Travel Writing Library

During the summer before I turned 15, my parents sat me and my two younger brothers down, and told us that our family was going travelling for the next 8 months. Not only was this unexpected but I wasnt the least bit enthusiastic about the idea.

Stepping into the arrival lounge at Bali Airport I was unprepared for what was to come. A sea of faces stared back waving pieces of paper with every name but mine displayed.

Its 02.55am on a grim winter night when my flight touches down at the Sofia-Vrazhdebna Airport, the main international hub of Bulgaria. I had hoped for a refreshing clear sky but the damp tarmac and an oppressing nip hint at a thick layer of sludgy clouds above my head.

We were standing outside of the pub when we heard it. Bagpipes. We could just barely make out a piper on top of the hill in the distance.

In March this year, our little red boat departed from El Hierro in the Canary Islands, to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. It was a voyage we had been planning for nine hectic months.

No background noise, no irritation, no deadlines to meet or time keeping to make, no questions to be answered or questions to ask, no plans to create or problems to solve.

Leaving Africa is undoubtedly one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. When I reached passport control at the airport, I turned back to say a final goodbye to my hiking guide. I gazed wistfully into his eyes wishing I could convey even a drop of the deep feelings of respect and gratitude I felt towards him.

My youthful entourage, which in no time at all had swelled to imminently unmanageable proportions, pulled me, grubby little hands in mine, off the dusty track that cut through the sprawling Casamance village and down a narrow, palm fringed footpath.

What is your name? The dark, friendly eyes of the bus driver studied me curiously. The plane just landed on the old airport of Cairo. It was around three in the morning and the air smelled of gas and summer heath.

The dwarf stood a metre tall, was smartly dressed and wore a stern, no-nonsense expression, but the twinkle in his eye suggested he had a cheeky streak. Or maybe it was just the way the crystal caught the light.