I’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to visit some of the world’s forgotten corners. But sometimes you discover secret places right there in your own neighbourhood… That’s what happened to me — again — when I took a walk through the streets around my house on a Sunday excursion with the local historical society: Wirt iz-Zejtun. The town of Zejtun takes its name from the Sicilian Arabic word...
It might surprise you to learn that I changed my name when I wrote Vagabond Dreams. No, I didn’t trudge down to the courthouse and get myself a new legal alias. I changed my name in the manuscript. I was reading a lot of Henry Miller back then, and I was intrigued by the idea of “fictional autobiography” — a book that held true to the events of my life, but with a little creative license and a...
Andras Zboray is one of those rare kindred spirits you sometimes bump into on the road. Someone with a shared love of the desert, a taste for remote places, and a drive to see what’s up around the next bend. Andras has probably found more prehistoric rock art sites than any other living explorer. And he certainly knows Jebel Uweinat — an isolated granite and sandstone mountain on the remote...
Fifty kilometers east of the Nile — a camel or donkey’s journey in ancient times — sits one of the largest ruined sites in Sudan. Today it’s an area of wild and remote desert. But the Wadi Aeateib was once fertile and well watered, and this was the site of an important city in the Kingdom of Meroe. The remains of three temples greet the traveler who makes the rough desert drive out to visit this...
Everyone knows the pyramids of Egypt. But few seem aware that there are even more pyramids farther up the Nile in Sudan. Unlike the more familiar Egyptian style pyramids, those found in Sudan are tall, narrow structures with steeper sides and a smaller base. Most have a rectangular room attached to one side which acts as an offering temple for the deceased whose body is entombed beneath the giant...
It’s been a few weeks since I posted a new blog. And while there’s no excuse for leaving you hanging, I can honestly say there wasn’t an internet connection for at least 800km… I’ve been in the Sahara for most of the past month, on an expedition to one of the least inhabited regions of the desert. Our target was Jebel Uweinat, an isolated mountain range that sits right on the border of...
I’ve done a number of expeditions by camel — both dromedary and Bactrian. And I like to think I’m fairly well read in the lore of this noble beast. Well, I learned a pile of new camel facts yesterday when I cracked open the cover of Camel by Robert Irwin. This is a fascinating read for anyone who is the least bit curious about the natural world. Irwin doesn’t just discuss the camel’s unique...
We haven’t talked books in a while, but I’ve got a great one for you this week. It’s the best novel I’ve read in recent months. The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson is set in a mysterious old farmhouse in Provence, France. And that location permeates every page, the way the sun soaks through the olive leaves and lavender fields of the south. Rather than try to sum up the book, I’ve copied and pasted...
I still remember when I got the call to do my first magazine assignment. It was in the spring of 2005. I’d just sold my first big feature to Outpost, about an expedition by camel into the sandy wastes of the Taklamakan Desert. As fate would have it, that desert piece was rejected the first time around. But Outpost changed editors about a year later, and someone found my story in the slush pile...
I visited the public library in my hometown over the Christmas holidays. I hadn’t been back in about 15 years. The children’s section was just as I remembered it. But the rest had changed dramatically. The building finally got a much needed renovation and expansion, and the adult section I browsed in for so many years has been transformed into offices and a comfortable, quiet reading area. The...