P.S.

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Exhibitions report

Hi Guys! I write a last post with videos and articles regarding my photo exhibitions. Sadly are all in Italian...


Video Report of Archiattack



Interview by Radio Citta'




Article in front cover of "Il Quaderno"



Art'Ap Exhibition



Article on "SANNIO quotidiano" 9/8/09


I had also an exhibition in the premises of Mojito Art and I went in a TV program (Areopago on CDS) to talk about Aftica. :-)




This is instead a little video I made on the road between Kenya and Ethiopia (the dangerous one because of bandits)

So, that is. Tomorrow I go back to London (passing trough Warsaw to say hello to some friends).

Thank you for following me, GOODBYE!!! :-))

Photos of Ethiopia and the final map

Hi Everybody! The trip is terminated, I'm back in Italy. This is the final map:


Visualizza Africa in una mappa di dimensioni maggiori

And two photo album: Lalibela, in the north, and Harar, a city in the east of Ethiopia.





Thank you! CIAO! :-)

The terrible journey from Nairobi to Addis Ababa!

Hi guys! I'm in Ethiopia. I did a terrible and adventurous journey of 5 days from Nairobi to Addis Ababa. I took lifts from trucks and the road was very dangerous due the bandits that are active on it, even in the same day when we passed trough it!! Also we were blocked many times from the terrible conditions of the roads. But at the end it was also fun and adventurous.

About the photo this time I have to put them in an alternative way because otherwise it would take too long. The reason is that in Ethiopia blogger.com is censured!! It is impossible to post and also to see it (of course not for me, my colleagues know that! ;-)

Then the photos are here:


Photos of the journey from Nairobi to Addis Ababa

Lago Bunyonyi (Uganda)

Hi All! I just arrived in Nairobi, Kenya. The last week I was in a wonderful and quite place in the south-west of Uganda: the Lake Bunyonyi.

Some photos:

Uganda and rafting at the source of the Nile

I was driving west—from Nairobi to Kampala. It was early Sunday morning, and the road, running over creased, hilly land, was empty. On the asphalt ahead of me, the rays of the sun created lakes of light, glistening, vibrating. As I approached, the light would vanish, the asphalt would be gray for a moment, then turn to black, but soon the next lake would flame up, and the next. The journey was being transformed into a cruise through a realm of radiant waters, abruptly igniting and dying out, like strobe lights in a crazed discotheque... Well, up to this point I copied it entirely from Kapuściński (The Shadow of the Sun) 😉 Now let’s move on to Dekaro, with his slightly more sparse, odd, and sometimes ungrammatical style, though no less pleasant, it must be said. So. It wasn’t a Sunday morning but a Thursday when I was on that stretch of road, and I certainly didn’t feel like being poetic at the time. If anything, I felt like swearing. But let’s start from the beginning.

I forced myself to leave the beach bungalow in Zanzibar and throw myself back into the chaos of buses, minibuses, and all kinds of stress. I spent a day in Dar es Salaam and then made it to a city in north-central Tanzania, Arusha, where, with a local guy, I visited on foot several small Maasai villages around the city, where they speak only the Maasai language, not even Swahili.

Since I had already visited Kenya on a previous trip, after a couple of days I decided to continue on to Uganda. I still had to pass through Nairobi, using the only available means of transport: a huge, completely rickety bus at an obscenely low price.
On that bus it was as if the suspension didn’t exist — every bump, even the smallest one, sent you literally flying into the air! After just ten minutes I couldn’t take it anymore. It lasted 18 hours, from 5 in the afternoon until 11 the next morning. It was a constant bouncing, and during some of those “flights,” everything fell from the overhead racks. The floor was covered in broken glass and various spilled liquids. It was awful. At least, as seems to be tradition on this trip whenever I take long overnight bus journeys, I had a nice girl sitting next to me, Dalin, from Tanzania, who is studying at university in Kampala.

Eventually, I reached Kampala, the capital of Uganda. It’s not a beautiful city and the traffic is absolutely chaotic, yet it’s still quite pleasant to stay in. The city centre is on a hill, where the parliament and luxury hotels are located, while heading down towards the main bus station it turns into total chaos, with stalls spilling into the streets on both sides or completely taking them over. The best way to get around is by motorbike taxis, which, although a bit recklessly, manage to weave through the traffic.
In the trees and on the poles there are some strange birds, maybe pelicans. Very curious to look at, kind of ugly and clumsy. It’s funny watching them, when they move it looks like they’re always on the verge of falling, and when they fly short distances it almost seems like they can’t manage to carry their own weight. But once they’re up in the air, they glide around in a majestic and elegant way (like Baudelaire’s albatross).

My hotel was right next to a majestic mosque perched on another hill and visible from all over the city. The problem with staying next to mosques is that every now and then they blast the prayers at full volume through loudspeakers. They sound like endless, heartbreaking wails. I had already experienced this in Stone Town, but especially in Arusha, where in the middle of the night I would be woken up by a loud, mournful cry coming from the mosque next door. It was still pitch dark and it just wouldn’t stop. Then, just as I managed to fall asleep again, other mosques would start up. On the second night I checked the time: 5 a.m.!

After two days in Kampala, I went to Jinja to do one of the most fun things of the entire trip: rafting at the source of the Nile. Extraordinary. I’m not really a rafting enthusiast, but according to experts I’ve done two of the best rafting experiences in the world: here in Uganda and in Nepal. This one, however, was more demanding. In Nepal they had given us some instructions on what to do if you fell out of the raft, but here it was basically assumed that it would happen at least once. So before setting off, we practiced on some small rapids how to behave once we ended up in the river.
Even the raft capsizing was considered almost certain, and we practiced for that as well. So off we went. 31 kilometers of pure adrenaline! In reality, many stretches are calm and you can relax, drifting slowly and enjoying breathtaking scenery, between the green of the river and the surrounding vegetation. Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. (This one is also borrowed, but this time I’ll leave it to you to guess where it comes from).
Anyway, of course, the main attraction was the rapids. Sometimes, before certain sections, we could choose between the difficult or the easier route, but needless to say, in those situations you always go for the dangerous one (otherwise we wouldn’t have gone at all).
Even as we approached the first rapid, the guide asked us whether we wanted the easy or the hard option—in the difficult one, it was very likely the raft would flip over. And all of us: go for it! It won’t flip! Let’s do it! And of course, we flipped over. But it’s nothing dramatic, you suddenly find yourself in the water without even knowing how, and you try (current allowing) to get back to the raft.
But after that, I messed up the part where you flip the raft back over. The procedure for righting the raft was as follows: we all hung onto one side of the raft, pulling it down, while the guide, standing on top, flipped it back upright. So for a moment we all ended up under the raft and had to swim out from underneath it as quickly as possible. I hadn’t really understood it properly. The guide told us to take a deep breath, but I didn’t even have time to do so before I suddenly found myself under the raft. I had no air left, and my head was being pressed down by the bottom of the raft. I started swimming around blindly, trying to find an exit, but I had no idea where to go, especially because the raft above me was still moving as well. Then, just when I genuinely felt I had no air left at all, I suddenly found myself back outside, gasping for breath. Pure adrenaline!
And it was more or less like that for the whole trip. That was the only time we actually capsized, but some of the rapids were absolutely thrilling, like small waterfalls. There were as many as three Grade 5 rapids, which is the highest level in the world of rafting (there is also a Grade 6 rapid, which means that no one has ever managed to run it without flipping over. If someone ever does, it is automatically downgraded to Grade 5).

In the evening and at night we relaxed, drinking and eating on the terrace of the guesthouse, with a view of the river flowing slowly about fifty metres below. For sleeping, I set up my tent, which I hadn’t used for a long time.

The next morning, I had just woken up when I started hearing heavy drops falling right on the tip of the tent (it is an igloo-shaped one). But it wasn’t raining. Strange. Then a large lump of something fell again on the very top, silhouetted against the light. I suddenly had a terrible suspicion, which unfortunately turned out to be correct: a monkey from the tree had urinated and defecated on my tent! Disgusting. I went out and there was no one in the tree, but right next to the tent there was indeed a large monkey. His testicles were bright blue, I’m not kidding! Since there were no others around, he was almost certainly the guilty one, so I cursed him out loud and signalled for him to get lost. But he didn’t move and instead stood perfectly upright, as if posing. I got a bit closer, and still nothing, he just stayed there, almost as if he was challenging me. I picked up my shoe and I really was about to throw it at his head when finally, somewhat reluctantly and very slowly, he left.

In the afternoon I went with three girls to visit Jinja and the exact point where the Nile is born, branching off from Lake Victoria and eventually reaching the Mediterranean Sea after about three months. There, Mahatma Gandhi chose to have some of his ashes scattered. A decision that left many people puzzled: why there? But it’s obvious: because he wanted to be the first man to go rafting on the Nile! May peace be with you.

Photos:


Arusha bus station, Tanzania.



Small church in a Maasai village near Arusha.



School in a Maasai village near Arusha.









Goat.



Eye.



The strange bird in Kampala, Uganda.



The mosque near my hotel in Kampala.



Football match, Kampala.



The source of the Nile, where it branches off from Lake Victoria.



The Nile, seen from the guesthouse terrace near Jinja.


And now some photos of my rafting! In the photo at the beginning of the post, you can see the group: four Pakistanis at the front, a Danish couple in the middle, me at the back, and the guide behind us.

Let’s start with the highlight: the capsizing sequence!


I’m the one with the yellow helmet, already almost underwater.



Here only one of my arms is visible.



And that’s it.



Eh eh...

Other photos, I’m the one with the yellow helmet in the back.

























Pure adrenaline!!

I reply to a comment:

Hi Pierre! Yes, I saw many interesting places since then. The best I think is Zanzibar, it was wonderful!! :-)
I will show all the pics in full resolution when I will be in London, I think maybe at the end of may. See you soon! :-)