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I lay on the hard stone, breathless. My mind was shocked with the worst pain I’ve ever felt. For the first moments, all I could do was grimace in agony, unable to even see for the blinding white pain.
A low-tech ecological bike tour of the world, by Charles Brigham
[singlepic id=2593 w=450 float=center]
I lay on the hard stone, breathless. My mind was shocked with the worst pain I’ve ever felt. For the first moments, all I could do was grimace in agony, unable to even see for the blinding white pain.
الجزائر, al-JazĒir, week four
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الجزائر, al-JazĒir, week three
I left Oran late, after meeting new friends and really new friends in town. One random Christian Berber student taught me the phrase “asabi3 alyad mokhtalifa” – “each finger of the hand is different.” Allah loves wondrous variety!
“You sure you want to leave today? It’s five pm already….” Yes, I have to leave – my psyche is already out there pedalling.
“Aren’t you worried that you don’t know anyone down the road?” No. That is comletely normal. Adventure!
The midnight boat boards at one and leaves at one thirty.
Regatear. To haggle. One of the big words I learned in Sevilla. “Desde el ferry, Charlie, start haggling even at the ferry to Ceuta,” advised my friend Alberto.
I’ve never been good at haggling – in Mexico I figured even if I was getting ripped off, it was still cheap, so I never worked up the guts to talk anyone down. But now, with a long stretch of Africa ahead of me, and a much more highly developed thriftiness than ever before, I figured it was time to learn. (more…)