Traveling gives you a home in thousand strange places, then leaves you a stranger in your own land. It leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.
Ibn Battuta (1304-1377)
Welcome
I write travel stories, mostly from the late 80s and 90s when I roamed the world in the company of my dog Afrika. Together we visited thirty-five countries on three continents, returning to some several times over because of friends, bureaucratic requirements, or the desire to explore further.
Some of our adventures were extreme, others more mundane, but none were hurried, always taking our time to meet local people and learn something new.
By the time she died in India on Christmas day 1999, Afrika had flown more than 500 hours on all kinds of planes, helicopters, and paragliders; had mounted mules, horses, single and double-humped camels, yaks, and elephants; had sailed on every shape and size of ship imaginable; and had been aboard countless trains, buses, trucks, cars, wagons, motorbikes and bicycles. Together, we covered at least one and a half times the circumference of the earth.
Here you find more information about us, a selection of short travel stories, plus an outline of my upcoming book series, A Love Affair with the Unknown, covering a fabulously adventurous eighteen-month-long journey through India, Nepal, Tibet, the Silk Roads, Pakistan, and back to India.
If you are interested in my work, please subscribe to my newsletter. It will contain new short stories, and updates about the publishing of my series.
Thank you,
Our Travel History
Our best journeys were long, overland adventures. The first one started in 1988 with an attempted crossing of the African continent, where independent tourism was in its infancy. It was before the internet or mobile phones, when international communications took the form of letters sent from – or received in – the main post offices of the capital cities, which were also the only places where it was possible to make an international call. I had no guidebook, and moved around following a Michelin road map. Solo female travelers were an absolute rarity, and travelling pets unheard of. Wherever we went, we were sure to turn a few heads.
COUNTRIES
CONTINENTS
KILOMETERS
Our first overland adventure started as a few weeks’ holiday, and evolved into a twenty-six-month attempt to cross the African continent hoping to become the first solo woman (and dog) to do so. Unfortunately, wars in the Sahara region and a cholera epidemic along the Congo River prevented us from crossing the desert or reaching West Africa, and we ended up going on a large loop covering twelve countries – one of them, Mozambique, engulfed in a bitter war. To assuage my sense of failure for not being able to cross the continent overland, we also flew to Egypt from Kenya, where we returned in order to reach South Africa by beach-hopping along the East Africa coast.
The second journey lasted a year, during which we visited Thailand, Cambodia and India, where we spent six months travelling along the east and west coasts.
The third was only six months long, driving my campervan from South Africa through Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and back to South Africa.
The fourth is the one I describe in my upcoming book series A Love Affair with the Unknown: from India to Nepal, across Tibet, right around the Taklamakan Desert, over the Karakorum mountains into Pakistan, and back to India. The whole journey lasted two years.
In the years that came afterwards we spent most of our time in India, travelling to Europe regularly for work, visas, to see my family, and to explore the continent. After Afrika died, I added twenty-two more countries to the list.
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A man needs a little madness,
or else he never dares to cut the rope and be free.
Nikos Kazantzakis (1883 – 1957)
My Latest Short Story
Dignity in the Face of Adversity
How a beggar taught me an invaluable lesson
Bhubaneswar, 1991
It was evening time, and I was tired from walking through the main shopping district in search of someone who could fix my Walkman. To make matters worse, I was carrying a heavy load: my small dog Afrika safely tucked away in the bag. Six kilos, not a feather.
Shops were overcrowded, sidewalks nonexistent, and the traffic was disorderly and intense, with bullock carts, bicycles, scooters, cars, and trucks all mangled together honking their own hand-powered horn. Walking meant overcoming obstacles which became noticeable only at the last minute, from the street vendor sitting next to his wares on the ground, to the hill of sand used to repair a nearby building, the gaping hole left open by the gutter cleaners, a cow squeezing in between the crowds, a large blob of her dung, a mound of garbage, a shop tout stepping in front of my path to grab my attention, or a beggar trying to hold me back while muttering the usual litany.
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