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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



Clouds

Hoorn, Netherlands

We arrive in Hoorn in late afternoon, eat dinner on the boat, and then take our bikes out for a 15 km. trial run.
The sky clears a bit, and becomes a spectacle, and we stop just to bear witness as if this were some religious event.
Possibly it is.
The bikes and the kids perform wonderfully.


It is the 650 year anniversary of the town of Hoorn, and we take a walk into town to listen to some music when we get back. The town is dense and historic and quaint, a real tourist draw. A five piece band sings and plays in the town center, and the cafes are open, and a crowd is drinking beer on the street. We all fall asleep before midnight.

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on May 30, 2007 from Hoorn, Netherlands
from the travel blog: Heaven
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Reindeer?

Boston, United States

The three of us are exhausted, school and work and house renovations taking their toll. We race separately to the airport from different directions, the girls and I, and meet at the Icelandair desk just an hour before the flight to Reykjavik. A somewhat disapproving young woman assigns us the stinky seats next to the rear toilets, but we fall asleep immediately upon settling into the plane, completely beyond caring. We feel triumphant to have made it at all.

Beautiful stewardesses sternly serve dinner, efficient but unfortunately disapproving, their bustle waking us just in time to snag a meal of reindeer stew, crab salad and a chocolate chip brownie. The reindeer is slightly odd but would have passed as unidentifiable mystery meat were it not for another passenger, who felt it was…not the best reindeer she had ever had. Polly and Mia pass me their crab salad to finish (reindeer AND crab???), Mia drapes herself over us, and we all go back to sleep. We wake up again on the approach to Reykjavik, wondering if we missed breakfast.

Note to Icelandair: Hold the reindeer.


permalink written by  roel krabbendam on May 24, 2007 from Boston, United States
from the travel blog: Heaven
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Youth

Reykjavik, Iceland

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

Our seats are slighly further from the toilets. We fall asleep yet again.


permalink written by  roel krabbendam on May 24, 2007 from Reykjavik, Iceland
from the travel blog: Heaven
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Schiphol

Amsterdam, Netherlands

I remember or imagine feeling the plane taking off and later touching down, but in truth registered nothing until we emerged from the gate into the terminal at Schiphol. Tulip bulbs and Dutch accents and beautiful advertising graphics and endless moving sidewalks: just as I remembered it. Not like coming home, but certainly familiar. A thousand childhood memories swamp my addled head, and we head to baggage claim and the family here to pick us up.

The baggage handling is delayed, so we sit on our carry-ons and listen to mysterious languages from tanned girls in bikini tops and small children in yellow rubber boots and men in blue suits on cell phones, flights from all over the world landing simultaneously and sharing this same luggage belt.

For Mia at eleven years old, an indelible adventure…for Polly and I, a welcome break. We pass through what used to be customs, see family ahead, and know we have arrived. Outside finally, it rains.

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on May 24, 2007 from Amsterdam, Netherlands
from the travel blog: Heaven
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Denouement

Boston, United States

The snow lies high outside the House and it feels good to pile, all three of us, on the big bed reading books or tapping on the computer.

Polly, Mia and Lola
I’m cleaning my equipment, packing it in bins, and thinking about what comes next. Powerfully held, these memories of my trip, and I find myself daydreaming a lot: great people, isolation, realizing the importance of family and friends.
Polly’s optimism is infectious, laying waste to my caution about the future. Spring is inexorable.

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on March 25, 2007 from Boston, United States
from the travel blog: Harmattan
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...and what about that bicycle?

Somerville, United States

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

Lloyd Graves with my bicycle frame at Independant Fabrication
...India and Pakistan anyone?

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on March 25, 2007 from Somerville, United States
from the travel blog: Harmattan
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Africa

Cotonou, Benin

National Geographic magazine opened my eyes to Africa as a kid and that INFECTION has been a gentle nudge in the back of my mind ever since. It’s a common problem, there is no known cure and I’ve heard the more serious condition referred to as Mal d’Afrique.

When I was 19 years old and terribly unhappy at Cornell University and completely numb to the possibilities of life, the apparent IMPOSSIBILITY of a trip to Africa became a LIFE PRESERVER for me. I borrowed $300 from my parents (they expected me back in a month I think), borrowed 2 bicycles from an aunt and uncle in Holland (thanks again Nell!) and with my girlfriend Denise (Hi Denise!) started a year-long trip that finally landed me in Morrocco. My LIFE PRESERVER became a discreet REALITY, and the reality during the three months I bicycled around that wonderful country finally became an IMPETUS to return home and study architecture.

Africa slowly settled into a DREAM I held for 28 years, and this trip has reawakened me to a continent far more complex and engaging than anything I could have imagined from my earlier trip. Somewhere around Tamanrasset, after all this time, all these abstract Africas made way for a concrete reality and I finally began to think about this continent more simply as a real PLACE inhabited by real people.

When, then, did this PLACE begin to turn into an EXCUSE? Assamakka, probably, or Arlit or shortly thereafter. A French woman on living in Agadez: “Nothing functions, there is no work ethic, but c’est Afrique”! A Nigeran truck driver on his work schedule: “I travel all over: Burkina, Mali, Ghana, Togo, trips that last sometimes a week or more. We don’t sleep in hotels, we sleep in the truck or sometimes we don’t sleep at all. C’est Afrique”! A young guy with dreams of Europe: “I want to get married. I want to find a job. Here there is nothing for me: C’est Afrique”! The place has become the measure of their collective frustration, a way to rationalize thwarted intentions.

There is even a corollary to this construct, and this is particularly evident in Niger. There are signs everywhere there, announcing a wide spectrum of NGOs. For the myriad of foreigners working there, having accepted Africa as an excuse, the PLACE has become a PROJECT. Family planning, Hunger, AIDS, Water, Desertification, Literacy: all of these issues have foreign advocates and volunteers and money. There is even some local cynicism about these efforts, since cars and lodging and equipment up to first world standards always seem to precede and sometimes even supplant any real help.

This is not a critique of foreign aid, though anyone interested in such a critique might read World Hunger, Twelve Myths by Frances Moore Lappe et al. Rather, it is to express amazement at the multiplicity of meanings, and awe at the complexity and the richness here. It is to acknowledge that for me, too, for a very long time, Africa was never simply a place either.

Finally, it is somehow to honor the people and the culture I’ve had the privilege to meet, because Africa as an empty stage would have hosted none of these meanings. I received a much needed lesson in both joy and friendship from each one of them: Yusuf Baba, Hammami Salah, Mohamed el Amjed Ben Hedili Ben Mohamed Ben Romd’hane, Fouruzi (I still want that knife back), Abidi Khalifa, the incredible staff at Oasis in Gabes, the Karboub clan, Luca and Tiziana, Gianluca and Camillo the Italian bikers, Selmi Lamine, Boubridaa Abdelhamid, Begacem and (naughty) Mayssar Rebi, Fatma Boucaina (whose necklace I wore every day), Labchek Ahmed, Wolf Gaudlitz (Salaam Aleikum!), Ben Aoumeur Mohamed (Nina Simone will never sound better), Ben Aoumeur Nadir, Groune Alennas, the Kherfi family, Aliau Doiallu, Ben Aoumeur Abdelabrim, Hadj Toumi, Kader Hafaoui, Kasem Chermel, Faysel Abdelassiz, Faouzi, Omar and Boubacar, Beudjabbara Slimone, Ben Sebgag Lakhdar (my door stands open), Tayeb Benzouada, Benehamine Salah at Dromedaire, Dr. Ounini, Abjau Intalla, Yann del Barco, the kung-fu kids in Assamakka, Isatou Alka, Aboubacar Mahamadou, Abke Geels, Eefje Rammeloo, Nassirou Aboubacar, Kimba Alka Tisserano, Sonfeijmane Gorba (Geutto), Kaore Aboubacar, Douwda Noma, Salima Saka, Orou Adamou A. Roufay, Aboubakar Moussa, the folks at Gusunon Keru, Woru Noel Siraru, Nadine Frouin and finally in Cotonou, Salissoutour Kassimou Serhau-Sa and Noudomissi Aguemon Casimir.


permalink written by  roel krabbendam on March 9, 2007 from Cotonou, Benin
from the travel blog: Harmattan
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Water

Ganvie, Benin


Ganvie
I was a bleary mess when Casimo showed up at 9, just my luck to meet the one punctual guy in town. I treated him to breakfast, we agreed to 5000Cfa for the day plus gas, and we got on the road. We drove 15 Km north to Calavi, hired a pirogue, and spent 4 hours out on Lake Nokoue.


Ganvie

Ganvie
Ganvie was started in the 18th century by the Tofinu to escape from the Fon, who had taboos against venturing on water. It has grown to over 30,000 inhabitants, all dependant on three recent artesian wells.


Ganvie

Ganvie
There is no plumbing here, so residents fetch their own...sewage I will leave to your imagination. Most of the houses sit on stilts, the lake barely a meter deep here. In places there is solid land.


Ganvie

Laundry
Most of the residents are still involved with fishing, but tourism is obviously making inroads. The boat tours are sufficiently well-organized to feature three venues where local crafts are sold.


Ganvie
The residents are not all hardened to the tourist trade, and my camera was waved off more than once. Like Hollywood stars they would like to be famous, but without the invasion of their privacy. I understand their ambivelence.


Casimir
Casimo brought me by the house to meet his family on our way back into town. We caught his two sons at home, and his wife at the coiffure, before heading over to his brother's house nearby. There I was treated to a large glass of palm wine where a small taste would have done, and heard of Mathieu's difficulty financing a year's study abroad to finish his legal training. I left him my email address. The massive headache that ensued did nothing to keep me awake when I got back to CODIAM.

The following day I spent hours negotiating prices for presents at the artisan village, then got Casimo's help in finding a car to get me and my stuff to the airport, handed him all my extra food and money, and got on the midnight Air France flight for Paris. Dinner was exquisite, the wine not bad at all, and just like that I stepped out of the developing world. We flew my entire trip in 3 hours and I saw none of it in the dark. I was going home to my girls.

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on March 4, 2007 from Ganvie, Benin
from the travel blog: Harmattan
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Tour

Cotonou, Benin


Lagoon de Cotonou
Cotonou squats on the ocean at the mouth of the Lagune de Cotonou, under the voodoo forest of Benin. The sky is grey or Orange in March, the sun just a glimmering disk, the heat tolerable. The humidity will suck the life from you, however. This is the scene of Robert Wilson’s great detective stories and it is not difficult to view the city as darkly as he does.


Bridge over Lagoon de Cotonou
The whites are barricaded in Cadjehoun in the shadow of the Maggi water tower amid the embassies and the Chinese and Moroccan restaurants and supermarches. The airport is right there should withdrawal ever be required. Their relationship to the blacks is good enough, but there is no question who has the money and who wants it.


Port du pecheur
The city operates by moto-taxi. It is too humid for bicycles and too big to walk. A moto is cheap and maneuverable in traffic and comfortable enough, the breeze sufficient to ward off the sweat. The cloud of oily blue smoke spewed at every traffic light is unfortunately what you breathe however. An enterprising moto-taxi driver will station himself at a travel agency or the Chinois or the bank, and if he can find a tourist who doesn’t yet know the prices and here for more than just a day, he can latch on for the ride. This is how I met Casimo, outside the Air France office.


Beach
Casimo is in his early thirties, a little heavy, a little aggressive. He wanted 1000Cfa for a 250Cfa ride and I had to walk away before he relented. He handled traffic with the same relentless attitude, and I decided to like him, but the issue was out of my hands in any case. A day after he gave me a ride I found him stationed outside CODIAM where I was staying, and it was clear I had been adopted.


Beach
Casimo overcharged me the second day, taking advantage of the fact that I didn’t know where to go to find a bike box. We made a number of stops in our search, finding the box at a big appliance store and hauling it back to CODIAM with it tucked under my arm. Viewed from the side we looked like a box and two heads magically gliding down the street with no visible means of propulsion.

When I figured out I was being overcharged (he thought I wouldn’t?), I told Casimo he could keep the money if he gave me a tour of the entire city. We stopped at the Port de Peche so that I could get caught taking prohibited photos, then out to the point at Plakodji Plage when they kicked us out.


Mending nets
The poop at the Plage was daunting, the living conditions eye-opening. Up along the lagoon through the markets, then down the Avenue to the Etoile, around the airport to the beach at Fidjrosse, we finally ended up back at CODIAM in Cadjehoun after dark. There were candles and lanterns everywhere, the quartier without power. Casimo suggested we go up to Ganvie in the morning, and we agreed to meet at 9am.


Etoile Rouge
The pumps weren’t running, a shower out of the question, and without the overhead fan it was a very uncomfortable night indeed. I was still awake at 230am when power was finally restored to make it all better.

Conference Center

permalink written by  roel krabbendam on March 3, 2007 from Cotonou, Benin
from the travel blog: Harmattan
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Bonsoir, Pussycat

Cotonou, Benin

I expected to arrive at L’Etoile Rouge not far from the airport, assemble my bicycle, and head for the Sheraton: on the map, easy to find, internet access, air conditioning, outrageously expensive. Instead, I met Salissoutour Kassinou.

Kassinou decided I should NOT pay the outrageous prices at the Sheraton, he knew exactly where I should stay and he would show me a Cyber café. I was in no state to deal with the tour of Cotonou I received in his hands, he speeding along on his motorcycle while I did my best to keep up, but he was gracious and eager and true to his word. He even convinced the guardian of this conference center I am staying in to do my laundry. I’m stuck here without clothes until the guardian gets back.

This trip has not evolved as planned: No bandits, no thieves (OK...Fouruzi took my jackknife in Tunisia…$38, plus tax), no tough guys (except for those truckers in the desert and those religious extremists who smashed my headlights in Beni Isguem…no harm and $28), no lions, no tigers, no bears (and no giraffes or elephants either, or snakes or scorpions for that matter). No major tourist attractions. Only the friendliest, most helpful, most supportive, most enthusiastic, most INSPIRING people I have ever met. Not since that little kid yelled "Bonsoir, Pussycat" to me as I chugged into Tozeur have I gotten such an incredible lift from the people I passed. I have seen large and joyous groups of people in these Peule villages actually stand up and cheer a 48 year old white guy with a stupid hat and too much gear, with papayas and peanuts and dates hanging off the back, waving and grinning and yelling “Bonjour” at them. This was a profound lesson for me on the meaning of unmitigated, unselfconscious joy.

Of course, they may have been laughing AT me…


permalink written by  roel krabbendam on February 28, 2007 from Cotonou, Benin
from the travel blog: Harmattan
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