Archives: Guide

I was standing beside the highway about 5 miles outside of Napier, New Zealand. I was headed north towards Rotorua and eventually Auckland and on the power of my thumb I’d made it out to the highway proper.

It took 10 days to reach Lake Zorkul. Our small group had experienced and endured day-long drives in over-full, increasingly decrepid four-wheel-drive vehicles on decreasingly bearable roads.

Conversation stops midstream. I’m the only fair-haired Gringo on the bus. “Buenos dias”

“You must see the ruins of Olympos at dawn; it is better then. Everything is under mist and there are no people there. Very atmospheric.”

‘Bright light city gonna set my soul, Gonna set my soul on fire,’ is how Elvis Presley epitomised the spirit of Sin City and as we stood in the apparently never ending queue at passport control, we felt a tingle of excitement at the prospect of our short stay in Las Vegas.

Skyhawk II, a four seater plane, was waiting for us in the town of 1770/Agnes Water in East Coast Australia. Bruce, the pilot, asked us to draw straws to choose who was going to get the front seat.

The cattle holding area reeked of fear. Lying or standing in their own excrement, the fly infested, bony creatures were fastened to dilapidated wooden fence posts by dirty ropes tied around their necks.

Have you ever begged in a developing country? I have.

The photograph of Jamil’s nephew was taken not long before he was murdered. It occupies a prominent position in this airy apartment in east Beirut.

I held on to Roj’s pistol belt as he pulled me through the darkness towards a tree under whose boscage we could safely smoke without being seen by the drones.