Africa!

 

Africa!

In Tarifa, we could finally see the hills of the African coast, on the other side of the Gibraltar Strait. Alia and I really struggled realizing we were finally there; the moment had finally arrived. Our first day in Africa was a total blast. We were really euphoric. We could not believe, two years after we had first talked about it, coming back from Daniel's cabin, we were finally in Africa! 

We absolutely loved Tangier. I think it would be fair to say, eventually, it became my favorite town in Morocco, because of its authenticity. We were so excited that, for what I believe was the first and last time in all our travels, we accepted to follow a professional guide. Larby took as all over town. Although, I think, what Alia enjoyed the most was the opportunity to indulge ourselves in the most awesome mid-day dinner, right in the middle of Ramadan.  

At the end of the day, Alia was ready to move on, find some place to camp in the desert, and continue the next morning towards Tetuan. I, however, thought we could really make good use of a break and some time to relax and rest with friends. Ben Ballard, an American exchange student in Tangier, had accepted to host us  a couple of days ago, and was still waiting to hear from us. I was able to convince Alia we would be best spending the night with Ben and his African friends. It was really a good decision. Ben was a really nice and friendly guy. He had been living in Morocco for a while already, so he was able to give us some insight on the current Moroccan society. He lived in a big house, with several other friends; not all of them from Morocco, but there were a few from some other African countries. We were therefore able to get a taste of what was coming.

If Morocco was first, Mauritania followed, and afterwards Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Namibia and South Africa.

Without a doubt, our journey across Africa is one of the most amazing and intense experiences Alia and I will ever live in our whole lives. I would not like to say my bicycle tour around the American West or our journeys across Central America and all over Europe were anything less; but, undoubtedly, Africa is special. Africa, particularly 'Black Africa', is like a totally different planet. In most African countries, very, very few homes enjoy regular power. If at all, all what they can afford ins to run some generator for a couple of hours a day. That alone has an enormous impact on people's lives. For example, very few homes own a fridge; even less a freezer. Life is run by daylight: the day starts very early (shortly before sunrise) and ends very early as well (shortly after dark). On the other hand, people is in far closer contact with nature. Human touch and relationships also play a much stronger and important role. Life goes on a much slower pace and people spend far more time chatting and laughing together. Less TV and access to mainstream media make people more free as well. Right or wrong (and, as in any other generalization there are always many outliers), I ended up concluding, for whatever the reason, black people, or  at least black Africans, have a better ability to find happiness in simpler things in life. Somehow white people we constantly seem to be able to find some excuse to be dissatisfied and unhappy with what we have, no matter what. Still, racial tensions in Africa are enormous: black Africans generally believe whites are foreigners, who come to steal their natural resources and exploit them. On the other hand, as much as they do not like to admit it openly, white people in Africa often think blacks are stupid and do not know how to do things on their own. Once you dig enough that they are ready to admit their racist views, they will support their point explaining that, even in Africa, where whites are a minority, they are all, regardless of their social-economic origin, clearly much better well off than blacks. As a brain researcher, I certainly find the question interesting; but think the right answer lies more in their character. It seems to me, white people we are more ambitious or more unquenchable (sometimes even voracious...); whereas African blacks, for whatever the reason, seem to find it easier to be happy and settle down with what they got. After all, very often we do not get farther in life because we are brighter, but because we have a bigger motivation. It is the same tedious and really boring old story of intelligence. Why do they keep calling it intelligence when they are only thinking about control? As a brain researcher I really feel the need to say that the whole concept that a human being may be "more intelligent" than another (even more so that a group of people may be "more intelligent" than another, just because of their ethnicity, nationality, gender, etc.) is basically stupid and is always only aimed to justify the control, abuse and opression of some human beings over others. There is simply no scientific base to establish that one person is "more intelligent" than another; to begin with, because there is no universally-accepted, clear definition of 'intelligence'.

We have always been told that white Christian Europeans came to conquer and enslaved the indigenous populations of the Americas and Africa, because we were smarter and civilized. However, our actions only speak for our viciousness. In fact, our intelligence cannot get much credit for European military superiority during the Age of Discovery, since the key to our overwhelming power lied on gunpowder and cannons, which were actually brought by the Mongols from China. In other words, if white Christian Europeans came to conquer and dominate Africa and the Americas, it was not because we were smarter; but because we, or more precisely our rulers and leaders, were more vicious and ruthless. 

  

Furthermore, if it is already always ill-fated and prone to disfigurements and aberrations to establish a general profile of any class of people; it is also very difficult, particularly for a white observer, to make an objective analysis of black Africans.

Indeed, it is rather impossible for a white tourist to melt in into the black African society. Unavoidably, you will always be perceived as some kind of extraterrestrial alien; one with endless pockets stuffed with dollar bills. As sad as it may be, when you travel as a white tourist across Africa, the constant feeling that you have been stripped off your human condition, to become a walking dollar bill, is something you need to learn to live with. What becomes very quickly clear is that the image Western media project of Africa is as widely inaccurate and distorted as the image they get of our Western societies. Of course, in Africa they also believe our lives in the West is like in the movies. They understand TV as a window into the world, from where they can see the reality as it plays out. Consequently, they likewise wholeheartedly believe everything TV tells them, because they have seen it with their own eyes. They will never consider that perhaps, whatever the TV shows and does not show has previously cleverly selected and filtered to create a specific, desired state of opinion. Well, neither will we, so do not blame them. No matter what you tell them, there is simply no way you will be able to convince them that we are not all rich and life in the West is easy or full of opportunities for everybody. They will never understand why they would not be able to succeed, without first accepting to sell their souls to the system. That is not how it goes in the movies! If you dare to argue, they will make their point clear: "Look, you own that Land Rover, right? ...Well, that Land Rover alone is much more than all what I own together." 

Putting everything together, I do not think it can be said whether their world is better or worse than ours. In a way, it is like if we try to compare current music with the music of the 60's, 70's or 80's. Better yet, it is like if we try to compare our music with their music; it is really not comparable. At the end of the day, I guess the old principle stands: we always disregard what we have and ambition what we lack. Probably, in this basic principle lies quite a bit of the attraction and fascination Westerners generally feel for Africa. Whether we perceive Africa as something totally new in our lives or, more like the opposite, we feel of it as going back to our roots, recovering contact with all what we used to have, but have slowly lost in our modern lives; the conclusion remains that Africa represents a totally different experience. Every morning, as the sun rises in Africa, the craving for the new adventure, the challenge and new learning experience the new day will bring, fills your heart and powers your soul. Indeed, every day is in Africa an opportunity for a new adventure and we certainly lived many of them during our journey. 

The neurons in our brains generally respond more vigorously to novel stimuli. Given that attention to a specific stimulus gets attracted by means of higher firing rates, it seems reasonable to think that our brains are naturally more interested in new stimuli. In fact, comedians know well that the secret to any good joke is surprise. Interestingly, the mathematical definition of information is degree of surprise: that is, a message will contain more information the more surprising it is. It then only makes sense that we burst into laughter whenever we get surprised with a totally unexpected statement: it is an instinctive reaction whereby we express our appreciation to the author for his highly informative message. It shows our brains are always happy and excited to receive new information and learn new knowledge.    

  

I will always feel fortunate that we had the opportunity to travel across Africa at such a young age. I will always feel proud that we had the insight and courage to build and grab on an opportunity like that. Yes, Africa is where our relationship fell apart. More precisely, that is where our love blew up; where all blew up. But I do not see how we can really blame Africa for it. Fact of the matter is, Alia and I, we both absolutely enjoyed our trip across Africa from beginning to end. We were both always fully aware we were doing something really special and we both always felt privileged we were living an experience we were going to remember for the rest of our lives. Over the last few years that have passed since our journey across Africa, I have thought and wondered many, many times how Alia remembers our journey and how she has been able to fit the memories of it with the puzzle of manipulated accounts about our relationship that has been engrained in her mind. These days Alia is totally convinced our marriage was a nightmare from beginning to end. Yet, just the emails she wrote throughout our relationship are there to show she has clearly been brainwashed into that conviction. In Spring 2016, at the beginning of that process, during one of our last phone calls, Alia explained, back then still apologetically, Africa had been too much stress for her. In fact, very early in our relationship, back in Spring and Summer of 2010, Alia had already advised me she was mentally rather fragile and could only handle limited amounts of stress. She certainly dreamed of traveling all over the world; but was afraid, the stress commonly associated with travels would ever make her break down and screw up. Travels are certainly stressful and traveling across Africa is probably so much more so. Indeed, we had stressful times during our Africa trip, but I really do not think Africa is to blame for our marriage's collapse. As a matter of fact, we had already gone through deeper struggles of that kind during our earlier travels across Central America and Europe. We had overcome them and had become stronger. As Alia explained through her emails, during our first two years together, she sometimes could not help getting mad at me for the most stupid reasons ever []. However, we both were able to understand what she was going through and how difficult it was for her. We never allowed our arguments to get between us; they never broke skin. Our love always remained paramount. When we went to Africa, we were prepared for anything.

    

The fact that we were both always fully aware we were doing something really special, admits little argument. We were as far as Namibia when Alia wrote Adrian Belew. A couple of days earlier we had visited Etosha National Park in Northern Namibia. In Etosha we had a total blast. Our two days in Etosha NP were like a dream come true. Generally, when you go to a place, particularly if you have been planning it for a long time, unavoidably, you create some expectations of how it is going to be. Unfortunately, very often the reality you find does not quite match the perfect image you have slowly formed in your mind. Fact of the matter was, we had almost reached the southern end of the continent, and, except for Kissama National Park near Luanda (Angola), we had still barely seen any of the big animals Africa is so famous for. That, however, had not been a disappointment, since most of the really famous national parks are in Eastern Africa anyway. Now, if we ever had any craving to see big animals; in Etosha we certainly got all what we could reasonably wish for. We arrived late in the morning and that afternoon we already spotted zebras, giraffes, ostriches and ...a rhino!! That rhino shortly before sunset was like the icing on the cake: we were totally thrilled. If, with my really poor eye-sight, it was already amazing for me, I can hardly explain how it was for Alia: she was in total awe. After watching that rhino for what seemed hours, we reached such climax, we concluded there was nothing else we could ask the day for, and decided to exit the park to prepare for the next day. Knowing that animals are particularly active during sunrise and sunset, we kept thinking about all the magic moments we were going to live the next day; from sunrise to sunset. As much as we both hate alarm clocks, we agreed we should set up an alarm for shortly before sunrise. This time it was justified. My old Nokia phone had for an alarm this really sweet and cheerful melody that seemed to have been written for babies. Alia had titled it the "Wake up Baby" alarm. In any other circumstance, we had hated to be woken up a few hours earlier than usual; but that morning was different. When the alarm went off that morning we immediately rose in anticipation of all the joy that day was going to bring. Yes, instinctively, we hated to be woken up, but as soon as our brains powered up, we realized we did not have a second to miss bitching, giving all the wonders waiting for us that day. Indeed, we had a long a busy day ahead. We were tired, as we had woken up really early and had not had enough hours of sleep. Yet, we felt like the happiest people on the planet, certainly the most fortunate, because our hard job that day was... to go see rhinos!!! Alia immortalized the moment singing her sweet and cheerful song: "Wake up baby. Go see rhinos!", "Wake up baby. Go see rhinos!" That was Alia's very own instinctive, unconcious, spontaneous and very sincere testimony of how fortunate she felt she could live a moment like that.

I am sure she was still in awe remembering those rhinos in Etosha, when she wrote Adrian Belew. It turns out, while she was watching that rhino on our first day in the park, Adrian Belew's "Lone Rhinoceros" song started playing in Alia's mind. So, she thought she would like to write and tell him about it. She thought her travels across Africa were really special, so she made sure to also tell him about it. Surprisingly, Adrian Belew, being a popular artist, paid attention to Alia's message and wrote back! He appreciated Alia's note and acknowledged the magic moment watching that rhino should have been. Apparently, he also remarked he had also always wanted to do a journey of that sort and was hoping he can do it sometime. That is when Alia mentioned the conversation to me. Alia perspicaciously pointed out : "You wonder what a person like that is waiting for; what stops him from actually doing it once and forever?" Indeed, I could not agree more with her. As a matter of fact, along our way we had met a lot of people who had made the very same remarks. Certainly, most people cannot afford to take off their jobs for several months to go travel across Africa. Those that do not have such jobs, may not have the money to do it. Then, there are other people who have various others commitments (like, for example, family) that make it impossible. We, obviously, did not know the specific circumstances of Adrian Belew, however, being a successful artist, who was 65 at that time, his words invited us to entertain the thought of how often we prefer to keep making excuses to avoid taking on our dreams. It seems like pursueing our dreams usually requires more courage than what we are ready to put: it takes to grag the bull by the horns. Instead, it is easier to keep putting it off, hoping someday it will be a better time. Although we know time will never bring us any better opportunity, unless we make a serious commitment to look for it. Everytime somebody told me he has always wanted to do a trip like ours, I replied, the key issue is not to get lost preparing for it. If you keep waiting for the time to be right; you will never do it, because you will never be fully prepared for an adventure like Africa. I remember, when I first met Alia, knowing I had been bicycle touring for the previous two years, she complimented me for being such an adventurous person. She explained, she also liked adventures, but subsequently clarified she first needed a plan. That certainly seemed very sensible. However, on a second thought, as those first days I was constantly looking for an opportunity to stimulate and challenge her, I pointed out perhaps those two concepts were somehow contradicting each other: an adventure cannot be planned throughout, or it will no longer be an adventure. In the case of Africa this consideration becomes very subtle; because, you undoubtedly need some preparation, before you venture into Africa. The secret is to take the decision to do it. Once you have committed yourself to it, you prepare the best you can, setting reasonable and realistic milestones and deadlines. The biggest challenge is to find the right balance between preparing well enough and understanding you will never be fully prepared. The bottomline is that the pursuit of any dream always comes with considerable uncertainty, and it takes quite some courage to handle all that uncertainty. The big challenge then becomes to find the right balance between the reward we expect to obtain the day we achieve our dream and the risks we are ready to take pursuing it.  

I guess that is why Alia thanked me that morning of mid-October for having taken her to Africa. We were having breakfast and I almost choke with the surprise of her words. We had just entered the Republic of Congo and could, by then, very well consider we had reached the heart of Africa. We were all silent, enjoying the peace and tranquility of being in the middle of nowhere. Those days very often we found ourselves completely fascinated thinking we had really made it to Africa and we were now in the heart of Africa. It was an enormous accomplishment and we had quite some struggles trying to get full grasp of it and absorb it. I guess Alia must have been reflecting on something around that, when, all of a sudden, she thought to thank me for taking her to Africa. I certainly found it surprising she would come up with something like that. As a matter of fact, she had been the one who had been driving us all the way there from Spain; so, she definitely could had thought she deserved quite a lot of credit But, at least that morning, she felt she should give me full credit for it.

It seems to me her reasoning that morning did not get in any kind of analysis of what were each other's contributions and merits, and how they would compare. Rather, I think she simply reflected on the conclusion that, without me, she had never had enough courage to go ahead and do it. As a matter of fact, months later, she acknowledged that to me. She had already broken up with me and Robyn's poisoning process of Alia's mind had already begun; Alia had already started saying I was useless and had always used her as my chaufeur and servant, but still gave me she had never gone to Africa without me. If I was otherwise useless, my contribution was, obviously, the courage.      

Travels are stressful and that is so much so for Africa; but that is probably what makes them so exciting and, once they are over, so much fun to remember. In fact, I have long found, if an endeavor is not difficult, it will hardly be memorable. I remember when I was in Lassen Volcanic National Park with my touring bicycle. I was sweating my way up all those hills, with every pedaled, swinging my head left to right and right to left, trying hard to get some air that would help me bring that monster bicycle with its very heavy pannier bags to the next overlook; while all the cars were cruising passed me; everybody inside completely bewildered why was I doing that to myself. What was the point of going through all that pain. Eventually, some people started talking to me. Most of them were cheering me in admiration and appreciation. Some would wait for me at the next overlook and approach me offering some kind of help or support. I particularly remember this man, comfortably traveling in his motorhome. He would, obviously, arrive at each overlook without breaking a sweat. He would then not understand why I would put myself through so much pain; it simply was not smart! So, he finally decided to approach me to get an answer to his question: "Why are you making it so difficult on yourself?" I actually thought the answer was right at the look of my face. I smiled at him and told him: "If it is not difficult, it is not fun!" Indeed, I was the happiest man on the planet, or, at least, I was the happiest guy around. I was happy thinking I was almost there. Soon I was going to be at the top, I would get some orange juice and it would taste like glory.

Africa was definitely a challenge, and we were living it to the fullest. While I fought the corrupt African government and law-enforcement officers, Alia did an impressive job driving , working and keeping together our beautiful 1974 Land Rover Series III. Everybody , particularly the African men, were dazzled with her: they had never seen a young woman driving and taking care of such a big car, better than what they would. They kept flirting with her (even before me!) and begged her to take them with us. She certainly broke quite a few hearts along our way across Africa. Those days Alia enjoyed singing this song she had come up with, preparing, in anticipation, for our Africa journey: Iiits Monkey and Bunny and Robert, it's Monkey and Bunny and Robert, off to see the world!! ...with Robert. Indeed, we were Monkey and Bunny, as she had started calling us at the beginning of our journey around Europe in 2011. I was a primitive Monkey and she was the cute Bunny. Robert was our 1974 Land Rover. Our life was like Alia's favorite kid's show: Adventure Time. We were best friends going through very distant lands, living the adventure of our lives.  

We were both always fully aware we were doing something really special and always felt we were living an experience we would forever remember with joy and love to talk about. Iona National Park in Southern Angola is, without a doubt, the most remote place we have ever been to. Iona is about 250km. - 300km. (150mi. - 200mi.) from the town of Namibe. That may not seem too much; but, except for the first 40km., it is all the way a dirt road. Our friend Alvaro Batista would argue the dirt road is mostly in reasonably good condition, and it would probably be fair to give him that. However, it remains, that for a couple of hundred kilometers, you will not see a soul; unless it is one that perfectly represents the image of a true prehistoric man. The Himba tribe is, without a doubt, by far, the most primitive people we have ever encounter. They still dress in their traditional clotes: consisting of loin clothes for men, while women wear - equally rudimentary - skimpy skirts. It is not only that they still live primitively, following the same old traditions they have kept for thousands of years; butt they have barely received any influence from tourists or, otherwise, the world outside. Indeed, barely any tourists make it here and, there are, definitely, no organized, regular tours to bring them. As Alvaro Batista put it, in what it meant to us, we could not expect them to help us with even a bottle of oil or brake fluid.

Alvaro Batista is an old, Portuguese man, who has lived in Angola most of his life. In fact, Angola was a Portuguese colony until 1975. Interestingly, although Alvaro did not seem to hold any position at the Angolan government, he turned out to be the only person in Namibe who knew anything about Iona National Park. In my usual perseverance, we kept going from one government agency to another (for a total of about four different ones) and nobody had a clue. They would not even know how far the park was. Finally, somebody was aware we should be referred to Alvaro Batista for information about Iona NP. Alvaro actually knew a lot about the park; certainly all what we needed to learn. He is a very nice and friendly man and we had a really enjoyable conversation. Apparently, Alvaro runs some kind of travel agency and tries hard to organize Safaris into the park. We told him we wanted to visit the park, but were then hoping to continue East, towards Chibbia, on the road that runs from Lubango to the Namibian border.

He explained to us, if we wanted to venture there on our own, we would have to bring with us all what we may possibly need: lots of water, spare tires, brake fluid, etc. He cautioned us, the last people, the last couple they had sent over there, they had to go bring them back. Apparently, the man did not make it out alive. He died crushed underneath the vehicle, when the jack failed.    

The story was quite intimidating and we needed to decide, if we really wanted to go through all that trouble. It was definitely going to be a unique experience, but it was also going to take quite a bit of our time and energies. I told Alia to think about it. Finally, Alia said: "Let's f***ing do it!"

  

Having said that, we were still very well aware, we were going for a real adventure: no games nor jokes here. I got the idea we could here make good use of our GPS trackers. We sent emails to both of our families with Alvaro Batista's contact information. If, during our expedition to Iona, we ran into any emergency and needed to be rescued, we would use the GPS trackers to send a signal to the satellite and our families, with our GPS coordinates. They would then be able to provide Alvaro with our exact position to get us out of there. That email message, however, obviously freaked out both of our families quite a bit...

It took us a couple of days to get ready for our Iona adventure. We wanted to make sure we were well prepared. We were so excited when we finally took off! We really wanted to enjoy our time, so we took it easy and avoided rushing. We thought we would make a stop, for a new visit to Alvaro, this time, at his camp near the park. Unfortunately, his wife was not feeling well, so they decided to return to town that evening. We were still able to greet them; but it was only for a couple of hours, before they had to shut down the place and leave. That was the saddest Thanksgiving ever, with the most terrible chicken ever. No matter for how long we cooked that thing, it was impossible to bite it: it was hard as a rock. I think it was particularly depressing for Alia; Thanksgiving means quite a lot to her and she was really looking for some more joyful evening.  

The next day we finally entered the park. We stopped a couple of times for some pictures, but then Alia told me she needed to work on the car, because she thought one of the wheel cylinders was leacking. It was so annoying; those wheel cylinders had been a nightmare since we left Madrid. This time, however, what I did not understand very well was how Alia had not noticed anything while driving the car; but only became aware of it when she stepped out After an hour or so, we resume our way for a while more, when we stopped again for lunch. As usual, I was still starting, when Alia had already finished eating. So, she decided, as she would later confess, to start messing up with the clutch. However, all of a sudden, she screamed in pain. Apparently, a bee had bit her. It turned out there were a few bees around. It turned out more and more bees were slowly coming to where we were. Obviously, I had to rely on Alia for all this information; since I could not see the bees myself. It turned out the bees were gathering around the car. Always according to Alia, they were mostly gathering in the back compartment of the car. We could not figure out then, but we later learned, they were getting attracted by all the water we had in the back. Apparently, at this point, we had a sworm of bees in the back of our Land Rover. Alia was freaking out: in her research, she had read some stories about other travelers being attacked by a sworm of African bees, and she feared that would also be our fate. It became clear to me I had to get more assertive and take control of the situation; because Alia was not thinking clearly anymore; she was freaking out. It became clear to me, we needed to do something, and we needed to do it now. We needed to act, because, apparently, the problem was only getting worse. Apparently, more and more bees were coming and they did not seem to have any plan to ever leave. If we did not act now, soon those bees would take over our Land Rover and, once that happened, we would not know when would we get it back. We had to drive out of there somehow. Fortunately, it seemed like there were barely any bees in the front compartment of the car. So, all the plan I was able to come up with was to tell Alia to get into the driver's seat and drive away with the windows and back door wide open. Hopefully, as she drives away, the air current would sweep the bees out the back door. I felt bad I would not do it myself and, instead, put Alia at risk; but I just could not do it, since I cannot drive. So, I thought, at least, I should take care of first cleaning the back of the car. As the car drives away with the back door open, everything would start falling out; so, I wanted to minimize the loss. Finally, I asked Alia to get into the driver's seat and take off. Alia looked at me not quite convinced, but I think she realized we really did not have any other choice. She then looked towards the driver's seat and said: "And that is when your mother got into a car full of bees to drive it out of there." I have always found it truly remarkable how, in such a critical situation, she thought of her children, her future children (as a matter of fact, our future children), and how she would tell them about that really heroic action she performed for the family in Iona National Park. It is then quite an irony, that is the same day she now marks as the time she decided to break up with me, at first because she could not see having children with me anymore, and, later, supposedly, because she could not take my beatings anymore. We did have an argument that evening, after we had been able to get rid of the bees (I still wanted to try to DRIVE 15KM. FURTHER, TO get to the park headquarters, hoping we could find some help there; whereas Alia demanded we called it a day, so that she could get her opportunity to fix the car), but I never, ever beat up Alia. Alia was the woman I loved, the woman I wanted to share my life with and I had never wanted to look at any of my children and HAVE TO think there was this day in my dark past, where I beat up his or her mother.

No, our relationship was not slowly falling apart; more like the opposite, if anything, our love grew stronger in Africa. Our love grew stronger in Africa, because of the very simple reason, THAT our life was a dream come true. We decided to go to Africa, because we thought it would be an amazing experience; but we were aware we were going to run into many difficulties. We knew we were going to constantly find checkpoints, where officers would threat us and try to coerce us into pay them bribes. We knew there were regions that were not save for Westeners to travel through. We knew that people would very often try to rip us off, thinking we were rich and had lots of money to spare. We knew the roads would often be in terrible condition and we needed to expect to break down several times along our way. In general, we knew we were going to face many mechanical problems and, whenEVER they WOULD happen, it would be difficult to find skilled mechanics or the right parts to fix them. We knew we were running the risk of getting some serious disease: malaria, dengue, cholera, etc. We knew it would often be really hard, if not simply impossible, to find the food we like most, and sometimes we would have to eat some 'weird stuff'. We knew it would sometimes get really hot or we would get a downpour and we would get soaked. We knew there would be long days driving from one point to another and there would be times where we would need to stay or sleep in really uncomfortable places. We knew all that and, yet, we were still so excited to go. We were still so excited to go, because we knew, after all, that is what travels are all about. Indeed, travels, as opposed to vacations, are very rarely really pleasing or enjoyable. Generally, it is not until we make it back home and think about those days, that we start enjoying remembering all what we did. Travels present challenges and novelties and that is what makes them so attractive and exciting. Challenge and novelty are the basis of any learning experience, and our brains are conditioned to be constantly looking for new learning opportunities (as long as we are reasonably young or, at least, feel so). In other words, we are eager and feel happy at any positive learning opportunity, because the experience and new knowledge that will come with it will make us stronger. Our endless pursuit of happiness is how our genes condition our conscious actions and behaviors to steer us in the right direction. Indeed, we take our decisions  (or, at least, that is how it is supposed to be; THAT IS WHAT INTELIGENCE IS REALLY ALL ABOUT) based on what we believe will make us happier; THAT IS WHAT THE REALLY INTELIGENT PEOPLE DO. Yes, contrary to general belief, intelligent people is not those who are good in mathematics, resolving riddles or performing abstract computations. Rather, is those who show their skills pursuing our most fundamental goal of leading a happy life.  

During our journey across Africa, as we had expected, we ran into many difficulties; but we were making good progress and we were proud and happy we were coming out successfully. From the very beginning, the brakes were a real nightmare. Alia basically drove that monster vehicle without brakes all the way from Spain to South Africa. It was a real headache to resolve all those bureaucratic procedures (visas, Carnet de Passage, car insurance, etc.) African countries require. It was a total pain to endure all those corrupt officers, constantly trying to get bribes. But, one way or another, we were able to fix, or at least patch, the problems with the car. One by one we got all the visas and were able to enter all the countries we wanted to visit. Little by little we successfully made it through all those checkpoints; disturbed by the wastes of time and the ugly arguments, but happy we never submitted to any threat and we got instead interesting stories to take away and tell one day to our families and friends. Fact of the matter was our journey was only getting better. Alia learned quite a bit about our Land Rover and how to fix any problem; she actually became really good at it. We also got better dealing with the corrupt officers. We ended up learning we, as tourists, actually had the upper hand in all those arguments. We figured out they were not supposed to disturb tourism, and that little guy on the road trying to get some bribe would get in trouble, if his boss found out he was harassing some tourists (the really powerful people in the country, those that really make money out of tourism, would get really unhappy). In addition, our ride was also getting smoother. Once we entered Angola, we knew we would not have to struggle with visas for a while. That actually released quite a lot of stress from our minds and made our trip much more enjoyable from them on, since now we did not have to worry anymore to be at a specific place by a given date. Now we did not have to rush anymore, but were finally free to go wherever we wished, without the fear of missing some deadline. Then we arrived to Namibia and it was like reaching Heaven. Namibia is a fairly developed country and very peaceful. Now we were finally able to find the car parts we needed and the mechanics knew our Land Rover. In Namibia the hardware stores were fully stocked and the supermarkets had again all sorts of goodies like meat pies and, most importantly, icecream!! We were so excited we were again able to find icecream at reasonable prices, that we thought we would buy ourselves a 2 liter container of icecream to celebrate Christmas. In the climax of the Southern Hemisphere summer, it was so hot in the dunes of Sossusvle, that we gulped the whole thing down right there and then. It was then easy to look back and remember all the struggles of the previous months, and feel proud and happy for how far we had got and all what we had accomplished. We were indeed an amazing team. We were so excited thinking about all the fun on our way in the months ahead! 

No, our relationship was not falling apart; rather the opposite, our love had got stronger. In fact, it was during those later months of our journey, that it would start becoming common Alia would express her love rubbing her finger down my cheek. We were as far as Cape Town, we were driving around the city and there were several times, where we had to stop and wait at some traffic light. Alia would look at me  and extend her hand towards my face. She would curl her index finger and rest it on its back side, right below my left eye. She would then gently run her finger down my cheek in a clear sign of love. That Alia loved me as far as Cape Town is a fact that leaves no space for doubt and all the people we met could testify for. We loved each other to the extend that each of us believed the other represented or would represent a contribution to his or her hapiness.

Here, however, it is possible to argue to what extend Alia really had no question I represented a contribution to her happiness. As the Lord of the Ring clearly illustrates, success, like money and power are very difficult to manage and are able to corrupt and poison the purest soul. This is something that can be very clearly seen in Rock'n Roll bands: they are all in the band such good friends until they hit success; then, a ruthless battle of egos and jealousy starts, that unavoidably, always ends up splitting them apart. I have long wondered if the seed of our marriage's failure emerged and grew from here. I remember a few times during our journey across Africa, where Alia told me she was worried: she feared that, as she aged, she would grow to become a bitch like her grandmother Ginger. It was one of those things Alia would say, expecting I would be able to comfort her with my answer, but I would really not see any way, whatever I would say, to get it right. It hints, however, every now and then, Alia may have had some questions, encouraging her to start bitching. I guess, one way or another, we all have some kind of a bad demon and a good demon always with us: while the good demon always seems to have a critical view on anything we do or say, the bad demon is generally more supportive and tends instead to put the blame on everybody else but ourselves (interestingly, in 2015, as we were traveling across Africa, the animation movie 'Inside-Out' was release, providing a more picturesque (though not necessarily more scientific) view to all this). While the good demon is usually quite a bit of a pain, it seems to be generally wiser (though perhaps not always), to steer ourselves through life following its advice. In the case of Alia, it had always been quite evident, one way or another, she constantly had that kind of internal conflict. Every now and then she could not help to get mad at me; but, immediately after, she would feel horrible for it. Perhaps, those worries she will become a bitch as she ages, reflected her bad demon was getting louder inside. Alia had always feared her streaks of anger could irreversibly hurt our marriage. She also expressed those fears in Africa. I remember her talking one night about some couple she knew: they had broken up, but later reconciled. For that purpose, they had agreed on some rules, to help them avoid clashing again. Alia mentioned they had for example agreed they would not use the bathroom jointly anymore. Alia remarked how she could not see how that could ever be a problem for us: our love was strong and using the bathroom together could never have any kind of impact on it. Then, as it had happened in Madrid several months earlier, Alia looked at me for reassurance: she could talk for herself about her love, but needed to be reassured I felt the same way. As I always like to add an explanation to support my answers to any such kind of important questions (so that I can prove the sincerity of my words), I told Alia, it was not only that our love was strong; but, after all those thousands of special moments we had shared (throughout our travels, adventures and all other kind of experiences), after all what we had been through together, we had so many amazing memories that reminded us of each other and, so, in a way, bound us to each other, that our love was at that point unbreakable. If we would ever try to split off, there would always be something there to remind us of each other: our Safari in Etosha National Park, our days in Paris, our Honeymoon in the Mayan Riviera, our very first Tortilla breakfast of love. Those memories would kill us and make our separation unbearable.

While now it may be considered that timehas proven my assertion to be foolish, it remains that Alia's words show that, while her bad demon was certainly active and always eager to voice its opinion, the one in charge was clearly her good demon. It should not come to anybody's surprise that her good demon was firmly in power, since, under its leadership, there had been very little else she could have asked from life. I also still believe that, as much as Alia may be these days tyrannized by her bad demon and her good demon may be muffled and handcuffed, those amazing memories of the beautiful times are still in her mind; somewhere in the back of her mind they are still there. Those are the same memories that hurt me and will continue hurting me for the rest of my life, and I am sure, deep inside, somewhere out there Alia goes through the same pain. When I say Alia has lost her mind, has swapped reality with her own fiction and lives in denial, I am sure, it is that she cannot bare the remorse those memories produce. She is just trying to escape the pain; silencing the beautiful memories of our marriage with lies that depict those days as some kind of hell she had to leave behind.

Who knows?, perhaps, after all, I was still right in my assertion that night in Africa. Perhaps there is still a way out of this nightmare. Perhaps, all what I need is to shake up the memories of our marriage to revive Alia's good demon and have it throw her bad demon out of power. Our marriage was, all in all, such an amazing time, our memories together are so beautiful and powerful that Alia's bad demon will not have any chance holding out.