Madagascar south of Maroantsetra – 2003

Recently, we were asked about the worst roads we had ever been on. Hmmm, there’s a post in that question, I suddenly thought to myself. Thomas and I sat down to reflect on the thousands of roads we had traveled – the breakdowns, the potholes, the drop-offs, the landslides, the dust, the terrifying drivers – and came up with a list of some of the most challenging stretches we had experienced. As with all such questions, the year we traveled these roads is also relevant because things change. Here’s a list of our roughest roads Continue…

What’s the best thing we have have ever done in our travels? It’s a question we are asked all the time. Most people would probably guess that such an absurdly broad question would be almost impossible to answer. In reality, it’s quite easy. The most amazing thing we have ever done is visit the mountain gorillas in the Virunga mountains of what was then called Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo). It’s the best thing we have ever done and will surely remain the best thing we have ever done. At least in my eyes. As we head to Borneo in the hope of spotting orangutans in the wild, we can’t help but flash back to another millennium and reflect for a moment on a very different age in travel.

The year was 1994, Thomas and I were in Uganda halfway through an 18-month overland trip from Germany to South Africa and the genocidal atrocities sweeping across Rwanda were just coming to an end. Bodies were washing up along the shores of Lake Victoria and waves of refugees were streaming over the border into neighboring Zaire, one of the most dysfunctional countries in the world at the time. Bizarrely, that moment, as insanely dangerous as it was Continue…