Now in Patrick Smith's ASK THE PILOT...


A mini-memoir of flight and travel: Africa In Two Parts

http://life.salon.com/2012/01/11/out_of_africa/


"...I enjoy the flight into Dakar. The way the Cap Vert peninsula appears on the radar screen, perfectly contoured like some great rocky fish hook — the western-most tip of the continent, and the sense of arrival and discovery it evokes. There it is! Africa!

Eastbound over Senegal, crossing into Mali. Predawn plumb-light, then sunrise. A hot red sphere balanced perfectly on a razor-straight horizon; the River Niger like a mirrored snake casting itself across the sahel.

Over the sewer-gutter town of Mopti, where I spent two days in 2002 on the way to Timbuktu. .It looks so placid from 33,000 feet. I remember the riverfront trash, the shattered boats and the heaps of firewood raided from the forest. Naked children splashing in the greasy water.

The Bandiagara Escarpment is next. Home of the Dogon people, though you can’t see them from a 767. I was there, too. We camped out.

The land below is the exact texture of 40-grade sandpaper, splattered with gray-green turds that turn out to be small villages. Each is a tiny star with red clay roads radiating outward...."


And some funny parts too. Behold the room service menu at the Pullman Hotel.

The FULL story is here:
http://life.salon.com/2012/01/11/out_of_africa/



Recently in ASK THE PILOT:

Cupcakes, Lightsabers, and National Security

"… And so here we are, having reached a point where truth has become fully and truly stranger than fiction. I challenge anyone to.invent a scenario more farcical than those listed above. What could possibly be more demented than what has actually happened?…"

The FULL article is here:
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/04/what...mon/singleton/


Now in its tenth year, ASK THE PILOT is the Web's most trenchant and insightful source for all things air travel! . Entry is always free.


Patrick



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