Now I'm not saying Africans don't like being photographed. Lots of them do and are anyway very gracious when they don't. But here are a few experiences on a recent trans-continental trip.

On the Loose in Luanda: Angola really does take the biscuit. My first foray past a pink Portuguese...

Hijinks at Kinshasa's N'Djili International: There are four separate baggage searches; you got something for us 'to drink', ask the officers at three of them, using the French for tip, AKA bribe. Let's just forget the long lines, the three different immigration officials checking the passports even before you get...

* See photos below*

If you should happen upon two of the less visited African capitals - Brazzaville and Kinshasa - and you don't have the time for days of travel to see them in their primordial natural habitat, a side trip to great apes who have been rescued from...

*SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM FOR PHOTOS*

The northern section of Somalia, which proclaimed its independence in 1991, is free of the mindless violence tearing the rest of the country apart and offers rewarding sites from age-old rock paintings to spectacular escarpments to blinding white beaches -- much indeed to interest...

By the way that was a truly awful film, but now back to the Guns of August!

Expedia sent me an e-mail last night saying they would refund me the $1,319.69 for their August duplicate booking of my flights, and give me a further $100 coupon as "a gesture of...

I am just one person, with no split personality problem as far as I know, but I'll need a split body to deal with the issue I'm now facing -- two non-refundable tickets booked on exactly the same flights from New York to Tel Aviv via Rome and Naples in...

The Pericardium of Darkness - or how US customs almost aborted my Congo trip

I haven't even left for Angola and the two Congos yet for a gander at Conrad's old stomping ground in the Heart of Darkness, and I'm already up to my neck in the benighted...