10 essays filed from Africa.
Sesriem, Namibia
The Sossusvlei dunes of the Namib Desert are some of the oldest and tallest in the world. Climbing one at dawn, with the orange sand turning red against the indigo of the not-yet-lit sky, is one of the iconic experiences of African travel.
October 15, 2022
Antananarivo, Madagascar
Madagascar is the most biologically distinct landmass after Australia — 90% of its plants and animals are endemic — and one of the most logistically demanding countries I have travelled in. The reward, for the patient, is a country unlike anywhere else.
September 26, 2022
Livingstone, Zambia
Victoria Falls (Mosi-oa-Tunya, 'the smoke that thunders' in Lozi) is 1.7 km wide and drops 108 m, with a peak-season volume that throws spray a kilometre into the sky. A guide to seeing it without rushing, and to combining it with the upper Zambezi.
August 10, 2022
Stone Town, Tanzania
Zanzibar splits cleanly in two: Stone Town, the densely woven Swahili-Arab-Indian trading city, and the white-sand beaches and spice plantations of the rest of the island. Most safari travellers tack on three nights on the beach. The better trip gives Stone Town three nights of its own.
July 19, 2022
Seronera, Tanzania
The wildebeest migration through the Serengeti and Maasai Mara — 1.5 million wildebeest, 200,000 zebra, 500,000 gazelle moving in an annual circuit — is the largest movement of land mammals on earth. The trick to seeing it is matching your visit to the herds, which is harder than the brochures suggest.
July 4, 2022
Cairo, Egypt
Cairo is 22 million people, dust, traffic, and a continuous Islamic-and-pharaonic history that no other city on earth can match. Plan a week. Plan, also, for the noise.
February 8, 2022
Cape Town, South Africa
Cape Town has a Table Mountain at one end and an ocean at the other. The city in between has the most varied food, wine, and walking on the African continent — and a daily set of contradictions you cannot honestly ignore.
December 12, 2021
Marrakech, Morocco
Marrakech is a city built for confusion. The medina was designed in the 11th century as a fortified labyrinth, and the design has held. The riad — the inward-facing courtyard house — is built around a small fountain and a fragment of sky. The streets are narrow on purpose. Surrender to it.
November 30, 2021
Lalibela, Ethiopia
Lalibela's churches are not built. They are carved, downward, out of solid volcanic rock — eleven monolithic structures connected by underground tunnels, hewn over a century beginning in the 12th. They are also still in active liturgical use, 800 years on.
June 30, 2021
Chefchaouen, Morocco
Chefchaouen — universally and a little reductively known as 'the Blue City' — is a small mountain town in northern Morocco where the medina is washed in shades of cobalt, sky blue, and indigo. The blue is the postcard. The slower, kif-scented mountain life is the longer reward.
April 4, 2021