It’s 10:14am on a Thursday here in Accra and I am poolside with a beer and and a fellow business traveler. She, like me, is here for work and we’re both soaking up the sun and the suds as we whack away at our respective keyboards and key ideas.
Read MoreWhat can I say? I love Africa.
Sub-Sahara Black Africa. East and West Africa to be exact. The people are so nice, the land so rich, the life so good, I feel very happy here. I now know why Africa is Africa and by Western standards, undeveloped. By African standards, I think we in the West are the undeveloped ones.
What do you at sunrise in Timbuktu? You could pray to Allah in the direction of Mecca. You could play football with the locals. Or you could go for a run in the Sahara. I chose the latter. Around Timbuktu I ran, checking out the quality mud houses, stick houses, even animal skin homes that populate Timbuktu’s suburbs. There isn’t much to them, or the sand roads between them, and once they end, and they do end soon, its all Sahara.
Read MoreBack when I was a kid, I read about Timbuktu. I don’t recall exactly where, but I do remember having the impression that is was a grand place with lush green surroundings and majestic buildings.
Maybe, once long ago, that was Timbuktu. Now it’s not so lush or so grand. It can be very interesting for a bit, as the Sahara Desert meets the Niger River and the peoples from these two regions coexists.
Read MoreWe are on the road to Timbuktu, the long, dusty, dirty road to Timbuktu. We’ve crossed deserts, we’ve crossed rivers, and we’ve crossed the country, but not once in that entire two day and one thousand kilometer trip have we once used the windshield wipers.
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