Africa Travel Guide
Ten Tips For African Travel
Africa is a huge part of the modern world. It is also one of the most exciting outfield destinations for the contemporary traveler left on the planet. There is an aura in Africa that it is travel on the front line, and in many ways it is. However the reputation the continent suffers for gratuitous violence, corruption and unrest is largely exaggerated, and with a few simple precautions travel in Africa is as reliable, reasonable and enjoyable as anywhere else in the world.
General Safety
Africa has a shocking reputation for violence and civil unrest, and there are certain places where the life expectancy for a westerner on the streets is measured in hours, if not minutes. However in general, for example in Sierra Leone, a nation with arguably the worst legacy of violence in the world, is also one of the friendliest tourist destinations in Africa.
A fact worth remembering is that African political violence usually has an internecine flavor that rarely includes random or misdirected acts of violence against outsiders. You can get caught in the crossfire, so make a point of avoiding war zones, but don’t assume that because a country has experienced violence in the past that violence is endemic in the national psyche. In fact Africans continent wide have a reputation for openness and friendliness that is unparalleled anywhere in the world.
Date: August 25th, 2008 |
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Surfing Liberia
One of the most interesting and encouraging bits of news to come out of the growing African travel scene is the emergence of Liberia as a potential surf destination.
What is surprising about this is not so much that the wave potential along the 2500km West African coast is so good, but that a nation battling with such elemental processes of recovery and survival should have looked up from its labours long enough to notice the fact.
Liberia is like an abused child. It has been sodomized for so long by so many that the national psychosis seems too deeply entrenched to ever heal. Since the day that Charles Taylor reinvented himself as a Liberian techno-warlord, wave after wave of trauma have swept over the little West African nation, until it began to seem unimaginable that one race of people could absorb so much horror. The imagery that flooded out of Monrovia during the battles for control of that city was mind numbing in its barbarity. The heavily armed, drug dazed and pre-pubescent terrorists, with the power of life and death in their hands; the infamous snuff movie of Samuel Doe’s final hours; warlords here and warlords there; and the wide eyed and terrorised civilians, circling like fish in a net, cut down and killed whether they turned to the left or the right.
Date: June 24th, 2008 |
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2008/9 Boots N’all New Years Eve Kilimanjaro Summit
This year I will personally be leading a Boots N’all special New Years Eve Summit of Mount Kilimanjaro for which twelve places are available. If you have always wanted to stand on top of the world and watch the sun rise on the New Year then join me and I can personally guarantee this will be a year that you will never forget.
Boots N’all New Year ‘09
In 2009 Boots N’all will be ten years old, and the first recorded summit of Kilimanjaro will be 120 years …
Date: August 17th, 2008 |
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Nigerian 419 Scams
There are probably few people out there who have not at some point received a beguiling email correspondence from a dulcet West African claiming Christian values and a gargantuan stash of money somewhere that he or she is desperate to share. If so, and if you are foolish enough to follow it up, it is likely that in due course you will discover at the other end a Nigerian ‘businessman’.
419 Fraud
Nigerian internet fraud, or 419 Fraud after the relevant Nigerian legal statute, is nowadays an international business. It principally takes the form of what is known as Advanced Fee Fraud, but these days it can be anything from massive social security fraud in the UK to sympathy and confidence panhandling on the streets of just about any major city in the world. The issue of Nigerian internet and general fraud has been the subject of countless investigations and ‘stings’ over the years, and the media is replete with exposés, hard luck stories and warnings.
The favorite trick is to flood the information superhighway with spam mail formularized basically along the lines of a bureaucrat representing the forgotten wealth of some African demagogue. This demagogue, some real some fictional, died recently leaving a trunk full of cash in a safety deposit facility somewhere. In order for our new friend to discretely move the money he needs a trustworthy foreign partner who, in exchange for a multi-million dollar share, needs only to hand over his or her banking details.
Date: July 15th, 2008 |
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Volunteering In Tanzania
Donovan Pacholl and his fiancé Carrie O’Callaghan moved to Tanzania in the spring of March 2002. He and Carrie wanted to really experience Africa, while also find a volunteer organization that helped work with local communities. Prior to his departure, Donovan met American-based International Mountain Explorers Connection (IMEC), a non-profit dedicated to helping mountain communities in developing countries. Since they were living on Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, this seemed like a perfect a fit.
1) Tell us briefly about your volunteer experience in Tanzania. What do you do?
Initially when I arrived in Tanzania, I was doing some research …
Date: June 2nd, 2004 |
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