superior ride quality from the finished frame. On road and touring frames we recommend the use of 631 or 725 fork blades with 853 frames".
I got that off their website.
This material eliminates the need for butted or double butted tubes and brazing because it is strengthened by the heat of the welding operation, and should a weld ever fail, any old shop in Africa stands a chance of repairing it. This is why aluminum or carbon or any number of other possible (and possibly lighter) frame materials were not selected. The frame has holes and braze-ons for every conceivable configuration of component parts in case anything I have now should break and I can't find the same replacement parts. The forks are extra wide to accept both mountain bike and regular street width tires.
The rear axle is solid steel, not the hollow axle that usually houses the quick release mechanism. I was concerned about the asymmetric stresses of the trailer, as well as the stress of my 195 pounds and the weight of the bike bags, and so we took this extra measure.
I am using bar-end shifters because they are easy to adjust and repair and replace. There is a cassette of 9 gears on my back wheel, with three gear wheels in front for a total of 27 gears. We calculated all the gear ratios but I've forgotten whether there were some doubles in there or not and I'm not about to start counting teeth now. Originally we had a lower "granny gear", but the wheel is so small that there is a risk of breakage and I opted to go one larger. I'm pretty happy with the range of gears available to me, though I could occasionally use more power on the downhills.
The bike has disc brakes in both the front and rear. The stopping power is immense, even fully loaded, and there is no risk of damaging my wheel rims as sand might begin to grind between them and a set of normal brakes. If the disc brakes do ever fail and I can't fix them, the frame will accept normal brakes. The disk brakes have a small tolerance and I have had to adjust them a bit as the cable stretched among other things. Though its finicky, adjustment is fairly easy with some dials on the brakes.
I am using 26" rims that accept both narrow street tires and wide dirt tires. The originally planned trip had 1500 km of dirt track and 3500 km of paved road, but the new route shifts the proportion more towards asphalt. Spokes are heavy-duty, and my concerns about breaking them has proved unfounded so far. On my trip from Amsterdam to Morrocco in 1979 I had a lot of trouble popping spokes, and they are a real pain to replace. So far, so good.
The seat was measured to my butt (not kidding!), and I have suffered less for it: they are configured to maximize circulation in the seated position, and they really work.
Pedals clip into my shoes, which I always thought would limit my shoe options too much on a long trip, where I don't want to bring 2 pairs of shoes. Fortunately, I found the perfect set of bike shoe/boots that do it all: let me ride in comfort and hike around without any problem at all in something other than a sneaker type shoe. They are made by Lake out of...I think Illinois.
Handles are wrapped with gel tape, and I wear bike gloves because I lose circulation in my hands and fingers. It has helped a lot, but I still suffer from circulation problems.
The bike racks are the toughest racks I could find, Old Man Mountain out of Santa Barbara, California.
The bike bags are by Arkel, out of Canada, and they are truly fantastic. I opted for 4 equally sized bags in order to distribute the weight on the frame fairly evenly. Each bag is a bit heavy, but incredibly durable and with a waterproof inner bag that has proven to be very effective. The laptop I am typing on now has weathered some drenching inside those inner bags.
The trailer is by Radical Design in the Netherlands (thanks to mom for picking it up on her last trip to Holland, since they don't sell to the US). I chose it for it's weight capacity, which exceeded the one wheel trailers on the market by 10-15Kg. I will be carrying 40 liters of water on some legs of this trip (40 liters=40Kg=88lbs), and so the capacity is no small issue. The trailer has performed extremely well, and the removable wheels make it convenient to put on airplanes. It has a nylon rain jacket which has performed well, though on Day 2 I failed to notice it rubbing against one of the wheels, and the wheel rubbed right through the fabric. I almost never feel the trailer at all. My only concern about the 2-wheel design is how the rig will perform on narrow dirt tracks. I'll find out soon enough.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 4, 2007 from Gabes, Tunisia

sick...walk...sleep
Mia is sick, and from the States we hear that they all caught something here as well. My cousin Peter and my aunt Nell drive us to the airport, we get through the formalities, we walk 37.85 kilometers to the gate (thank god for those moving walkways), and finally board the plane. Mia is asleep instantly.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Amsterdam, Netherlands

You're still in Tunisia???
Kebili, Tunisia
OK, Polly really kicked my butt last night on the phone. The conversation went something like this:
Silence
"Why are you still in Tunisia"?
"You've hardly moved at all"!
...you get the picture. To redeem myself I put in a decent if not outstanding 80 kilometers today, pulling into Kibili around 5pm. Found a decent hotel. OK, better than decent: waterfalls, swimming pool, deep, hot bath, full bar and internet: $100 including dinner and breakfast. I'm not exactly slumming it yet, though that time will shortly be upon me.
Gabes city center
Early afternoon, Gabes.
I had trouble getting money yesterday leaving Gabes, and didn't finally pull out until 230pm.
I had time for 40 km with that headwind still blowing fiercely, though not quite in my face as I turned westward, and pulled into El Hamma at 530, just as it got dark. 2 guys on a small motorcycle shouted some encouragement mid-day as they zoomed by, and then waved me over for a coffee a few hours later. Boubridaa Abdelhamid and a friend were toking on a waterpipe, and we ended up chatting a bit. Finally he invited me to go to the bath with him that night, which we did after I set up in a hotel in El Hamma. I treated him to dinner, though his wife kept calling him on his cell phone, and he was very worried about someone messing with his motorcycle. I was supposed to meet his family in the morning, but after waiting an hour past our appointed time I took off. I actually saw him heading towards the hotel several miles up the road, but he didn't see me. So, no picture, but I have his address and will ask him to send me one.
Abdelhamid is 42 years old, with a lot of metal teeth and some continuing dental problems. I frankly had my doubts about him when I sat down for a coffee with him, but he proved to be quite genuine. He's been married 22 years and has 2 sons: a 13 year old who is very studious and a 7 year old who's a bit of a devil. He worked for the last 6 years in the tourist hotels on the island of Jerba during the week and sees his family on the weekends. He does this to afford the appliances and plumbing fixtures his wife wants. He makes 300 Dinar/month working 12 hour shifts. He built his own house with some good help in only 3 months, and has several friends living with his family, paying rent. He grew up in Gabes working on the family plot, but switched to the hotel jobs at age 35 because he wasn't making enough money. For Eid he spent a month salary to buy a sheep, but he says it will keep his family very well fed for quite some time to come. "The frigidaire is full", he told me.
His dad is 90 years old, can barely see and hear and walk, but refuses to move in with him. His mom is 72, and both are supported by 300 Dinar/month that comes to them from Tripoli, where his dad used to work. The money stops when his dad dies, at which time they will sell the family home in Gabes and put mom in with one of the three sons. Abdelhamid has 2 brothers, one in the provincial government in Gabes and the other an electrician in El Hamma.
Last year some Belgian guy sent him 8000 Dinar to pay for a passport and visa and ticket, allowing Abdelhamid to come spend 5 weeks with him in Brussels.
He says he has a lot of opportunities with foreign girls at the hotels, with one Spanish girl in particular rather eager to marry him, but he has stayed true to his wife. We agreed it was just better that way.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 6, 2007 from Kebili, Tunisia

Restlessness
Reykjavik, Iceland
We zoom down over lava and lichen to Keflavik airport, pass through security (they’re still as young as before), change money (kroner, not euros), arrange a hotel and catch a bus for the 50 kilometer ride into Reykjavik. Stacks of rock beckon human-like as we pass, everywhere is lava rubble, and we see not a single tree until we approach the city. Hotel Snorri is ridiculously expensive and proves little more than a hostel, but it is clean and convenient, and Mia needs to lie down. We settle in, I get food at the 11/11 store, I put the girls to bed after dinner, and then restlessness sends me out the door to explore.
It is 9pm and feels like 5pm, the sun is still that high.
I walk down Snorrabraut and take a left down Laugavegur, the main shopping street in the city.
The street is crowded with young people, some couples arm in arm, some formally dressed groups. Laugavegur becomes Bankastraeti becomes Austurstraeti, and then I am in a more residential area before hitting the water.
I turn right to the harbor, following the sea wall finally to a series of huge storage tanks overlooking the sea.
It is past 11pm now, and the sun still shines brightly at the horizon.
A couple of guys are spraying graffiti on a wall, great loops of orange and green and black, but otherwise it is completely quiet. From far off downtown I hear traces of traffic, then some gulls fly by, then I hear the waves.
Light glints off the cathedral dominating Reykjavic, far off in the distance. I feel alive and tired both, glad to experience this unusual moment: the sun bouncing off the horizon at midnight. The quality of the light is unforgettable.
Downtown, restless teenagers squeal their tires, many cruise down the main street in an orderly procession, and there is plenty of life left to the evening. There is not a trace of litter anywhere however. I walk back to the hotel for a few hours rest.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Reykjavik, Iceland

Enjoyments
Kebili, Tunisia
Here's a list of what I'm enjoying about this trip:
1. Meeting people like Abdelhamid, pushing my comfort zone, and seeing what happens.
2. Taking a nice photograph.
3. Working on the blog.
4. Meeting the very occasional English speaker.
5. Seeing progress on the map.
6. Email.
7. A long, hot bath after a day on the road.
8. A warm bed.
9. Talking to Polly and Mia on the satellite phone...even at $1.30/minute.
10. A delicious Orange.
11. Biking, especially moments without a headwind with everything working well.
12. Getting off the bike. Nice bike, but it feels so good to stop!
13. The occasional feeling of security.
14. Sun!
15. Coffee breaks: thick, dark Tunisian coffee with steamed milk and a lump of sugar.
Hotel window
Things I won't miss:
1. So many vulnerabilities: do I have everything, what does he want, am I safe...?
2. Arab music, at least what I've heard so far...
3. So much solitude. A little is nice.
4. Headwinds.
5. Diarrhea.
6. Car exhaust.
7. Smokers.
8. Sore throats.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 6, 2007 from Kebili, Tunisia

Home
Boston, United States
Iceland
Greenland
Sigh.
written by  roel krabbendam on June 24, 2007 from Boston, United States

Little Monster
Kebili, Tunisia
Mayssar Rebi
This is Mayssar Rebi, a rather inquisitive 10 year old I met on the road between El Hamma and Kebili today. His dad waved me over to offer me some dates, and this little monster wasted no time before diving into my bike bags.
I could not convince him that my GPS offered neither music nor video games, and he happily went crazy on all the buttons for 15 minutes to see what he could pull up on the screen.
Mayssar rides a taxi bus the 35 km. to school every weekday in Kebili. He asked if I could give him some money to buy a bicycle. Instead, I pulled out my map of North Africa, and that was a real eye opener…for me. Damn, I’ve got a long way to go! Polly was right.
Making sure dad didn’t notice, Mayssar chewed through half a baguette and all of my cheese. Then he found my cameras, and demanded to take pictures. I took a picture of him instead, and promised to send it in the mail. Dad did not want to be photographed, and wanted me to write the address because (I suspect) he isn’t literate. Just really, really nice. I offered some money for the dates, and even insisted, but he would accept nothing.
On the road to Kebili
It was with some relief late in the day to find a guy kilometers from anywhere walking his mobylette, having run out of gas. After receiving so many kindnesses I could finally reciprocate by filling up his tank from my stove fuel.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 6, 2007 from Kebili, Tunisia

Muscles
On the road between El Hama and Kebili
Rte. 16 west between El Hamma and Kebili
80 km. went very well today, which inspires me to thank the whole team that helped me come back from that unpleasant little car accident 18 months ago.
Polly Dithmer, spouse supreme, Acton, MA: After spending a month in bed in no shape to even walk, Polly gave me a custom bicycle for my birthday. I could barely stand up for the measurements, but her encouragement got me going, and really got this trip out of the “someday” phase.
Dr. Ma, acupuncturist, Newton, MA: delicate with the needles, but not shy with some horrifyingly painful maneuvers as well, Dr. Ma finally gave me some relief from the pain that had kept me off my feet for weeks.
Dr. Harrington, chiropractor, Concord, MA: Those neck maneuvers never failed to scare the living daylights out of me, but Dr. H had that magic touch and kept me relatively functional after I got back on my feet.
MetroWest Physical Therapy, Concord, MA: A therapist from Namibia with some great techniques and a magic touch when acupuncture and chiropractia just seemed to be taking too long.
Fitness Together, Acton, MA: When going to the gym during lunch proved ineffective, I found Jason, Monica, Matt and Brian. For 8 months, 3 days per week, all I had to do was show up, eat their fruit, and do as I was told: with patience and good humor they made sure I left a physical wreck. In their hands, I finally made some real progress.
Seriously, I hadn’t ridden a bicycle in ten years or taken a bike trip in fifteen years before this trip, and I hadn’t exercised anything but my drawing and typing muscles since then either. I know I was a real project, and owe you all a huge thanks.
Entering Kebili, late afternoon
Entering Kebili from the east.

Apprehension
Tozeur, Tunisia
Chott El Jerid
After 75 km of dead flat highway on a berm across the Chott El Jerid (Salt lake that to my eye looked more like sand with a crust of salt, but you could see the water level was just inches down. There was no problem walking on the sand though), I began to see higher land around 4pm. With the sun starting to set, I was met at 5pm by the Very Strong Headwind, followed at 530pm by the Very Steep Hill, followed at 6pm by the Main Street of Mule Manure. Exhausted as always at the end of the day (not 19 years old anymore), but spurred on by the kid who yelled BONSOIR PUSSYCAT, I entered Tozeur as it got completely dark, turned on the lights and found a sensibly-priced 3 star hotel by 630pm.
Bonbons Fruit Sec
The doorman was too chummy, reception was too obsequious, they didn’t have internet, they didn’t accept visa…but still, I thought, all that is less important than a Very Hot Bath and so I signed in. I entered my room and found it faced a blank wall: new room. I ran the bath for 15 minutes waiting for hot water: barely tepid. The doorman ran off to start the second water heater. We ran all the taps for another 15 minutes: no change. I grabbed all my bags and the trailer, very politely said I would be staying elsewhere, and headed for the door. “No, no, just 15 minutes more and it will come, the hot water”!
Gate to the Souk
It took me 10 minutes to find another hotel, the Hotel Ksar Rouge, and immediately all was well with the world. OK, no internet: just a secure wireless network they won’t give out the key for…ugh! But gracious staff, wonderful facility, great food, and yes: a Very Hot Bath.
Tomorrow, Algeria. Visa hassles expected, and then there is this lurking apprehension about the people. This is a traumatized country I imagine, with years of fundamentalist suppression, Tuareg revolt, rampant unemployment and disaffected youth. Little news reports come out: “5 policemen massacred near Ghardaia”. Foreigners receive armed escorts and live in encampments surrounded by concrete and barbed wire. There is no tourist industry to speak of lately…and yet…
At least in Tunisia I’ve inspired such interest and generosity in the people I meet, with the sports thing creating some common ground with the 15-25 set. I can’t help but believe something similar will happen in Algeria. I’m counting on it.
Pharmacie
I did fool around with the dial up connection through the satellite phone today: it is painfully unreliable, slow, and therefore very expensive as well. Photos and blog updates may be kept to a minimum for some time to come. If anyone needs reassurance regarding my well-being, call Polly. At the very least I will call her every 1 or 2 days.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 8, 2007 from Tozeur, Tunisia

The End?
Nefta, Tunisia
All of you still harboring that tiny, secret wish that you were experiencing all this with me, consider this: I spent a long, cold night on a concrete slab seriously considering the possibility that my trip was over.
I arrived at the Algerian border in the early afternoon of the 9th from Tozeur: a wonderful 60 km ride above the Chott El Jerid. The birds infesting the trees within the confines of the hotel were exuberant, the wind was calm, the air temperature cool, the sun hot. A climb out of Tozeur led to gentle downward slopes that allowed me use of the little used larger gears.
I hope Polly will allow me this small admission, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t affect our relationship: I am in love with my bicycle. Light, strong, reliable…rarely complains…it does expect me to do all the work, but that just makes it more adorable and in any case, its for my own good…
Nefta at noon
Nefta 11am
Shortly after the oasis of Nefta, the road lost its topcoat and I lost some speed. The traffic was minimal. Except for an occasional stand of palms, there was no vegetation whatsoever. A girl(?) and her son(?) or brother(?) at one point came charging out of nowhere to show me hand-made dolls and necklaces and bracelets, and because I had change I needed to spend before the border and because I needed a good-luck charm to deal with the problems I expected to encounter, I bought a green heart of stone hung by a green string to wear around my neck for the rest of the trip. The price was 2 Dinar, but she gave it to me for what I had, which was just a bit less. Mia: its yours when I return, as an addition to our little collection of hearts.
Fatma Boucaina, her brother? and her crafts
Then the road got considerably worse: gravel with a spray-coat. The Tunisian border control was somewhat annoying but perfunctory. They thought the Algerians might require that I engage a guide, and noted that I had only 6 days left on my Algerian visa, but I said “No problem, I’m just going to find a truck to take me south to Tamanrasset and I’ll be out of Algeria in no time”. Basically, I lied.
The Algerian border post was 4 km down the (very rough) road, and there I was finally stopped cold. Despite what the Algerian embassy had told me repeatedly before the trip, tourists would under no circumstances pass without a guide. I wasn’t sure if this was a shake-down or the facts, so I got the Algerian embassy on the phone and asked them to speak to the head of the border control (who, I might add, was pretty amazed to be put on the phone with Washington, DC). The bottom line was this: the Algerian embassy didn’t have a clue. The law had been on the books for 2 years or 4 years, depending on who I talked to.
I thought: “This is bad.”
I was told to go back to Gafsa, Tunisia and get a visa extension, but I told them it was a three day journey by bicycle and completely out of the question. They told me to call a guide from Tamanrasset, who could come and get me. I told them I had no contacts in Tamanrasset. They said: “Then wait”. Some Italians were expected in the afternoon or possibly in the morning, and perhaps, in-shallah, their guide would take me with them. It seemed…awfully tenuous. On the other hand, I had no choice. So I waited all that afternoon through sunset, chatting occasionally with the border officials, eating some food I had with me, until it got pitch dark, and I found a slab to sleep on. I did not sleep.
Algerian border post at Hazoua
written by  roel krabbendam on January 10, 2007 from Nefta, Tunisia

Into Algeria
Touggourt, Algeria
Wolf Gaudlitz
A truck with German plates pulled in the next morning. One of the border patrol people engaged the driver in a conversation, I wandered over, and there I met Wolf Gaudlitz. A writer, radio show host, film producer and (not kidding here), traveling picture show, Wolf had visited Algeria many times over the last 5 years, and readily took me on. Wolf had left his Italian wife and 3 year old child in Germany to try and write, and he told me with some resignation that he didn’t know if they would still be there when he got back. Girls: don’t get any ideas. He had in his truck a screen and projection equipment, and enjoyed showing movies to the desert people, German movies it turns out, so that no one understood a word but was transfixed nonetheless by the imagery: for most their first experience with film.
Within 3 or 4 hours, we had both been fully processed at the border, Ahmed the guide had arrived, Ahmed had taken official responsibility for my well-being, the bike was loaded in Wolf’s truck, and we were on our way to El Oued. I was in. My bicycle trip was clearly over for now, but I was in.
Near Touggourt, friends had arranged a cook-out on a new palm Plantation amid the dunes of the Grand Erg Orientale, and we stopped for several hours to grill meat, and talk and eat. Wolf’s truck was immediately mired in the sand, and he spent most of the time letting the air out of his tires, moving the truck, and then re-inflating the tires. I helped where possible, but the joke remained that Wolf was a slave to his machine. The work literally took him hours.
Lunch in the Grand Erg Orientale
We continued on to Touggourt, to the house of Mohammed, a tall, strong-featured friend of Wolf’s from some years back. Mohammed had rescued Wolf when his rear axle broke outside Touggourt during a period of serious banditry and some danger. Refusing any payment whatsoever, he had seen to the complete replacement of the axle (and from what I could tell, actual milling of axle to fit the truck), completely filled Wolf’s absolutely huge gas tank, and seen to Wolf’s personal needs throughout the ordeal.
Touggourt at night
Touggourt, waiting to connect with Mohammed
My respect and admiration for these people grow, and my severe embarrassment at some of the shortcomings of our own culture swells equally. Frankly, they are my own personal shortcomings, not even something vaguely “cultural”. I try to imagine the reception Mohammed might have were his truck to breakdown in Acton, United States, and while I could imagine extending some small kindnesses I could equally imagine suspicion, an encounter with the police, a very large tow truck bill, an even larger repair bill, and if he was inordinately lucky and I wasn’t late for work, a ride to the Concordian motel. Before this trip and maybe still, it is unimaginable to me that I would take a stranger in, personally see to his well-being, and take on the financial burdens of his unfortunate circumstances in the manner that Mohammed took care of Wolf.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 10, 2007 from Touggourt, Algeria

Chez Said
Ghardaia, Algeria
Ahmed and I caught the 10pm bus for Ghardaia. I bought two tickets for 350 Dinar each, and found comfortable, upholstered seats.
In the dark we headed west, a trip I had hoped to bicycle, a trip that would have taken me almost a week accomplished in 4 hours, a trip in utter darkness, stars, the beam of the headlights revealing only sand and the occasional truck carrying three 12 meter long, 90cm diameter steel pipes; on the horizon, occasionally, the glow of some distant settlement. At every police checkpoint the interior lights went on, the bus approached very slowly, and conversation between the police and the driver was perfunctory. Otherwise, we drove very, very fast.
In Ghardaia, Ahmed approached a waiting pickup truck, and for 200 Dinar (2 Euro), the bicycle and all my junk was schlepped off to Ahmed’s house where I spent the night on a mattress in his living room. In the morning, baguette and coffee. Ahmed answered my list of questions:
1. Could I move freely without a guide? Yes, within the M’zab valley.
2. Could I move outside the valley alone? No.
3. Could I prolong my visa? Yes, at the Commissariat de Police, but I need photos.
4. I have photos.
5. How do I get to Tamanrasset? By bus, leaving daily, no guide required.
6. Where do I stay for a few days while I explore the area? He had a place in mind.
7. How to get to this party on Saturday, 120 km from here? He would arrange it.
I paid Ahmed 6000 Dinar for 2 days of service, plus an extra 1000 Dinar to express my thanks for his help and generosity. He found another pickup truck, delivered me to a friend with a kind of hotel in the palm Plantation outside Ghardaia, and left me to my own devices.
This is not the trip I had imagined for myself: it is better. Bad information, bureaucracy, unexpected acquaintances, unimaginable kindnesses, and a bit of pedaling and openness to whatever might transpire have conspired to construct a situation I could never have planned for or imagined. I will not be bicycling across the Sahara, and I couldn’t care less.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 12, 2007 from Ghardaia, Algeria

Love and Desire
Ghardaia, Algeria
I had dinner last night with Mohamed, a 29 year old student of Biology and the Environment with a lot of interest in global warming and nuclear waste. We talked trash. He told me recycling was just beginning to become an accepted concept in Algeria, but that the predominant attitude remained simply to toss everything into the desert. It pains him, and he speaks of the desert in animate terms, as a thing alive.
'Hamed
Hamed might be in love with a Swiss girl who works in the Zurich post office and shares an apartment with a girlfriend, and who may or may not love him. They have known each other for 15 years, and every year she has come to Ghardaia and Tamanrasset for vacation to see him. This year, however, she and her girlfriend decided to go to Guatemala instead, a turn of events potentially fraught with meaning.
When asked if they had slept together, he said “Yes, but only in Switzerland. Never here”. He showed me her picture, a wonderfully normal looking girl in T shirt and jeans with dyed red hair sitting on a hay wagon on a summer day in Switzerland. She is looking away.
We are listening to Nina Simone on the stereo, her version of “I’ll Put a Spell on You” reducing us to silence. ‘Hamed pokes a bit at the fire and says finally, “The girls around here just don’t understand this kind of music”. He is haunted by the possibility of a life in Switzerland, haunted by his love for the desert and the fact that she will not live here, haunted even by the possibility that his life will always be thus: haunted by “what ifs” and “wouldn’t it be wonderfuls”; haunted, I suppose, by his own desires.
We are joined by a friend of Said, a 47 year old guy in sports management who organized the 6th annual “Marathon des Dunes” here in Ghardaia. He has been married 22 years and has 4 kids and speaks openly of his very occasional affairs with younger women, showing me proudly on his “portable” the picture of a 29 year old professor in Algiers who isn’t his latest conquest, but who remains in his heart. His latest girlfriend is 19, he says.
I ask him how this is all arranged, with so many women closed off and protected. “Ahhh…”, and his eyes alight and he offers a secret smile to communicate his command of the issue. “One simply needs an emissary”.
“A man has a wide open heart, and a woman’s heart is closed very tightly: this is nature. So it is that the man invites into his heart so many people: to fill his heart. Think into the past, of a time when you loved more than one woman, and you will understand that it is true”. My admission that I had once juggled two girlfriends in college satisfied him immensely.
Example of Mohammed's carving
“What about divorce”, I asked.
“Very uncommon. Here, a man and a woman agree to a marriage but might spend years arranging for a house, and for the ceremony and so forth, and they will do so without physical contact in all this time. Thus their desire grows slowly to an incredible fire, and the first night together is an incredible experience. This is not the fast food of the United States, you understand. This is for an eternity”.
Frank Sinatra followed Nina Simone, the fire dimmed, the tea was finished. Three guys sitting around a table on a cold night, shooting the breeze. It was 4pm in Boston and Mia was just getting home from school and I hadn’t talked to her in days, so I got up for the call on the satellite phone and said “Bon nuit”.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 12, 2007 from Ghardaia, Algeria

Brothers
Ghardaia, Algeria
The M'zab Valley
I spent the day riding my bicycle all over the M’Zab valley, and then out of the valley to the desert above. The M’Zabites fled persecution to settle here in the cracks of the desert plain, creating a place so unique and consistent in its architecture that it is now protected by UNESCO. With Ghardaia at the center, the villages of Beni Isguem, Bounourra, Malika and El Latouf connect to fill the valley.
Futbal at Malika Haut cemetary
Soccer at Malika Haut cemetary
Wandering through Malika Haut late in the day, I was invited in for a cup of coffee by a guy walking home with an armful of baguettes. He led me into a garden where we sat on blankets and looked at his meticulously organized and labeled photo albums and goofed around with his four kids. “These albums”, he told me, “will be my cadeaux to my children one day, so that they understand a little of their parents and a little of their past”.
Ben Aoumeur Nadir enjoys disguises, and he shows me an astonishing array of portraits I would never have imagined were the same person. In one street shot, even a blind man with a cane turns out to be Nadir fooling around with his friends. These were his younger days, however.
Nadir has since become a focused, organized man. He told me he approaches each day with a precise plan, because without such a plan a man will fall into the void (“La Vide”). His words were spoken with some emotion, perhaps with the respect of someone who has once survived drowning in the ocean, and still now and then will stare out to sea.
He buys and sells dates, climbs and manages palm trees for others, manages a store now and then, and works on a municipal road construction crew at night. “This is what I must do to live, to stay strong, to be responsible to my family. As you can see, however, I still have plenty of time to be with my children”.
Nadir’s father kept four wives and produced twenty-nine children (For him, he says, one wife is as much as he can handle). Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me so much then to return to Chez Said a few hours later, sit down to a late dinner with Ben Aoumeur Mohammed, and discover I had just had coffee with his half-brother 10 kilometers distant.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 13, 2007 from Ghardaia, Algeria

Hope
I met Aliau Doiallo as he was working on a construction project in the palm grove where I am staying, and got the chance to hear his story over some olives and almonds and really strong mint tea.
Alieu Diallo
Aliau first left his home in Bamako, Mali at age 15, to find a job in Europe. He hitched 2200 kilometers east to Agadez, Niger, then 450 kilometers north through Arlit to the border with Algeria at I-n-Guezzam. An agreement between Mali and Algeria allowed him to enter Algeria legally. He continued to head north, through Tamanrasset, I-n-Salah, El-Miniaa, Ghardaia, Laghouat, Tiaret and Oran, arriving at the Morroccan border at Oujda after a 2400 kilometer haul across the Sahara. In Oujda he payed a Morroccan 2000 Algerian Dinar to smuggle him across the border into Morrocco. Finally, as he stole into the Spanish enclave of Melilla with 650 Benladeshi refugees, Spanish police nabbed the entire group. Aliau’s first attempt to reach Europe was over.
The Bengladeshi’s rioted in an effort to escape, and so all were handed over to the Morroccan police, bussed to Rabat, Morrocco and put on a plane back to Mali. Now, eight years later, Aliau is back in Ghardaia, Algeria working construction and odd jobs and considering his next move. The work here is diminishing. He questioned me intently about the United States, wanting to know where it was hot and cold, whether there were many foreigners there like himself, and where there was work. He wanted to know if I could send him a certificate de herbergement so that he could get a visa.
I suggested that he find the Mali community overseas, because one man like myself could not hope to support him indefinitely while he accustomed himself to the USA, but a community might take him on. I'm not sure I convinced either of us, but I don't think that Aliau will give up: in his eyes and his eagerness, despite all of the obstacles he has endured or perhaps because of them, I saw someone with the dispassionate ability to assess a situation, the imagination to create a possibility, and the energy and animation of someone infused with and inspired by hope.

Party
Tower above Beni Isguen
Phone call from Wolf Gaudlitz: join him in Guerara tomorrow at Kherfi Ibrahim's for a party with the whole gang that got me into the country after a cold night stuck at the border.
Shadow at the gate to Beni Isguen
It's a 120km bike ride in the wrong direction, I'm hopelessly inept at parties, but I owe these guys a big thanks so, what the hell. I'll leave most of my stuff at Said's, leave early in the morning and travel light.
Minarets above Beni Isguen
It will be a good way to see just how much freedom of movement the police allow me on the main roads.
Street scene
I'll bike back to Said's the following day, and then head down to Tamanrasset. It's 19 hours by bus, and I think I'd rather do it in short hops, trying as much as possible to do it by bicycle. We'll see how things go tomorrow.
Beth Cail out shopping
I asked Ibrahim Kherfi, whose wife maintains the religious dress code, if it doesn't get hot in there in the summer. He said "Probably".

Men With Guns
Guerara, Algeria
Over dinner with Said I casually mentioned my plan to bike to Guerrera, and he casually mentioned it to the local police, and they casually told him under no circumstances would I be allowed on the roads alone. No way. Had he not talked to the police I would have risked the trip by bicycle, but in the face of an explicit “no” I demurred.
I took a taxi. The 120 kilometers went quickly until 3 kilometers outside Guerrera when we were stopped at a roadblock, and I was summarily hauled into the headquarters of the Guardia Nationale for visa violations. It is true that my Algerian visa states that it expires on January 14.
I will plead, however, my admittedly suspect case. On January 12, I went to the Commissariat du Police in Ghardaia to arrange a visa extension. The police chief stated that the terms of the visa were such that entry into the country was required before the expiration date, but that the 30 day visa went into effect on the date of entry and could run past the date of expiration. I did not need an extension. He was wearing a uniform and sitting in an office responsible for visa extensions, so I believed him…sort of. I presented this point of view to the Guardia Nationale, however, and they kind of shrugged me off as an absolute idiot. I couldn’t really blame them.
I have been “detained” in Morocco, the United States and now Algeria, and though each case ended just fine, I can now say with authority that I much prefer Algeria. In Morocco I was held on a police boat in Casablanca harbor for 8 hours for illegally sneaking into Casablanca harbor late one night and asking fisherman if they would take me out fishing with them. The three policemen who questioned me all night finally laughed and called it a day at the end of their shift, and one of them ended up arranging that fishing trip for me and later taking me out on a date…don’t ask.
In the United States I was once stopped for speeding, and driving with an expired license, registration and inspection. I had obviously been rather inattentive, in large part due to an impending divorce, yet the $450 fine seemed excessive and the inflexibility of the officers involved made me feel inhuman. Luckily I could plead extenuating circumstances in court, and got off for $50 and the towing charge of $75.
In the case of the visa violation in Algeria, nine Men With Guns and Uniforms put me in a chair in the chief’s office and suggested I tell them my story. I did, and suggested they verify it by calling the Ghardaia police, which they did without getting an answer. I filled in all of my personal information on innumerable forms, provided consistent answers to all of their (somewhat sneaky) repeated questions, and behaved myself for the hour or so that I was held. After more phone calls, and arguments in Arabic, and a little bit of finger pointing at me, my new best friends suddenly all smiled and shrugged and told me without any explanation that I was free to go. We walked to the door, we shook hands all around, I was reminded that this had all been for my own protection, I told them sincerely that it had been no trouble at all and a pleasure to meet them at that, and then I asked for my passport back and hopped back in the taxi, and we took off with a last, fond farewell through the window. In the end, I suspect, it may have been the mention of who I was visiting that eliminated all obstacles: the well-known Kherfi freres.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 17, 2007 from Guerara, Algeria

Kherfi Freres
Guerara, Algeria
The water lies just twenty or thirty meters under the sand, electricity is inexpensive, and the land: there is plenty of it. In fact, as long as you work it, it is free. So it is that the Kherfi brothers started a farm in 1988 and imported Holstein cows from the Netherlands in 1993, establishing a dairy operation in the middle of the Sahara.
Cows
Algeria imports most of its milk as powder, so the market for fresh milk products is potentially huge, and the government is interested in developing the agricultural sector, so they invested 1.5 million euro in the operation.
The surreal and truly jarring experience of traveling 140 kilometers across a hot and uniformly sand colored desert plateau to find a perfectly flat, lusciously moist, and strikingly green grass Field is impossible to communicate. If you narrowed your Field of vision as you drove up the dirt road from the highway to the farm you would think you were in Holland. There are four of these Fields, each a perfect circle defined by the length of the irrigation equipment which endlessly travels around at a speed slower than walking. These Fields feed the animals.
Kherfi Freres have:
800 hectares
4 irrigated Fields
4000 chickens
600 sheep
70 cows
8 camels
12 dogs
15 employees
2 large tractors
2 small tractors
They produce dates, cereal, vegetables, and milk. Next year they will begin producing fresh yoghurt and cheese. The milk I drank copious quantities of was unpasteurized, unhomogenized, staggeringly rich in cream, and absolutely delicious. I couldn’t get enough of it. The cows need a little bit of extra care in the summer, insuring that they stay in the shade for example, but otherwise they appear perfectly content.
Ibrahim Kherfi
Ibrahim is in his thirties and runs the dairy operation. He studied in Paris, married a girl he has known since they were kids, and lives in a large house in Guerrera with his parents and his brother’s family. He showed me a plot of land where he hopes to soon start building his own house, giving he and his wife just a little bit more breathing room. Living with your parents apparently presents its challenges.
Nasser
Nasser is 54 years old and runs the rest of the farm. He struck me as a supremely competent guy, with a quiet sense of humor and a bad back. I saw him do everything from make sahara bread to fixing a tractor, and the employees obviously respect him immensely. He has four kids and has been married twenty-four years.
Irrigation at Kherfi Freres
We cooked some meat on an open fire and ate salad and bread and oranges and dates, and I spent the night in a dormitory of sorts before leaving the next day for the open desert.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 18, 2007 from Guerara, Algeria

La Source
Guerara, Algeria
After hours of seriously uncomfortable cross-country travel over a generally trackless waste in a truck with deflated tires, after endless discussions about where we are going and whether we will find it at all since we started too late and the sun has already set, after even a few rants about the lack of preparation by some and their lack of respect for the desert and the ease with which it can seriously ruin your day, we arrive finally at “La Source”.
60 years ago the French drilled for oil here, but found only water: scalding water at 60 degrees Celsius under tremendous pressure. The water has been flowing into the sand ever since, well known to the shepards and the animals and the citizens of Guerrera, but distant and difficult to access; our campsite for the next few days.
The miracle of finding flowing hot water (Life!) out in the middle of nowhere did not diminish the fact that this place is not pretty. The font itself is concrete and cast iron and rusty steel barrels. The sand is covered in dried sheep and camel dung.
Trash
The remains of campfires lie everywhere, and draped from the scattered thorny bushes blow purple and black and blue plastic grocery bags left to the wind. Toilet paper is everywhere. I had found finally a project with which to thank everyone for their endless hospitality and overwhelming generosity. I was going to clean this place up.
And I did, at least a good portion of it. The next day, while everyone was off looking for a very expensive radio that had been accidentally left out in the desert as we fumbled our way to our destination, I grabbed some plastic bags and spent 5 hours picking up every piece of plastic or rubber or paper I could find. I couldn’t bring myself to pick up toilet paper, so I buried that where I found it. By the time the crew got back without the radio, I had cleaned up 180 degrees of desert surrounding the well.
Wolf shaving at La Source
I saw new plastic bags in the bushes as we left 5 days later, so I won’t pretend to have precipitated a dramatic cultural shift. One night when one of the crew carelessly dumped some trash in the sand, however, I heard some gentle admonishment for his disregard of my efforts. Most of all I just felt relief that finally, after so many weeks from so many people of endless gifts and favors and acts of kindness, I could reciprocate in a small way to say “thank you”.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 20, 2007 from Guerara, Algeria

Movies
Wolf Gaudlitz is the German guy who got me into the country after that cold night at the border, and he is at “La Source” with his traveling picture show. So it is that one afternoon he mounts his very large movie screen to the side of his truck, hooks up his digital projector and amplifier and speakers, starts his generator, and to an audience of djellaba toting, mutton grilling, mint tea swilling locals (and one would-be bicycle rider), begins showing movies: Turkish movies in French with Arabic subtitles, music videos with no dialogue whatsoever, and at the climax, at the peak of the evening, after we have all been lying on the cold sand on thin blankets for hours and hours and the food is pretty much gone but we are all still huddled around the campfire and wide awake, “March of the Penguins” in German with French subtitles. I finally called it a night around three in the morning, but the film and the party was by no means over.
Wolf, I found out the next day, spent another two hours after the movie finally ended cleaning up the equipment for fear that the sand would ruin it, so he didn’t sleep at all.
When everyone else left a few days later, he suggested I play a part in his latest film. He has had some success with his movies on the art house scene and even has one of his films at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and I thought, “what the hell”. For two days I did take after take of walking around, improvising dialogue, saying the most inane things and probably making an absolute idiot of myself. I walked barefoot over rocks and sheep poop, froze for the early morning shots wearing only a pair of shorts, and cannot imagine how my part fits into the grander scheme. It’s coming soon to a theater near you.

Stories
Stories I heard late at night by the campfire:
Nasser was bitten by a snake while working at the farm last summer. He immediately sucked what he could out of the wound, applied a tourniquet to his arm, and was hauled off to Guerrera 30 kilometers away. There was no anti-venom available. As he felt the poison working its way up his arm towards his heart he was hauled to a hospital 120 kilometers away in Ghardaia. There, he spent four days in the hospital in a situation that might best be described as “tenuous”. He said: “it was important not to panic, because that only speeds your circulation”. He lived.
A young man from Guerara spent one holiday zipping around the desert on his motor bike without regard for the possible consequences. It so happened that the electricity went out that night in Guerrera due to some system failure, and so the glow of the town that serves as navigational beacon in the desert was lost. The young man guessed wrong about his directions, headed straight out into the desert instead of towards town, and ran out of gas without any idea about what had happened. It was mid-summer and he had no water and within two days he was dead, just a few kilometers it turns out from “La Source” and salvation.
One of the guys working on the farm was also bitten when he dared to have some fun with a snake he found at the farm. He panicked but had the good fortune to have anti-venom now at the farm, and so also survived. Death is usually a matter of less than an hour.
Snakes and scorpions are commonplace on the farm, but now, in the winter, they are all hibernating. In any case, it is only the snakes that are deadly. The scorpion bite is exceedingly painful, sometimes for days, but it will not kill a full-grown man. I found myself avoiding holes in the sand, covering my boots at night, and kicking rocks before picking them up.
Tourists are usually the protagonists in these death by desert stories, so it was refreshing (?) to hear the more local variations. In any case, staring around at the monochrome dust and remembering the level of tension as we tried to navigate to “La Source” at night, I’m left with a more than theoretical appreciation for the stakes and the consequences out here in the waste.
Nasser making sahara bread
Nasser making sahara bread and telling stories

Flies
If the laws of Dispersion are such that you find the highest concentration of something at its point of origin, then I know we have come very close indeed to the source of all flies. It is here in the desert south of Guerrera.
Flies on your lips
Flies in your clothes
Flies on your eyelids
And up your nose
The wax in your ears
The salt in your tears
The sweat on your brow
All fly chow now
Washing their hands
Rubbing their feet
Keeping an eye out
For fresh (white) meat
They swarm, they flurry
Fly clouds in a hurry
Quick to swoop down
On the poop you don’t bury
Cockroaches may be here
Long after man dies
But I’ll put my money
On the survival of flies
Someone call Darwin or Leakey or Goodall: I’m sure it all started here, the origin of the species.

Fire
Wolf and I packed up and got ready to leave before the day advanced much so to avoid traveling at night. He turned the ignition key, sent power to the starter motor, applied some pressure to the gas pedal and then looked at me with a slight frown.
Wolf after the fire
He asked, “What is that strange noise”? We listened, and then smelled something burning. Smoke suddenly billowed black and flames shot out of the underside of the cab. We bailed, Wolf leaping out with a fire extinguisher, and within seconds the fire was out. That’s all it took: a few seconds. The truck was stuck. We were 50 kilometers from town.
Truck fire
On my satellite phone we called for help from Guerrera. Just before nightfall, Nasser and Ibrahim and three mechanics from town arrived to pull the damaged parts from the truck, and we decided I would accompany them back to town to assist in finding a replacement. We left after dark, leaving Wolf alone with the truck. Our vehicle did not have four-wheel drive and so we were not in a position to take off cross-country: we had to find and stay on the main “piste” back to town. We lost that piste.
Remember that drive out to “La Source”? The indecision, the arguments, the confusion? Reverse the intended direction, add more Very Opinionated Men, remove every conceivable landmark except the moon and what may or may not be the faint glow of the town (they call that a beacon????), add dirt tracks going in every conceivable direction, and in the back of your mind remember that story of the guy and his motorcycle dying out in the desert after running out of gas: at that point you are ready to imagine the level of concern and….um….discussion in the car when the driver made it clear from his erratic decisions that he hadn’t a clue about where we were or where to go.
All I could remember from my nights out in the tent was that the moon was setting lately in the west and that the town was north. We had to keep the moon to our left. That would have been fine but we had to find the piste, and that in the end took us hours. Even when we found something that looked like it headed in the right direction, we were forced to rely on the moon to keep us oriented; the number of possible tracks to follow and the number of times a track simply disappeared was truly disorienting. It was with tremendous good fortune that the moon didn’t set until just before we hit the highway, that the tire didn’t go flat until just before town, and that we had a full tank of gas to get us back. This is not an experience I care to repeat, ever.
I am back in Ghardaia now, and should be heading south shortly. After twenty eight years of simply imagining it, I’m going to see Tamanrasset. Happy Birthday, Mia. I love you.

El Meniaa
El Golea, Algeria
Wolf Gaudlitz called the night before I left Ghardaia for Tamanrasset to say he had gotten his truck to the Kherfi farm, but that the part Ibrahim had found at the Mercedes dealership in Ghardaia wasn’t going to work and he would have to wait for it to be sent from Germany. It could take a week, and I didn’t want to wait.
Listening to Nina Simone
Listening to Nina Simone the night before departure
I hitched a ride instead with Faysal, a photographer and friend of Said, headed back home to Tamanrasset from Alger where he had been visiting his wife and kids. Things apparently hadn’t worked out with his wife, but they were good friends he says. We left early in the morning for the 400km drive down to El Meniaa and then In Salah, where we would spend the night, Said entrusted with the task of sending my bicycle by bus.
Faysal drove like a man late for a meeting, the 240km took no time at all, and we arrived in El Meniaa before noon. The town used to be called El Golea under the French, and it is famous for its mineral water, still marketed under the old name. We discovered however, that no one in town sells bottled water (because…why should they: the mineral water comes out of the taps)! We filled my water bottles at a gas station.
Plaza at El Mineaa
El Meniaa around noon
The only gas station between El Meniaa and In Salah was closed. Faysal bought a jerry can (they call it that in Arabic as well), filled it at the gas station, and because it didn’t fit in the trunk, sat it on the back seat with all my stuff. He then pulled out some truly wonderful smoked salmon from Belgium out of the trunk for lunch, and we memorably set out for In Salah reeking of gasoline and fish.
Looking for jerry cans
written by  roel krabbendam on January 25, 2007 from El Golea, Algeria

Sand
I-n-Salah, Algeria
Entry gate to In Salah
The headwind was extremely powerful, and we burned through a full tank and most of the jerry can by 4pm, when we pulled into In Salah; a town, it seems, beset by sand. I saw huge dunes piled over garden walls, and houses abandoned to the inexorable drifts. The desert around the town is covered with enigmatic sand mounds, where it turns out they have trucked sand removed from the streets.
Late afternoon at I-n-Salah
Faysal drove through the red dirt streets past red stucco houses with light blue doors to find his friends, we had coffee with revered poet Hadj Toumi, and we were invited into the home of Kasem Chermel for tea. Boubaker was there, playing on the lute, and we were treated to his music video on Kasem’s computer system: three musicians in traditional white garb playing music in the dunes.
Boubacar
I liked the music, but possibly only because of the circumstances. It struck me as incredible that Kasem had achieved this level of quality by recording and mixing in the very room in which we sat, on a not-quite-state-of-the-art computer system, with very limited resources.
Kasem on drums, with the inevitable tea. Visions of asphyxiation from the charcoal burner inside the closed room proved unfounded.
Kasem had also made slide shows highlighting interesting features of the area around In Salah, and so I got the virtual tour of the petrified forest, the hot water springs, a small lake. I had thought to visit them personally, but Faysal had a schedule: it turned out he actually did have a meeting in Tamanrasset in two days.
Kader Hafaoui, Sub-Director Parc Nationale
For dinner we all went to the home of Kader Hafaoui, sub-director of the immense Parc Nationale. The park covers the entire Wilaya of Tamanrasset, approximating the size of France, and it employs 600 people spread throughout every settlement in the park as wardens insuring the protection of the environment.
It is quite an achievement.
Kader put us up for the night, and in the morning Faysel and I headed south. We thought we would make it well before dinner.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 25, 2007 from I-n-Salah, Algeria

Flat
I-n-Amguel, Algeria
The Plateau du Tademait surrounding In Salah is as flat as the palm of your hand, and that is where it gets its name in Tamachek. A black granule lies over red sand stretching far beyond the horizon, and it is tempting through untrained or sensitized eyes to call it “Nothing”. The black granules disappear south of In Salah, and the color goes to red Orange beige, but that is the only difference I could detect as we continued on our journey. The road began to get very bad.
Landscape south of El Oued
We were 150 km from Arak and traveling at 140km/hr or so, a guess because Faysel’s speedometer was broken, when he shredded the left front tire. The vibration of the car suddenly sounded louder, we smelled burning rubber, the car began vibrating badly, and Faysal slammed on the brakes and pulled over. The tire was easily changed, but we had a long way to go without a spare. I saw slate escarpments to either side of the road, brushstrokes of whispy clouds painting the sky, and a grey overcast at the horizon that turned out to be sand.
At 130 km from Arak the sky turned yellow and the light turned sickly. Hissing tributaries of sand had been blowing across the road since we started, but now the sand and dust was airborne. The heat from the sun no longer radiated out into a clear sky, and the car became a sealed sauna.
Sandstorm
At 120 km from Arak the visibility shrank to about 1 km. The dust crept up our noses like an infection and sand crunched in the cups of our teeth. My snot was all blood and dirt. Conversation was reduced to “Putain” and “Merde” and sometimes “Putain du Merde”.
At 110 km from Arak the visibility shrank further, to ½ km or so. The occasional truck loomed black out of the dust, each time requiring some negotiation for asphalt. The potholes were plentiful and difficult to see. The wind became a gale pounding the car, and a truck carrying mattresses ahead of us seemed barely to keep its right tires on the road. Faysal did not slow down, he cursed the trucks that were ruining the roads, and we slalomed along through the potholes, still reeking of gasoline and fish but conscious too of our own nervous sweat.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 26, 2007 from I-n-Amguel, Algeria

Waiting
I-n-Amguel, Algeria
Dune approaching Arak
60 km later, the sky finally cleared. It became obvious that the blowing sand had been only 10 meters or so above the ground all along. I saw sand dunes the size of mountains as we left the Plateau de Tademait and entered a canyon for Arak.
Rock
Arak is a small group of houses made of earthen bricks, a couple of cafes and a gas station. Long rows of trucks line the roadside, and the café where we stopped for coffee was full of truckdrivers having lunch. It was pleasant there, with palms giving shade and plenty of white plastic tables and chairs. There was no tire of the right size available, or it cost three times its usual price, I couldn’t understand the conversation, but we were told the road was good to Tamanrasset and we should just go ahead without the spare. We filled up the gas tank, negotiated our ninth police barricade since leaving Ghardaia, and moved on.
Tankers at Arak
Arak
At 325 km from Tamanrasset, Faysel shredded the back left tire. I felt complicit in our situation, aghast at the stupidity of not insisting on getting a spare at Arak. We pulled over behind a parked truck, a bus came by, and Faysal hopped aboard with one wheel to get a tire at In Ecker, 160 km away. I sat down with the truck drivers on a blanket they had put down under a tree, and we shared tea and peanuts.
Beudjabbara Slimone owns his own truck and drives all over Algeria depending on his latest load. He lives in Ouargla, where his kids all go to the university. We discussed the usual: politics, family, kids, and whether life was better in the US or Algeria. I argued for life among family and friends and a culture you knew no matter where that might be. He told me there were no tires at In Ecker, that Faysal would have to go all the way to Tamanrasset, and that he would be back tomorrow at the earliest. He suggested I move the car off the road in case of bandits or thieves.
Truckers
Beudjabbara Slimone, second from right.
We were joined by three other truck drivers, one young guy pulling out a collection of three year old postcards written in English from a Hungarian girl he had met over the internet. He had held them all this time and never gotten them translated and simply wanted me to tell him the romantic bits, but there were none except for a single use of the word “Dear”. In any case, they were three years old.
I took their picture, got their addresses, and they took off for Tamanrasset. I sat in the car and tried to read Faysal’s French literature and waited.
I learned to wait when I was a kid, sitting in the dentist office amid Highlights and National Geographics. By turning my thoughts off and finding this hum inside me, I could make time pass effortlessly and without impatience. Interestingly, I never needed painkillers until I was in my twenties, around the time I remember losing my ability to find that hum. Waiting has been less easy since.
I couldn’t move the car, because I was sure Faysal had hopped on the bus without noting where we were. He would drive right by when he returned. That bit about the bandits and thieves had caught my attention however, so I pitched my tent out of view of the road, yanked all the valuables out of the car, and called it a night.
Faysal returned at 5am, the Tamanrasset-Ghardaia bus traveling at 30km/hr for half an hour searching for the car. He had a new tire from Tamanrasset, but left the food he had bought on the bus. I put him in the tent for some sleep, climbed a nearby hill, and waited for dawn.
So, I wait, watching the wind drive rivers of sand down the oued. A collection of upright slates surround a body-sized plot, and I wonder who might be buried in such isolation. The stars are stupendously bright and plentiful, with a faint glow on the horizon that might be dawn, or might be In Ecker. The theme to “I Dream of Jeannie” floats through my head, and thankfully doesn’t stay. I doze a bit, and suddenly realize the stars have gone, and then watch as slowly the sun rises to wash the surrounding peaks. I am radiantly happy that events have led me to this stunningly beautiful moment.
The morning after the second flat
written by  roel krabbendam on January 27, 2007 from I-n-Amguel, Algeria

Near Death Experience
Tit, Algeria
Faysal is up and the car is packed and the tire is changed in short order, my suggestion that we proceed with more caution is ignored, and we once again bomb down the road at 140km/hr or so, cursing trucks and reeking of gasoline. The fish smell seems to have abated.
Approaching In Ecker
We pull through In Ecker, a doubly fenced in reservation of radioactive stone and dust commemorating the three French nuclear blasts of the early sixties, one of which apparently didn’t stay underground and wiped out several Tuareg villages with exotic pestilence.
I-n-Amguel
We get an extra tire at In Amguel, a used one made in the Czech Republic for the equivalent of 10 euros, at a garage that hadn’t been open the day before. Breakfast is an omelette of potatoes much like the tortillas I remember from 28 years ago in Spain, only with much more oil, and French fries for the potato bit.
Camels approaching Tamanrasset
The third tire shreds at 100 km from Tamanrasset, but now we have that spare. That spare shreds 20 km later, at 80 km from Tamanrasset. All of this would have cost us half the time if my satellite phone worked, but it is telling me “Account Invalid”. Faysal stops a car and asks them to call a friend to come get us, which they promise to do when they next get cell service. He then takes off on the next bus, again with one wheel. 15 minutes later he is back: he forgot his cell phone, but has sent the wheel on ahead with the bus driver, who will deliver it to the right garage for repair. An hour later Faysal grabs the next bus. More waiting. The brain goes numb in the heat, and you quickly lose any creativity or initiative...no, wait...that was the Beck's beer I found under Faysal's seat.
An hour later, three young guys pull up with two new, unmounted tires and spend quite a while wrestling the shredded tire off the wheel. They are unable to mount the new tire however, and I send them back to Tamanrasset to do it properly. A few minutes after they leave, the car that Faysal stopped and asked to make a call stops by, reassuring me that they did make the call…and by the way, what happened to the three guys that were supposed to come fix the tire. Faysal appears an hour later with a mounted tire, we take off at 140km/hour, and this time, finally, we do arrive at Tamanrasset.
I have been taking pictures along the way, impressions from a car traveling 140km/hr, but when I point my camera at the American military base just outside town, the camera goes dead. The car works, the camera doesn't, except a few kilometers later it does: chance or technology? I vote for the latter.
Faysal
I have been thinking about this place for 28 years. Seems kind of silly, really. No bandits, no thieves: I spent so much time waiting to get here, I almost died of boredom.
written by  roel krabbendam on January 27, 2007 from Tit, Algeria

La Reve
Tamanrasset, Algeria
I dreamt last night that I was staying in a reed hut in the middle of the desert, and that I lay under a brightly lit almost-full moon sky with shadows sharp against the sand. Around me, mountainous piles of oddly shaped Boulders stood in silhouette and I could not sleep but instead lay for hours tracking the moon across the sky. A cold wind arose and I slept finally to dream of a complicated mathematic I was supposed to understand but could not.
I awoke to find the moon set, a man making tea over an open fire, and a woman shaking her right hand with thumb and forefinger fixed in rigid “L”, a herd of goats clattering behind her. 9,000 year old petroglyphs in red ochre lay here amid green artemesia and thornier plants, and I walked later across a sandy plain tattooed by scarab and moula moula tracks to find them. Under an overhanging Boulder, staring up at an animal of incomparable elegance painted 320 generations ago, I suddenly experienced an overwhelming feeling of deep, inner tranquility.
It came as some surprise to recognize that this was exactly what I had come for.
Petroglyph
written by  roel krabbendam on January 31, 2007 from Tamanrasset, Algeria

Poste Tamegart, Parc Nationale de l'Ahoggar
Tamanrasset, Algeria
Just some images from the last few days out in the desert, a generous invitation from Faysal to join he and his friend Cecile:
Caretaker's hut at Poste Tagemart
Cecile, Faysal and the resident guardian making dinner
Cecile, here from Belgium for some mental recalibration
Faysal
Faysal hunting for his next photograph. He has an incomparable collection of photographs taken for the Parc Nationale, shots that showed me just how far from "nothing" the desert really is. A generous man, a talented photographer, and a maniac behind the wheel.
Faysal chasing a shot
...like I said, searching for the next shot...
Poste Tagemart
...Landscapes...(not quite up to Faysal's caliber)
Poste Tagemarte
Thank you, Faysal and Cecile, for a wonderful couple of days!
written by  roel krabbendam on January 31, 2007 from Tamanrasset, Algeria

Wisdom
Tamanrasset, Algeria
Ben Sebgab Lakhdar
I met Ben Sebgab Lakhdar over a year ago the modern way: trolling the internet. Lakhdar posted his picture and some photographs of Tamanrasset and the surrounding desert on a website called Virtualtourist.com, designed to showcase the travels of its members. I sent him an email from Acton discussing my plans to travel through the Sahara, and we embarked on a bit of correspondence which culminated in Lakhdar preparing and sending me a “Certificat de Herbergement”, a notorized piece of paper stating that he would give me a place to stay during my visit to Tamanrasset, between October 2006 and January 2007.
This statement is meaningless because in fact, I am staying at “Encampment Dromadaire”, not with Lakhdar, but the document is required to get a tourist visa to Algeria.
On the site of a 100 year old Governor's palace, currently being reconstructed.
Lakhdar is an architect, a lucky coincidence that immediately gave us plenty to discuss. He studied at a university in the north of the country for six years, received his degree, came back to Tamanrasset, and within a couple of years found his present job.
Lakhdar works for the state, in exactly the same capacity as an architect working, for example, for the State of Massachusetts. He administers contracts, oversees the selection of architects and the development of the design and construction documents, and keeps an eye on contractor selection and actual construction. He told me that he appreciated his job, but that it kept him at a distance from the actual architecture and prevented it from being an affair of the heart. He hopes to open an office in the next five or six years for exactly this reason.
Thursday here is Saturday in the States: the start of the weekend. I left him an email yesterday suggesting we get together, and he came by to pick me up this morning at “Dromadaire”. We went to a café for a cup of tea and then walked through the city discussing everything from city planning to meeting girls.
Camels
A marriage, he told me, costs 7 camels and possibly some clothes and jewelry. Lakhdar has 2 camels kept by his dad, who apparently wanders the desert “en trek” with a herd of camels. (He doesn’t take tourists, he doesn’t deliver salt, and there isn’t a route. He just…wanders…). Lakhdar stated the he found the girls here especially materialistic and this made it difficult to begin a relationship. Instead of discovering each others ideals and values from the start, it was imperative for a man to present himself first as financially substantial. Only then was it possible to begin any kind of discussion regarding affairs of the heart, a bit of a reversal of the American courtship, I thought. I pointed out a particularly engaging girl in the store of one of his friends, but he laughed and shrugged: “interesting, but for the moment impossible”.
Lakhdar took me to his home, where after some discussion with mom while I waited outside, we entered a small courtyard and then a concrete block room stuccoed inside and out with cement, with rusty steel beams supporting a corrugated metal roof. The doorway was open and there were no windows. We left our shoes at the door and relaxed on mattresses resting on rugs on the floor. Lakhdar brought in a metal cup of water and a plate filled with scalloped potatoes, carrots, onions and meat, from which we both ate using aluminum spoons. Naval oranges and three cups of tea served by a younger brother finished the meal.
Mosque under construction
A mosque currently under construction, the gift of a construction contractor.
Lakhdar told me that Tamanrasset experienced a lot of growth during the last ten years with the exodus from the north in the face of political turmoil, and the exodus from Niger in the face of famine. The city was unprepared for growth and did not have the resources to enforce any kind of master plan. Lately, however, services have been brought to the bidonvilles, a building permit is required, and enforcement of a master plan is in place.
I noted the lack of palm trees, a stark contrast to the M’zab Valley, and he thought the resource had been destroyed by the outsiders who bought land and didn’t understand the value of trees. I thought it was perhaps the biggest loss precipitated by all this growth. Lakhdar noted that the falling watertable level is a significant problem facing the city, with a pipeline in the works to bring water from In Salah 680 km away. I told him about the Rio Grande, and how it never reaches the sea.
Late afternoon bicycles
Late afternoon on a weekend
He enjoys traveling, and last year visited Sousse, Tunisia with friends. He went to Italy with some of the family the year before, to organize connections for his uncles “agence de voyage”. When I told him he should visit the United States, he said it was awfully far away.
We discussed building materials a bit, because I had heard at Poste Tagamart from Faysel that the village of Tagemart had been rebuilt entirely in concrete and stone. I thought it peculiar because the traditional mud and reed brick results in a much more comfortable interior, but Faysel stated that the State had paid for the reconstruction conditional on the use of cement. I thought: a stupidity that sounds like the World Bank or trade agreements or industrial pressure.
In fact, construction in stone and concrete is more impervious to water and probably requires less maintenance than mud brick. Lakhdar also showed me a 100 year old governors palace abandoned in 1935 however, sufficiently intact to merit restoration. I sensed that durability was perhaps in the details, not necessarily the materials. The good people of Tagemart have free, durable buildings in which to live uncomfortably for many lifetimes to come: presumably willing and possibly very proud participants in the arrangement. Somewhere, somehow, well intentioned people are perpetrating stupidity on a massive scale, though. I thought: “This too we have in common”.
Arcade
This is not a screed against people in government, by the way. I have met many of them, working with the State of Massachusetts and the General Services Administration in Washington, and I have found them smarter than me and often far more idealistic. It is more the recognition that wisdom is hard won, often underappreciated, and even systematically winnowed from some institutions; a triumph of the young, perhaps, but possibly the ruination of us all.
Surprising and wonderful things can follow from youthful or simply emotional impulses, there is absolutely no doubt. (Solo travel through Africa, anyone)? When I survey the stupidities I have personally perpetrated however, I understand this: I wish I had listened better, understood more, proceeded with a bit more caution, and considered the possible consequences. It’s a survey that makes me miss and appreciate my dad.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 3, 2007 from Tamanrasset, Algeria

Technical Bulletin: Electronics
28 years ago I spent a year on my bicycle with an instamatic camera and a watch. I had loftier ambitions and more substantial concerns this time around.
1. Laptop: Yes, this blog is possible in part because I bought the very tiny, very expensive, and truly wonderful Sony Vaio VGN-TXN15P from Circuit City in Natick, Massachusetts. It weighs just over 2 pounds, measures something like 8” x 10” x 1”, and easily fits into my bike bags. It has a single Intel Centrino processor so it is not the fastest machine on the street, but it comfortably handles the applications I use (Explorer, Word, and my camera software primarily) and it is loaded with connectivity options that make internet access in all kinds of situations a real breeze. I have walked into hotels in Tunisia and picked up the internet wirelessly, and I have reconfigured plug-in connections with a minimum of dumb fumbling in many internet cafes since. I generally plug my own computer into internet café wires to simplify transfer to the blog of my photos and essays, which I typically prepare ahead of time. I back-up all my stuff on SD cards but SD slots have not been available. I get 3-4 hours out of the battery, which isn’t exactly awesome but has proved sufficient so far. I originally considered a smaller and much more durable unit with 11 hours of battery life made for the US military, but it didn’t support SD cards and it didn’t have a CD drive, both of which I considered vital. I wanted the machine to be useful after as well as during the trip (assuming it survives!). The machine resides in a padded carrying case Polly and I found at The Container Store in Natick, Massachusetts.
2. Solar Collector: An important criterion for all of my electronic devices was that they run on AA batteries: easy to carry, easy to replace, easy to find everywhere. Some devices like the laptop were only available with proprietary batteries however, and for them I purchased a solar collector over the internet from Real Goods/Gaiam in Colorado. It rolls up into a 4” diameter, 15” long tube and delivers a charge...slowly. I haven’t used the collector yet because the trip has evolved into something much less remote than what I had originally conceived, but may yet do so in Niger.
3. Camera 1: I originally thought this trip would make a great video, and found a tiny Samsung video camera with additional remote I could bolt onto my bike helmet. It also takes stills and plays music I have stored on an SD card. I discovered, however, that finding video content of any interest is incredibly difficult, that MPEGs are of limited quality, and that taking videos really isolates you from what you are capturing. It is very difficult to both engage in an activity and film it at the same time. I ended up talking to some professional film people and taking a lot of Very Boring Video before recognizing that the blog would be my medium, and stills the preferred visualization. What I have done with the video camera is photograph bicycle rides through some of the cities and towns I have spent some time in, to communicate something of the flavor of these places in a way that stills cannot. I’m not sure these efforts have been that successful.
4. Camera 2: I bought a 6.0 Megapixel Canon Powershot S3 IS with 12x optical zoom, manual focus option, image stabilization, and very handy and flexible display frame that allows me to take pictures without having to squint through a viewfinder. This is very handy when you want to take pictures surreptitiously of the customs post between Tunisia and Algeria, or when you want to talk to someone and take their picture as well. The software that came with the camera is loaded on my laptop, and it allows me to easily download the photographs, rename them with the date, correct images if required, and stitch together multiple frames. The camera runs on (4) AA lithium batteries and stores everything on the 2 Gigabyte SD cards I brought with me as back-up. After 6 weeks of travel, I just filled up my first SD card. I was originally concerned that 6.0 megapixels would be insufficient, but the leap to 10 megapixels meant investing in an SLR camera which was much bulkier and much more expensive, and I had to admit finally that I was not a professional photographer but a guy on a bike: weight and size triumphed over whether National Geographic would ever come calling. You see the results on the blog (though I’m obviously only showing you the few decent shots and not the reams of dreck). The hardest part, frankly, has been keeping the lenses clean while traveling through so much dust and dirt: any camera would have presented the same problem. My many, many thanks to John (you should have come with me!) Kaplan-Earle, a really talented professional photographer in Concord, Massachusetts, for sharing with me his thoughts on technology and for hooking me up with the good (and patient!) people at Calumet, a photographic equipment outfit in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
5. Satellite Phone: Polly called up WGBH/Channel 2 in Boston and they said they send their people out with the Iridium 9505A: the smallest and easiest phone on the market with a satellite network spanning the entire globe. The unit costs between $1500 and $1800 (making it the most expensive unit on the market as well) and I found calling rates ranging from $1.00 to $1.30 depending on the service provider. 28 years ago, a postcard every three months was all my parents got, to their extreme discomfort (sorry mom!). I’m a husband and father (and son!) this time around, and daily calls are imperative. Weighed this way, the cost in dollars is meaningless. I purchased a data kit with the phone and it allows me to access the internet over the phone. I tried this in Tunisia and discovered this was painfully slow, with lots of dropped connectivity. I have relied instead on hotel and internet café access so far, though this has sometimes meant a few days between blog updates. I hope the audience is patient. One alternative was to buy a BGAN portable satellite dish. They cost about $2400 and are a bit bigger and heavier, but supposedly give great internet access and presumably, internet phone service. Size and weight proved decisive in my case, however. I have heard but cannot verify that the Iridium network, including 12 satellites orbiting the earth, may be suffering financial problems and may even be taken off the air (I need another month, people): if so, my sincere condolences to the investors. Ouch!
6. GPS: I mapped my original route using Google Earth, purchasing the $25 upgrade from the free version to allow me the mapping function. Google Earth resolution was sufficient to recognize all of the paved portions of my route (though I naturally wasn’t concerned about navigating those) and most of the dirt pistes. I also culled waypoints from an excellent book on the Sahara by an Englishman named Chris Scott, who has traveled extensively by motorcycle throughout the desert. Sometimes I had to map a variety of possible routes where the pistes were hard to recognize. The software that came with the GPS unit, along with a little computer routine I downloaded via the internet, allowed me to translate my Google Earth maps into routes recognizable by the GPS device. I purchased a Magellan Explorist 210 from REI in Natick, Massachusetts (Yes, I spent a LOT of money in Natick, Massachusetts) because of its small size, because it runs on AA batteries and because it stored the right number of routes and waypoints per route for my application. The device also serves as my watch. I was originally very interested in a very small GPS device made by Garmin especially for cycling, but it was designed more for training and less for really long trips like this one. Because Tunisia nixed my passage south, and because Algeria required a guide, I may not use the GPS device at all on this trip. I brought paper maps and Google Earth printouts as backup.
7. Transformers: Travelling presents two problems for electronic equipment: plug configuration and voltage. Brookstone solved both with a fairly elegant little unit that offers 4 different plug shapes and either 110V or 220V input. I also bought a transformer with a cigarette lighter plug from Kensington allowing me to recharge my laptop and other electronics from a car. That unit also comes with every possible wall plug configuration, and with the special Sony adaptor serves as a backup to my regular laptop plug.
8. Bicycle Computer: A bicycle computer would have allowed me to track my speed and distance traveled more easily than a GPS device, but I decided not to buy one at all. I figured the GPS device would be good enough, and I kept thinking of that trip 28 years ago with almost no electronic equipment at all…enough was enough.
9. Ziplock Bags: Everything but the laptop and solar collector resides in one: so far, so good.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 3, 2007 from Tamanrasset, Algeria

Kids
I told Lakhdar that I had a very demanding audience (!) that wanted to see what life was like for kids here in Algeria, and he promptly brought me to an elementary school in one of the newer neighborhoods near his house. We entered the school walls through a big, blue sheet metal gate and found ourselves in a big dirt courtyard. To the left was a small building obviously housing toilets, straight ahead was a long building fronted by an arcade that housed the classrooms, and to the right was a small building housing the offices, with additional buildings I couldn’t identify beyond. Everything was surrounded by the wall, but I noticed later that the classrooms had windows out the back protected by metal grates. Groups of kids were hanging out in the arcade, laughing and chatting.
Kids selling American Hero cigarettes
We entered the principal’s office, and shook hands with a black man wearing a white turban, a reddish robe and glasses. I thought he introduced himself as a friend of M. Fitzgerald (that couldn't be right!), but he did not speak Dutch (oy vey!), English, Spanish or French, and so Lakhdar translated between French and Arabic. I stated that I had come from the United States, that I had an eleven year old daughter who was interested in knowing more about how kids live in Algeria, and that I would appreciate permission to visit a classroom and perhaps take some pictures. It came as no surprise to me at all that this would require permission from the highest levels, and that it would be impossible to do so today. Lakhdar and I agreed upon leaving that this meant it wouldn’t happen ever, so he took me to meet a friend of his who taught school but was playing hookie…I mean was out sick…to get the story.
Kids after school
We meandered on foot, stopping at Lakhdar’s office (not much work until Algiers approves this year’s budget), walking through a project, chatting with friends he met along the way, meeting Tayeb Benzouada finally out on the street near the center of town. He invited us into his home, and as always we removed our shoes before stepping onto a big rug in a concrete room with an open door and no windows. We adjusted ourselves on the mattresses and pillows lining the edges of the room, a metal cup with water arrived, then an omelet and bread and tea. We sat around the omelet and took pieces using bread as a fork. A very old man in a blue robe and white turban shuffled in with a cane and lay down. He seemed to mutter a bit to himself, and we chatted about school.
The school system is organized like it is in the US, with 6 elementary school grades (primaire), 2 middle school grades (moyenne), and 4 high school grades (lycee). There is a movement afoot to add grade 6 to middle school. Kids learn Arabic from the very start, a bit of a project since half arrive speaking only Tamachek. In the third grade they begin to study French, and some students go on to study English in high school. Besides the emphasis on language, the subjects he rattled off were exactly the same as in the US, except for learning to read the Quran. The only stunner was class size: typically around 48. I actually burst out laughing trying to imagine the talents a teacher would have to bring to an assignment like that. Tayeb shrugged.
The school day starts at 745am, runs to 1130am, restarts at 215pm and ends at 530pm. Everyone walks home for lunch. There is a 15 minute recess in both the morning and the afternoon. Tayeb said this: “We put a lot of emphasis on teaching kids respect for personal boundaries (he used the word “frontiere”), and on teaching tolerance. Christian, Muslim: in the end we are all just the same and these kids need to understand that. The rest is simply teaching the basics, just as we’ve always done”.
Kids headed to school
There is a parent organization that tries to make sure things like broken windows get fixed, but due to the poverty of the families it is generally a symbolic effort.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 4, 2007 from Tamanrasset, Algeria

Sick
I wake up in the middle of the night with a bump on my neck I’ve had checked out before now red and swollen. I immediately diagnose cancer due to radiation exposure at In Ecker or from the hours spent on the satellite phone, and go back to sleep. The next day I decide to see if it goes away by itself, but do call Polly to ask Dr. L for some strategies in dealing with this little problem. I notice a sore throat and some sniffles, but it all seems quite mild.
Encampement Dromedaire
It is time to start taking my malaria pills in anticipation of Niger and I pop one of them after breakfast. The Orange prescription bottle from CVS says take one per week with food and plenty of water. Later that day I have lunch with friends and by the time I get back to Dromadaire I know something is terribly wrong: I feel a little dizzy, a little flush, a little achy. The sore throat and sniffles add a little je-ne-sais-quoi. I eat very little at dinner, and get into bed. Chills and a fever arrive to keep me company. My stomach is already dancing when Violent Diarrhea prances in, ready to party. I’m not in the mood, but Diarrhea insists and we stay up all night together, shaking and carousing to Bob Marley on the MP3 player:
“I’m hurting, I’m hurting deep inside,
good God now hear my cry, hear my cry,
my my my my cry,
feel the pain, feel the pain,
happiness come back a while…”
The African toilet consists of a porcelain tray set into the floor with two raised footsteps and a single hole. Dromadaire is kept meticulously clean but that open hole always smells a bit. A squatting position is required, which I personally find very uncomfortable but which seems to come naturally to everyone else. A tap and a bucket serve as toilet paper and flush mechanism, and a sink outside allows you to wash your hands afterwards.
Toilet
As a paperless system I suppose it has certain ecological assets, but I find the whole thing a pain in the a--. I walk back and forth between the toilets and my room all night and by morning I am empty and exhausted.
Dromedaire arcade
“We don’t need no more trouble,
We don’t need no more trouble,
Lord knows we don’t need no trouble…
No more trouble,
What we need is…”
Sick room
I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling. The late morning sun insinuates itself through the joints between the wood slats of the shutter of my single window, casting shadows on the wall in front of me. I notice after a while that I have dozed and the shadows now reach the floor. Outside, the women who clean Dromadaire chatter while they work. Twenty French tourists came through for the night and they are no doubt busy. A cat howls, no doubt the one that begs me for scraps every night. The goats grazing the garbage at the gate howl and bray. A distant hammer pounds a rhythm, the echoes making the world outside seem very big and this room very small. I feel weak and I’m worried about this bump on my neck, but no word yet from Dr. L.
Dromedaire window
Salah brings me some palm milk his mother made to settle my stomach, and I get up to attend to the laundry. I feel awful, but the ceiling was getting pretty boring.

Sick, Part Deux
This lump on my neck has gotten bigger and redder and more painful, and my level of concern is, um…enhanced. It is now bigger than my Adam’s Apple. Polly calls International SOS, my travel insurance company, and they refer us to their Paris office for a referral here in Tamanrasset. The Paris office is wonderful, I am spared the difficulty of explaining my needs in French, and they tell me to call back in an hour while they figure out whom to send me to.
Lump
With a whole hour to think about it, my imagination is given free rein. Bad. Very, very, very bad. As Polly will attest, I’m already verging on hypochondria. Everything that happens to me is the worst thing that ever happened, IN THE WORLD!
Image 1: Alien, where those creatures grow inside living human beings until they are mature enough to explode out of their cocoon’s stomach. Only, this would be my neck.
Now, that sounds very melodramatic, but Laurie Newman Osher will attest to a little episode in Peru in which a Bott Fly laid eggs in the pores of her skin, resulting in these large, white worms growing sub-cutaneously to her significant discomfort. They were finally coaxed out by a gentleman who came to our house, smoked possibly two packs of cigarettes in a row, collected all that nicotine from his breathe in a handkerchief and applied it to Laurie’s skin. Denied oxygen, these monstrous worms made their way to the surface, where they were speared and extracted. Yikes.
Image 2: Cancer, the voracious, terminal-within-weeks kind that snatches its helpless victims with barely time to say good-bye. All this radiation: In Ecker, the sun, the satellite phone…the poetry of it is irresistible: hapless victim realizes life-long dream to cross Sahara Desert only to die in the arms of…well, who know? Hollywood would find some beautiful Tuareg who had hoped I would be her ticket to a better life, I’m sure. Wolf Gaudlitz would probably have some thoughts…
OK, cancer just seems a little too awful to consider, and perhaps rather unlikely: this thing has become a raging nightmare in only 4-5 days.
Image 3: Environmental Factors. The glands in my neck are stressed beyond endurance due to all the banned insecticides and herbicides American companies dumped on the African market. Every meal I eat further throws me into the chemical soup, until finally my thyroids swell up like balloons. It isn’t the old lump on my neck but the glands behind it that are the issue…
This one doesn’t sound too bad. I leave Tamanrasset, my kidneys and liver perform some internal clean-up, and within days I’m back to my old self. 50 or 60 years from now I get cancer from all those banned substances, but I’m old and grouchy by then and good riddance.
Image 4: Infection: Virulent and voracious bacterioids rush through my bloodstream, replicating like bunnies. My white blood cells are thoroughly overwhelmed, defenseless against an enemy they have never seen before. On the outside I look normal, but I am only a shell of my former self. Inside, all is putrefaction. Starting at my neck, my cells slowly absorb the monstrous invaders, which then suck at the mitochondria and liquefy the nuclei until my cells shrivel and die. Finally, as I am walking down the street one day, I implode in a rush of liquid. Bystanders find only a puddle amid the clothes, bones and teeth on the sidewalk.
I like this one the best. Some antibiotics are all it takes, the lump disappears in a week and I’m left awed at the sagacity of the local doctor and his healing touch.
The hour isn’t up, but I’m making myself anxious and I call the Paris office again. “Please call back in a half hour, we need to call our Algier office”.
I managed to load some Bob Marley on my video camera/MP3 player in Ghardaia, but that’s all I have. It just isn’t the happiest music…
I call Wolf Gaudlitz to see if he’s any closer to Tamanrasset, and to confirm that he has my bike, but he’s out of cell service range. I play chess for an hour against Boris Spasski, who thrashes me as always. Actually I usually win, but only by taking back all my bad moves.
I call again and get the names of two doctors here in Tamanrasset: a surgeon and a generalist, both of whom I’m told work out of the hospital here. I’m not quite ready for the surgeon’s point of view, so I call the generalist and a nice guy on the phone tells me to grab a taxi and come on by. Dromadaire’s proprietor catches me on the way out, offers me a ride and delivers me to the hospital, where I’m told there’s been a misunderstanding: I need to go to the doctor’s private “cabinet” downtown next to the gynecological clinic. I’m starting to wonder if I misunderstood “gynecologist” for “generalist” on the phone.
Anyway, I get some general directions and guess my way to the office on foot, where I’m greeted by a gentleman of about my age in slacks and a pullover sweater who immediately invites me into his office and puts me at ease. Dr. O asks some general questions and then has me lie down while he looks at the inflamed ping-pong ball on my neck (I told Polly it was the size of a golf ball, but that was just to get some extra sympathy). He takes an ultrasonic device to my neck (he must be a gynecologist!!!), inspects from all angles to my immense discomfort, and decides that it is simply a small infection. No hidden succubus, no cancerous tumor, and who knows about the environmental factors. He asks me if I am allergic to anything (no), whether I mind injections (love ‘em), and whether I can help him find work in the US (NO, NO, NO, I TOTALLY MADE THAT UP), and prescribed me 4 items which I picked up this morning after getting some money out of the bank.
He never mentioned payment, so I will stop in later to clear that up.
I got back to Dromadaire after the appointment, called Polly with the update, and heard that Dr. L had suggested a similar course of treatment sight unseen, adding hot compresses as an additional measure. I realize suddenly that this was stressful by the immense feeling of relief I feel.
Lakhdar stops in later with his friend Tassa and we tour Tamanrasset together, stopping for tea along the way. Then Faysel says hi after dinner and suddenly I feel like I live here.

Transience
When I was very young and living in Holland I had a little song I hummed to myself every night as I went to sleep. It consoled me lying there alone, especially when bats flew at the windows, and humming it was an important and meaningful ritual. It puzzled and frustrated me greatly then, when one evening I could not remember the tune. How was it possible to lose something so important after so long, when I hummed it every night? How could my own mind work against me like this? How was it capable of such Independence? Even more surprising, the tune returned some weeks or months later, long enough that I almost didn’t recognize it when it came to me. It was a short-lived Reunion, and I could feel the tune slipping away from me again over several nights until it finally disappeared for good. I remember actually wishing it farewell, and coming to some acceptance of its final disappearance, and I have not forgotten in over 40 years that I once had this song and that it went away…
I mention it as a reminder to myself I suppose, of the inevitability and importance of change. I have been thinking about Tamanrasset since I was 20 years old, and even though the Tamanrasset I am visiting now is something entirely different from that Tamanrasset of 28 years ago, coming here has certainly felt like the fulfillment of something important. It is time, however, to leave.
To Faysel Abdelassiz and to Ben Sebgag Lakhdar, both of whom made my stay here so meaningful: my deepest thanks and very best wishes. I cannot currently imagine the circumstances that might allow us to see each other again, but I certainly hope that we may. “It’s a small world”, I hear, but it doesn’t feel that way to me. To both Faysel and Lakhdar I can only say: “You are my friend, and my door stands open for you”. Niger beckons. Benin beckons. I hope both countries will forgive my current sentiment, which is that this was the climax and the rest is dénouement; I may feel otherwise later. I leave here, in any case, with heavy, heavy heart.

Guides
There is a stereotype for Saharan guides involving a Tuareg heritage, a turban and sunglasses, a 4x4 vehicle with extended air filter, overloaded roof racks and sand ladders, and a supreme aloofness impervious to the most insufferable tourist. This type of guide gives you the impression he might just leave you in the desert on a whim, and I have read enough to understand it isn't out of the question. The two guides I had the pleasure to meet were nothing like this, and it is my pleasure to recommend them to anyone interested in visiting Algeria.
Ahmed
Ahmed Labchek (evasiondune@hotmail.com) is based in Ghardaia and with Wolf Gaudlitz solved my little can't-get-myself-into-the-country problem at the Tunisian border. Ahmed took his job very seriously indeed, meticulously handling all of the paperwork and never hesitating to place himself firmly between his paying clients (that would be Wolf and I) and trouble of any sort. Bureaucrats, customs officials, border police, unscrupulous truckers and the Guardia National all felt a little of Ahmed's sting when they posed a threat to our equipment, our plans or our person, and he earned from me a tremendous feeling of respect. His addiction to making and drinking tea, his incessant need for sleep, and his stories about driving second hand cars across the desert for sale in Niger were extremely endearing.
Talla
Abjau Intalla (tinakachker@yahoo.fr) is a good friend of Lakhdar in Tamanrasset and drove us around over several days there. Talla impressed me with his open and friendly manner, his experience and knowledge of southern Algeria, and most of all the ethic he brought to his daily interactions. When challanged to describe who he knew where, and where he had been in Africa, Talla remained honest and straightforward, tempted not at all to embellish his accomplishments. When offered European cakes as a dessert after cooking a fabulous Algerian meal he demurred gracefully, saying only that it would not be appropriate after such a feast. Here is a guy unhesitatingly guided by a powerful sense of right, a characteristic I find frankly pretty rare and one that earns from me as well both confidence and respect. For anyone considering a journey in south central Algeria I recommend Talla without reservation.

Sahara Landscapes
Assamakka, Niger
Camping between Tamanrasset and I-n-Guezzam.
Balise
Obviously I had too much time on my hands:
Trash landscape
Landscape
written by  roel krabbendam on February 8, 2007 from Assamakka, Niger

Border
Assamakka, Niger
The crossing from Tamanrasset took 2 days. Tire pressure was the chief concern, avoiding “fesch-fesch” (particularly fine and voracious sand)a priority, and keeping dust out of the truck an impossibility. We ate a lot of sand.
Twin mounds
I've been away too long...
Late in the first day we encountered a truck mired in sand, a crew of Tuaregs working to clear the tires. Wolf stopped the truck, grabbed his camera and started filming from a distance, but we were quickly discovered. Wolf later said what scared him the most was their eyes: there was no there there.
Truck
Refer to Steven Spielberg's first movie after film school
The crew came after us with rocks, there was a brief intervention from Ahmed as Wolf, shirtless, stared them down, and we quickly retreated to the truck with the gear. Ahead of them now, we soon realized they had gotten underway, and we spent a tense hour attempting to put some distance between us before finding a campsite well away from the piste. There was no question in our minds that the crew we had encountered with that truck would attack if they ran into us again. We kept our lights off until it seemed impossible that they hadn’t passed on, kept an eye out when later that evening a truck stopped on the piste near us, and finally slept without incident.
Paving Laouni
Paving crew taking a break
We reached Laouni the following day. The treacherous Laouni sand flats have ended the trip for hundreds and hundreds of travelers forced to simply abandon their cars to the desert as their engines consumed sand or the sand consumed their tires. Many have died losing the correct piste and driving off into the desert until their gas runs out. I had seen grim pictures and read grim stories and so did not expect to find many of the wrecks removed and a paving crew extending asphalt this far north. Laouni as a significant threat to north-south traffic appears to be no more.
Gas line
We needed diesel at In Guezzam late the second day, and discovered when we finally arrived a tremendous line of cars waiting for gas delivery.
Luckily they weren’t waiting for diesel. Unfortunately, we parked in front of a police barracks, accidently included the building in some pictures, and were immediately stopped by two hefty characters who demanded our cameras.
Rolling gas containers home
Again Ahmed intervened and after some tense negotiation managed to save our gear, but we were too late to cross the border into Niger. I suppose it was poetic symmetry then, that I camped out on the Algerian border heading out exactly as I had camped out on the border coming in. We crossed into Niger the next morning after only 3 hours of delay at customs.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 8, 2007 from Assamakka, Niger

Birds
Assamakka, Niger
Birds over Assamakka
Hovering, waiting, grabbing at this or that, the birds over Assamaka and some of the people living there share a certain sensibility. A flock of kids greet you approaching the town from the desert, looking for something, anything really, that they can extract from the newcomers. “Donne-moi une cadeau” is a mantra they learn early, and even the men will occasionally utter. It left me wondering if they simply knew no other way to relate to a white man.
Kung fu kids
Kung Fu MADNESS
Overloaded truck
Preparing to cross to Arlit
Most foreigners experience nothing but this clamorous assault in their brief passage through this place, and since I couldn’t even find Assamaka with Google Earth, I wasn’t expecting much either. In our two day stay in Assamaka waiting for a guide to accompany us to Arlit (who knew?), we found however the most wonderful people and unexpectedly had a spectacular time.
Hauling bricks
Making and hauling mud bricks
When it was clear the authorities would hold our papers until a guide arrived, Wolf found the nearest bar, started up some Malian blues on the speakers and started a party. Nine young Frenchmen joined us, then all those kids, then even their parents, and it didn’t take long before we were all dancing and jumping around.
Marie and the kids
I keeled from dizziness swinging kids around in circles, Wolf filmed this and that, the bar owner cooked us a nice dinner of rice and mutton, the French contributed wine in honor of a birthday, Ahmed made tea Algerienne, and we finally pitched our tents at the bar and expired.
Hauling water
Hauling water from the only well
A gentleman came up to me the next morning to shake my hand and thank me for playing with his kids: the first white guy to ever do so. Then he asked me for a cadeau.
Contraband diesel
Contraband diesel?
The guides the French had arranged arrived, we were not listed on their manifest, the authorities would not release our papers, Ahmed had a little chat with them in private, and we were on our way. It cost him 2 euro per person.
Kite flying
I left the kids a kite as a cadeau.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 9, 2007 from Assamakka, Niger

???
Oubandawaki Makiani, Niger
Awesome name, and I was really looking forward to checking this place out. Unfortunately, no one seems to think it actually exists: there is absolutely nothing but sand between Assamakka and Arlit...oh, and 2 trees.
Desert piste near Arlit
written by  roel krabbendam on February 9, 2007 from Oubandawaki Makiani, Niger

Deserted
Arlit, Niger
The crossing between Assamaka and Arlit is the most featureless desert I have ever experienced. 30 minutes after leaving Assamaka the guides stopped their car and demanded more money now that we were tagging along. The wind was driving sand over the ground, visibility was poor, and I suppose the threat of getting lost may have had some merit. We told them to get lost, and they did, and we were left to cross alone. The fact that they would abandon someone like that over a few euros left quite an impression on me.
Desert piste outside Assemakka
So...I've been away from home way, way, way too long!!!
In fact, the piste is pretty easy to follow, with few diversions and alternatives. We got bogged in the sand only twice, and though adjusting tire pressure to match the circumstances is a time consuming project, we made reasonable time. We stopped once to greet a couple of trucks we had seen leaving Assamaka and now stopped for lunch, but again the crews had rocks in their hands when we approached and we kept the interaction short (!!!!) The two Toyota Land Cruisers with machine guns mounted on the truck beds filled with soldiers we had seen earlier were long gone and no help.
Uranium Tailings at Arlit
Uranium tailings at Arlit
The sun set on the surreal mountains of uranium tailings from the mines at Arlit, and we entered the town in darkness. Low, dark, teeming with people, it is impossible to understand or to convey an image from such a drive-through. We asked for the road to Agadez, rolled up to a police post, and were told that we could go no further. Three policemen and five Tuareg had been killed the night before in a gun Battle either on the road or in Ifraouine along the way.
We camped at the police post, I beat Wolf at chess yet again, and we were allowed to proceed early the next morning after paying 200 euro for road usage in Niger. When we discovered the paved road closed for resurfacing, Wolf ignored the diversion sign and continued on the road bed until a Toyota pickup truck with armed guard and some very upset road engineers accosted us and demanded a fine. Again Ahmed intervened, somehow convincing them that though we had indeed sinned, the exorbitant amount we had paid to drive on that road certainly demanded some consideration. After some heated debate we were allowed to proceed, on the dirt side road this time. Just 2 kilometers further the roadwork ended and we were back on pavement.
We stopped to clean the fuel filters and parked unknowingly on someone’s land. A very dignified older gentleman with very thick Mr. Magoo glasses greeted us and graciously allowed us to stay, presenting us fifteen minutes later with a pot full of rice and goat in a delicious jus. In turn Wolf left them kid’s clothes from Germany.
When 50 kilometers later the truck rolled to a stop of it’s own volition, Wolf looked down at the accelerator and we discovered it broken in two. Only by rigging some wires to a lever under the hood were we able to maintain control of the truck. We entered
Agadez that afternoon with Wolf steering, shifting and braking, me pulling the wires for acceleration from the jump seat, and Ahmed sleeping off lunch.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 9, 2007 from Arlit, Niger

Gris-Gris
Agadez, Niger
The capital of the Tuareg nation seems a major city in miniature. It is small and low and not at all grand, the famous mosque made of mud brick vying for the skyline with antenna masts and water towers. The campground a few kilometers out of town has seen better days, and perhaps the city is similarly in decline. There are beggars in the streets, gatherings of huts within the city limits, goats and motorcycle taxis everywhere.
Mosque
Tourists, too, are just starting to come back. The civil war in Algeria and the Tuareg revolt here in Niger interrupted the travel business for more than 10 years, though there were some foreigners here even then. I met an American family from United States here 33 years translating the bible into Tamachek, and a French couple organizing “little projects”.
Street Vendor
Street vendor
I met a Dutch industrial designer working with a cooperative of 400 basket weavers, developing a product that would sell better in the European market than the baskets they make now. I thought: here perhaps was a project that could really make a difference. Unicef is here, USAID is here…there are German and French projects as well. I am not here long enough to understand everything that is going on.
School
Doing some laundry, taking a shower, dinner and a beer in a restaurant, hours in the Cybercafe: these feel like a welcome respite. I am in the Sahel now and the desert is behind me.
Foundry Casting Accelerator Component
Aluminum foundry, melting aluminum cans into truck accelerator components...
Thinking about the Sahara leaves me somewhat conflicted: fighting all that sand would have been a grim affair on a bicycle, though I feel that I was pretty well prepared. I miss the towering satisfaction my original plan would have brought, but know I had a much more enjoyable experience by truck and with friends. Wolf Gaudlitz left this morning for Ouagadougou, however, and Ahmed left yesterday for home in Ghardaia. It all feels like a dream already, I've bought a little satchel of powerful gris-gris to hang around my neck, and after a few days of relaxation I am ready to move south.
Campground
An empty campground all to myself
written by  roel krabbendam on February 9, 2007 from Agadez, Niger

Aboubacar Mahamadou
Agadez, Niger
I met Aboubacar at the mosque within 10 minutes of entering Agadez (Monsieur, donne moi une cadeau!), and he was quick to show me his bicycle: no brakes, lots of maintenance required. I told him I would help him with some adjustments before I left town.
Two days later his friends nabbed me on the street to tell me Aboubacar was looking for me, and later that evening he met me at the internet cafe for the promised tune-up. I removed the two functional brake pads, installed them on the rear brake, adjusted as required, and until these pads wear down to the nubs, at least, he can safely stop his bike.
Now he meets me at the internet cafe and watches patiently while I type, happy to look at my photographs and possibly quite proud to be an internationally recognized star of the blogosphere.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 9, 2007 from Agadez, Niger

Flat
Abalak, Niger
Finally back on my bike, I took off from Agadez headed west across the Sahara fringes. They call it the Sahel, but it looked and felt like the desert, only with a few more plants and absolutely flat. Before he left for Ouagadougou, Wolf Gaudlitz highly recommended I head south to Zinder rather than west to Tahoua due to the harsh circumstances, but this only interested me more. Besides, I really felt I was running out of time and adding a week to the trip to see Zinder felt…irresponsible(?).
Huts
For an entire day, the premise of this bike trip was completely fulfilled: solitude, no traffic, decent paving, stark landscape, strong wind at my back. One day. Then the paving stopped and it was piste for a long, long time. Sandy, exhausting piste where the map said pavement. I thought: “This is actually perfect. Exactly what I would have faced between Tamanrasset and Arlit”. So, I persevered in pretty good humor, recalculating the distance in days to Abalak, considering how much water I had, and convincing myself that all was well only slower.
Cows
Then I blew my rear tire. Deep breath. I thought: “This is actually perfect. I haven’t had even close to my ration of flat tires. I pulled off the road, set up my tent, removed all my baggage, locked up my bike, and went to lock up the trailer when I found one of its tires flat as well. Deep breath. I thought: “No problem: plenty of sun left”. I was still in good humor, hopped in the tent, and calmly fixed both tires. I couldn’t find what might have caused the punctures but that isn’t so unusual, and I went to sleep feeling well prepared for the next day. I was a little shocked by the state of my rear bicycle tire, which was actually quite shredded and left the inner tube exposed in a number of places, but I figured it might hold me until I got to Tahoua. Wrong.
Sandcastle
The next morning I found both patched tires once again flat. I had failed to find a thorn in the trailer tire the night before. The bike tire turned out to have multiple punctures. I lined my helmet with the raincover to the trailer, poured in some of my precious water, and discovered 2 additional holes I hadn’t found the night before by listening alone. One old patch was leaking as well. I patched everything very nicely, walked all my stuff out of the stand of thorny trees I had camnped in to avoid further puncture, and got on the road. For about a kilometer. The back tire was completely shredded and it would no longer support the tube: I had pulled a Faysal.
People on the road
I thought: “This is perfect”. No I didn’t. I was annoyed. I remembered carrying around two extra tires for six months on that bicycle trip to Morrocco and never needing them. Who ever heard of shredding a bicycle tire? Deep breath.
I mounted one of my big, fat dirt tires on the rear hub, removed the rear fender to make room for it, and then discovered that a minor error in the frame configuration, a crossbar located just 1/2 an inch too close to the rear hub, would never allow this tire to fit on this bike. I needed a welding shop or a smaller tire, I was on a deserted road, and I was a long, long walk from anywhere.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 10, 2007 from Abalak, Niger

All-nighter with Nassirou
Dosso, Niger
Cooling the truck
I was sitting there by the side of the road considering how I might cut down the height of the nubs on this fat tire so that my wheel would fit, when all that gris-gris I bought in Agadez kicked in and a very big, very empty, lots of room for the bike Orange truck pulled up, the first in a very long time. Nassirou Aboubacar popped his head out of the window and said something like “What ya doin”? I explained my problem, and he offered me a ride to Abalak. I accepted.
People on the road
I had a steel frame for exactly this reason: any old welding shop on earth could fix it if necessary. Unfortunately, nothing doing in Abalak: weekend, off visiting someone, might be back in a few days, I have no idea what because my French is…poor. No bike shop to buy a different tire either. I bought eight very cold coca-colas and we headed for Tahoua. It got dark. I looked at Nassirou, he looked at me, and we decided I would stick with him until Konni.
We got to Konni at 1am. The streets were totally alive with people and music and traffic of all sorts, but it felt like a village. I asked if we shouldn’t grab some food (my treat), but he said: “later”. I asked if he was spending the night where we were parked and he said: “Autre cote”.
Nassirou got on the cell phone and made 10 or 12 calls. After 20 minutes a man pulled up on a motor scooter and held a brief discussion before taking off. More phone calls and another 20 minutes went by before two guys rolled a barrel up to the truck. Two other guys brought pails. While Nassirou stood in the shadow of the truck counting a huge wad of cash, these four guys filled the truck up with contraband diesel using the pails. They were laughing and joking and it didn’t take long, with Nassirou paying off the guy on the motor scooter and signaling that now, it was time for dinner. All “carburante” comes from Nigeria, the official and the unofficial kind, but there is a 17,000 CFA difference in price between a barrel of either. I asked Nassirou if the quality was the same, and he shrugged to say “The truck runs”. Of course it isn’t his truck.
We went to diner in a big hut with wrestling on the television and picnic tables for our convenience. I told Nassirou I would have whatever he was having (gulp!), and that turned out to be couscous with a side of meat and broth. I didn’t ask what kind of meat. Water and coca-cola and Nescafe came to the table in the hands of a woman who acted like she had an appointment elsewhere. I drank it all. I ate it all. I wasn’t going to do this just a little bit, and it turned out to be just fine.
I slipped Nassirou 5,000 CFA, he paid for dinner, he handed me back 2,500 CFA, and we headed back to the truck. When he didn’t stop the truck at the other side of town I asked Nassirou where exactly we were going. He said “Dosso”. I didn’t know where that was and my maps were in the back of the truck, but he knew I was headed for Cotonou so I wasn’t concerned.
We didn’t talk much. I found out he works for a “patron” who has three trucks, that he isn’t married but has a “copine” and a 7 year old son with an absolutely fabulous name I’m frustrated to have forgotton, that he travels all over West Africa delivering just about anything, and that his next delivery was to Cotonou. We drove all night, through towns that smelled of onions with streets stacked row upon row for hundreds of meters with sacks waiting for transport, through areas that smelled strongly of flowers, and through a countryside I could only hear and smell and feel. My contribution amounted to asking pertinent and engaging questions about once an hour just to be sure he was still awake. “Ca va”? “Oui, ca va”. “Tu veut du l’eau”? “Non”. “Tu dorme dans les hotels pendant une voyage”? “Non, pas des hotels. Sur le camion! C’est Afrique”!
Dosso
We arrived in Dosso as the first feeble glow of dawn (or was it the city lights?) suggested a horizon, we parked in an abandoned Texaco station, I was offered a cot under the truck, and we went to sleep. That was my all-nighter with Nassirou.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 10, 2007 from Dosso, Niger

Utopia
Dosso, Niger
When I awoke it was to a sideways view of a bustling street filled with small stands and street vendors and truck drivers. Nassirou waited for his patron to arrive (“I drove all night to get here on time, and he’s still sleeping with the cell phone off”!), and I went to a bike shop with my bike to inquire about a file; a big metal file I could use to eek out just enough space for my tire. I only needed to remove about a quarter inch of what amounted to a threaded sleeve sticking out from the misplaced crossbar in order for the wheel to fit. The bike guy didn’t have a file but he took me to the welding shop across the way and through a gate and across a vacant lot. I thought: “OK, wait a minute. I could just buy a smaller tire”. I communicated my thoughts badly. I turned my back for a couple of minutes to talk to the bike guy, and the welder simply removed the protruding metal sleeve while I wasn’t looking. It was that quick. My bike was fine, the fat tire works, all is well, but I think I’ll have the folks at Independent Frames take a look at the frame geometry when I get back.
I thanked Nassirou for his tremendous kindness, turned down the offer to continue on to Cotonou with him, took his picture and promised to send him a copy and then rode off to find a hotel. Within minutes of leaving Nassirou, I met Sonteijmane Gorba, but that’s a bit of a mouthful and his friends call him Guetto. After 5 days together I now comfortably count myself among those friends.
Because I hadn’t called since leaving Agadez and it was too early to do so at the moment, I wanted to send Polly and Mia an email before I found a hotel and went to sleep. I asked randomly for an internet café and when I found it closed was taken in hand by the sign painter across the street, the aforementioned Guetto. His boss called a friend who had a computer at home, and Guetto led me all the way across town to his house, waited outside while I sat in the living room and wrote my messages, and then led me even further to a hotel where he though I would be comfortable.
He told me to come visit after I had slept, but I was so disoriented that it was only by accident that I rode my bike past his studio the next day, where he waved me over to say hello. He decided to give me a tour of the vicinity by bicycle, and this is how I got the opportunity to visit Darey Malki, a utopian agrarian community started in 1953 by two idealistic friends.
Family
We were taken in hand by the famille Kader Dodo, given a large wooden bowl of corn flour and water to drink, and of course I couldn't resist asking if I could take some portraits. The community is primarily composed of the families of the two, now deceased, pioneers, but others are welcome. One of the first buildings to rise, in fact, was a mosque to attract others to the site. If there are problems, you are asked to leave.
Solar Array
Modern technology drives the power in the hospital and the pumps for the wells, but otherwise I found a village still fully committed to an agrarian existance and quite a success.
Guetto and I biked back to Dosso together, I treated him to dinner, and we decided to go to Niamey together to get my visa for Benin.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 15, 2007 from Dosso, Niger

Visa
Niamey, Niger
We got to the bus station at 8am the next morning, not far from the abandoned Texaco station where I had left Nassirou. I met two young girls dressed alike in pink checked dresses, one blind and the other leading her from passenger to passenger pleaded for money. A woman in immaculate green satin with matching head dress studiously ignored them, oppressed obviously to be there in the dirty station at all. I offered meager change, and we got our tickets before crossing the street for a glass of hot “Lipton” with plenty of sugar from a street vendor.
The Africa Express minibus left 20 minutes later, full of passengers. The seats were just a little to close together for adequate knee space and the busses are designed with collapsible seats in the aisles, an idea I hope the airlines ignore or pay me obscene royalties to implement.
The taste
We drove through a sandy countryside dashed and dotted with trees and anthills, huts and houses. Signs announced the reserve near Niamey protecting the last giraffes in Niger, but I saw no giraffes. We passed the airport, then a vast expanse seemingly dedicated to black and white and clear plastic bags, and then a street pressed at the edges with people and street stands before pulling into the dirt lot of the Africa Express “gare” after a two hour ride. A taxi brought us quickly to the Embassy of Benin, and there I discovered that processing would take 24 hours. Guetto and I would have to spend the night in Niamey.
Giraffes
Guetto had been complaining about a tooth that was slowly discoloring and causing him great pain, and he told me he wanted to go to the Hopital National to have it looked at. We again took a taxi, bought bags of sweetened yoghurt at the hospital entrance from a street vendor, and were told to go to the emergency room since we didn’t have an appointment. Guetto went in and I waited outside. When he reappeared twenty minutes later it was to tell me that he had to pay 1200 CFA ($2.50) for the visit…which it turned out meant that I would be paying it. Guetto had come along without any money at all. He got an injection into his gum filled with antibiotics and pain killers, and a prescription that I paid 3500 CFA ($7.00) for, with the very good news that the tooth could probably be saved.
Guetto
He took me to his sister’s house in the huitieme chateau, the city apparently divided into 10 “chateaux” as well as other “quartiers”. The streets were wide and unpaved, the house a walled plot, and a forecourt for the car and the well, and then a living room draped in sheer pink fabric. Beyond that was private. Two bare wires were connected by hand to start the overhead fan. I played with the kids and took portraits of everyone while Guetto and his sister chatted, and then a girl brought us couscous, and then we left to visit relatives further down the street.
Guetto and Niece
There the house was more formidable, birdcages and an expensive car in a very large courtyard and a very large and comfortable living room. I met two older ladies, and a guy just back from 7 years in Pennsylvania: Lauren. Lauren spoke French with an American accent and English as if he was born in Pennsylvania, and he was on the phone with his American wife now in England with their son, visiting her mother. He was overseeing the completion of his new house, a ten year project left unfinished while he was gone, so that he could move his family back to Niger. I told him the change was pretty drastic and he agreed, but writing this now I think things might be all right for them. His house shares a quartier with the American embassy, Americans live nearby, his family is obviously wealthy and well-connected, and though he is only 33, Lauren seems to have a head for business.
Guetto's sister
Guetto's sister and her daughters
We took a long nap, went to the Cyber Café for some quick email, got another cup of “Lipton” on the street and then went back to Guetto’s sister’s house, to hang out on the street as if it were a beach until it got dark. The dust was thick from all the passing cars, and the headlights cut wide arcs of light as they passed. Guetto and his friends washed and then prayed in a small prayer stand that I now recognize as ubiquitous, and then we had cassava and sauce for dinner before walking to Lauren’s house to spend the night.
Huitieme Chateau, 8pm
8pm, Huitieme Chateau
Tracy Chapman was on the cassette player when we arrived and she was still singing the next afternoon when I finally left. The only interruption was to listen to a curious cassette of some military hearings concerning the execution without trial of thirteen suspected terrorists. I could not understand when the incident occurred, but several guys in the group seemed to know every word of the proceedings by heart, and the importance of the event was obvious. I surmised that it related to the civil war and Tuareg rebellion of not too many years ago.
I went to bed after a shower: a mattress on the floor of the unfinished house. It brought back warm and fuzzy feelings of renovating a certain condo for two miserable years in Boston. The mosquitoes were intolerable and malaria was on my mind. The others continued chatting late into the night, enjoying the cooler air and Guetto’s unexpected visit and of course, Tracy Chapman. I slept pretty well, considering.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 18, 2007 from Niamey, Niger

Break-in
Dosso, Niger
Dawn was heavy and grey. I awoke to find everyone asleep around me and climbed up to the roof for some air. The American embassy was having an evacuation drill, a taped voice ordering everyone to stay away from the windows. Doves cooed in the trees, and I heard squeaking and wailing from lizards and goats. I could hear American kids on a swing set just behind a nearby wall, and realized I really missed home. The others awakened as the sun etched away at the haze, and for a while I listened to the drone of their conversation below.
Lauren agreed to give us all a tour of the city in his car, and I bought him some gasoline. At almost $2.00/liter it was the least I could do. The scale of the city is nothing like I expected, exactly as in Agadez. There are large buildings, they are spread far apart, and I never felt any sense of urbanity at all. The Kennedy bridge (photography not allowed!) is…just a bridge. The railings were lined almost entirely with drying laundry. I had always imagined my first view of the River Niger would be more momentous.
The visa was unexpectedly ready exactly when promised at the embassy, Lauren got us to the gare on time, there was place left on the minibus for Guetto and I, we wished Lauren success with his house and his family and his cash flow, and just like that we were gone. There were still no giraffes visible in the reserve. I came back to my hotel room three hours later to find the locks forcefully removed with obvious damage to the steel door and everything wide open. The hotel staff was in a flurry. The police chief arrived.
I had not returned the night before, and the hotel staff didn’t know if I was in the room or not: it was they who had forced the lock. I never imagined I had walked off with the only key, I was insensitive to the idea that my unexpected delay in Niamey might concern the hotel, and I certainly never imagined that my disappearance would be reported all the way up to the governor. The chief was there, I believe, to make sure I paid for the door. Nothing was stolen, nothing was lost, and the repairs cost me 3000 CFA ($6.00) as far as I can tell at this writing. I’m still apologizing to absolutely everyone for the “derangement”.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 18, 2007 from Dosso, Niger

Hunger
Grannery
Sahelian Niger experienced food shortages as recently as 2 years ago, and I looked to World Hunger, Twelve Myths by Frances Moore Lappe, Joseph Collins and Peter Rosset (Grove Press, 1998) for some understanding of the issue. I learned the following surprising facts:
1. Food is abundant. 78% of all malnourished children under five in the developing world live in countries with food surpluses. Countries like India and Brazil with massive malnourishment export large quantities of food. Countries like Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and Mali have many times more farmable land then is actually utilized. The real issue is not scarcity. The issues are third world debt incurred to pay for dubious projects serving established elites to the exclusion of majority interests, subsequent pressure to raise and export cash crops to the exclusion of local food supply to pay down foreign debt, and war fueled by superpower geopolitical meddling.
2. Droughts do not cause famine: they are simply the last straw. The real problem is increased vulnerability brought about by man-made factors. All but one Sahelian nation suffering prolonged drought actually produced enough food to feed itself. Unfortunately, poor farmers in debt to rich farmers and merchants were forced to sell them their production at rock-bottom prices, leaving them without enough food to survive the hunger season. Purchasing food was impossible because merchants raised their prices in the face of shortfalls. Debt, not drought, killed the Sahelian peasant.
3. Population density does not cause hunger, poverty and inequality does. World population growth rates are actually plummeting. In Africa, fertility peaked in the early sixties and has dropped ever since. That decline is expected to accelerate. Hunger and high fertility rates coexist primarily where societies deny security and opportunity to the majority, and deny education to women.
4. Desertification may best be addressed by population increase, not decrease. Marginal soils require irrigation, terracing, intensive crop and livestock rotations and incorporation of organic matter. This takes a lot of labor: success of these strategies has historically depended on population densities approximating 110 people/square kilometer, while sub-Saharan Africa in 1995 recorded approximately 24 people/square kilometer.
5. Pesticides, originally intended to increase farm yields have fed a cycle resulting in financial and ecological ruin. By destroying natural population control among insects, and through growing resistance to insecticides among insect populations, pesticide use results in increased pesticide use, until the pesticides assume a disproportionate cost, making production unprofitable. Farms are abandoned. Only the chemical companies profit.
6. Small farms are more efficient than large farms, even in the United States. Small farms utilizing traditional practices produce between 5 and 50 calories for every 1 calorie of input, while large scale mechanized farming yields a single calorie for every 10 calories expended. Small farms also have almost double the total output and profit margin per acre of large farms. Unfortunately, that profit margin is so low for any size farm due to the monopolization of farm products by large corporations that only large farms earn enough through sheer volume to survive.
7. The free market alone will never solve hunger because it responds to money and power, not need. It also fails to account for environmental destruction and the increased vulnerability of the majority resulting from the concentration of wealth. For example, structural adjustments imposed by the IMF and World Bank on debtor nations requiring loans to restructure existing debt have had disastrous results on the living conditions of the majority in those countries. These structural adjustments generally eliminated governmental control in favor of free market principles, essentially prying open these countries to foreign investment. As capital was sucked out of these economies, poverty and hunger increased dramatically. Cheap imported grain drove farmers out of business, resulting in rising unemployment, further exacerbating the cycle of hunger.
8. Government policies that insure the dispersion of wealth and power to the majority create consumers and so assist the market in better meeting actual need.
The book goes on to expose the immorality of food aid programs that bankrupt local economies and insure financial dependence, the destruction wreaked by the corporate structure operating free of governmental constraints, the tremendous support especially large corporations get from the US government (that would be our tax dollars), both overtly and covertly, in penetrating and dominating foreign markets, and the role of arms and militarism in protecting the status quo.
As the balance of power increasingly favors corporations and the concentration of wealth, the security of the majority world-wide diminishes. These effects are felt even in the United States, where regions race to the bottom to attract business, the divide between rich and poor continues to increase, and the buying power of the majority continues to diminish. The status quo is eroding our own security. Globalization means that security for the factory worker in Guatemala or the computer scientist in India is ever more inextricably tied to our own security at home: we are all seeking the same work.
I look forward to an American government committed to real security instead of a “war against terrorism”, that favors the language of international cooperation over the language of dominance, and that understands the link between national and global interests. It’s almost enough to consider becoming an American citizen.

Food
This blog may inadvertently have conveyed the impression that food only instigates diarrhea, and that would be a tragic miscommunication. Bacteria cause diarrhea, not food. Remember that.
I have had memorable meals in my life, some simple and some grand: a blowfish we caught and cooked off Cape Cod when I was a kid comes to mind, some wine and bread and cheese with my mom when I was a teenager, a vegetable tagine cooked in the sand at Casablanca 28 years ago, a Russian meal with a lot of frozen vodka in North Carolina in 1984, a Japanese meal with lots of hot sake in Lima, Peru a year earlier, a fondue I had in Switzerland in 1990 (booze again), a birthday meal Polly cooked me once on the hottest day of the year in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sushi fests at my sister’s house…the circumstances and the people and the food and sometimes the occasion conspired to elevate the experience beyond simply “dinner”.
Nassir making sahara bread
The meal Nassir and friends cooked us in the desert at La Source in Algeria, and the farewell dinner Lakhdar and Talla cooked in the desert outside Tamanrasset may well join the list, and both of them centered on bread. Nassir made real Sahara bread: balls of dough kneaded and massaged into flat patties and fried on a skillet with plenty of oil brushed on. It came with roasted mutton and a big salad, and the night was clear and not quite as late as usual, and I understood more than a little of the conversation, and out of all of the late night, meat roasting, guy-a-thons, this one sticks in my mind. That bread was unforgettable.
Lakhdar spent an incredibly long time stirring a bowl of dough that was then poured on a bed of hot sand and embers and covered with hot embers. The resultant flat loaf was then scraped of cinder, broken into little bits, and mixed into a bowl of ingredients I do not remember (I’m hoping Lakhdar will help me out here with some comments). This is a traditional meal with a name I also neglected to write down (help me, someone!). Everyone ate out of the common bowl, with Talla pulling pieces of mutton off the bone and tossing it into each person’s quadrant: a ritual I rather liked.
Tea
I must mention tea, and I’m not talking Lipton though that is exactly what got me through some hot afternoons in Benin. In Algeria especially, tea is ritual: a soothing and relaxing and rather lengthy endeavor requiring several pots and glasses and a small brazier. A small fire is made in the brazier to yield coals that boil water in a copper pot. Kasem Chermel at In Salah actually did this in a closed room, apparently oblivious to the fumes.
Tea pots
Tea leaves are inserted into the pot in a big bundle that prevents the leaves from exiting the pot with the water. The water is poured into a glass containing quite a bit of sugar. The pour is done with pride, the pot held as high as the pourer dares and the arc of the water as long as possible so that it feels like a miracle that it all reaches the glass. The tea is poured back into the pot. This is done many times, until the sugar is completely dissolved, there is a stiff froth on the tea in the glass and the host tastes and judges it done. Small glasses half filled with tea are handed to all. The whole ritual in its most relaxed form is repeated three times: once to taste the bitterness of the tea leaves, once to taste the sweetness of the sugar and once to appreciate the froth on top.
Ahmed told me that for him the ritual is a soothing addiction, something I thought not too different from my own love affair with coffeehouses and cappucinos.
Dutch cows grabbing a tan
Dairy products were a surprise. The countries I visited do not have well-developed dairy industries and have relied for a long time on imported powdered milk. Why they would have wanted this product at all if it wasn’t indigenous is a topic well-covered in World Hunger mentioned earlier. In any case, Kherfi Freres in Guererra were pretty cutting edge with their Dutch cows in the desert and their effort to create a dairy industry. Mohamed in Kairouan, Tunisia treated me to goat milk/cheese which I found slightly sour, slightly sweet, and fairly pleasant. Processed foods were not uncommon in Tunisia, including cheeses much like Dutch Gouda. I saw processed cheese spread in 24 triangle rounds in Niger and found it handy to have later when all I could find was bread. Benin seems largely dairy free, except in the cities where you find “Fan Milk”. I am hopelessly addicted to the semi-frozen bags of Fan Milk sweetened yoghurt sold by young guys out of freezer boxes often mounted on bikes and announced with large bulbed horns.
Manioc is a staple in Benin, much as yucca is a staple in Peru: you find huge stacks of this very large root by the roadside wherever you go. It is soaked and then boiled, and accompanied it seems with a sauce made of onions, tomatoes, chili peppers and oil. I had my best day of biking when I ate manioc for breakfast and I truly believe it is related. I had a bit of a Yucca fries addiction in Peru but I did not see Manioc fries here in Benin…could be a whole new culinary direction for them here.
Salad
Vegetables in general tended to cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes and onions...the diversity was not particularly impressive. The massive importation of exotic and out of season foodstuffs common in the United States and Europe wasn't apparent in the places I visited. Tunisia had the most variety, and with a Mediterranean climate at the coast was in a position to grow it.
Vegetable display
Dessert was not a highly prized concept anywhere I went, but the oranges in Tunisia and Algeria were incredible and the pineapple and small mango were delicious in Benin. Dates were common and became a high-energy staple for me when I was biking. I only found pineapple in the cities of Benin. I have never liked papaya, but there were afternoons where they tasted fantastic, and these were more ubiquitous (look that word up, Tommy).
Sheep at Kherfi Freres
Meat…well, there’s nothing quite like a steak. Slaughtering a sheep and roasting it is quite an event in Algeria, but I found it very fatty and irritatingly filled with indigestibles like cartilage. I know the meat itself is actually delicious, so I’ve been spoiled by the highly refined butchering done in the Etats-Unis. I promised myself I wouldn’t eat chicken but did anyway: they were not oven-stuffer-roasters but tasted just fine. I was confronted with Highly Suspicious Looking Fish served by Orou Adamou and prepared by his mom in Beroubouay, Benin, forced myself to dig in and found that pretty good as well.
Coca Cola
Liquor is available in Tunisia and uncommon in Algeria. I drank quite a bit of Niger beer (giraffe on the brown or green bottles), and found every conceivable brand of real and knock-off hard liquor here in Benin. Coca-Cola is common in Benin but nowhere else. I’m told it will kill diarrhea bugs: another pesticide dumped on the third world. It is cheaper than bottled mineral water.

The River
Malanville, Benin
The Niger is beautiful and wide and green at the banks between Gaya, Niger and Malanville, Benin, with here and there birds and small boats and people doing laundry or washing. So much water was very…soothing. People like Mungo Park died finding and charting it's course it is said, but when you realize it really is just a river you also come to understand they did so for reasons all their own.
I spent my first night out of Dosso still in Niger, in a Germa village named Makani after I got an especially nice hello from a guy on the highway. I screeched to a stop and asked him if I couldn’t pitch my tent within the walls, but he had to summon Douwda Noma to communicate in French. Douwda is a young guy who went to work in Lome and picked up some French there. He arranged everything, showing me where I could place my tent and recognizing that perhaps I needed a bit of “repose”. First they brought me a pillow and a mat and a mattress for under the tent however, since they couldn’t accept that I might sleep on the ground! I went to sleep for a few hours and awoke to a hazy view of the moon and the sound of pounding mortars (2 or even 3 girls to a pestle), a TV, kids laughing, goats, birds, and crickets. The Germa sounded like music, a girl hummed a few lines of a song over and over pleasantly, a man issued orders: the sounds all blended like water in a stream, like this was a dream.
Daouda and posse
I found water and food next to the tent, manioc and onion sauce and couscous and green sauce, and it was too much for me to eat. A girl told me to save the manioc for morning, and took away the other pots. Later a younger guy showed me an area surrounded by mud brick where I could wash from a bucket, and then I went back to sleep. I left a kite for the kids and a little tapestry I had bought in Dosso for the cook, took some pictures of Douwda and the local crew, got an address to send them to, and was back on the road before it got hot.
River Niger
The Niger
I reached Gaya in early afternoon, and found a store that sold sweetened yoghurt in bags: I can’t get enough of the stuff and downed three. The road follows the river for a bit and then it was the douane (customs) on the Niger side of the bridge.
I didn’t have any paperwork from my entry at Assamaka, so I skipped that office and went right to a mountainous woman sitting at a plain wooden table who very efficiently checked me out of the country and wished me a bon voyage. I skipped customs on the Benin side too, and here an officer at a similar wooden table stamped my entry. I felt quite welcome.
Bridge to Malanville
The bridge to Benin
At Malanville I downed (2) 60cl Coca-Colas, (2) yaourt Hollandais and a liter of water. Dehydration had apparently precipitated negative cerebral effects: who knows what I was thinking. All that sugar seems to just make the dehydration worse.
Abridged thinking
I made it to Motel Alfa Kouara in the town of Alfa Kouara on the edge of the Parc National de W. A national park named after a letter: someone call Elmo. There were supposed to be elephants here, but they must have been hanging out with those giraffes near Niamey, or maybe with Big Bird: no elephants.
Motel Alfa Kouare
Motel Alfa Kouara in the forest that is Benin
Salima Saka runs a very tidy place, made me a nice dinner of couscous and onion sauce with meat, and I really appreciated her sensibilities. I left early again to beat the heat.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 19, 2007 from Malanville, Benin

Football
Gberouboue, Benin
Benin is a forest, denser and denser as you head south. The towns all have big shady mango trees, each with benches and gas stations and women selling baskets of food under them. A gas station is a wooden stand with beautiful bottles of different sizes containing what I thought was tea but what turned out to be diesel: every town has several.
Diesel
Gas Station
In the north the land is corrugated three hills to every five kilometers...take my word on this. Bicycling was either top gear or bottom gear with nothing in between. There is a haze to the air, an excretion of the forest perhaps, but also smoke from the production of charcoal. The air smells faintly of it, and wood is stacked everywhere along the roadside.
My route was expedient but unwise. Traffic was minimal but almost all trucks, and meeting a truck coming from ahead was like having sand and smoke and diesel fumes literally flung in your face. The forest is cut back so that there is no shade on the road at all, and the heat after 11am was barely tolerable. Benin should be explored by bicycle on the back roads I now know, but I plunged ahead on the highway nonetheless. The highway is narrower than your average American residential street, narrower than two trucks and a bicycle should they all try to pass at once.
Futbal
I limped into Gberouboue on a tire going flat, and here I decided to ask if there was a church where I could plant my tent. The pastor was away at a conference, and the woman I talked to wasn't prepared to help me. Orou Adamou A. Roufaye came to my rescue, volunteering his father's home for a refuge. It turns out he is the son of the Most Important Man in Town, the house was concrete, and he was happy to have me pitch my tent on his front porch. Orou took me off for a drink, I met some old guys and treated them to a stiff one, and then we all went to the football game. The good guys won.
Afterwards I met Orou's wife (I thought he was too young for that, but I hadn't yet shifted from my Niger/Algeria/Tunisia mentality), and then went to his mother's house for some food. It was fish, and it looked appalling, and for the first time on this trip I seriously considered excusing myself from the proceeding. Then I ate the darned stuff and it was fine.
Orou needed to talk to me about his business ideas, and whether I had the "force", the power, to help him buy a car so that he could start a taxi service in his town. He also wanted to start a boutique selling perfume and other nicities in town because there was nothing like that available.
My finely tuned business acumen certainly came in handy. I suggested he go to Cotonou, buy five bottles of the most exquisite stuff he could get his hands on, put on his nicest clothes, and sell it on the street personally. I told him to waft every woman and man that passes with just a touch, a teaser, until noone could resist. Then go back and get 10 bottles, and get two nice looking kids to woo and sell for him in just the right way while he worked on a plan to open a store. If he did it right then people would come, and if they came he would have his car soon enough. If anyone has a better idea, leave your comments below.
I went to sleep on his father's porch, woke up early, fixed the tire, rode out as far as the main road, saw the tire go flat again, and yanked both tube and tire in favor of the other fatty so that I was now all dirt bike front and rear. I left my Tioga City Slicker and inner tube with the boys in Gberouboue, and they were ecstatic! Then I rode off, and all those nubs hitting the asphalt sent pleasant vibrations through my seat post and I was pretty happy myself.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 22, 2007 from Gberouboue, Benin

Beauty
Ndali, Benin
I got no more than 10 kilometers when a pothole popped my left trailer tire just outside a schoolhouse. As if I had stepped on a beehive, the kids came swarming out to greet me, clustering around me in a dense ring and touching and prodding and shoving to get a view. Teachers appeared, order was restored, I fixed my third flat of the day, I took a school portrait to send them when I get back, and then I got back on the road. I was tired, and it wasn't noon.
School Portrait
I got to N’Dali feeling rather unwell, asked for an auberge and was led off into the woods by a taxi-moto to the Centre d’Accueil et de Formation Gusunon Keru, created by the Catholic Diocese de N’Dali. It turns out that here in the forest at N’Dali is a national center offering a 20,000 volume library, a computer center, internet access, conference facilities, housing and secretarial services.
Notre Dame de N'Dali
A room was available for not very much, they made me a stupendous dinner of salad, rice, chicken and papaya, and they opened up the TV room so I could catch up on Benin news. I told myself I wouldn’t eat chicken on this trip, but then I told myself lots of things. A slightly deformed young man who didn’t say a word snuck in to sit next to me and I Split the dinner with him.
I sat in on the evening service, held at dusk in a small gated garden in front of a large display of Notre Dame de N’Dali. Multicolored lighting made a flamboyant spectacle at her feet, dimming the swirl of orchids above. Perhaps 25 people sat on benches on three sides of the perimeter, young sisters dressed in brown robes, a pastor in more ornate regalia, a brother and lots of kids. I heard birds and motorcycles and people outside the walls. The sisters started singing, a call and response in the clearest and most beautiful voices, something simple and exquisite in this wild place, fragile but resolute to the masculine harangue from the loudspeakers at the mosque in the village. I was exhausted from the day, I was not myself, I was reduced to quiet tears. I do not believe they knew the beauty of their effort, but I know I have never witnessed a more beautiful mass.
Catholic center
written by  roel krabbendam on February 23, 2007 from Ndali, Benin

Gris-Gris
Parakou, Benin
I had planned a more heroic ending to this trip, but here’s what really happened; perhaps it’s more befitting anyway:
Carrots
I was unwell when I arrived in N’Dali, the room I got was in a concrete building that slowly roasted me all night so that I did not sleep, and I could barely stay on my bike for the 60 kilometers into Parakou. After more than 2 months of culinary receptivity and constant but controllable diarrhea, the inner me had had enough and took charge. I spent a second night awake and on the toilet, looked in the mirror for the first time in weeks, and found an exhausted guy I barely recognized frowning back at me. He was not having fun anymore.
Coiffure
I had known this for some time now, since it became hard to match the enthusiasm of literally every town I passed through on my bicycle, all of whom left me feeling like a sports super star even when I was primarily preoccupied with keeping my underwear dry, and since meeting Woru Noel Siraru and being given a tour of a radio station under construction 30 kilometers north of Parakou but feeling uncharacteristically disinterested. I wrestled with what to do all night: prolong the trip while I recovered in Parakou, or listen to that part of me that said I had gotten what I came for: enough was enough.
Market woman
The next morning I assembled all my stuff, walked my bike down to the bus station in the dark, and got on a bus for the last 400 kilometers to Cotonou. I popped pink pepto-bismols, two every hour, and kept my fingers crossed, arriving to the beat of some great west African drums and electric guitar.
Parakou bus stop
I realized as I was packing that somewhere between N’Dali and Parakou, perhaps at the Catholic center or at the radio station, but probably on the road somewhere, I lost the little leather satchel filled with medicinal herbs held around my neck by a twisted leather string that I had bought in Agadez, Niger from Aboubacar Mahamadou. I had lost my gris-gris.
Bus stop
written by  roel krabbendam on February 24, 2007 from Parakou, Benin

Kids
Bohicon, Benin
Unquestionably the most inspiring people I met on this trip were the kids, and I sat next to a wonderful French woman on the bus to Cotonou here to adopt two of them. She felt a little too old to deal with diapers, and understands that 3 to 4 year olds adapt easily, so that is the age of the kids she will soon call her own. It takes over a year to finalize an adoption, but she hopes and expects for everyone’s sake that she will get to take them home to France sooner.
Babies
Nadine Frouin has been building a house on the coast of Benin for 10 years now, a little at a time as money allowed, and will one day make it her home. I liked very much the notion that her children will one day return to the country from which they came, and I hope Nadine never recovers from Mal d’Afrique. I told her I might very well be cured.
written by  roel krabbendam on February 26, 2007 from Bohicon, Benin

Bonsoir, Pussycat
Cotonou, Benin
I expected to arrive at L’Etoile Rouge not far from the airport, assemble my bicycle, and head for the Sheraton: on the map, easy to find, internet access, air conditioning, outrageously expensive. Instead, I met Salissoutour Kassinou.
Kassinou decided I should NOT pay the outrageous prices at the Sheraton, he knew exactly where I should stay and he would show me a Cyber café. I was in no state to deal with the tour of Cotonou I received in his hands, he speeding along on his motorcycle while I did my best to keep up, but he was gracious and eager and true to his word. He even convinced the guardian of this conference center I am staying in to do my laundry. I’m stuck here without clothes until the guardian gets back.
This trip has not evolved as planned: No bandits, no thieves (OK...Fouruzi took my jackknife in Tunisia…$38, plus tax), no tough guys (except for those truckers in the desert and those religious extremists who smashed my headlights in Beni Isguem…no harm and $28), no lions, no tigers, no bears (and no giraffes or elephants either, or snakes or scorpions for that matter). No major tourist attractions. Only the friendliest, most helpful, most supportive, most enthusiastic, most INSPIRING people I have ever met. Not since that little kid yelled "Bonsoir, Pussycat" to me as I chugged into Tozeur have I gotten such an incredible lift from the people I passed. I have seen large and joyous groups of people in these Peule villages actually stand up and cheer a 48 year old white guy with a stupid hat and too much gear, with papayas and peanuts and dates hanging off the back, waving and grinning and yelling “Bonjour” at them. This was a profound lesson for me on the meaning of unmitigated, unselfconscious joy.
Of course, they may have been laughing AT me…
written by  roel krabbendam on February 28, 2007 from Cotonou, Benin

Tour
Cotonou, Benin
Lagoon de Cotonou
Cotonou squats on the ocean at the mouth of the Lagune de Cotonou, under the voodoo forest of Benin. The sky is grey or Orange in March, the sun just a glimmering disk, the heat tolerable. The humidity will suck the life from you, however. This is the scene of Robert Wilson’s great detective stories and it is not difficult to view the city as darkly as he does.
Bridge over Lagoon de Cotonou
The whites are barricaded in Cadjehoun in the shadow of the Maggi water tower amid the embassies and the Chinese and Moroccan restaurants and supermarches. The airport is right there should withdrawal ever be required. Their relationship to the blacks is good enough, but there is no question who has the money and who wants it.
Port du pecheur
The city operates by moto-taxi. It is too humid for bicycles and too big to walk. A moto is cheap and maneuverable in traffic and comfortable enough, the breeze sufficient to ward off the sweat. The cloud of oily blue smoke spewed at every traffic light is unfortunately what you breathe however. An enterprising moto-taxi driver will station himself at a travel agency or the Chinois or the bank, and if he can find a tourist who doesn’t yet know the prices and here for more than just a day, he can latch on for the ride. This is how I met Casimo, outside the Air France office.
Beach
Casimo is in his early thirties, a little heavy, a little aggressive. He wanted 1000Cfa for a 250Cfa ride and I had to walk away before he relented. He handled traffic with the same relentless attitude, and I decided to like him, but the issue was out of my hands in any case. A day after he gave me a ride I found him stationed outside CODIAM where I was staying, and it was clear I had been adopted.
Casimo overcharged me the second day, taking advantage of the fact that I didn’t know where to go to find a bike box. We made a number of stops in our search, finding the box at a big appliance store and hauling it back to CODIAM with it tucked under my arm. Viewed from the side we looked like a box and two heads magically gliding down the street with no visible means of propulsion.
When I figured out I was being overcharged (he thought I wouldn’t?), I told Casimo he could keep the money if he gave me a tour of the entire city. We stopped at the Port de Peche so that I could get caught taking prohibited photos, then out to the point at Plakodji Plage when they kicked us out.
Mending nets
The poop at the Plage was daunting, the living conditions eye-opening. Up along the lagoon through the markets, then down the Avenue to the Etoile, around the airport to the beach at Fidjrosse, we finally ended up back at CODIAM in Cadjehoun after dark. There were candles and lanterns everywhere, the quartier without power. Casimo suggested we go up to Ganvie in the morning, and we agreed to meet at 9am.
Etoile Rouge
The pumps weren’t running, a shower out of the question, and without the overhead fan it was a very uncomfortable night indeed. I was still awake at 230am when power was finally restored to make it all better.
Conference Center
written by  roel krabbendam on March 3, 2007 from Cotonou, Benin

Water
Ganvie, Benin
Ganvie
I was a bleary mess when Casimo showed up at 9, just my luck to meet the one punctual guy in town. I treated him to breakfast, we agreed to 5000Cfa for the day plus gas, and we got on the road. We drove 15 Km north to Calavi, hired a pirogue, and spent 4 hours out on Lake Nokoue.
Ganvie was started in the 18th century by the Tofinu to escape from the Fon, who had taboos against venturing on water. It has grown to over 30,000 inhabitants, all dependant on three recent artesian wells.
There is no plumbing here, so residents fetch their own...sewage I will leave to your imagination. Most of the houses sit on stilts, the lake barely a meter deep here. In places there is solid land.
Laundry
Most of the residents are still involved with fishing, but tourism is obviously making inroads. The boat tours are sufficiently well-organized to feature three venues where local crafts are sold.
The residents are not all hardened to the tourist trade, and my camera was waved off more than once. Like Hollywood stars they would like to be famous, but without the invasion of their privacy. I understand their ambivelence.
Casimir
Casimo brought me by the house to meet his family on our way back into town. We caught his two sons at home, and his wife at the coiffure, before heading over to his brother's house nearby. There I was treated to a large glass of palm wine where a small taste would have done, and heard of Mathieu's difficulty financing a year's study abroad to finish his legal training. I left him my email address. The massive headache that ensued did nothing to keep me awake when I got back to CODIAM.
The following day I spent hours negotiating prices for presents at the artisan village, then got Casimo's help in finding a car to get me and my stuff to the airport, handed him all my extra food and money, and got on the midnight Air France flight for Paris. Dinner was exquisite, the wine not bad at all, and just like that I stepped out of the developing world. We flew my entire trip in 3 hours and I saw none of it in the dark. I was going home to my girls.
written by  roel krabbendam on March 4, 2007 from Ganvie, Benin

Africa
Cotonou, Benin
National Geographic magazine opened my eyes to Africa as a kid and that INFECTION has been a gentle nudge in the back of my mind ever since. It’s a common problem, there is no known cure and I’ve heard the more serious condition referred to as Mal d’Afrique.
When I was 19 years old and terribly unhappy at Cornell University and completely numb to the possibilities of life, the apparent IMPOSSIBILITY of a trip to Africa became a LIFE PRESERVER for me. I borrowed $300 from my parents (they expected me back in a month I think), borrowed 2 bicycles from an aunt and uncle in Holland (thanks again Nell!) and with my girlfriend Denise (Hi Denise!) started a year-long trip that finally landed me in Morrocco. My LIFE PRESERVER became a discreet REALITY, and the reality during the three months I bicycled around that wonderful country finally became an IMPETUS to return home and study architecture.
Africa slowly settled into a DREAM I held for 28 years, and this trip has reawakened me to a continent far more complex and engaging than anything I could have imagined from my earlier trip. Somewhere around Tamanrasset, after all this time, all these abstract Africas made way for a concrete reality and I finally began to think about this continent more simply as a real PLACE inhabited by real people.
When, then, did this PLACE begin to turn into an EXCUSE? Assamakka, probably, or Arlit or shortly thereafter. A French woman on living in Agadez: “Nothing functions, there is no work ethic, but c’est Afrique”! A Nigeran truck driver on his work schedule: “I travel all over: Burkina, Mali, Ghana, Togo, trips that last sometimes a week or more. We don’t sleep in hotels, we sleep in the truck or sometimes we don’t sleep at all. C’est Afrique”! A young guy with dreams of Europe: “I want to get married. I want to find a job. Here there is nothing for me: C’est Afrique”! The place has become the measure of their collective frustration, a way to rationalize thwarted intentions.
There is even a corollary to this construct, and this is particularly evident in Niger. There are signs everywhere there, announcing a wide spectrum of NGOs. For the myriad of foreigners working there, having accepted Africa as an excuse, the PLACE has become a PROJECT. Family planning, Hunger, AIDS, Water, Desertification, Literacy: all of these issues have foreign advocates and volunteers and money. There is even some local cynicism about these efforts, since cars and lodging and equipment up to first world standards always seem to precede and sometimes even supplant any real help.
This is not a critique of foreign aid, though anyone interested in such a critique might read World Hunger, Twelve Myths by Frances Moore Lappe et al. Rather, it is to express amazement at the multiplicity of meanings, and awe at the complexity and the richness here. It is to acknowledge that for me, too, for a very long time, Africa was never simply a place either.
Finally, it is somehow to honor the people and the culture I’ve had the privilege to meet, because Africa as an empty stage would have hosted none of these meanings. I received a much needed lesson in both joy and friendship from each one of them: Yusuf Baba, Hammami Salah, Mohamed el Amjed Ben Hedili Ben Mohamed Ben Romd’hane, Fouruzi (I still want that knife back), Abidi Khalifa, the incredible staff at Oasis in Gabes, the Karboub clan, Luca and Tiziana, Gianluca and Camillo the Italian bikers, Selmi Lamine, Boubridaa Abdelhamid, Begacem and (naughty) Mayssar Rebi, Fatma Boucaina (whose necklace I wore every day), Labchek Ahmed, Wolf Gaudlitz (Salaam Aleikum!), Ben Aoumeur Mohamed (Nina Simone will never sound better), Ben Aoumeur Nadir, Groune Alennas, the Kherfi family, Aliau Doiallu, Ben Aoumeur Abdelabrim, Hadj Toumi, Kader Hafaoui, Kasem Chermel, Faysel Abdelassiz, Faouzi, Omar and Boubacar, Beudjabbara Slimone, Ben Sebgag Lakhdar (my door stands open), Tayeb Benzouada, Benehamine Salah at Dromedaire, Dr. Ounini, Abjau Intalla, Yann del Barco, the kung-fu kids in Assamakka, Isatou Alka, Aboubacar Mahamadou, Abke Geels, Eefje Rammeloo, Nassirou Aboubacar, Kimba Alka Tisserano, Sonfeijmane Gorba (Geutto), Kaore Aboubacar, Douwda Noma, Salima Saka, Orou Adamou A. Roufay, Aboubakar Moussa, the folks at Gusunon Keru, Woru Noel Siraru, Nadine Frouin and finally in Cotonou, Salissoutour Kassimou Serhau-Sa and Noudomissi Aguemon Casimir.
written by  roel krabbendam on March 9, 2007 from Cotonou, Benin

Denouement
The snow lies high outside the House and it feels good to pile, all three of us, on the big bed reading books or tapping on the computer.
Polly, Mia and Lola
I’m cleaning my equipment, packing it in bins, and thinking about what comes next. Powerfully held, these memories of my trip, and I find myself daydreaming a lot: great people, isolation, realizing the importance of family and friends.
Polly’s optimism is infectious, laying waste to my caution about the future. Spring is inexorable.
written by  roel krabbendam on March 25, 2007 from Boston, United States

...and what about that bicycle?
Somerville, United States
My bicycle frame did need a minor reconfiguration, so I took it back to Independant Fabrications in Somerville, MA and they gave me a lesson in customer relations. Not only did they immediately take my bike, strip it down, sandblast the frame, and prepare it for a new bridge, but Lloyd Graves gave me an hour and a half tour of the facility, handed me a T-shirt and gave me the entire history of the company to boot. They took the relatively insignificant problem with my frame as seriously as a new customer or a big order, and devoted time and resources probably far in excess of its merits. This is a shop I feel privileged to have stumbled upon, and I’m glad to be riding their bike. If there is a twinkle in my eye, perhaps it is that first inkling of where I might want to take it next...
Lloyd Graves with my bicycle frame at Independant Fabrication
...India and Pakistan anyone?
written by  roel krabbendam on March 25, 2007 from Somerville, United States

...just pretending I don't need that windowsill to hold me up...

Paro airport waiting room and trinket showroom

BANG! TV taking me into the late-night...

View towards the ocean on the van ride to Suvarnabhumi Airport

El's Drive in

The Atlantic Ocean

Lighthouse

Beach

White House

Washington Monument

Virginia roadway approaching Williamsburg

Mia

Lincoln Memorial