The Bush Pilot

2005-12-23T10:11:00.000Z

Africa…round two

Returned to East Africa, after yet another exasperating (and fruitless) job search back in Canada. Flirted with Belize, but in the end opted for the path more familiar. This time I arrived in Africa on a one way ticket as I haven’t a choice but for it to stick.
This round began from Nairobi as my entry point as opposed to Dar es Salaam, being only a three hour drive to my friends place in Arusha, shaving off about 6 hours compared to the Dar run. In theory. Crossing the Kenya/Tanzania border in a shuttle bus was a lively experience, and tested my nerves and adaptability. But back to that later.

Jomo Kenyatta International in Nairobi is a popular airfield for the foreign pilots. A friend was chatting up a British Airways flight crew the other day and they recounted their approach and landing with child-like alacrity. They were thrilled when warned by the tower to exercise caution due to animals in the vicinity of the runway. There was a cheetah on a early morning stroll, trotting alongside the runway. Apparently unfazed by the landing Boeing

After climbing aboard the shuttle bus to arusha it was about 90 minutes to the border, but here in East Africa you need to clear exit, as well as entry customs as well. This would appear to be an uneventful and minor inconvenience – until of course the bus leaves without you. Not to worry I told myself, I had a compass and there were a couple other passengers left for dead – strength in numbers. I can also run real real fast. That worked out just fine, as I found our bus across the border and tied up in traffic.

Arusha

I arrived at the new house in Njiro to a big expat/bbq/shindig. All of my friends in one place. And what a place it was. The property was sequestered from the immediate neighborhood by a towering wall of flowered vines, and was populated by a dizzying array of flora and fauna, for such an intimate plot. Banana and papaya trees, four amorous turtles, and three half-grown (and hopelessly incorrigible) puppies – Tibi, Scooby, and Gizmo. Within the first week back, I suffered my only disaster when the puppies sat down one night for a snack and devoured my flip flops. As disasters in Africa go, one I can live with.

Soon after I arrived, I got the chance to do some flying in a Cessna 404, first with my Aussie mate Moses, then with mon ami Percival. From Kilimanjaro to Lake Manyara and all points in the Serengeti, I enjoyed the birds-eye view of many of the physical splendors that Tanzania has to offer. It was late summer (winter here, south of the equator) and it was the dry season. The tones and colours reminded me much of the South Western United States. Never have I imagined there were so many shades of beige. The 404 will fly comfortably at around 200 kmh, and at 50 feet off the deck along the Masai steppe and immediately south of Kilimanjaro and Mt. Meru, make for a veritable feast for the senses. Hugging the Earth, swerving and banking to evade the ubiquitous dust devils, whose vortex can generate enough energy to propel its twisting dance up to a couple of miles, is certainly an experience I will not soon forget.

Just a day or two later, I encountered a passage from Karen Blixen’s ‘Out of Africa’ that eerily mirrored my own experience:

“You have tremendous views as you get up above the African highlands, surprising combinations and changes of light and colouring… The language is short of words for the experience of flying, and will have to invent new words with time. When you have flown over the Rift Valley and the Volcanoes of Suswa and Longenot, you have traveled far and have been to the lands on the other side of the moon.”

Hyena's and hundred dollar shampoo...

My first gig here in Africa was an unexpected one, fell on my lap. It couldn’t have come, however, at a more inopportune time. I received a call from ‘Mike the Greek’ – owner of Air Excel – while holed up in my hotel room in Dar es Salaam, studying furiously for the commercial pilot conversion exam at the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority. Well, Mike the Greek was in the midst of a hard target search for any available pilot for his old buddy Charlie, a Yank but third generation Congolese who was flying for the Dubai Royal Family. Though I only had about five days left before my scheduled exam, and it was to be a three to four day affair, I leapt at the chance. One minute I’m buried in study, sweating in the midday Dar heat, whirling fan and Moslem call to prayer, the next it seems, I’m standing on the tarmac at dawn hopping aboard the ‘Twin Otter’ for a flight to a hunting camp in the western region of the Serengeti – Kishwa.

Kishwa was beautiful. Green, rocky, rolling hills. Patches of thick canopy. Leopard country. It the ‘family’s’ personal hunting camp, and was erected from scratch, the three or four times per year that they come on holiday. Built with typical urban infrastructure: sewage and transportation – roads and runways – managed with help from the heavy machinery flown in from Dubai prior to the guests’ arrival.

Now, it may well have been a temporary tent camp, but there were washrooms and hot showers, and it was the first (and most likely last) chance I’ve had to wash my hair with one hundred dollar shampoo, flown in from Harrods’s of London. In the middle of the Serengeti no less. They even had satellites propped up in every corner for all manner of communication, some referred to as ‘repeaters’ that enabled them to use their cell phones to make local Dubai calls.

Our job was to essentially be on call in the event there was a re-supply flight, Medivac, or late night pâté run. Nothing came up during my three days and so I was anxious to earn my keep; I would have washed dishes, dug trenches, whatever. As a pilot, I was deemed a ‘professional’ and was therefore not to lift a finger and was to be taken care of. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I was nothing more than a two-bit thug. So I ate my ‘three hots’ a day in silence and marveled at the exquisite middle-eastern cuisine they were able to fire out of that nondescript tent.

My days were great. Between meals, I would park my chair just outside of the camps perimeter, face the immediate hills of the park and flip through my aeronautical texts. At the times, after a still and prolonged silence, a Thompson’s Gazelle (common in them thar parts) would stray nearby my little outpost. The size of a small dog, they are as lithe and graceful as their larger cousins, just in miniature. They didn’t appear to be as wary of the loud and stinky intruders as I would have guessed.

Nights were something else. 3am the first night I casually stroll out to the white bathroom cubicle sitting behind my tent, tend to my night waters, as per usual, and stroll back. Never does it cross my mind that there, beyond the high grass and firm wall of black, could there be wildlife. In my advancing years, a little restless sleep has all I’ve had to deal with as a consequence for my nocturnal slash. ‘Prey for nocturnal predators’, alongside ‘sleepy at the office’, are not always logically paired. The realization didn’t hit until after I zipped up the flap on my tent and climbed back into my bed. First it was a cacophony of yelps and the patter of dozens of paws trotting around and past my tent. Hyena’s, and loads of them. Cool, but wasn’t I just walking outside, alone and defenseless? A quick and ignoble end – all for a three o’clock squirt. So, if there were Hyena’s, wouldn’t there also be Lion’s? Oh yeah, there were Lions… The series of deep and throaty roars sent my heart a thumpin’, and was made all the more anxious by its seemingly directionless nature, coming from parts unknown in the thick black. But unmistakably immediate.

Those Arabs are an amusing lot, warm and hospitable, as one would imagine, but with a dark and ruthless sense of humour. I, of course, was immensely fond of them. At night around the fire after supper they enjoyed recounting their favourite practical joke they play on the uninitiated. After a day of hunting, a zebra carcass is chained to the back of their tent just before they turn in for the night. It doesn’t take long for the Lions to descend on the bait, thrashing the carcass about, so violently as to bring the tent to the point of collapse. A terrifying ruckus. One poor fellow was found in such a state of shock that a flight out of Kishwa the morning and back to Dubai was warranted. They loved it.

After my brief tour of duty was up, I flew back to Dar and stood my exams. With that regulatory unpleasantness out of the way, my Aussie mate, Skidmark (so nicknamed by the shocking volume of methane he is able to produce, unable to control) and I jumped the catamaran to Zanzibar for a fresh round of job hunting. While there, Congolese Charlie called me again and wanted to know if I was free to help him ferry the aircraft back to Dubai. As luck would have it, I was.

From the Serengeti plains, to the Straight of Hormuz...and back

One of the great adventures of my life, the low-altitude journey began at Kilimanjaro International Airport and took us through Kenya, Ethiopia, an overnight in Djibouti, a crossing of the Gulf of Aden, flight up the length of the Yemeni coast, over the vast expanse of the Omani Desert and then finally into Dubai. Please feel free to follow along at home.

I had to do a double take when the words: “…Mogadishu control…” flew out of my mouth. It dawned on me at that point that I was a long way from 1584 Vernon St.

It isn’t all rollicking adventure and romantic imagery though. The Kenya airways flight back to Nairobi delayed and I missed my connecting flight to Kili. It was at that time that my antibiotics ran out and the fever set in. The next seven hours were spent underneath a discarded newspaper, lying on the concrete floor in some random hallway of Jomo Kenyatta, shaking and burning, with a horribly active and uncooperative intestinal ‘situation’. Not sure what its cause was, perhaps the steak tartar in Djibouti – not one of my better decisions.

Things to do in Arusha when you’re bored…

The first thing one sees upon arrival by air to Arusha, is the caption printed on the face of the control tower welcoming you to the: “…Geneva of Africa…” so named for the ongoing Rwandan war crimes tribunal taking place in town.

What I found so interesting was the fact that the current proceedings are open to the public. On the U.N. website (

http://196.45.185.38/ ) you can find the schedules and the full affidavit for each trial.

Before I moved from Arusha, I managed to observe four sessions of the same trial. The defendant and circumstances I found particularly intriguing. Her name was Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, and what made her case unique was that it was a trial of two firsts: the first time rape had been classified as a crime against humanity, and it was the first time a woman was on trial for acts of genocide. Her case was one of unspeakable horrors.

On April 25th, of 1994, the affidavit contends, with the Hutu’s ethnic cleansing of the Tutsi’s well under way, Miss Nyiramasuhuko acting as the National Minister of Family and Women’s Affairs, ironically, disseminated information around the city of Butare that the Red Cross had set up a safe zone in the local football stadium, to provide food and guaranteed safety. Once assembled within the stadium, she calmly ordered in the local Interahamwe (those who attack together) to butcher the lot of them. However, she made particular care that all of the women were first raped. Consistent with the modus operandi of other Hutu leaders, one solitary survivor was released, albeit horribly disfigured, to serve as a ‘witness to god’. It was this very woman who now testifies against the former minister. In fact, dozens of these similar survivors now live under witness protection in Arusha and continue to be involved in the tribunal, sitting at the core of prosecutions efforts.

After the genocide had run its course and just under a million people had been slaughtered, Miss Nyiramasuhuko slipped quietly into Kenya and lived as a fugitive for three years before being apprehended at a grocery store in Nairobi in 1997.

2005-06-01T12:32:00.000Z

Hola...from the Sudan

It’s been quite some time since last I sent word of my comings and goings – much to report…

Shortly after my return from Dubai I was off to Mwanza, Tanzania’s second largest city, to fly for a small charter company on the Piper Seneca, a light twin I had been flying as an instructor in Florida. Though only a short stop, it was a productive one. Flying off of Lake Victoria was a treat, striking surroundings, granite rocks and boulders pepper the landscape. Mwanza itself is filthy and unremarkable, but its streets are lined with mango trees, laden with fruit – 10 cents a pop. The lake also was teeming with Tilapia and Nile Perch. Sustenance I was content with.

I was flying for Tanzania Interlink about six weeks. In early December the French management had finished pilfering what was left of the operation, and the big Kenyan parent company swept in and shut the doors. Oh well. I did get the chance to recover my multi-engine stick skills, and flew to some remote areas of western Tanzania, such as Ngara, close to the Rwanda/Burundi border and home to one of the largest refugee camps in the world. At one point there were over a million living within its walls, having fled unrest at home.

With Interlink history, I was unsure as to what I was going to do. When in doubt, head to the big city – Dar es Salaam. But first I had to get there. Traveling from Lake Victoria to the midpoint hub of Arusha/Kilimanjaro can be a bit tricky when in a rush and on a shoestring. Lady luck finally gave me the time of day and I was able to patch together the two principle legs.

A Belgian buddy of mine from Bahrain, had room on his Cessna 206 to Arusha. Just before we shut the door, he warned me that it was going to be an ‘interesting’ flight. From West to East we crossed the entire Serengeti at 50 ft off the deck, buzzing Elephant, Giraffe, before climbing up over the volcanoes and the Crater Highlands.

From Arusha, a mutual friend in Dar needed someone to ferry his Seneca back home. I waited about a week while ‘mechanics’ furiously scrambled to bring this aged and punch-drunk twin back to life. Finally with the green light, I tossed all my luggage into the back and strapped in. After a long and protracted battle with the right engine, she relented, and woke up. A quick wave to my Arusha mates and I rolled out onto the active runway to blast off for Dar.

Things were going swimmingly; climbing through 10,000 ft I had the chance to admire Mt. Kilimanjaro off to my left, completely unobscured. Then the left engine started to stutter and cough. With each of the larger ‘burps’ the aircraft would swerve towards the sick engine. Great. With the security of a big international runway (Kili) directly below me, and both engines still pulling, I decided to stick to the status quo and maintain heading and pitch, level off at cruise, retract the throttles and take a gander from there. Though terminally ill, when I powered down the engines at 11,500 ft, you could feel the sense of relief. By then, Kili was behind me, so I set my sights for Dar.

The Seneca I had been flying (5H-ARP) in Mwanza was exceptionally well-equipped and maintained – an anomaly here in Africa. The owner of ARP had pulled the aircraft out and sold it once he noticed the company was in its death spiral. The new owners - Coastal Travels of Dar es Salaam – dropped me a line and offered me my bird back.

The next three months saw me blanket the region. From Sumba Wanga to Singida, Mtwara to Mombassa. The bulk of my time was spent doing laps to Dodoma, ferrying
Minister’s enroute to the capitol, or picking up the slack for the scheduled flights to Zanzibar.

I did get the chance to do another ‘game flight’ across the Serengeti in ARP after I did an overnight charter to Mwanza. Luka, a friend and fellow pilot at Coastal, was headed from Mwanza back to Arusha so was on board with me for the flight. Fortuitous was our timing, to say the least, the Wildebeest migration had arrived on the Serengeti Plain only recently. Hard to describe. Like a long undulating seam of black. One of the more moving sights I have ever seen. In an aircraft, at 50 ft overhead, they split in two, something like a lava lamp. But don’t let anyone convince you that such disruptions affect their breeding habits – nothing, absolutely nothing, gets in the way of Wildebeest lovin’. The Serengeti is ruled by the hoof, not the paw.

…only in Africa

Sanchez, my big deviant Aussie mate, was flying for Air Excel (owned by Mike the Greek), and was chartered by some European production company that was in Africa filming a reality TV show. They picked up the group in Tanga, I believe, and were to deliver them in Seronera, a strip in the middle of the Serengeti. Along with the ‘contestants’ there were a few scrawny chickens and a couple of anxious goats. Stage props, I suppose. Before departure, Mike the Greek, as anxious as the goats, wouldn’t let them on board until a couple of makeshift nappies were fashioned out of those ubiquitous blue plastic bags (the bane of Africa). With their hindquarters tended to, everyone piled in.

Just prior to engine start, the producer approached Sanchez for a discreet chat. He had given him the green light to make the flight as miserable as possible. So, with a wink from the producer, and the camera’s rolling, they took off.

Suffice it to say, their journey was anarchic. Aerobatic essentially. I can only imagine the producers were well pleased with their footage – images of airborne and hysterical chicken; blood curdling screams from passengers gripped in terror; blue-nappied goats gliding through the air with each forward thrust of the control column.

After they landed in Seronera, it was obvious that despite their precautions, they made a muck of the aircraft: there was an inch of chicken feathers, human hair, and goat pellets (turds) across the cabin floor.

After scrambling out of the aircraft and collecting their bags, they blew a collective sigh of relief, finally rid of the diabolical Sanchez. Almost. Thinking they hadn’t taken enough abuse, and knowing the camera’s were still rolling, Sanchez lifted off the runway, banked to the right, then pitched down and put the group in his gun sights. He set the power to ‘bat out of hell’ and screamed past a scant few feet above. He said the look on their faces as they dove out of the way was priceless.

…life in Africa

Translated from the Arabic, ‘Dar es Salaam’ means ‘Haven of Peace’. Generally, it lives up to this description. However, from time to time, one is reminded that Tanzania sits outside of the developed world.

Luka, that lively and animated Italian mate of mine, picked up friends Pete (known as ‘Ocean Spray’, due to his propensity to spit when he talks) and Simon (‘Skidmark’, for his unfortunate flatulatory situation) for a Friday night beer. They crammed into Luka’s 1978 Fiat super mirafiori (looks like Lada, sounds like Fiat) and were headed out to the Msasani Peninsula when they eased to a stop at a red, just prior to leaving the city centre.

While waiting, a Tanzanian police car (a junkyard Hyundai) pulled in front of them, so the two cars were nose to nose at the intersection. Four cops pile out with their Kalashnikov’s and casually surround the car... Yes, it is possible to convince yourself that it is nothing to worry about. But believe you me, when unarmed and a long way from home, it ain’t the best feeling in the world… Leaning into the car, they started with some innocuous questions, cigarettes? chewing gum?... Luka feigned a search for a smoke, while quietly slipping the stick into first. Unbeknownst to Ocean Spray and Skidmark, Luka was going to pull a ‘Dukes of Hazard’…

Luka also knew two more relevant pieces of information where Ocean Spray and Skidmark were out of the loop. First, the coppers in Tanzania only had enough money for one round in each gun – no matter how big those cartridges were. Second, Hyundai’s of that vintage loaded down with four fat cops with fat guns can’t keep up with the 1978 super mirafiori. He guessed.

So Luka hammered the pedal, and with their unwitting heads thrown back, the boys were off.

Ocean Spray and Skidmark instinctively crouched forward into the crash position, anticipating a wave of bullets sprayed all over the backend of the car – just like in Miami Vice. But unlike Miami Vice, the bullets never came. In fact, it took Crockett and Tubbs, so long to get in their Hyundai, rope-tie the doors shut, turn the car around, and get on with the chase that it was over before it started. I’m sure that Luka was mildly disappointed; the boys however, were in shock.

Only in Africa can you begin a night out on the piss, with a story like that.

…flying in Africa

The highest volume air route in Tanzania is the 15 minute flight from Dar to the island Zanzibar. You can find a dozen aircraft at any given time during the daylight hours, shooting past each other at 1000 ft above or below. There are a number of different operators shuttling passengers to and fro, the dodgiest, above all, is Tropical Air of Stone Town. A Swiss friend, Gabriel, was flying their Cessna 172 Skyhawk between Zanzibar and the mainland, as well as between Zanzibar and the nearby islands of Pemba and Mafia.

About six months ago, he was enroute to Dar on a typical flight when he started to experience engine problems. After a minute or so of gentle wheezing, all was quiet. Gabriel promptly informed his operation and the Dar es Salaam approach control that he was puttin’ into the drink – and, like, help, ‘n stuff… Well, it’s Tanzania, so no help was forthcoming, and his company wasn’t about to spring into action. One of the other pilots, Nicos (another wild Greek expat), offered to jump into Tropical’s other Cessna and go search for any survivors. The management grumbled a curt ‘no’, and then concluded that the treacherous waters of the Zanzibari straight were too perilous to survive, and opted to inform the families and emergency contacts that Gabriel and his three passengers had perished. They were in fact, very much alive.

Even after the families had been informed, and insurance companies notified, Nicos kept up the pressure. They finally relented, but insisted that he wait to search until the next day when there was a ‘revenue flight’.

Gabriel was able to keep the group together in a tight circle as they floated in the Indian Ocean for 21 hours. Late in the morning, the following day, a fisherman sailing past in his dhow, happened upon the exhausted four. Worn out, with eyes burned red from the seawater, they were hauled aboard. A little worse for the wear, but thankfully in one piece. The barracuda and hammerhead sharks that populate the immediate waters, having chosen to let them alone.

After a brief investigation it was discovered that Tropical had been repairing that aircraft with parts stripped from an old abandoned VW in the parking lot.

On a related note, about a month later there was another significant accident. A big Antonov plunged into Lake Victoria a moment after takeoff from Entebbe international in Uganda. Apparently too fat to fly. I had met some of these Russian pilots in Mwanza and had heard how they structure their ‘performance bonuses’. Each crew member receives $1US for every pound over the aircrafts maximum gross weight. The eight Russian crew members on board turned that Antonov into a submarine, and hit the bottom of the lake with their pockets full of cash. We’re all in Africa for different reasons.

…so last Sunday I woke up in Southern Sudan.

After a week of delays (ad a string of wonderful meals) forced me to hang tight in Nairobi, I was able to get on a flight to Rumbek – the United Nations base in Southern Sudan. From there I was scooped up by my new company and flown to our tent camp in Akot, ten minutes away. Since then I have been flying a Czech made LET 410 for the Norwegian Peoples Aid (NPA), running humanitarian relief into the famine/drought stricken areas of the Sudan. It has made quite an impression on me.

From my room to the mess, I’ve had to walk around a huge bomb crater, about 8 ft deep, and 15 ft across. Throughout each day, a Dinka drum beats loudly. From where and for what reason, no one seems to know for sure.

It is the combination of these two elements that produce an emotion that is greater, and wholly different, than the sum of their two parts.

…Africa and the United Nations

Koffi Annan pulled into Rumbek about 3 or 4 days ago. During my stay here in Africa, I have had the chance to get a more intimate view of the governments and regimes that pin this continent firmly to the bottom. Almost without fail, minus the Mandela presidency, each and every one of them can be defined by three characteristics:

1) Horrific governance, 2) rampant corruption, and most importantly, 3) preservation of power

It is these three characteristics that have come to define the Secretary General’s tenure. I wouldn’t expect Mr. Annan to truly understand the concept of sound government – why should he? But why do we insist on selecting as the world’s de facto leader (outside of the White House) an individual that does not come from a country that ‘gets it’?

It is the incessant bitching and moaning about George W, that frustrates me to no end. If what the world desperately needs is a counter-balance to American hegemony, is Africa the talent pool we should be drawing from to accomplish that objective? Maybe one day, yes… As it stands now we seem more concerned with padding our PC credentials as opposed to the more important task of guiding the world.

Non-U.N. expats, like me, usually groan at the mention of Koffi Annan. I mention this because he showed up the other day in the Sudan, the country where the United Nations has yet again stood idly by, only to watch about a third of million innocent people get butchered.

2004-05-10T13:40:00.000Z

Honkey on the Trail

Jambo folks...

Resting in bed after a long night in pitched battle with yet another of the local parasites. This being round three since my arrival, I've begun to feel the added strength found in this new crop of chest hairs earned during the last two bouts - soon I'll be able to drink the water.

Travels in Cuisine

Day before yesterday tagged along with the group as it was Ethiopean on the menu, to mark the return of Percy and Makhali from Paris. It was to be my first experience with Ethiopean so I was looking forward to it all day, even in the late morning when I awoke with the now familiar abdominal cramps - precursor to the liquid ride ahead. No matter, I thoroughly enjoyed the meal despite the knowledge that come morning, it was to be sprayed wastefully into a less appreciative toilet...Anyhoo, I'll take injira bread over cutlery anyday.

The Spice Islands

On the job front, the trail had gone cold. I knew that if I decided to board the next ship back to the new world, I couldn't leave without first trodding aimlessly around Zanzibar.

After four days of wandering Stone town, I jumped the Dala Dala to Nungwe, a village on the very northern tip of the island. Not that I needed, nor did I deserve, a beach holiday, but the coastline on the northern and eastern shores of Zanzibar are reputed to be quite striking. They were indeed. I've been fortunate to have had the chance to experience some stunning coastlines, such as in Florida and the Florida Keys, the Cote D'Azur and the Costa del Sol, and not least of which Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. But the colour of the water, which rings the island, is a brilliant turquoise, so brilliant as to appear radioactive. I had up to this point been traveling with Christine, a little Viking girl who had been on a tour of Africa in search of the best scuba-diving spots. She didn't have too much trouble convincing me to take the plunge. (Needless to say, Scandinavian women rarely encounter much resistance)

It could very well have been the most enjoyable experience of my life, and one would suppose, marked the onset of a new addiction for me. Trop cher I am well aware, but as long as it's not *&%*$! golf - my early impression of diving, is that it appears an endeavor/pastime that enriches ones life, as opposed to enveloping it.

Lunatic Rant

Though I am getting old and have lost a measure of my animation, it's still possible to evoke rage from my increasingly benign demeanor. Of course it's easier for those having narrow perceptions of things, music for example. Hip Hop being the oft-maligned and most convenient target. I readily concede some is predictable, but a blanket condemnation is superficial. In our generation we've been privileged to witness the birth of a new musical genre, born from intense beats and rhythm's, but also from desperate poverty - a common denominator in a great deal of relevant art, from Irish literature to Jamaican reggae.

Now I bring this up because I was at one point, riding in the Dala Dala south along the west coast back to Stone town, and was by chance, listening to a New York City rapper, Nas. (Whose father is a relatively well-known Jazz musician) Lyrically, he's awfully strong, but in this particular song, spoke of having the 'blood of a slave, and the heart of a king'. This framed in the context of Zanzibar, where in the early 19th century, upwards of 50,000 slaves were 'exported' annually, helps one to better understand the roots from which the music grows. Despite the birth of the information superhighway, the minds of many continue to narrow, and I find music is the easiest way to smoke them out.

Final Mindless Thoughts

Well, Zanzibar can easily be described as 'sensual', and has a noticeably different rhythm than the mainland. During the mid 1800s the Zanzibar archipelago had the largest crop of cloves in the world. Today the islands produce big hauls of a number of spices, from cinnamon and nutmeg, turmeric and ginger, to lemongrass and vanilla. Though in its infant stages, my passion for cooking sits front and center in my life, so touring the spice plantations within the interior of the island was a memorable treat for me.

Like many people, my memories are best recounted when interwoven with more than one sense, or perhaps experienced in concert with something else stimulating. Memories of the beachouse in Vero are reawoken at the mention of Keroac, as I read 'On The Road' with my feet buried in the sand a few feet in front of my doorstep.

On the same vein (pretentious turd that I am) as pairing the right wine to ones meal, music and books are a necessity for me when traveling. Travel condiments. My Morcheeba (British band) had been tucked away dormant, until my arrival in Zanzibar. For Whatever reason, Morcheeba's vibe seems to be on a similar frequency as Zan.

Just bought the Karen Blixen (Isak Denison) novel 'Out of Africa'. I have always wanted to read it, but can't imagine a more appropriate time to break the crease than my forthcoming (hopefully) bus ride up to Nairobi.

Ciao