Loading...
Start a new Travel Blog! Blogabond Home Maps People Photos My Stuff

roel krabbendam

143 Blog Entries
7 Trips
687 Photos

Trips:

Harmattan
High
Heaven
Spare Change
Bhutan
Heat
Humidity

Shorthand link:

http://blogabond.com/roel


Here's a synopsis of my trips to date (click on the trip names to the right to get all the postings in order):

Harmattan: Planned as a bicycle trip through the Sahara Desert, from Tunis, Tunisia to Cotonou, Benin, things didn't work out quite as expected.

Himalayas: No trip at all, just dreaming for now.

Heaven: A bicycle trip through Holland. Most significant challenges: one injury, would the kids make it, and where to find coffee and pastry every day.

Spare Change: Cheap motels and greasy spoons from Boston, MA to Tucson, AZ.

Amazon: The backup plan if the Himalayas don't work out.

Heat: A week of dessication in the Grand Canyon. Thank god for that horrid powdered electrolytic drink mix.

Bhutan: A couple of weeks at the invitation of a client to visit the kingdom of the thunder dragon and gross national happiness.


Buddy List

Jason Kester
Jason Kester
Benjamin Satterfield
Benjamin Satterfield
olliejohnson
olliejohnson
Eric Broome
Eric Broome
astroadvise1
astroadvise1
Tina-RF
Tina-RF
nitishkaushal
nitishkaushal



Hope

Ghardaia, Algeria

I met Aliau Doiallo as he was working on a construction project in the palm grove where I am staying, and got the chance to hear his story over some olives and almonds and really strong mint tea.

Alieu Diallo
Aliau first left his home in Bamako, Mali at age 15, to find a job in Europe. He hitched 2200 kilometers east to Agadez, Niger, then 450 kilometers north through Arlit to the border with Algeria at I-n-Guezzam. An agreement between Mali and Algeria allowed him to enter Algeria legally. He continued to head north, through Tamanrasset, I-n-Salah, El-Miniaa, Ghardaia, Laghouat, Tiaret and Oran, arriving at the Morroccan border at Oujda after a 2400 kilometer haul across the Sahara. In Oujda he payed a Morroccan 2000 Algerian Dinar to smuggle him across the border into Morrocco. Finally, as he stole into the Spanish enclave of Melilla with 650 Benladeshi refugees, Spanish police nabbed the entire group. Aliau’s first attempt to reach Europe was over.

The Bengladeshi’s rioted in an effort to escape, and so all were handed over to the Morroccan police, bussed to Rabat, Morrocco and put on a plane back to Mali. Now, eight years later, Aliau is back in Ghardaia, Algeria working construction and odd jobs and considering his next move. The work here is diminishing. He questioned me intently about the United States, wanting to know where it was hot and cold, whether there were many foreigners there like himself, and where there was work. He wanted to know if I could send him a certificate de herbergement so that he could get a visa.


Alieu Diallo
I suggested that he find the Mali community overseas, because one man like myself could not hope to support him indefinitely while he accustomed himself to the USA, but a community might take him on. I'm not sure I convinced either of us, but I don't think that Aliau will give up: in his eyes and his eagerness, despite all of the obstacles he has endured or perhaps because of them, I saw someone with the dispassionate ability to assess a situation, the imagination to create a possibility, and the energy and animation of someone infused with and inspired by hope.

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on January 15, 2007 from Ghardaia, Algeria
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

Party

Ghardaia, Algeria


Tower above Beni Isguen
Phone call from Wolf Gaudlitz: join him in Guerara tomorrow at Kherfi Ibrahim's for a party with the whole gang that got me into the country after a cold night stuck at the border.

Shadow at the gate to Beni Isguen
It's a 120km bike ride in the wrong direction, I'm hopelessly inept at parties, but I owe these guys a big thanks so, what the hell. I'll leave most of my stuff at Said's, leave early in the morning and travel light.

Minarets above Beni Isguen
It will be a good way to see just how much freedom of movement the police allow me on the main roads.

Street scene
I'll bike back to Said's the following day, and then head down to Tamanrasset. It's 19 hours by bus, and I think I'd rather do it in short hops, trying as much as possible to do it by bicycle. We'll see how things go tomorrow.

Street scene
Beth Cail out shopping

I asked Ibrahim Kherfi, whose wife maintains the religious dress code, if it doesn't get hot in there in the summer. He said "Probably".

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on January 15, 2007 from Ghardaia, Algeria
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

Brothers

Ghardaia, Algeria


The M'zab Valley
I spent the day riding my bicycle all over the M’Zab valley, and then out of the valley to the desert above. The M’Zabites fled persecution to settle here in the cracks of the desert plain, creating a place so unique and consistent in its architecture that it is now protected by UNESCO. With Ghardaia at the center, the villages of Beni Isguem, Bounourra, Malika and El Latouf connect to fill the valley.

Futbal at Malika Haut cemetary

Soccer at Malika Haut cemetary

Wandering through Malika Haut late in the day, I was invited in for a cup of coffee by a guy walking home with an armful of baguettes. He led me into a garden where we sat on blankets and looked at his meticulously organized and labeled photo albums and goofed around with his four kids. “These albums”, he told me, “will be my cadeaux to my children one day, so that they understand a little of their parents and a little of their past”.


Ben Aoumeur Nadir enjoys disguises, and he shows me an astonishing array of portraits I would never have imagined were the same person. In one street shot, even a blind man with a cane turns out to be Nadir fooling around with his friends. These were his younger days, however.

Nadir has since become a focused, organized man. He told me he approaches each day with a precise plan, because without such a plan a man will fall into the void (“La Vide”). His words were spoken with some emotion, perhaps with the respect of someone who has once survived drowning in the ocean, and still now and then will stare out to sea.

He buys and sells dates, climbs and manages palm trees for others, manages a store now and then, and works on a municipal road construction crew at night. “This is what I must do to live, to stay strong, to be responsible to my family. As you can see, however, I still have plenty of time to be with my children”.

Nadir’s father kept four wives and produced twenty-nine children (For him, he says, one wife is as much as he can handle). Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me so much then to return to Chez Said a few hours later, sit down to a late dinner with Ben Aoumeur Mohammed, and discover I had just had coffee with his half-brother 10 kilometers distant.

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on January 13, 2007 from Ghardaia, Algeria
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

Chez Said

Ghardaia, Algeria

Ahmed and I caught the 10pm bus for Ghardaia. I bought two tickets for 350 Dinar each, and found comfortable, upholstered seats.
In the dark we headed west, a trip I had hoped to bicycle, a trip that would have taken me almost a week accomplished in 4 hours, a trip in utter darkness, stars, the beam of the headlights revealing only sand and the occasional truck carrying three 12 meter long, 90cm diameter steel pipes; on the horizon, occasionally, the glow of some distant settlement. At every police checkpoint the interior lights went on, the bus approached very slowly, and conversation between the police and the driver was perfunctory. Otherwise, we drove very, very fast.

In Ghardaia, Ahmed approached a waiting pickup truck, and for 200 Dinar (2 Euro), the bicycle and all my junk was schlepped off to Ahmed’s house where I spent the night on a mattress in his living room. In the morning, baguette and coffee. Ahmed answered my list of questions:
1. Could I move freely without a guide? Yes, within the M’zab valley.
2. Could I move outside the valley alone? No.
3. Could I prolong my visa? Yes, at the Commissariat de Police, but I need photos.
4. I have photos.
5. How do I get to Tamanrasset? By bus, leaving daily, no guide required.
6. Where do I stay for a few days while I explore the area? He had a place in mind.
7. How to get to this party on Saturday, 120 km from here? He would arrange it.

I paid Ahmed 6000 Dinar for 2 days of service, plus an extra 1000 Dinar to express my thanks for his help and generosity. He found another pickup truck, delivered me to a friend with a kind of hotel in the palm Plantation outside Ghardaia, and left me to my own devices.


Chez Said

This is not the trip I had imagined for myself: it is better. Bad information, bureaucracy, unexpected acquaintances, unimaginable kindnesses, and a bit of pedaling and openness to whatever might transpire have conspired to construct a situation I could never have planned for or imagined. I will not be bicycling across the Sahara, and I couldn’t care less.

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on January 12, 2007 from Ghardaia, Algeria
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

Love and Desire

Ghardaia, Algeria

I had dinner last night with Mohamed, a 29 year old student of Biology and the Environment with a lot of interest in global warming and nuclear waste. We talked trash. He told me recycling was just beginning to become an accepted concept in Algeria, but that the predominant attitude remained simply to toss everything into the desert. It pains him, and he speaks of the desert in animate terms, as a thing alive.

'Hamed
Hamed might be in love with a Swiss girl who works in the Zurich post office and shares an apartment with a girlfriend, and who may or may not love him. They have known each other for 15 years, and every year she has come to Ghardaia and Tamanrasset for vacation to see him. This year, however, she and her girlfriend decided to go to Guatemala instead, a turn of events potentially fraught with meaning.

When asked if they had slept together, he said “Yes, but only in Switzerland. Never here”. He showed me her picture, a wonderfully normal looking girl in T shirt and jeans with dyed red hair sitting on a hay wagon on a summer day in Switzerland. She is looking away.

We are listening to Nina Simone on the stereo, her version of “I’ll Put a Spell on You” reducing us to silence. ‘Hamed pokes a bit at the fire and says finally, “The girls around here just don’t understand this kind of music”. He is haunted by the possibility of a life in Switzerland, haunted by his love for the desert and the fact that she will not live here, haunted even by the possibility that his life will always be thus: haunted by “what ifs” and “wouldn’t it be wonderfuls”; haunted, I suppose, by his own desires.

We are joined by a friend of Said, a 47 year old guy in sports management who organized the 6th annual “Marathon des Dunes” here in Ghardaia. He has been married 22 years and has 4 kids and speaks openly of his very occasional affairs with younger women, showing me proudly on his “portable” the picture of a 29 year old professor in Algiers who isn’t his latest conquest, but who remains in his heart. His latest girlfriend is 19, he says.

I ask him how this is all arranged, with so many women closed off and protected. “Ahhh…”, and his eyes alight and he offers a secret smile to communicate his command of the issue. “One simply needs an emissary”.

“A man has a wide open heart, and a woman’s heart is closed very tightly: this is nature. So it is that the man invites into his heart so many people: to fill his heart. Think into the past, of a time when you loved more than one woman, and you will understand that it is true”. My admission that I had once juggled two girlfriends in college satisfied him immensely.


Example of Mohammed's carving

“What about divorce”, I asked.
“Very uncommon. Here, a man and a woman agree to a marriage but might spend years arranging for a house, and for the ceremony and so forth, and they will do so without physical contact in all this time. Thus their desire grows slowly to an incredible fire, and the first night together is an incredible experience. This is not the fast food of the United States, you understand. This is for an eternity”.

'Hamed
Frank Sinatra followed Nina Simone, the fire dimmed, the tea was finished. Three guys sitting around a table on a cold night, shooting the breeze. It was 4pm in Boston and Mia was just getting home from school and I hadn’t talked to her in days, so I got up for the call on the satellite phone and said “Bon nuit”.

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on January 12, 2007 from Ghardaia, Algeria
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

The End?

Nefta, Tunisia

All of you still harboring that tiny, secret wish that you were experiencing all this with me, consider this: I spent a long, cold night on a concrete slab seriously considering the possibility that my trip was over.

I arrived at the Algerian border in the early afternoon of the 9th from Tozeur: a wonderful 60 km ride above the Chott El Jerid. The birds infesting the trees within the confines of the hotel were exuberant, the wind was calm, the air temperature cool, the sun hot. A climb out of Tozeur led to gentle downward slopes that allowed me use of the little used larger gears.

I hope Polly will allow me this small admission, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t affect our relationship: I am in love with my bicycle. Light, strong, reliable…rarely complains…it does expect me to do all the work, but that just makes it more adorable and in any case, its for my own good…


Nefta at noon
Nefta 11am
Shortly after the oasis of Nefta, the road lost its topcoat and I lost some speed. The traffic was minimal. Except for an occasional stand of palms, there was no vegetation whatsoever. A girl(?) and her son(?) or brother(?) at one point came charging out of nowhere to show me hand-made dolls and necklaces and bracelets, and because I had change I needed to spend before the border and because I needed a good-luck charm to deal with the problems I expected to encounter, I bought a green heart of stone hung by a green string to wear around my neck for the rest of the trip. The price was 2 Dinar, but she gave it to me for what I had, which was just a bit less. Mia: its yours when I return, as an addition to our little collection of hearts.

Fatma Boucaina, her brother? and her crafts
Fatma Boucaina, her brother? and her crafts

Then the road got considerably worse: gravel with a spray-coat. The Tunisian border control was somewhat annoying but perfunctory. They thought the Algerians might require that I engage a guide, and noted that I had only 6 days left on my Algerian visa, but I said “No problem, I’m just going to find a truck to take me south to Tamanrasset and I’ll be out of Algeria in no time”. Basically, I lied.

The Algerian border post was 4 km down the (very rough) road, and there I was finally stopped cold. Despite what the Algerian embassy had told me repeatedly before the trip, tourists would under no circumstances pass without a guide. I wasn’t sure if this was a shake-down or the facts, so I got the Algerian embassy on the phone and asked them to speak to the head of the border control (who, I might add, was pretty amazed to be put on the phone with Washington, DC). The bottom line was this: the Algerian embassy didn’t have a clue. The law had been on the books for 2 years or 4 years, depending on who I talked to.

I thought: “This is bad.”

I was told to go back to Gafsa, Tunisia and get a visa extension, but I told them it was a three day journey by bicycle and completely out of the question. They told me to call a guide from Tamanrasset, who could come and get me. I told them I had no contacts in Tamanrasset. They said: “Then wait”. Some Italians were expected in the afternoon or possibly in the morning, and perhaps, in-shallah, their guide would take me with them. It seemed…awfully tenuous. On the other hand, I had no choice. So I waited all that afternoon through sunset, chatting occasionally with the border officials, eating some food I had with me, until it got pitch dark, and I found a slab to sleep on. I did not sleep.


Algerian border post at Hazoua

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on January 10, 2007 from Nefta, Tunisia
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

Into Algeria

Touggourt, Algeria


Wolf Gaudlitz
A truck with German plates pulled in the next morning. One of the border patrol people engaged the driver in a conversation, I wandered over, and there I met Wolf Gaudlitz. A writer, radio show host, film producer and (not kidding here), traveling picture show, Wolf had visited Algeria many times over the last 5 years, and readily took me on. Wolf had left his Italian wife and 3 year old child in Germany to try and write, and he told me with some resignation that he didn’t know if they would still be there when he got back. Girls: don’t get any ideas. He had in his truck a screen and projection equipment, and enjoyed showing movies to the desert people, German movies it turns out, so that no one understood a word but was transfixed nonetheless by the imagery: for most their first experience with film.

Within 3 or 4 hours, we had both been fully processed at the border, Ahmed the guide had arrived, Ahmed had taken official responsibility for my well-being, the bike was loaded in Wolf’s truck, and we were on our way to El Oued. I was in. My bicycle trip was clearly over for now, but I was in.

Near Touggourt, friends had arranged a cook-out on a new palm Plantation amid the dunes of the Grand Erg Orientale, and we stopped for several hours to grill meat, and talk and eat. Wolf’s truck was immediately mired in the sand, and he spent most of the time letting the air out of his tires, moving the truck, and then re-inflating the tires. I helped where possible, but the joke remained that Wolf was a slave to his machine. The work literally took him hours.


Lunch in the Grand Erg Orientale

We continued on to Touggourt, to the house of Mohammed, a tall, strong-featured friend of Wolf’s from some years back. Mohammed had rescued Wolf when his rear axle broke outside Touggourt during a period of serious banditry and some danger. Refusing any payment whatsoever, he had seen to the complete replacement of the axle (and from what I could tell, actual milling of axle to fit the truck), completely filled Wolf’s absolutely huge gas tank, and seen to Wolf’s personal needs throughout the ordeal.

Touggourt at night
Touggourt, waiting to connect with Mohammed

My respect and admiration for these people grow, and my severe embarrassment at some of the shortcomings of our own culture swells equally. Frankly, they are my own personal shortcomings, not even something vaguely “cultural”. I try to imagine the reception Mohammed might have were his truck to breakdown in Acton, United States, and while I could imagine extending some small kindnesses I could equally imagine suspicion, an encounter with the police, a very large tow truck bill, an even larger repair bill, and if he was inordinately lucky and I wasn’t late for work, a ride to the Concordian motel. Before this trip and maybe still, it is unimaginable to me that I would take a stranger in, personally see to his well-being, and take on the financial burdens of his unfortunate circumstances in the manner that Mohammed took care of Wolf.

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on January 10, 2007 from Touggourt, Algeria
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

Apprehension

Tozeur, Tunisia


Chott El Jerid
After 75 km of dead flat highway on a berm across the Chott El Jerid (Salt lake that to my eye looked more like sand with a crust of salt, but you could see the water level was just inches down. There was no problem walking on the sand though), I began to see higher land around 4pm. With the sun starting to set, I was met at 5pm by the Very Strong Headwind, followed at 530pm by the Very Steep Hill, followed at 6pm by the Main Street of Mule Manure. Exhausted as always at the end of the day (not 19 years old anymore), but spurred on by the kid who yelled BONSOIR PUSSYCAT, I entered Tozeur as it got completely dark, turned on the lights and found a sensibly-priced 3 star hotel by 630pm.

Bonbons Fruit Sec

The doorman was too chummy, reception was too obsequious, they didn’t have internet, they didn’t accept visa…but still, I thought, all that is less important than a Very Hot Bath and so I signed in. I entered my room and found it faced a blank wall: new room. I ran the bath for 15 minutes waiting for hot water: barely tepid. The doorman ran off to start the second water heater. We ran all the taps for another 15 minutes: no change. I grabbed all my bags and the trailer, very politely said I would be staying elsewhere, and headed for the door. “No, no, just 15 minutes more and it will come, the hot water”!


Gate to the Souk
It took me 10 minutes to find another hotel, the Hotel Ksar Rouge, and immediately all was well with the world. OK, no internet: just a secure wireless network they won’t give out the key for…ugh! But gracious staff, wonderful facility, great food, and yes: a Very Hot Bath.

Tomorrow, Algeria. Visa hassles expected, and then there is this lurking apprehension about the people. This is a traumatized country I imagine, with years of fundamentalist suppression, Tuareg revolt, rampant unemployment and disaffected youth. Little news reports come out: “5 policemen massacred near Ghardaia”. Foreigners receive armed escorts and live in encampments surrounded by concrete and barbed wire. There is no tourist industry to speak of lately…and yet…

At least in Tunisia I’ve inspired such interest and generosity in the people I meet, with the sports thing creating some common ground with the 15-25 set. I can’t help but believe something similar will happen in Algeria. I’m counting on it.


Pharmacie

I did fool around with the dial up connection through the satellite phone today: it is painfully unreliable, slow, and therefore very expensive as well. Photos and blog updates may be kept to a minimum for some time to come. If anyone needs reassurance regarding my well-being, call Polly. At the very least I will call her every 1 or 2 days.

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on January 8, 2007 from Tozeur, Tunisia
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

You're still in Tunisia???

Kebili, Tunisia

OK, Polly really kicked my butt last night on the phone. The conversation went something like this:
Silence
"Why are you still in Tunisia"?
Silence
"You've hardly moved at all"!
Silence
Silence
Silence
...you get the picture. To redeem myself I put in a decent if not outstanding 80 kilometers today, pulling into Kibili around 5pm. Found a decent hotel. OK, better than decent: waterfalls, swimming pool, deep, hot bath, full bar and internet: $100 including dinner and breakfast. I'm not exactly slumming it yet, though that time will shortly be upon me.

Gabes city center

Early afternoon, Gabes.

I had trouble getting money yesterday leaving Gabes, and didn't finally pull out until 230pm.
I had time for 40 km with that headwind still blowing fiercely, though not quite in my face as I turned westward, and pulled into El Hamma at 530, just as it got dark. 2 guys on a small motorcycle shouted some encouragement mid-day as they zoomed by, and then waved me over for a coffee a few hours later. Boubridaa Abdelhamid and a friend were toking on a waterpipe, and we ended up chatting a bit. Finally he invited me to go to the bath with him that night, which we did after I set up in a hotel in El Hamma. I treated him to dinner, though his wife kept calling him on his cell phone, and he was very worried about someone messing with his motorcycle. I was supposed to meet his family in the morning, but after waiting an hour past our appointed time I took off. I actually saw him heading towards the hotel several miles up the road, but he didn't see me. So, no picture, but I have his address and will ask him to send me one.

Abdelhamid is 42 years old, with a lot of metal teeth and some continuing dental problems. I frankly had my doubts about him when I sat down for a coffee with him, but he proved to be quite genuine. He's been married 22 years and has 2 sons: a 13 year old who is very studious and a 7 year old who's a bit of a devil. He worked for the last 6 years in the tourist hotels on the island of Jerba during the week and sees his family on the weekends. He does this to afford the appliances and plumbing fixtures his wife wants. He makes 300 Dinar/month working 12 hour shifts. He built his own house with some good help in only 3 months, and has several friends living with his family, paying rent. He grew up in Gabes working on the family plot, but switched to the hotel jobs at age 35 because he wasn't making enough money. For Eid he spent a month salary to buy a sheep, but he says it will keep his family very well fed for quite some time to come. "The frigidaire is full", he told me.

His dad is 90 years old, can barely see and hear and walk, but refuses to move in with him. His mom is 72, and both are supported by 300 Dinar/month that comes to them from Tripoli, where his dad used to work. The money stops when his dad dies, at which time they will sell the family home in Gabes and put mom in with one of the three sons. Abdelhamid has 2 brothers, one in the provincial government in Gabes and the other an electrician in El Hamma.

Last year some Belgian guy sent him 8000 Dinar to pay for a passport and visa and ticket, allowing Abdelhamid to come spend 5 weeks with him in Brussels.

He says he has a lot of opportunities with foreign girls at the hotels, with one Spanish girl in particular rather eager to marry him, but he has stayed true to his wife. We agreed it was just better that way.

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on January 6, 2007 from Kebili, Tunisia
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

Enjoyments

Kebili, Tunisia

Here's a list of what I'm enjoying about this trip:
1. Meeting people like Abdelhamid, pushing my comfort zone, and seeing what happens.
2. Taking a nice photograph.
3. Working on the blog.
4. Meeting the very occasional English speaker.
5. Seeing progress on the map.
6. Email.
7. A long, hot bath after a day on the road.
8. A warm bed.
9. Talking to Polly and Mia on the satellite phone...even at $1.30/minute.
10. A delicious Orange.
11. Biking, especially moments without a headwind with everything working well.
12. Getting off the bike. Nice bike, but it feels so good to stop!
13. The occasional feeling of security.
14. Sun!
15. Coffee breaks: thick, dark Tunisian coffee with steamed milk and a lump of sugar.

Hotel window

Things I won't miss:
1. So many vulnerabilities: do I have everything, what does he want, am I safe...?
2. Arab music, at least what I've heard so far...
3. So much solitude. A little is nice.
4. Headwinds.
5. Diarrhea.
6. Car exhaust.
7. Smokers.
8. Sore throats.

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on January 6, 2007 from Kebili, Tunisia
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment
Viewing 111 - 120 of 143 Entries
first | previous | next | last



author feed
 author kml

Heading South?

Online Spanish lessons with a live personal tutor FairTutor can hook you up with Online Spanish lessons with a live personal tutor. It's pretty sweet! Online Spanish lessons with a live personal tutor www.fairtutor.com
Navigate
Home
Find Blogs
Find People
Find Places
Find Photos
Browse Tags
Make Maps
Write a Blog Entry
search
Login

go
create a new account



   

Blogabond v2.40.58.80 © 2024 Expat Software Consulting Services about : press : rss : privacy
View as Map View as Satellite Imagery View as Map with Satellite Imagery Show/Hide Info Labels Zoom Out Zoom In Zoom Out Zoom In
find city: