Since the New Year has on from its welcoming celebrations, many <\/p>\n
travelling folk are spending the winter conceiving travels and tours
\n for the forthcoming year. Such thoughts brighten up these grey months
\n that stretch through to Easter and test our imagination. Can it be coincidence
\n that travel shows thrive during this time? I’ve always found that
\n there is considerable enjoyment to be had from visualising any possibility
\n and anticipating what could happen along the way. If not planning, travellers
\n can usually be found doing – indeed I’ve ‘lost’
\n friends to California, Canada and Australia in quick succession recently!
\n Have you noticed that how our non travelling friends no longer caution
\n against such exuberance? I’m sure we should spare them a thought
\n or two, as they are subjected to our endless plans. To calm our intoxications
\n perhaps we should all be given copies of Alain de Botton’s The
\n Art of Travel<\/i> to digest – he comes up with some bizarre and
\n somewhat unsettling accounts of the ‘satisfactions and disappointments
\n of travelling’. <\/p>\n
In considering the ‘satisfactions’, where do I find myself
\n on route to next and how has it got to this stage? Well, following on
\n from a long weekend in Valletta a ferry should then take me across to
\n Sicily, probably Siracusa or Catania, with a second taking me, a week
\n or so later, on from Trapani to Goletta. Whether this will leave me time
\n enough to wander fully along Tunisia’s Mediterranean coast towards
\n Gabes and Jerab I’m not sure yet. However besides the improved climates
\n I have high hopes for good snorkelling, spectacular views of Mount Etna
\n in its current active state and a distinctive crossing into northern Africa,
\n which as a region is still unknown to me. If anyone has additional experiences
\n of this vague outline they’d like to share, feel free to get in
\n touch. Through this planning stage the ‘I’ has become ‘we’
\n – as Steve and Colin, two friends from previous travels who will
\n add their own practical and entertaining inputs to this tour, have joined
\n me. Indeed their immediate ‘yeses’ to my proposals has provided
\n extra organising drive, along with Steve disappearing to the French speaking
\n Canadian ski slopes for three months! No doubt Steve’s improved
\n French language skills will ease our way into Tunisia! As a result and
\n somewhat unusually this scheme has advanced quicker than previous and
\n the scratched out beer plan has already evolved through to map and ticket
\n purchases. <\/p>\n
Initially my observations were that I wanted to make my travels more
\n demanding this year, more revealing and more elsewhere. Attending Globetrotters
\n and the RGS had left me feeling that my some of my recent tours were pedestrian
\n and unchallenging in their nature and destination. Further impetus came
\n from reading of namesake Charles Montague Doughty’s early travels
\n across the Mediterranean countries, whilst discussions with friends Charlie
\n and Carrie updated me with what adventures could now be had in northern
\n Africa. Michael Palin’s recent television trek helped to round off
\n these thoughts, particular with his attitude of still wanting to learn
\n from what he was experiencing – something I’d like to echo.
\n Along with the pleasure of journeys, I would still like to understand
\n more of how I like to travel. <\/p>\n
Where could my ‘disappointments’ come from? My previous
\n experiences of Africa have been sub-Saharan and very much centred around
\n Anglo Portuguese influences on the continent, but I do wonder how we will
\n respond to French legacies and whether we can appreciate if the Sahara
\n is a major dividing line of the African continent and peoples. I’m
\n not vain in the sense in thinking that my travels will offer anything
\n other than interesting experiences to us three. I would like to gain a
\n deeper insight into what this region is about and to return with a book
\n full of tales but as yet I’m uncertain as to what I will find, particularly
\n in Tunisia. Like many I am wary of guide books, packaged destinations
\n and official opinion, and as a result I’m trying to stick to a single
\n map, a few articles that I’ve found in the weekend supplements and
\n first hand knowledge passed on. Previous attempts at such vague planning
\n have left me lost in Santa Barbara’s unbelievably square grid system
\n but revealed gems such as Connemara! As such Colin and Steve don’t
\n yet know how seemingly ill prepared we may be – I hope they understand
\n that I’m not trying to be careless, that I just want a little more
\n from my time away… <\/p>\n