Kenya

President Obama, President Mubarak of Egypt, and President Kibaki of Kenya are all flying in together to a conference. But soon it gets very cloudy and the pilot gets lost. So President Obama says "No problem, I got this" and he walks over to a window, opens it up, and starts feeling around. After a minute he pulled his arm back in, closes the window, and says "We're in New York." The other two are amazed; they ask "How did you know that?" Obama answers "I felt the Statue of Liberty."

A little later they're still lost and the pilot wants to know where they are again, so Mubarak says "I'll give this a shot," opens a window, feels around, pulls his hand back in, and says "We're over Cairo, now." "How'd you know that?" the other two ask. "I felt the Sphinx," he says.

Yet later they're still lost. So Kibaki decides that he'll give it a try and so he opens a window to feel around for a few seconds. He pulls it back in, takes a quick look, and says "Yep, we're over Nairobi right now." "Why do you say that?" the others ask him. He says "Someone just stole my watch."



After Djibouti decided to be incredibly lame and not allow me entrance I decided to skip Yemen because of difficulties in crossing the Gulf of Aden. Instead I spent my time back-tracking through Ethiopia and chilling out in Addis Ababa. This was a small problem in that my timeline, for the first time on the trip, was beginning to get a little crunched. Unfortunately, Addis Ababa had a bit of a hold on me.

You how there's nothing particularly appealing about potato chips? Well, you eat one, and it gets a little addictive, so then you just keep on going until all the chips are gone and you're stuck feeling bloated and unhealthy. Well that's how Addis Ababa was for me. It was a nice enough city, and even though there wasn't anything stand-outish for me it was a bit addictive and I spent longer than I should have. After six weeks in Somaliland I was so tired of over-cooked spaghetti and boiled goat that I could scream, and I hadn't gone that long without liquor since I was . . . well, we'll say 21. So Addis Ababa was my place to drink good, cheap beer and eat tasty national food while at the same time gathering myself for the trip south. I had an ambitious plan for crossing into Kenya that I had been working on for close to half a year.

The southwest corner of Ethiopia is called the Omo Valley, located at the confluence of Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Kenya. Because of various wars in the region guns are cheap and easy to get, and the nomads have no problem with offing each other. But it's really isolated and I had gotten wind of a crossing there that involved some 50 kilometers of hiking through the desert until Kenya's Lake Turkana, the largest desert lake in the world. One guy had done the from the south six years ago and I wanted to be the first from the north, but upon arriving in the southern-most city in the region I was met by a policeman who told me 1) I couldn't cross this way 2) It was illegal for me to even be in the town. So I guess that's why nobody has done it from the north side.

I spent a couple days working my way east towards the real crossing, a city called Moyale which has its own reputation among overlanders as being the craziest on the Cairo-to-Cape Town Circuit. Come to think of it, it may be the most infamous in Africa among backpackers.

I say this because it takes two days just to get there from Addis Ababa. Once there, you're in an obnoxious, mosquito-filled town whose only transportation are cattle trucks heading south through the miserable dirt path. Up until only a couple years ago, banditry on the Kenyan side was a real problem and travelers frequently reported getting shot at by shiftas. If you managed to get a spot on a truck and miss the shiftas, you still had to contend with three days of horribly uncomfortable riding until you reached Nairobi.

Paul Theroux wrote about this crossing with great zeal in his cross-continent Dark Star Safari . It was here, he writes that his convoy of trucks were shot at by shiftas and two separate trucks broke down before he was finally able to make it on the third to Nairobi.

While the shiftas were no longer a problem, nomadic fighting is, and word reached me that two days before my crossing some three hundred Borena had been killed in a firefight in the exact area I was crossing. But it's the only overland choice, so after a night in Moyale I took off through Immigration to try my luck.

I happened to meet a pair of Israelis who were also crossing that day into Kenya, and together we looked for a vehicle to take us south. The were both intent on not taking the trucks, as only a few months before a friend of theirs riding on top of one of the trucks died after falling off and breaking his neck. But I didn't see any other option, so I decided I was going to bite the bullet and travel this way. It wasn't until I actually saw the trucks, though, that I realized why so many injuries and deaths actually occur on this road.

These hulking monsters were stuff full of cattle down below and the "top" was only a series of metal bars providing support. A total of 36 hours of riding this precarious perch seemed beyond miserable - it sounded stupid. A huge stroke of luck came my way however when I was lashing my bag to the bars as one of the Israelis showed up and said there was a 4X4 willing to take us south to Marsabit, the first major stop, for only $15 USD each.

I didn't hesitate, and so took an infinitely faster and more comfortable car ride. After only a few hours of riding we finally saw a welcome change of landscape in that the desert began to give way to a green landscape and I decided to spend some time in the city of Marsabit before continuing onward.

After exploring a nearby crater I climbed Mount Marsabit and continued on away from the town for what was to be an afternoon hike. Not far into my walk, however, I stumbled upon a group of surprised Borena herders armed with spears and World War I-era Winchester rifles. While there was no common language between us they responsded to my presence with real interest and after a short discussion gestured with their guns that I was to follow them. (It is times like this that I regret never checking in with the local US embassies to let them know I'm in their respective country.)

The small detachment led me away from the herd and back to their village, about an hour from Mt. Marsabit. The group motioned me towards a tree so I parked it there to observe the goings-on. It appeared they were mostly nomadic, as I didn't notice any permanant buildings in the village, though there were more weapons than any villages I had ever been to previously. That very fact was a bit unnerving given the fact that I didn't know what the hell was going on, but I was treated well enough so I decided not to worry about it.

Sure enough, after no more than a half hour a local ranger pulled into the village and cordially told me that while I was very welcome to explore Kenya, I had been wandering in prime cattle raiding territory and these helpful villagers, while slightly bemused at my appearence, were more concerned for my safety than anything else. He graciously drove me back to Marsabit where I caught a transport to safer regions.

Speaking of safety, I was anxious to avoid Nairobi and decided to bypass that entire part of the country. Instead I headed to the western side of Kenya, criss-crossing the equator and eventually making it to Kisumu. This city is the third-largest in Kenya and lies on the shores of Lake Victoria, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world (What-what Lake Superior!). It is a great climate here and was good fun wandering around the lake.

But entering Kenya meant entering tourist grazing area, and I wasn't impressed with the amount of hawkers that Kisumu presented to me trying to get my money. Not as bad as in other areas of the country, I was told, but still pretty obnoxious. In this part of Africa the hawkers who focus on tourists are called "touts", meaning "ticks" in Swahili, and the name fits them well. Whether or not its true, I think of them all as eager to rip me off and then laugh about it to their cackling tout friends as soon as they have their hands on my money, so I'm typically pretty cold to these guys.

Before leaving Kenya I wanted to make a stop in the village of Kogelo, an hour outside of Kisumu. Kogelo has risen to a position of prominence in recent years as the homestead of the Obama family, so I made it a point to get visit there. Surprisingly, there were no touts there and it seemed every bit as a typically village would here. It was clear that they were hurting a bit because of the late rainy season like the rest of the country, but they sold normal priced soda and beer and were friendly to the white guy who showed up not knowing any of the local language.

Despite the lack of rain for Kenya, which has affected millions, the area is located on the Great Rift Valley and has beautiful, rich soil that supports a variety of greenery and provides a gorgeous background. (This change from the desert and semi-arid land of Northern Kenya, Southern Ethiopia, and Somaliland was refreshing and put me in a lasting good mood that has largely stayed with me.) And Obama's family is very welcoming to outsiders. I was greeted by two of his cousins who introduced me to his grandmother, a woman who appears to have taken her own rise to prominence in stride and conducts herself in an extremely dignified, if somewhat amusing, manner.

The next day, in a minibus heading towards the border, I saw a roadside hut with a keg outside of it. One of the joys of backbacking, of course, is that there's no schedule to keep so I had to driver stop and jumped out with my bags to hike back to the hut for a drink. I found they were selling Senator Beer, named in honor of Obama after his 2006 senatorial victory. It was a bit less than a dollar per liter, so I spent the afternoon with a group of fun locals downing liter after liter in the shade of a banana tree. For any liter I bought them, I was offered an equal amount of liquor in their homemade palm wine, and in short order the lot of us were quite silly.

I stopped counting after six liters but I'm reasonably sure I at least made it to a ten before I called it a day. By the time we were done the busses had long passed for the day but I was in no condition to ride anyway. The fellows I were with were in similar straights and we decided to hit the hay right there, in the hut.

The next morning saw me with a blinding headache dulled only slightly by my typically hangover remedy of alka-seltzer, milk, and electrolytes. But one by one my fellow drinkers from the previous night left and eventually I flagged down a bus heading towards the border. It was in this condition I entered Uganda.

Djibouti

Boo, Djibouti. Booooooo!

Somaliland, Part II

"A tourist? No, my friend, you are a soldier."
-Somaliland soldier to me, after I explained my trek. Best compliment I've ever received.

Looking at my map of Africa one day in Berbera, I noticed a city on the top of Somaliland identified as "Saylac.” The map showed a path to get there along the coast, so I grew curious about somehow making it there. It was located just south of Djibouti, and since I planned on going to Djibouti anyway I figured that I might as well give this “Saylac” place a couple days of my time as well.

Actually, there wasn’t a “road,” I was told after some inquiry, but more a path. That made sense, as with the exception of the one highway snaking through a few of the major cities in Somaliland, no real roads actually existed. If a 4X4 or a huge truck wanted to go anywhere else in Somaliland, it could take anywhere from twelve to forty hours. For a foreigner, it would be expensive as well. And it would be hard to make it through the security checkpoints.

This isn’t the way I wanted to travel, but I still wanted to get to Saylac somehow. Eventually - and I don’t quite remember how - I hit upon the idea of just walking there. Certainly more difficult than driving, but a hell of a lot more fun.

I literally had no idea how I could pull that off. But when I made the connection that what I knew as "Zayla" was actually "Saylac" (the "c" is silent is Somali and acts like a subtle "ah") and was also called "Zeila," I decided I absolutely had to go, regardless of any logistical questions that I had.(Note: Most would English spelling for the city are Sayla or Zeila. But I first heard of the city from Burton and he said Zayla. So for those sake of romanticism I've going to call it by his version in this post.) This is because Zayla was a port city that for hundreds of years was the center of power for this part of the world. It was an extremely important area that tangled frequently with other regional powers and was likely the jumping-off point for Islam in the continent of Africa. I was told that it even had the remains of the second mosque ever built, some thirteen hundred years old. While that in itself seems implausible, the history of the place was intriguing. Though the port has long since ceded its power to other cities, I was anxious to go for another reason; Ibn Battuta, possibly the most intense explorer ever – and a guy who makes Marco Polo look like Sarah Palin in terms of travel experience – had once visited Zayla. Furthermore, Richard Burton had used Zayla as his jumping-off point for his expedition to Harar.

The chance to go to a place where my two favorite explorers had both visited sealed the deal for me. One way or another, I decided, I was going to go there.

Before I start out I should warn you about a couple things. One is that this post is pretty long and I’m anxious to get south into Kenya. What this means is that I haven’t done much proof-reading on it. Please excuse the mistakes I’ve made and the somewhat jumbled writing style. And it doesn't read like any sort of epic adventure because it's not. Really, it's just a normal walk through a somewhat abnormal area. So it may get a bit tedious. But part of the reason I did the thing was to prove to a number of people that it's totally acceptable to do a trek like this in Somaliland and that extraordinary things WOULDN'T happen. While I enjoyed myself and I received a great deal of entertainment, I ultimately found that to be that case. Also, while it may be a bit monotonous in its current form, I still left out a lot of the village names and a good deal of other information that doesn't have a lot of use. But if you're traveling in this part of the world and have wandered over to this blog for whatever reason and want more details, toss me an email (peterpolga@gmail.com) and I'll respond as soon as I can.

Anyway, actually getting the trek together was an experience unto its own. Typically something like this would be hard enough, but those normal problems were compounded by the fact that nobody appears to have just wandered off like this here in a while. Initially I wanted to keep everything under the radar, reason being that the fewer people who knew about my trek the fewer could stop me. But as I began to make my rounds gathering support and gear I found that keeping something like this a secret in a country so small is a hell of a lot more difficult than I would have thought.

These are the issues I was dealing with: Getting a camel, guide, and guard. Getting proper permission for the security checkpoints I would run into. Rounding up food, water, and gear. Finding a proper map and figuring out an acceptable path. Extending my Somaliland visa for another month. And trying to do that while not running into a ministry or security officer who would stop me.

I won't bore you with the details, but this added up to nine days of running around to a total of six different ministries, three security buildings, the Somaliland Mine Action Center, and the Electoral Commission. This was exasperating in itself, but everything was compounded by the fact that all of the ministries appeared terrified that if something happened to me - which they all assured me would never be the case - they would be held accountable. This meant explaining every single detail I could to them and assuring them that I would bring however many guards they wanted. Plus, and this was the most frustrating, every office closes at noon for "lunch."

"Lunch" means that everyone goes to chew chat - I wrote about chat in my Ethiopia post - and then don’t come back to the office until the next day. This is an incredibly annoying aspect of Somaliland, and it has helped me to dislike chat on a personal level. Whereas in Ethiopia it seemed like a pleasant local custom, here it seems to have almost taken over many aspects of normal life. It's common for men with horribly stained, worn-down teeth to come up to me and demand money. When I ask what they want the money for, they answer "to chew." Now, this is kind of like a parade of strangers telling you on a Minneapolis street that they want money to support their marijuana habit. It gets really old really fast.

Not to delve too deeply or read too much into the chat-chewing habits, but it is part of a larger issue here that I find annoying. Chat is not cheap – one bunch will probably cost around $4, a lot of money here. It seems that whenever anyone gets that money, instead of saving it for a rainy day they always, ALWAYS spend it. That concept of living day-to-day is something that is well-suited for the nomadic lystyle upon which Somalis have traditionally lived, but in a culture that has moved towards democracy and capitalism this can lead to no good. The waste of time and money with chat is no good.

Of course there is another side of the story, and far from everyone in Somaliland chews, but for a country to have actually rearranged its schedule for the chat-chewers there has to be a pretty significant population that do. I've talked to a number of Somalilanders who have lived in the West for while and then come back here. They tell me it didn't use to be like this, but something in the last couple decades has changed all that. It annoys a lot of them, too.

Anyway, I was helped a great deal by my friend from Berbera, Abdulkaer Elmi. Without him, there's no way I could have pulled this off. He had contacts with just about everyone I needed to talk to and was responsible for putting me in contact with the guy I go the camel and guide from. He also pointed me towards another of his friends, Ahmed. Ahmed as well proved to be invaluable, meeting with me nearly every night to give advice, guide me toward relevant ministries, and translate for me when I was in talks to actually get my hands on the camel and a guide. Really, just an all-around solid guy who went so far out of his way to help me that I can't even understand it. It must be a Somali thing.

As I drew closer to my start date I picked up another traveler, a British guy a couple years older than me who lived in Yemen but was in Somaliland on vacation. His name was Peter as well, though I'll refer to him as Pete as a point of reference for my post here. Because of visa issues he only stayed on the trek until we got to the coast, but he was a real solid part of the walk and I'm really glad that we met up together. After he agreed to come with me we spent the last few days scrambling around getting last-minute supplies and trying to round up a guard to come with us.

The guard issue was becoming a real sticking point, as we had sworn to every ministry we went to that we would get one. Everyone assured that without a guard there was no way that we would make it past the checkpoints. This was particularly exasperating to me in that part of the reason I was doing this was to prove that the whole place was safe and I didn't want two guys with AK-47s trailing after me. But they were only $10 per day per guard so eventually I just resigned myself to having them along.

My arguments against a guard fell on deaf or uncaring ears anyway. I would usually start by asking them if the country was safe, to which I would always receive and enthusiastic endorsement of. If was safe, I would then ask, why did I need a guy with a large gun trailing after me to protect me from bandits?

The problem wasn't bandits, I would be told, but rather hyenas along the coast. Or it could be the guys suffering from PTSD from the civil war; a lot of them live in the bush and could give me trouble. Or security checkpoints that might try to get a little money out of me. Or maybe it was the bandits . . .

Nobody could make up their minds as to what the actual need for a guard was, but everyone was in agreement that we absolutely, positively, definitely needed one. Or two. That was a disagreement. As was what branch of the security services was going to give us the guards, especially as the SPU, the branch that typically provides guards to foreigners, refused to on the grounds that our estimate of twenty days was too long to loan a soldier.

The day we were to leave we had finally landed a meeting with the head of the security services for the country. I was a bit nervous walking into his office, as this was a guy who would either make sure we got the soldier or else could keep us forever in Hargesia. After a bit of back-and-forth, we told him that we wanted however many soldiers he thought we needed for a maximum of twenty days. He paused, mulling it over, and then leaned forward and said "No, it is too long. I cannot give you any soldiers."

That put Pete and I in the bizarre position of arguing FOR a guard, though that was only until we realized we had a way out of the whole thing. “Could the commander,” we asked as politely as possible, “write us a letter saying that we DIDN'T need a guard for us to show to and security people we would meet along the way?”

"Yes," he answered. And that was it. No soldiers, no weapons, just a letter saying our party of four - Pete, our guide Aden, our camel, and me.

I ducked a meeting I had somehow gotten with the Foreign Minister - I wasn't sure if it was a meeting with him or just another way to hold us up - and we scurried to load up our camel before anyone could stop us from leaving. The camel wasn't as big as I expected, but was still a good looking animal. Pete Christened her "Beast," and my name for her was "Zayla", in honor of our ultimate destination.

We loaded up in about thirty minutes and we off, leaving Hargesia and its bureaucracy for others to deal with.

Briefly referencing Burton again, he once said before setting out with John Speke to discover the source of the Nile that "one of the greatest times in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands." If there was a time in my life where that applied, it was here. But instead of feeling any huge joy, I felt more of a sense of relief. I was DONE getting ready for this damn thing, and I was actually walking! What was in front of me wasn't on my mind, but rather what I had already gone through to get to this point. My shoulders still had tension in them and that wouldn't really go away until we were a couple days into our trip.

Physically, the walk in front of me looked like this: Of the three legs I had divided the trip into, the first was from Hargesia to the coast, a village named Buloxaar. The next leg was up the coast to Lughaya. Finally, from there we would dive back into the interior and then make our way to the final destination of Zayla. Altogether, I was told, it would be a bit more than 500 kilometers. The camel ensured that I wouldn't have to carry much, and all I took on my back was a small bag with water for the day and some personal items. So the bag never weighted more than twenty pounds or so, and even this weight I cut back on as the trip progressed.

As was the custom here with nomads, our group would sleep until sunrise, grab some breakfast, and then head out around 7 or 7:30 AM. We walked until around noon and stop to eat. After lunch we took a brief nap during the worst of the midday sun and then set around three in the afternoon and walked until around eight. That schedule is in theory, at least. In reality, we occasionally spent half a day just resting or maybe got a late start and ended up walking a little ways into our lunch break or a couple hours past sunset.

Every village has a hut called a "dirgid," ("waab" on the coast) which is a hut that those passing by can sleep in for free. This is under the assumption that any meals purchased in the village will be from the hut owner. Beds are nonexistent though, so having your own sleeping material is a must.

That first day was thankfully uneventful. It was a simple walk to our midday stop and after a brief rest we took off for our first night's sleep in a village called Belliga Cas. We had been late starting off in the morning so our hike lasted well past sunset and we watched the full moon rise over the hill to our right side. As it was right over the horizon it was at least as large as the setting sun had been and this cast a terrific shadow of our little band. Trailing behind the camel, Zayla, its shadow reminded me of "Song for My Father" and I hummed that for the rest of the night.

We arrived in Beliga Cas, a village of around fifteen huts lining the road, around 10 PM and didn't even move our stuff into the dirgid, instead sleeping by the side of the road and taking off early the next morning. But we ran into our first problem after less than two hours of walking when our camel Zayla refused to go any further. We had, it turned out, over-loaded her. Well, more realistically, they just hadn't given me a camel the size I had asked for, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was that it was clear Zayla wasn't going any further.

So I watched the stuff while Pete and Aden walked back to the previous village. Communication between Aden and Pete and I was difficult because while Pete spoke Arabic, neither of us spoke Somali and that was Aden's only language. But from what I gathered we were going to make camp there and Aden was going back to the village for a phone. So while I was waiting I began collecting a pile of firewood for the night, and during the course of my wandering took my shirt off and changed into shorts. I figured, stupidly, that I was by myself so I could show a little skin and work on my tan a bit.

But after less than a half hour I looked up to see a herd of around fifty camels being driven past our site by three nomads. Not wanting to be seen with so little clothing on in this conservative society, I ran back to put on proper clothes. Arriving back on at packs, I realized that our camel Zayla, even though her legs had been tied together and her neck tied to a tree, had gone missing.

It didn't take a genius to guess that she had decided to join the herd that was passing through. So I tossed on a shirt and, in front of the slightly befuddled-looking nomads, began looking through their herd for the camel whose legs were tied up back was still somehow walking. I found her after a brief search but then had the problem of getting her back to our packs. Camels, even a mid-size one like her, are impossible for someone without any experience to control. Zayla apparently realized this and took off galloping in another direction with me chasing after her, just barely matching her speed. Finally, one of the herders took pity on me and jogged over to help. He somehow collected her, brought her back to the bags, and tied her up while I watched in embarrassment.

After a while longer Pete and Aden made it back and I was told that we were heading back to Belliga Cas for a couple nights while a second, much more reliable, camel came our way. So we waited a couple hours until a truck came by and jumped on to ride back.

It's a pity that, of the places we had to spend extra time in, it was Belliga Cas we were stuck. There really wasn't a whole lot to do there and the surrounding desert was very boring. A good purchased there though was a Somali walking stick called a "xangol," also used to keep snakes away, build shelters with the thorn tree branches, and herd animals with. This xangol ended up being a real good buy and I grew extremely attached to it throughout the trek. Even now it feels strange walking without it.

The next day our new camel arrived. This was a large male, and definitely up to the task of carrying our supplies. But he was whiny, constantly moaning whenever he loaded him up or when he got the least bit tired.

“I don’t wanna!” I could almost hear him complain. “I don’t WANNA!!!”

And, in a twists that was eventually going to have an impact on me, he was horrified by engines. This doesn't sound so bad when that maybe two trucks a day attempted to navigate the difficult paths. But this camel's reaction was to start bucking and run away from the road, causing the bags to slip and sometimes adding a half hour delay while we re-tied them. Because of his size and his timidity, I christened him "Little John."

There were mountains in front of us, but I wasn't able to determine based on my map or on sight if they were simply large hills or actual mountains. I guessed the former, and initially this prioved correct and the incline was inconsequential.

But after midday that incline began to increase and I realized I had been wrong. We were climbing, and though it wasn't steep enough to make walking difficult, eventually the elevation we were reaching meant that a thick fog rolled in and visibility declined to around ten yards. In the middle of what I thought was going to be a pure desert walk, it was really enjoyable walking through the dark, covered in mist. Occasionally a nomadic fire would peak through the clouds or the bleating of a goat drifted our way, but other than that it was a very quiet and very mellow walk. This mountain pass was apparently a popular one for the nomads because we started to see numerous herders, mostly with goats or camels, wander by. White people, especially those without 4X4s, never came this way, so we always got a look of shock from those we passed.

We made camp in a village that could have been huge for all we could see but turned out the next morning to be only three or four huts. Though I was woken up numerous times during the night by conversations from nearby Somalis – who never seem to quiet down for those sleeping around them – and the herds wandering by, the night was pleasantly memorable because our camp site was close enough to the path so that I could see the herds as the came and disappeared through the clouds. At one point, around four in the morning, such a large herd went by that I sat up to count the animals. I reached 460 goats and 62 camels by the time the last of them were swallowed up in the fog.

Our midday rest the next day was at an equally enjoyable site, at the bottom of the mountains near the first water springs and first gardens we had seen so far. A local gave us some veggies and Pete and I dined on those and talked to a local jewel hunter from Hargesia who was spending time looking around this area of the mountains. I nicknamed the stop "Gemstone Springs" in honor of both him and the algae-green springs we filled our water containers from. The weather that day continued its streak of perfection, and that made the walk extremely pleasing.

In fact, with the exception of a couple days after Buloxaar, the weather turned out to be almost ideal for the entire trip. Temperatures in the Somaliland winter tend to hover 80 degrees with mostly cloudless days. Likewise, the actual walking was easy enough because the terrain was typically flat, though loose sand in many areas turned out to be incredibly annoying to deal with. Dry riverbeds were typically a little harder to walk in because they represented large rocks to trip over in the dark, but it was at least easier to navigate. The land showed no signs of moisture until we got past Lughaya and any vegetation was typically limited to the low-lying thorn trees, whose two-inch long spikes would occasionally pierce through our shoes and into our feet.

Other than those thorns, the country here is ideal for trekkers - as it is a nomadic culture, the infrastructure is already largely in place. Every half day there is either a village or even just a couple huts for the traveler to rest in. They sell food, limited to pasta or sometimes rice, for a dollar a plate at lunch and dinner and a sort of Somali pancake for breakfast. Fresh water came in barrels from Hargesia and was free to the travelers wandering by to fill our containers, but often the water came to us via used jerry cans so it had the annoying taste of oil with it. The only other drink you would typically find is "Somali Tea," a quick addiction. It is black tea loaded with cloves, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, sugar, and milk, and they serve it everywhere in Somaliland. It taste just fantastic and you can buy an entire thermos for only 30 cents.

That night, after a long walk, we made it to another set of springs in a village called Seley. The crowd that gathered around us was typical. In every village between half a dozen and thirty people would surround us to look at the crazy white people, often the first to ever step food in their village. At first this custom was amusing to me, but as the days wore on I began to tire of it and by the end of the trip I wanted to jump up and scream “Stop looking at me! If you’re just going to stare at me, at least help un-tie the bags!”

Anyway, we spent the night here and the next morning as well - besides letting our camel, Little John, rest up, these springs had been described as "hot springs" to us and I was anxious to relax in them a bit.

Unfortunately, my mind had gotten ahead of reality, as the springs were far from relaxing. Set against a gorgeous rock backdrop, the springs were actually very muddy affairs and contained only slightly warmed water that had an obnoxious sulfuric tinge to it that worked hell to my various scrapes. To add to that, I had only just begun washing my clothes in one of the springs when I received a strong push from the back and turned around to look straight into the thirsty face of a large male camel less than a foot away. He was flanked by another half dozen camels who were all staring intently at me as if to say “What on Earth are YOU doing here?”

This was surprising, as camels are typically timid and almost never will approach and touch a stranger. But the message was clear - if I didn't leave the hole they were going to kick me out. So I scrambled up the rocks and had to wait until the entire herd of about 20 camels had had their turn to drink. Bummer.

Our continuation towards the coast that night ran into a brief hurdle after we got lost for couple hours after sunset, but eventually we made it to Buloxaar, an old city on the ocean which had been the British administrative center back in the day. It was the largest village we had been to thus far with one hundred fifty people. This meant that there was a shop in the village where I could get cookies and soda. But more importantly, this marked the end of the first leg of my trip and I was finally back at the coast.

Pete had visa issues needed to get back to Yemen, so he decided that he would leave the trek here for Berbera and catch a boat back to Aden. In the meantime, though, we spent a few days wandering around the port city and taking in the sites. The “sites” were primarily limited to the old British buildings along the beach. These lay in ruins, half covered in sand and already swallowed up by vegetation along the beach after less than forty years. They were fun to wander in, and Pete and I had a good time exploring the old school house where Peace Corp teachers had given instruction in until they were tossed out of the country by Somali dictator Siad Barre a few decades back.

The beach itself was a site of perfection and, because the village of Buloxaar was a few kilometers from the water, I assumed that isolation was a given. So my first morning there I took down the beach and decided that some skinny-dipping was in order. Unfortunately, the mayor had sent one of his minions to make sure I was safe and after a half hour he came upon me. He wanted me to come out to talk to him, but he didn't speak English and it was difficult to try to explain that I was naked and I wanted him to go away. Finally, after what I thought was an unnecessary amount of gesturing, he wandered a distance away so I could collect my shorts and go tell him that, yes, I was safe and, no, I wasn't planning on being in any danger so would he PLEASE leave.

He did, but I was spooked at someone else wandering along so I left my shorts on and spent some time on the beach just taking in the vibes. It was so relaxing, actually, that I fell asleep for a while and had to contend with a wicked sunburn for the rest of the trip. The beach, though, was worth it.

A couple days later Pete caught a truck that was going to Berbera so he could make it to Yemen. From here on, our trek was limited to Aden, Little John, and me. We set off north the same morning Pete left, starting our second leg in an uncomfortable heat that made me nervous even before we started off.

Whereas the temperature had previously been rather mellow, today was a first-class lesson in walking through hell. I hadn't expected the heat and packed only two liters of water for the half day walk to the next village. But by 8:30 AM my thermometer read 85 degrees and had climbed past 105 degrees by noon. Soon after that, it was 110. It was at this point that the name "Morning Star" popped into my head, and I decided that this was the perfect name for the are that we were walking through.

Desert travelers always caution you against rationing your water so by eleven o’clock that morning my drinking water was finished after only four hours of walking. I gave a couple shots at retrieving the spare water I had somewhere in a bag lashed to Little John, but Aden refused to stop due to the amount of time it would take to un-tie and re-tie everything. At first I was okay, with this, but if I would have realized that our next stop wasn't until 2:30 PM, I would have put up a hell of a lot more of an argument. Aden, ever the plodder, kept up his pace while I began to fall behind.

That day I received a picture-perfect education in dehydration. Three and a half hours of walking without water truthfully doesn't seem like a long time, but you'd be surprised how quickly you dry out here in the sun. The word “parched” doesn’t do it justice. My thoughts wandered back to travel writer John Hemingway's "No Man's Land," an account he wrote in the mid-80's on some of his more colorful experiences in East Africa. The particular chapter I thought back to was on a trek he made along with four porters in the brutally hot Kedong Valley of Kenya. Hemingway, no novice to the perils of East Africa, made what should have been a fatal mistake in his planning for what he guessed to be a three day trek.

The average person on a desert trek requires a minimum of a gallon of water per day, with two gallons per day being a much safer bet. But a gallon of water weighs ten pounds, and with three days of trekking and five men total, that equaled 150 lbs of weight, or a full 30 lbs per man, even at the bare minimum 1 gallon per day. For reasons he doesn't make clear in the book, Hemingway set out with less than a gallon per man for the entire trek. It was only at the end of day one, when it was too late to turn back, that he realized his folly.

His second day was spend almost entirely without water and he quickly developed symptoms of dehydration walking through the desert towards what he increasingly assumed would be his death. As the day wore on and the temperature rose further, he soon started showing signs of severe dehydration. Sitting down for a rest meant hell because it is 20 to 30 degrees hotter within a foot of the ground than above that level, so he kept packing on, farther into a desert wasteland that logically offered no chance of respite.

"Stopping is suicide," he wrote, "going is worse . . . My mind reels under blame and hopelessness, knowing that I should have been firmer [with the water rations], and thinking how ridiculous it will be to perish from lack of water after only two days. I am insane and so is Africa."

That last line is the line that I repeat over and over; "I am insane and so is Africa." It's not meant in an ironic or amusing way, just as a statement of fact. It seems impossible to dry out so quickly, but really, hiking through the desert gives you a hard lesson in the human body and its limits. Stopping for a rest may bring temporary relief, but its impossible to hide from the sun and the heat never dissipates - stopping only ensure that you lose that much more moisture from your body before you get to your ultimate destination.

I am insane and so is Africa. It doesn't matter how much you read about thirst; actual thirst is a thousand times worse. All of the information about the signs of dehydration, proper clothing, and orientation fly right out the window when it finally happens. You can't adequately describe dehydration because it's largely a mental problem besides being a physical one. Seeing the heat radiate from the ground is only worse by feeling it . . . seeing the distance to be walked is worse only by actually walking it . . . seeing your skin clam up and turn those unnatural colors is worse only by feeling the pinch of your skin and realizing it doesn't have the moisture to change back to its normal self. (Disconcertedly, it instead stays in the shape you pinched it to.)

Feeling the sense of inferiority is an experience unto its own - you can't control anything except for the movement of your legs. Everything else that normally seems so mundane - the turning of a faucet to get tap water - is far beyond your reach. The desert is the one sure sign that humans cannot conquer all - we can't beat it back. We might strip away mountains, re-route or damn rivers, and build tremendous skyscrapers, but we can't conquer the desert.

I am insane and so is Africa. It's -300 degrees in Minnesota right now; people are happily complaining about frozen radiators and frostbite, clearing icicles from theirs roofs, and sledding down hills filled with wonderful snow.

Am I exaggerating? Well, in a manner of speaking. This was roughly my train of thought while walking, but that's not to say that I wasn't perhaps going a little overboard at the time. Even though logic told me this was simply too stupid a way to pass out, I found myself thinking that this was an absurd moment of my life and there was nothing and nobody to help me if I collapsed. And then I thought "Wow, what happens if I collapse?" Yes, if there has been a time in my trip thus far where my mind was nearing hysterics, it was now.

Hemingway, who seemed to have a knack for getting out of these situations, eventually made it to a road that had been built in the months between when he made his fly-over and when he actually made his trek. That road saved his life.

And let me tell you, I've never been so happy to see signs of humanity when the village finally came into view in the distance. If I would have had the energy I would have done a little jig the rest of the way.

But instead I stumbled into the village and couldn't even be polite asking for water ("biyo"); I just held out my nalgene and signaled that I was thirsty. At this point I was showing signs of moderate to severe dehydration and, I think, suffering from heat stroke as well. My stomach had been wretching up acid, my skin was clammy, and I had been walking through dizziness. Another 45 minutes to an hour and I really think I could have been in trouble.

As soon as I got the water I ripped open my oral rehydration salts, tossed them in the water, and then guzzled it without stopping for air. Ditto with two more liters. Then I went into the guest hut and passed out.

Luckily Aden had some family in this village and was fine with sticking around a while, so we spent the rest of the day there. Later, when I was awake and able to stand up again, I bought a goat for $35 and feasted with some of the village elders. As I was the purchaser, I had the honor of eating what I only figured out later was the liver (gross). Still, I also got as much of the boiled meat as I wanted and it was different than the food I had been getting used to, so I was pleased. And after the rest and the food I moved back up from the 10% physical capacity I had been feeling to around 50% physical capacity.

The next day I moved to 90% and was feeling good when we set off. By noon we reached our expected village which consisted of only four huts. The two of us had the typical pasta for lunch with a few glasses of Somali tea and then began preparations to go on.

Up until this point, there had been few moments of excitement on this trek. I was well aware that anything "exciting" out here was probably bad news and I had been hoping to keep it that way. But by a quirk of unfortunate timing the only truck of the day happened to pass through the village at the exact time that we were loading the bags onto the camel, Little John.

As I mentioned, Little John is absolutely, one hundred percent terrified of motor vehicles. This occasion proved to be no exception. He leapt to his feet and started bucking, sending the half-tied bags flying and scattering those loading him. I was the strongest guy there and I didn't want him bashing one of the huts down, so I jumped in and grabbed the rope to bring him under control. Another guy came forward to help me and we held him in place until he could chill out a little.

Unfortunately, Mr. Truck had caught a fleeting glance of me and decided to back up for another look. The two of us who had been holding him weren't expecting this and had loosened our stances a bit, and this was enough for Little John. He gave a tremendous buck and that sent me on a collision course with the dirt. I had a brief glance of the other guy being launched airborne and then I nailed the ground and rolled into a piled of firewood.

When I came to a few seconds later Little John had mellowed and a small circle of people had formed around me with concern. I felt really stupid, lying there, until one of them came forward, help me to my feet, and gave me a big thumbs-up, flexed his muscles, pointed at me, and then gave me another thumbs-up. The others, realizing that I was okay, wandered away to finish their tea after giving me what I think was their sympathy.

Besides a sizable gash in my head I had also torn up my right knee and gotten a foot-long tear in my left calf. More than any physical injury was the mental one - this is the exact sort of stupid move that I always seem to make; now, the first white guy to visit this village just got tossed by a camel. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I shouldn't have been concerned though, because people in both that village and the ones later on didn't think it was funny. It was just normal concern and, depending on how enthusiastic Aden was about re-telling the story, an impressed look and a high-five. Apparently, the fact that I was able to get Little John under control in the first place was notable, as was the fact that I was up and walking within a couple minutes of the toss. So in time I wore my battle wounds with pride.

The few days of walking were time for me time to heal from my tumble and pick off the multiple layers of dead skin from the Buloxaar sun burn. In short time we made it to the port city of Lughaya. This marked the end of my second leg of the trip and a day and a half of rest to let myself heal up and prepare for the last leg into the interior and eventually to Zayla.

Lughaya can actually be described as a small town instead of a village, with a population of three hundred people. To me, it was a metropolis where they not only had soda, snacks, and fruit, but electricity for three hours a day as well. The ocean surf was too rough to swim in safely so I spent my time wandering down the beach visiting some of the small fishing communities that Aden and I had missed on our way in.

Leaving Lughaya represented a change in trekking style from what I was used to. Instead of villages well-spaced every half day there was just a giant empty space for the next few days. Not only that, but I had been warned before leaving Hargesia that this area represented a serious hyena threat. I knew Aden wanted to take me into the interior but I wasn't sure where and even with a translator it was difficult to lay out exactly what his plans were. Still, he seemed confident so I decided to leave my fate in his hands.

Traveling northwest from the coast, the two of us now moved into prime grazing territory. Added to the camels and goats we had seen since the beginning of the trip were sheep, mule, and even the occasional cow herd. The green landscape meant that nomads from all over Somaliland, Djibouti, and Ethiopia had come with their livestock. For me, besides a change in scenery, this meant the addition of milk to my diet. So I decided to make a little experiment with my eating habits.

The three types of milk in that region came from camel, goat, and cow. Cow milk was scarce, whereas goat milk was not. But goat milk had an unfamiliar and unwelcome taste to me so that was my least favorite. Camel milk was supposed to be the healthiest but almost as scarce as cow milk. And in Africa it's typical to let the milk sit for a day in the sun so it develops a sour, lumpy quality to it that takes some getting used to. Added to that was the tendency of some here to store milk in the same used jerry cans as water, so you never knew when your bitter, lumpy goat milk might also taste like it came from a pump at the local Super America.

Still, for years I had read about nomads around Africa who lived their entire lives only on milk or on milk and blood. I was curious if this was a quality that these nomads had adapted to over generations or if a foreigner with a frame like mine and eating habits to go with it and do the same thing. Ergo, I resolved to go 48 hours drinking only milk and see if I could keep the same walking pace as before.

Aden came through for me in good form. It turns out that his insistence that we travel back into the interior was because he had family in the area. Not only did that mean that we had a hut to sleep in or next to every night, but we also had unlimited milk from their herds for me to drink for those two days. And honestly, I felt absolutely great consuming only that milk. I never felt a single hunger pain the entire time I was on the milk-only diet and had no energy cravings. The camel milk in particular really refreshed me and made me want to get a camel for Minnesota so I can have fresh milk every day.

By this point though, even with the fun milk diet and the increasing greenery along the way, my mood was beginning to flag. Physically, I was starting to feel worn-down from the two-plus weeks of walking and from various infections received as a result of my camel toss and other random scrapes. Mentally I was in a small funk because I had reached what roughly could be described as the halfway point of my trip in Africa and for some reason this was having an effect on me, not to mention the fact that I was nearly done with this trek.

Little things began to annoy me - the small hole in my sleeping mat, the guy in a village who would just stared at me without blinking for an hour straight, the gasoline-tasting water, the fact that Somalis didn't seem to have a "Volume Control" button when it was nighttime and I was trying to sleep . . . all of these are minor consequences to be expected when traveling, especially while traveling into the middle of nowhere. But I was tired of dealing with them and my internal reaction started to grow testier.

One night, only two days out from Zayla, we ran into a dry riverbed that was blocking our path. Previously, we had usually passed through anywhere between two and six of these in any given day with no problem, but this one had really carved out a place for itself and was around five meters deep. There was no way that Little John could make it down, and after an hour of walking up and down the side in search or a way across the packs on Little John began to slip and we decided to make camp right there. Though there were numerous nomad camps in the area, the closest village was a day’s walk away and we both realized that our chances of making it across the river in the dark were around nil. So we figured this was as good of a spot as any to hang out.

Aden went off to a distant light in order to secure some dinner for us while I set up what was needed for the night. He returned with a large container of cow's milk which was a real treat - it was my first cow milk of the trip, and after nearly two straight days of the camel milk and odd-tasting goat milk, this was as good as any other dinner. It had been a long day of walking and the cool night that was wafting in combined with the "food" was a pleasant reminder as to why I had decided to do this trek in the first place. My various cuts and scrapes faded in importance and I was overcome with a feeling of real happiness.

Edward Abbey writes in “Desert Solitaire” - a book which makes even more sense now - about the difference between loneliness and simply being alone. There are times in every trip where I feel loneliness, and this trip has been no exception. Never on this trek though. This was a trek to feel alone, not to feel loneliness.

That night, falling asleep beside that dry riverbed, I felt more alone than in years. There wasn't a soul in the world save Aden who had a clue as to where I was and it felt great. From a guy back home whose hands are glued to a keyboard and a phone is all too often in use, taking an hour just to watch shooting stars was pretty fantastic.

I fell asleep happy.

Taking away the forty minute break for lunch the next day, we walked for thirteen hours to our first real village to speak of since Lughaya. Thirteen hours was a bit beyond my limit and when we finally came to Ceel Cashado my feet felt like they would explode. During the day I had aggravated an old ankle injury and had been walking differently as a result, so my calves ached a good deal as well. But it was worth it because I spent the night at the police station and they rolled out, wonder of wonders, a fish-net bed for me to sleep on.

What under normal circumstances would have seemed like a misery was on this trek a god-send. This was the first bed I had slept in since leaving Hargesia, and my sleep was as comfortable as any I can remember. I never woke up during the night and spent the next morning resting in my bed while Aden went off to chew chat from the tip I had already given him.

Ceel Cashado was my last stop before Zayla, and the day's hike was done with the knowledge that I was nearing my ultimate goal. If I had been expecting to feel any sort of exultation over this fact during my walk, I instead spent the day in a sort of sullen daze. Physically I hadn't really recovered from the day before, but it was also because my heart really wasn't in the walk anymore and I just wanted to be in Zayla. These last twenty-five kilometers seemed irrelevant - I just wanted the thing to be over with.

But twenty-five kilometers goes by quickly and the lights of Zayla came into view just after sunset. I wasn't at all sure what to expect from the city as I had neglected to pay attention to any contemporary accounts of Zayla, but census people back in Hargesia had told me the population was around four hundred and that made it the largest town I had seen since leaving the capital. The port had long-since silted up and the population had been steadily decreasing since 1900, but it was still a transit point for goods from Djibouti and cities with fifteen hundred years of history don't just disappear that easily.

I was surprised, to say the least. I had been expecting something of a charming, quiet fishing village with historical ruins all around it. The ruins were certainly there, but I also found a city with shops and cafes that contained more than the spaghetti and Somali tea I had gotten used to. Two large communication towers rose above everything, and the hum of vehicles coming and going never ended through the nights I spent there.

Still, despite its history, tourism is negligible. The math teacher, who took to being my guide for the city, told me that a tourist may come along every month or two. This is understandable given the difficulty in reaching Zayla, but I think that its place in history should ensure more than half a dozen tourists a year. As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, Zayla contains what locals claim to be second mosque ever built, so as soon as I woke up the next morning I wandered over to the site. What I saw was one of the most depressing historical sites of my life.

The mosque, largely in ruins, was not at all the place of veneration I would have expected. The only part of it that was still standing was the first direction, which faced towards Palestine. The second section, which had faced towards Medina, had long since disintegrated and joined the rest of the mosque in a heap of rubble on the ground. Trash partially covered the rubble and it was clear that no care was being done to ensure that what was left of the mosque was kept up. A stray soccer ball from the kids playing yards away would have been more than enough to knock down the only section of the wall still standing. Even without that soccer ball it was clear that it would fall down within a couple years if nobody stepped in to help it. And given the few tourists who made it up this way, it was clear nobody would care to make any investment into this historical site.

The rest of the city was like that, as well. Other history was left to decay, joining the silted port in helping to send Zayla into irrelevancy. On top of that, the city was large enough not to have the "dirgid" for me to stay at and instead I bedded at the local police station. Sleeping so close to the prisoners, in their miserable cell, was not among my favorite memories on the trek.

But Zayla was still Zayla, and there WAS a lot of history there as long as you had someone to show it to you. When the tide was in the beaches were fun to walk along and maybe even swim in if got deep enough. Having regular electricity was also a treat, if only for the knowledge that it was there if I inexplicably needed it.

The morning of my third day in Zayla I snagged a ride on the back of a government truck going to the border about thirty kilometers away and made what turned out to be an incredibly ironic statement in my journal after getting punched out of Somaliland - "No issues exiting!!! On to Djibouti!"

My excitement was quickly stamped out after I suffered what I'll describe as an immigration catastrophe trying to enter the country. While avoiding any lasting consequences, I was nonetheless physically shoved out of the Djibouti immigration building and back into the no-man's-land between the immigration buildings. Luckily my old savior Abdulkaer was only a phone call away and he happened to be talking with the head of Immigration when I called, so I was allowed back into Somaliland and took a horribly uncomfortable eighteen hour ride back to Hargesia on what is, and I type this without a grin, the worst road I've ever driven on. If you want to call it a road. Whatever the name, it was eighteen hours of dust and sand, bumping, scraping, and occasionally breaking down. And it was mostly during the night, which meant that my sleep was . . . sporadic.

My mood, hardly positive to begin with, turned even more sour when I realized that my IPOD had gone missing. And, I realized later, some money to go with it. As it was a shared taxi, I'm pretty sure it was one of the shifty guys in back who had grabbed my stuff, but I couldn't be certain.

Arriving back in Hargesia, the 4X4 dropped me off at the hotel of my benefactor, Abdulkaer. While he was still in his Berbera Maan-Soor hotel, I was going to stay here for a while to recover. I tossed my bags out of the car, but before I could begin making my way inside to check in the manager came out and said "No, go to your room first and clean up."

The message was clear - I was a mess and the other guests would be freaked out by me. The Mann-Soor is pretty much THE hotel of Somaliland, and the manager was doing the understandable thing of being nice to me while still ensuring I didn't track sixteen pounds of sand into the hotel with me.

Almost without pausing I grabbed the key and trudged to my place across the compound. Opening the door, I threw my stuff on the floor and took and minute to look in the mirror. Only then did I appreciate just why the manager had told me to come here first.

My hair, not having been cut in three months and filled with dust and dirt from three weeks trekking and an eighteen hour ride with windows open, had turned into a giant, gritty, white-man fro. My clothes were all brown from sand, and my arms and face were brown and slightly peeling from sunburns. I was still carrying my xangol, the Somali walking stick, and I wore an expression that I can only describe as exhausted, frustrated, and angry all-in-one. My eyes had a distant expression to them that I couldn't shake no matter how hard I tried. Had I been looking in on myself, I would have laughed.

A real bed, and a shower, and a choice of food were all blessed gifts to me. Thorn scratches, infections from my camel toss, the Buloxaar sunburn, and my ankle injury had all combined to put in a position of frustration and I was loathe to walk much for the next couple days. I ate a whole lot in an attempt to get back some of the twenty pounds I had lost while in the bush and generally just enjoyed the feeling of a cushion beneath me.

When I eventually did go out, I was impressed by the attention I got from people at the ministries, the Maan-Sor, passing policemen, and even some of the regular citizens as I wandered around Hargesia over the next few days. Word appeared to have gotten around about me and I was a minor celebrity. Every time I went out on the street I would be stopped by people asking if I was “The Camel Guy.”

I was flattered, but in reality nomads do this sort of thing all time here without anyone blinking. I hiked a little more than 500 kilometers; a good distance, but one that hardly stacks up against what many of those same herders I passed had been walking. The only reason I got any attention was because I was a white guy from America who did it.

With everything that happened, I want to go back soon and do another hike or a number of hikes through different parts of the country. People along the way were so kind and the walk was so enjoyable that leaving was difficult and coming back is almost a given for me.

I don’t have much more of a summation besides that, except to say I’m really happy that I made that trek. Any difficulties along the way were relatively minor and my enjoyment of walking so much through a country as isolated as Somaliland was immense.

Cheers to a great walk.

Somaliland

Hot, dusty, and frustrating...sounds good to me.
-Lonely Planet Thorn Tree post


My latest country, Somaliland, is so well off the beaten path that it isn't even a country. Yet.

Somalia as a whole is shaped like a "7," with the Red Sea to the north and east, Djibouti to the NW, Ethiopia to the east, and Kenya to the south. The majority of the country has suffered through varying states of anarchy since 1991 when dictator Siad Barre was over-thrown and replaced by various waring clans. One region of the country though, the northern region of Somaliland, used this opportunity to delcare its indpeendence after having fought for years against the south. It has since turned into a rare success story in the Horn of Africa.

This is where I set off to visit.

Somaliland is at the very top of Somalia. To its east lies another autonomous region, Puntland, and below that lies Somalia-proper. Somalia-proper was governed by regional tribal chiefs until 2006 when the radical "Islamic Court Union" took it over. At this point, Ethiopia, who has never been a fan of Somalia, invaded them to prop up the US-backed central government which in reality governed only parts of a single city. This turned into their own personal Iraq and they finally pulled out, having accomplished nothing, just a couple weeks ago. Puntland, who still recognizes themselves as part of a greater-Somalia, has fared little better. It is off this coast that all of the recent piracy issues have occurred. I'm going nowhere near Puntland because I risk getting shot or, much worse, getting kidnapped and having to explain to the nearest US consulate and my mother (hi Mom!) why I was stupid enough to go there in the first place.

But Somaliland has always thought of itself as something apart. They don't like violence and pride themselves on being an island of calm surrounded by a stormy sea of violence in the Horn. The emblem of the police force here is a type of desert deer which I've seen a couple times, a docile, tasty-looking animal that runs as soon as it sees humans. It isn't an accident, I've been told; indeed, the police are very honest, careful, and courteous. The only real violence that Somaliland has seen recently were a trio of suicide bombings here in October courtesy of some crazies who came up from the South. These bombers were a real shock to a country which otherwise has seen none of the violence that has been the norm in the south.

The country forms a weird juxtaposition between two conflicting beliefs regarding the level of danger to tourists. The first belief, that of backpackers, most locals, businessmen, and actual news reports, is that the country is incredibly safe and poses absolutely no risk. This is the view that I take. The lack of violence here since 1988 is stunning and there is no evidence that foreigners are targeted for any reason. The locals are equally safe. Most everyone is friendly and appears to like Americans . . . or at least those who voted for Barack Obama. People are anxious to appeal to tourists and are naturally extremely friendly and hospitable. When I ask them what they think about me wandering alone they swear to its safety. With all this in mind, I have come to think of this country as far safer than Minnesota.

The second belief is taken by foreign state departments, the Somaliland authorities, aid agencies, and the those with long memories. Hargesia was leveled to the ground in the war for independence in the late 1980s and the affects are still felt. The AK-47, a normal feature of travel in Africa, is a standard here with security forces and you get used to seeing it around. I've been told that there are fantastic weapons bizarres in the east which feature everything from hand guns to anti-aircraft guns. Fortunately, the roads to these towns are closed to foreigners so I won't be checking them out. A little closer to home, my hotel in the capital Hargesia has a picture of a knife, handgun, AK-47, and hang grenade on the front door, all with a red "X" through them. You can imagine how reassuring that is. (The front desk, by the way, also has a no-smoking sign. So, you know, you can't do that either.)

Various state departments, who have a Fox News-like tendency to hyperventilate when it comes to foreigners and violence, warn against travel here, though most I've talked to to dismiss these warnings out of hand. The aid agencies, who I find annoying in this region, pulled out after the bombings and most have yet to come back. Perhaps, however, agencies and foreign governments are simply taking their cue from the Somaliland authorities, whose paranoia makes travel difficult.

The world has refused to recognize Somaliland's independence, so the foreign investment desperately needed here has yet to show up. It's stuck in a sort of international no-man's land and they get almost no visitors. Most tourists get their visas from the Addis Ababa consulate, and when I was there I was the 14th person of the year to have gotten a visa two weeks into January.

The lack of visitors appears to be for three main reasons. First off, the authorities are worried that any visitor getting injured, kidnapped, or killed could derail an international recognition which is potentially is only months away. Consequently, they make it very difficult to go anywhere . . . I've never encountered a country with more red tape. Secondly, there is little infrastructure in place. Finally, many tourists just don't know about Somaliland.

The trip from Harar to Hargesia, the capital of Somaliland, was one of the more excruciating I have ever had. The border crossing, at a dirty, broken town called Wachale, offered up an indication of the depth of the rabbit hole I had fallen into when the security agent opened up my bag for a search and discovered, oh God, my stash of alka selzter. He glossed over the the two 18-inch Afar knives I had in my bag but freaked out over my pills for stomach acid. It might have been okay had he spoken English, but when you're trying to communicate to a Somali-speaker what heartburn is, you run into problems. Eventually I basically shouted at him in frustration "It's for my hang-overs!" and mimicked drinking and then pretended to look ill. He looked at me, laughed, and let me pass no problem. I realized later that he still probably didn't understand what I was talking about - because booze is illegal in Somaliland - but was tired of trying to get a bribe out of me.

Hargesia doesn't act much like a capital city. The tallest buildings are perhaps six stories, and even those don't number more than a dozen. The rest of the city is sprawled out into the desert, colored with endless trash, wandering goats, the typical stalls hawking everything, and the occasional meandering camel. The roads are crazy, and the dust covers everything. It acts more like a frontier town than a capital city.

Upon arriving, I threw my bags in my room and set off into the heart of the city to do my typical first-day exploration for future restaurants, stores, and markets. However, I ran into a problem after less than five minutes when a plain-clothed police officer picked me up and drove me to the nearest police station. I wasn't worried, as I assumed I needed to check in or something, but instead I was brought before the police chief who drilled me for fifteen minutes about my visit. What I a journalist? Was I alone? Why wasn't I traveling with anyone else? How did I get here? Am I sure I'm not a journalist? How long was I going to stay in Hargesia? How long in Somaliland? Am I positive I'm not a journalist??? I fielded these questions as best I could and, for the first time in my trip, passed around a bunch of Obama stickers I brought for this very purpose to the small group of policemen who had gathered in the room.

Eventually, satisfied that I didn't pose a threat, the chief turned extremely friendly and offered a lieutenant to drive me around. I wasn't about to pass up a free ride, so I jumped into a 4X4 with three officers and they took me on a tour of the city, going through the camel market on the outside of town, the goldsmith section, and a number of other rather interested locations. They dropped me off at my hotel warning me not to wander around by myself. I agreed, and then immediately tried to exit through a back door to explore on my own. The same truck was waiting for me.

"Don't go out by yourself," they repeated.

ARGH! I was to learn, in the coming days, that this was standard procedure. It seems that authorities here had a massive over-reaction to the October bombings and decided that to ensure that tourists were kept utterly and completely safe they wouldn't be allowed to do anything. If they had their way, I would never leave the hotel. In the first three days in Hargesia I was picked up a total of five times by police. They quickly began to remind me of the over-protective mother whose son has never kissed a girl, let alone broken a bone.

Soon, after I had doled out a number of Obama stickers and made friends with enough of the policemen, they apparently decided that I was an alright guy so they stuck to giving me lifts when they saw me or just tossing me a friendly wave. Whew.

But then it was on to the regular population. It seems the further east I travel from Addis Ababa, the more of a spectacle I become. My hotel was downtown, away from where the aid workers stay, so I was the only white guy around. In Hargesia, as elsewhere in the country when I walk around, people are positively shocked to see me. Everyone, and I mean that, wants to stop and talk. I guess I hadn't prepared myself for that, but in reality, it's sometimes like swimming against a tidal wave.

Anyone who approaches me initially guesses that I'm German, which to me is like guessing that my favorite food is ketchup or my hero is James Dobson. But when I tell them I'm American, they get really excited and profess a huge love for Obama and America, which a nice change. And when I say I'm a tourist, a lot of people seem to get confused. This seems to be because most foreigners here are 1) Aid workers, 2) Reporters, or 3) Smugglers/gun runners. They get a huge charge out of the fact that I'm just . . . visiting.

Speaking of the third option, I was walking down the street the other day and a guy grabbed me and asked if I was a reporter. I assumed this to be normal conversation starter, but when I said no he brought me into his empty "shop", locked the door, and dumped a small pile of diamonds on the table and asked how much I wanted to pay for them.

"I hate diamonds," was my truthful reply.

"Okay, my friend, then wait one minute," he said, and went into a back room. When he returned, he had a slightly smaller pile of rubies which he placed on the table. "How much you pay for these?"

Stalling, trying to think of a way to get away from this creepy guy, I asked how much one cost.

"No buy one, only buy all!" he insisted.

"Okay, where did you get these?"

"In the desert, I go, and look around, and see them."

"And they're already polished? I think I need to go."

So I left. That being said, however, the other foreigners in my hotel were two Chinese who are also smugglers, so I can always get my hands on some diamonds from them if I change my mind.

Site-wise, as I indicated, there hasn't been much to get excited about. It took me a full day in order to secure a permit to travel to a place called Las Geel, located 40 kilometers outside of town. Las Geel has some neolithic rock paintings that are up to 11,000 years old, some of the oldest in Africa. It was just discovered five years ago in reality is a pretty amazing historical find, though there is a distinct lack of tourists. As it is, I had the entire place to myself to explore, and it was pretty cool. Set in the middle of the desert, it was an entertaining, if slightly underwhelming, tourist stop a country that has no others.

In the short time I've been here, a couple weeks, I've made some genuine friends and have gotten to know a hilariously large amount of the locals. Going out has become a real treat just because everywhere I go I can sit down with someone and have tea with someone while chatting about anything under the sun. Today, drinking some mango juice mixed with milk - a spectacular combination - with a friend, I noticed the only other foreign tourist I had seen so far, a Korean guy, changing money on the other side of the street. My friend and I got a huge charge out of watching him and joined the rest of the street in staring at the poor guy. It was at this moment I realized that I'd gone native.

I arrived in the port city of Berbera on the Gulf of Aden, basically the only other tourist town, after a week in Hargesia. And when I say "tourist town," I mean town-where-tourists-might-go, not town-where-tourists-are. As it was, I was the only white person there save for a absolutely fantastic British couple. I think it's more a tourist town for Somalilanders living elsewhere who are back in the country for vacation.

This British couple, Jill and Steve, were staying semi-permanently at a hotel called the Maan-Soor on the outside of town on the beach and are in the process of setting up a dive shop in and around Berbera and marine reserves up the coast to the Djibouti border. They are working with a businessman named Abdulker. Not only does Abdulkaer own the Mann-Soor and two others in Somaliland, but he is amazingly well-connected to the business and political community in the country. As such, he is working closely with Steve and Jill to navigate through the red tape of Somalialnd in order to ensure they succeed in their endeavors.

He is also, along with Steve and Jill, among the friendliest people I have ever met. Every day in Berbera I played a game of cat-and-mouse with the local police (they acted similar to the Hargesia police) and fled town to visit the Maan-Soor and beach. It was only a few kilometres from town to the hotel so after hiking there I would go snokeling or diving with the Steve and Jill (I brought snorkel gear with me and, because they are just setting up shop, they let me dive for free). The beach is fantastic with its beautiful blue-green water, perfect weather, and great marine life. Abdulkaer was always there to offer me fish, lobster, and pasta free of charge for my meals and help me with any questions I had. When the Regional Tourism Minister - a position that doesn't actually exist - showed up with two intelligence officers and tried to give me a hard time and take me for $50, Abdulkaer not only solved this dilemma for me in less than a minute of talking to him but called the Minister of Tourism (whom I had previously had a run-in with), the Information Minister, and the mayor of Berbera to let them know what happened and ensure it would never happen again.

These three also offered friendly and sincere conversation for me in the days I spent in Berbera and I learned a great deal about Somaliland's history and current political situation. Today we even had breakfast with a member of the electoral commission who described their efforts to register the country for the national election in two months. These efforts are stunning.

To fully understand how excited I am about what they're doing, imagine a country where no census exists and no voters have been registered. Then imagine that this country has a terrible infrastructure with horrible roads and little electricity outside of the major towns - which really aren't that "major". And then keep in mind that this country is largely NOMADIC. Think of the shear problems you would have with registering the voters!

But they're doing it here, with less than $20 million. Using electronic fingerprinting, computerized face-recognition, and good old-fashion clan names and family history, the electoral commission has manage to use its 15,000 workers to take not only the first national census but register every eligible voter as well. The USA has had 230 years to get it down and we haven't, but Somaliland's FEDERAL registration effort has turned out to be one of the best in the world in one try. I still can't get over the issue of registering so many nomads, but they have somehow managed to do that. Unbelievable!

Getting Back to Addulkaer, Steve, and Jill, they have also been a lot of help in planning for an upcoming adventure I'm embarking on. I won't be writing again for a number of days, but assuming that my plans go through as planned, I would definitely recommend checking back here in a few weeks because I'm going to attempt something pretty cool.

Cheers to everyone. Keep well!

Ethiopia

The effect was such that I determined always to carry a barrel loaded with shot as the best answer for all those who might object to "Feranji."
-Sir Richard Burton, "First Footsteps in East Africa"


My quest to Sudan was put on hold indefinitely after the USA vetoed the resolution in front of the UN condemning Israel's actions in Gaza. The Sudan Embassy in Cairo apparently decided to start their own little jihad and stop issuing visas to Americans . . . bummer. But it's cool, and instead I went directly to Ethiopia, a country which I fell head-over-heals in love with.

The mountain air or Addis Ababa was a refreshing break from the smog of Cairo and the Sahara dust of Egypt. But the temperature and climate, perfect really, is little compared to the food situation. I think most people who would actually read my blog realize this, but for anyone who might not know - my food intake in the USA is never limited by appetite but instead by cost. Here, everything is so ridiculously cheap that I hardly know what to do with myself. And after a steady diet of falafels and koshery, massive amounts of Ethiopian food is a gift from God.

Those who have ever hung out around Cedar/Riverside in Minneapolis know what I mean. Ethiopians know EXACTLY what they're doing with their cuisine, and while it's maybe ten dollars for a plate in Minnesota, it's a dollar and a half here. Not only that, but a 30 year occupation by the Italians a century ago means that they left behind pasta for Ethiopians to put on their menus, something that comes as a blessed relief to me after having pasta maybe four times in the first six weeks of my trip - basically a starvation diet. I was so enthused when I first saw spaghetti on the menu of a restaurant for one dollar that I ordered four plates, but after the look I got from the waitress quickly decided to order two plates and then just go to another restaurant.

Anyway, it's just a good place. Addis Ababa still has that same general group of people who give me dirty looks and shout "Ferangi!" ("Stranger/White person") at me and a smaller subset who try their various tactics to get money out of the stupid tourist, but they're far less annoying than up north. Those aside, most everyone else is at least moderately friendly.

Instead of traveling the popular northern circuit, I decided to head east towards the Somali border. There were a number of cities I had read about and wanted to visit. Chief amongst these was Harar, a city that has always been a spot of mystery to me.

Harar for years was an important city in the slave trade for caravans heading east. It was impossible for white people to enter it without getting their heads loped off, but in 1885 Sir Richard Francis Burton made his historic run from the Red Sea city of Zayla across the desert to Harar and entered under the guise of a Turk, thus becoming describing for the first time to outsiders this "impenetrable" city.

Okay, I have so stop here for something: I'm going to write a lot about Harar for a number of reasons, but one of them is because I LOVE Burton. One of few among the great European explorers, Burton had an endearing tendency to understate rather than exaggerate the perils he faced in his various travels. This is in stark contrast to, for instance, his famous contemporary Henry Morton Stanley, whose writings are excruciating because they read more like science fiction than reality. Stanley and too many others appear to view exploration as something to be undertaken with giant caravans of porters and servants and saw no problem with killing or kidnapping inhabitants of villages they came across in order to keep up their food supply. "Exploration" for him was done in the name of fame and was carried out in the name of destruction. (I'll leave it at that, though I'll most likely complain more about Stanley when I get to my Central Africa posts.)

Burton, on the other hand, had first made a name for himself by writing about his travels to Mecca. To do so, he spent seven year learning Arabic, studying Islam, and immersing himself in the Indian-Muslim culture. Only then did he go on his pilgrimage to Mecaa, one of the first infidels to do so and certainly the most famous. Later, after returning from Harar, he traveled with John Speke in search of the source of the Nile and discovered Lake Tangyanika. Burton was forced to stay here, ill, while Speke went on to discover Lake Victoria and the true source of the Nile, a feat which had previously eluded countless searches.

His writings display a large amount of wit, prescience, and subtlety that make them a real pleasure to read. Besides a fair amount of humorous fatalism that should be present for any travelers attempting travel in the Horn of Africa ("The next morning, all the villagers assembled . . . consoling us with the information that we were dead men."), he throws in the occasional philosophical comment ("What hath man but a single life? And he who throweth it away, what is he but a fool?"). He predicts well the consequences of what was to happen when the spear was to be replaced by the gun in Somalia and cautions others against rushing in a foolhardy manner towards his exploits. Altogether he is a calm, rational, and extremely entertaining writer. And he is what made me love Harar. Luckily, though Harar is a twelve hour bus ride from Addis Ababa, it's on the way to Somaliland, so it fit perfectly into my schedule.

In Paul Thoreau's cross-continent "Dark Star Sarfari", he described Hararis in rather negative terms, spitefully shouting "Ferangi!" at him from every doorway and hurling the occasional rock at the white intruder. In reality, however, I suspect that the locals simply had an inkling of who he was and wanted to give him his come-upings. I found Harar to be, hand's down, the friendliest city I have ever in my life been to. Nothing compares. Yes, it seemed that nearly everyone did yell "ferangi" after me, but it was always in playful, welcoming tone. Depending on the age and gender, it could even be a little shy.

Little kids, those who weren't scared of me at least, were constantly running up to me and shaking my hands and asking me questions. I couldn't sit down in public without being invited it to someone's home to relax, drink something, and, "if I was at all interested", chew some chat. I always accepted because Hararis appear to have perfected the art of relaxation with a room separate from the house about 10x8 feet, no lights, comfortable cushions, a hookah, stereo, and sometimes a tv. The men typically hang out here in the afternoon. Having done this one three different afternoons, I can tell you that it can't be beat.

Given its place in history and the wonderful ambiance surrounding it, I expected more tourists, but was pleased to have large swaths of the city to myself. And gosh, if there is a city to walk around in, it was that one. The women, as typical of Ethiopians, are beautiful. My first day a women, stunning even by local standards, walked up to me and said in halting English "I think you . . . are very handsome!" before turning and running away. Stunned, I manage to call after her "You're beautiful, too," which she acknowledged by turning her head and shyly grinning. This theme was to be repeated more times in the days I spent in Harar and made me wonder just what exactly was going on until I asked a local guy. He laughed and said "Ferangis have money. It doesn't matter if you're good-looking or not, they want to marry you. They do it all white people." That explained it well enough, but still, I was flattered.

A great travel experience in Harar is to visit the "Hyena Man", who sits outside the city walls each night at sunset and feeds a pack of wild hyenas who come to him. He calls them all by name and they come up to him individually and take food from his hand and from a stick he holds from his mouth. It was so entertaining watching him that I momentarily lost myself and asked him if I could do the same thing. He laughed and said "Sure!" So I was able to feed the hyenas both from my hands and from my mouth which, though perhaps less-than-sanitary, was a hell of an experience.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Harar and the cities around it, namely Jijiga and Dire Dawa, are regionally famous for growing chat. Chat is a mild narcotic consumed in the horn of Africa and Arabian Peninsula that is wildly popular with the locals. It's waxy look implies a painful death along the lines of "Into the Wild" rather than any sort of high, but those who chew seem to survive and swear that it produces a mild euphoria, loss of appetite, hyperactivity, and the occasional white rabbit. Tourists almost universally disagree with this and say that it produces no effect, though given how popular chat is with people living on the Horn, I'd say that the tourists have to be doing something wrong.

Chat is illegal in the United States under our completely rational and wildly succesful national drug policy, but the large Somali/Ethiopian/Eritrean population in Minnesota has wisely decided to give the finger to the DEA and has devised an ingenious method of getting the freshly-picked chat from the Ethiopian fields, onto planes, across the Atlantic and into Minnesota in less than 24 hours before it loses its chemical properties. They then distribute it via reliable cab drivers to a grateful population.

I spent some more time in the surrounding towns, but nothing terribly notable happened, so I'll leave my post at that for now.

I'll be back in Ethiopia in a couple weeks to explore some of the south on my way to Kenya. For now I'm doing some trail-blazing here for a couple weeks, so wish me luck.

Israel/Palestinian Territorries, Wildlife Edition

I forgot to put this in my last post -

It was commented by someone I worked with on the Vote Yes campaign that I have yet to mention wildlife in my posts. That is primarily because I have yet to see much. While in the White Desert outside of Bahariyya I did manage to see a desert fox outside of our camp site one night. That was particularly cool because they are typically difficult to spot, and also because those of you who knew me back in middle school know that I was a World War II nut and read everything I could get my hands on about it. My favorite generals to read about was Erwin Rommel. Nicknamed, of course, the Desert Fox. Sweet.

Anyway, the following information was included in her email about wildlife in the areas I've been to - "So... There are wolves in Gaza and northern Israel and they need to multiply."

Nancy, feel free to, you know, expand on that if you'd like. ; )

Israel/Palestinian Territories, Part II

One day in Jerusalem I was wandering through the Old City when I ran into a small crowd of people blocking the passageway through. They were watching a shop television that was pointed outward.

Al-Jazeera was showing live images of a large group of men, policemen I think, who had been killed in a town square. The camera crew had arrived before the ambulances, and they took sweeping shots of the square full of dead, perhaps twenty mangled bodies. I asked a Palestinian where it was. "Gaza," he said. "Forty are dead so far."

I continued on, very concerned. The Israeli/Palestinian cease-fire of six months had just ended days before, and nobody had known what was going to happen. Militants had been firing rockets from Gaza into Israel with increasing frequency, and some sort of action by the Israelis was largely expected. But this was beyond what most had thought. Every shop that had a television or radio tuned in to the coverage, and within minutes it seemed all in the Old City knew.

This is probably why people were so easy to get spooked a few minutes later as was I continuing on through the densely packed alley. The crowd of people suddenly stopped its typical walking pattern and started started stampeding towards me, yelling in different languages. I looked ahead and saw smoke. Someone yelled a questioning "Bomb???" in English, which seemed to excite everyone even more. The shopkeepers all quickly threw their wares into their tiny shop and closing the steel doors are fast as possible, but it seemed more to protect it from the smoke than anything else. I tell you, that place cleared out FAST.

Logically, I thought, if I hadn't heard a "boom" and there was already smoke, it couldn't be a bomb, so I just kind of stood there with a small group of people and after a minute walked tentatively ahead. Sure enough, we saw a decent size grease fire in the middle of the walkway ahead. So we all grabbed some rags by the garbage and threw them on top of the fire, putting it out quickly.

(The shops, it turned out, didn't re-open. In fact, the rest of the Old City shut down soon after in solidarity with the people of Gaza.)

Still, if that didn't worry me, my next stop did. I needed to go to Bethlehem to check on my stolen wallet from New Year's Eve. I faced this with a small amount of apprehension because of its location just within the walls of the West Bank, but I decided to take my chances anyway.

I jumped on a slow-moving bus from Jerusalem and made my way back to the Church of Nativity where the tourism police were. They hadn't found anything from my wallet of course, but they had al-Jazeera on and I saw that the death toll had now climbed to 150. The policeman, who spoke good English, saw that I was watching and asked me a few questions about what I thought about the whole thing. I was as ambiguous as possible because, really, it isn't my place at all to get involved here. But eventually we got into a long conversation about the whole mess.

It turns out that he had been in the same building, just yards away from the Church of Nativity, a couple years before when the Church it had been taken over by militants and besieged by the Israelis. He expressed more a sense of bewilderment towards Israel's policies ("What are they trying to accomplish in the end in Gaza? And what in the West Bank?") and the USA's stance ("I just don't understand why they don't seem to care about us") than anything else. This impression has largely been matched by most Palestinians, both before and after the strike, with whom I've talked to. Anger, yes, but more confusion than anything else. And a why-are-they-doing-this-to-us mentality combined with, let's be honest, a strong anti-Semitic streak, makes for a pretty explosive potential here.

While the average shopkeeper might simply want to make a living to support his family, a number of people wish horrible things on Israelis. It doesn't take many people to set off a rocket or detonate a bomb, and with Hamas in charge of Gaza and locked in a power struggle with Fatah for the West Bank, there's no telling what they'll do next. Hamas doesn't recognize Israeli's right to exist and their stated mission is to destroy it, so its natural for Israel to be hostile towards them. Furthermore, Israel's history with all of it's neighbors leaves much to be desired, and its understandable why the two sides don't trust each other.

But if the military ends up destroying Hamas with this incursion, then it has cut off the only leadership Gaza really has. What next? Who takes control? If they fail and Hamas stays in control, then Israel will have presumably strengthened Hamas in front of the entire world - especially those with al-Jazeera on 24/7. After the Lebanese War, Hezbollah was actually empowered. Does Israel truly think the same thing won't happen to Hamas?

So, basically, it seems to me kind of a waiting game with no possible good ending. I don't know.

Anyway, when I was done at the police station I wanted to walk back to the checkpoint to get through the wall and out of the West Bank. I wanted to talk to some more Palestinians about what was happening. The amount of solidarity they expressed for Gaza was impressive, and their attitude towards me in general was perhaps the first time I've ever felt genuine hostility because of my nationality. Individuals have expressed it before, but it's almost always directed towards my government. Rarely the population as a whole. Here I got a strong sense of "You guys, your government, everyone over there, are evil. Burn in hell."

Eventually I came to the wall that surrounds the West Bank.

The wall is just horrible. It's a giant grey monstrosity, ineffective at its purpose, and significant beyond anything else as a tangible sign of oppression for the Palestinians of the Israelis. Protesting slogans of resistance, peace, love, hate, anti-US, anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, atheism, anarchy, socialism, and every other stripe cover the bottom portion of it - a poignant and sobering message to a world which, as far as the Palestinians believe, seems not to care about their plight. I followed it a while, simultaneously reading it and hating it. At one juncture, right below an Israeli-manned observation tower, a rock landed some meters away from me.

Not having noticed anyone around me, I took a quick glance around; no one. But then another one landed, and another. Finally, a distance away, I saw a group of twenty or so teenage and 20-something men launching an entire volley. Their body language didn't seem to indicate hostility towards me. But while their target appeared to be the Israeli-manned observation post above me, they knew I was there and didn't seem to care if they hit me. So I decided to get out real quick.

My position was between the wall, which created an angle with an adjacent building that made it impossible for me to continue, and the rock throwers, who were hiding behind a tree and a cement wall. Because I had backed myself into a literal corner and because they seemed to be concentrating on the post, I trotted to the other side of the street away from the rocks and walked up the road towards them to get away from them.

The Palestinians showed anxiety in their actions, as they were careful not to remain exposed for long when throwing. They would run out from behind a cement wall, hurl the fist-size rocks, and then run behind a large juniper that was near the wall. After a moment of rest the group would scamper back to the wall for more rocks. Then they all jumped out and start hurling rocks again. Evidently these guys had past memories from throwing rocks and didn't wish to be shot at or detained at a later time.

This, I found out later, was only a small example of many larger protests and riots that were already cropping up all around the West Bank. But all I wanted to do was get out of there, so I hugged the opposite wall from where the throwers were and started up the street. I waited until they had just thrown a volley and then passed by them on my way to a taxi that was just ahead of me. As I was starting to jog towards it I heard a crack behind me as a stone hit a brick store I was near. When I turned around, a half dozen of them were pointing at me and picking up stones. They threw a volley my way but I was mostly out of range by that time and the taxi driver casually opened the door for me and then yelled something toward the stone throwers.
I jumped into the taxi and asked the driver what he said. "Don't hit my car," he replied with a grin.

He brought me to the checkpoint saying "You probably shouldn't be around the West Bank by yourself any more over the next few days." He paused. "Sorry about the rocks."

My planned expedition for the say into Hebron, deeper within the West Bank, was obviously out of the question now, so I retired to my hostel for the night.

The next say I decided to exit Israel. There wasn't any danger to me that wasn't there before, but it was time for me to leave anyway. Luckily I made the Egyptian border in decent time and went back into Cairo, entering the city for, incredibly, the 5th time in as many weeks.

As I write this, the death toll in Gaza has passed 400. As it was, the first day saw 200 deaths in the largest Palestinian single-day toll since the war in 1967. It doesn't matter that 75% of the deaths are members of Hamas - al Jazeera isn't mentioning that part when they show results of the strikes. But even if they did, it wouldn't make a difference. Hamas is largely admired and respected in the Arab world, and to them this is like Israel trying to take out out a foreign government.

I'm hearing that the West Bank has had numerous protest - two rioters were killed the other day and many other injured. Lebanese have attacked their Egyptian embassy, blaming the government here for encouraging the attacks. Ditto in Yemen. Al-Jazeera has been covering the campaign pretty much non-stop and the Arab world is just pissed as hell. Here in Cairo there are marches and popular demonstrations against the the Egyptian government and Israel. Basically, this is just a tense time right now, and though I feel just fine with being in Egypt, it's yet another reason for me to want to get out of here.