Roman had invited me back to his parents’ flat to eat a meal of boiled cabbage, sausage and bread. We sat in his small, drab kitchen as he asked me questions about my life as he removed his clip-on tie and hat. I was of interest: no one ever comes to Transnistria, and for good reason. There is little of interest to the tourist and no foreign investment. One might say there is actually nothing here. Tiraspol, the nation’s capital city, is an exercise in architectural bleakness and the handful of shops in the country sell bottles of vodka, cognac and potato crisps. But below a dismal surface, Transnistria is a bizarre country, saturated in suspicion, propaganda and distrust. While most Eastern European nations embraced democracy and lurched into free market enterprise, Transnistria is a Soviet throwback. Igor Smirnov, the country’s leader since conception, is versed in Stalinist, Leninist, and one would think Orwellian, principles. He is an old school despot, running everything from the Presidential Palace situated on the main drag through Tiraspol, with a huge statue of Lenin outside gazing down at the windy boulevard. Although Smirnov keeps a close eye on his citizens, some half a million Transnistrians, the Pridnesdrovian Republic is a haven for organised crime. While those in Tiraspol lucky enough to have a car drive spluttering Ladas, a few brand new American Hummers and Mercedes can be seen cruising the streets. To ask where such flash cars came from in Europe’s most impoverished area would be folly. In reality, these men run the country: trafficking illegal workers and prostitutes, dealing in weapons from ex-Soviet countries and selling drugs.

Reaching Transnistria is not easy, and it had taken me a full day’s travel on a network of minibuses from Chisinau, the capital of Moldova. Despite no UN country recognising Transnistria as a legitimate nation, there is a border entry procedure to rival even the most officious of countries. With Moldovan and Transnistrian troops eyeballing each other across a line in the road while ‘peacekeeping’ Russian soldiers loiter in armoured personnel carriers, the atmosphere is sufficiently tense. The Russian military presence is to protect the Republic’s sovereignty but is obviously Moscow’s attempt at power play, showing they still have influence in the old Soviet Union. An enormous Soviet hammer and sickle emblem adorned with sheaves of corn emblazons an arch marking the border. This crossing is famed for its corruption: most of Europe’s illegal arms are trafficked through here and it is unthinkable to cross it as a foreigner without a bribe. After answering her questions as best I could in frankly awful Russian and handing over a postcard of Big Ben, the border guard stamped my visa without much further questioning. She waved me past as I discretely scrunched my ten dollar bill that had been ready in the hand back into my pocket. Passing tanks hidden under camouflage scrim and soldiers enjoying a cigarette and laugh, the minibus passed through the war-damaged border town of Bendery and soon entered Tiraspol.

I had arrived just in time. A police procession was in full swing, high-stepping its way down the main street, with a marching band, Kalashnikovs cleaned and boots polished. Most of the seven or eight people milling around the centre of town ignored it completely.

There are no real hotels to stay in Tiraspol. There is one expensive hotel, a rather optimistic offering to those foreign businessmen who might stay in the capital, but it is known to be crawling with secret policemen. Upon entry to any Transnistrian town, it is required that you register with the local militia. I found a single mother, Lena, who offered to rent her living room to me during my stay. In her mid thirties, she worked as a teacher and her flat was garishly decorated in bright greens and oranges. I turned on the television. Without a satellite dish, which is illegal, the only output available is the state channel. I turned it on. The current offering was a documentary on the history of zips.

The view of my room on the eighth floor of a dilapidated block of flats was one of the best in city. I could see the T-34 tank the Russians had abandoned in the main square, alongside the eternal flame to those who gave their lives in the war with Moldova. Although not a country recognised on the world stage, Transnistria produces its own currency, the PMR Rouble. Exchange rates from Euro, Dollars or Pounds seem artificial and the banknotes are small and grimy and often falling apart. No other currency is officially accepted. The same goes with stamps: all post within the Republic must use Transnistrian stamps, but on international envelopes the country’s population begrudgingly use Moldovan ones. The Republic has its own military (bankrolled by Russia), police force, number plates, passport and flag. It is a country in all but name. Across the street from the Palace of the Soviets, an impressive edifice with yet another statue of Lenin, I saw a billboard featuring Smirnov with the Presidents from two other aspiring break away states South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In the land of teetering alliances and failed states, it seems best to stick together.

View of Tiraspol main street from my room

Near the garrisoned Russian 13th Army there was a small restaurant that sold German food, whose menu offered such dishes as ‘Flesh of Sturgeon with Salad Tenderness of Theresa’. One night, whilst eating there, I asked a waitress what she thought of the Russians, pointing to large billboard across the road where Smirnov was seen shaking hands with Russian Premier Medvedev. “I do not like them, they are aggressive,” she told me sheepishly. She is in a minority in Transnistria, where ethnic Russian speakers pine for a formal union with the Russian Federation. Her restaurant itself was covered in posters of Vladimir Putin and the words “stronger with Russia”.

Into the bizarre mix of what felt like a Communist Disneyland was the Museum of National Heritage. As the lone visitor, I was shown all the exhibits by the curator, turning the lights off after visiting each room. The museum illustrated the history of Transnistria with emphasis on the war with Moldova. I noticed stacks of artillery shells on display in the corner, their firing caps intact and after picking up an ammunition belt noticed that the rounds were still live. Of course, the exhibition culminated with modern Transnistria, complete with plenty of pictures of Smirnov, alongside examples of bank and telephone cards now enjoyed by his citizens. “What will happen when Smirnov dies?” I asked the museum curator. The answer was simple. “Smirnov has a son.”

I had heard that the next day was the anniversary of the Russian Revolution and I asked Lena about it. “Is it Saturday tomorrow? Then, yes, there will probably be something,” she replied, as if Saturday was the day assigned to parading. Standing in front of the Presidential Palace the next day I watched a procession of men march up the main street to Lenin’s statue, their velvet flags adorned with his image. It was the weekend of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and while the rest of the world celebrated, here in Transnistria old men lay wreathes at Lenin’s feet. I was here where I was arrested by Roman for taking pictures of the Presidential Palace, a crime in Transnistria. But as with many things, the country’s formidable appearance belied a friendly people and the arrest turned into a good humoured chat.

Roman and I finished our meal and walked out into the cold. It was sunny and we sat in the shadow of a large 1950s Soviet warplane and fed the pigeons the stale bread we hadn’t managed to finish during lunch. With little do, the few other residents there had had a similar idea.

To buy limited edition prints of photographs never seen outside the Republic click here

Myself upon reaching Timbuktu

I had come to the Sahara to witness the Touareg way of life that has remained almost completely unchanged since man first settled in the desolate wastes of the desert. I wanted to experience their threatened lifestyle first hand, one that is disappearing fast in the wake of aggressive policies pursued by North African governments and the encroaching tourist industry.

In London I had become increasingly frustrated by a dreary life painted in bland tones by concrete buildings and the choking fumes of traffic. I wished to undertake desert travel with the nomads, I wanted to taste the harshness of the desert and derive an understanding of the uncompromisingly gruelling life they led and the freedom of the wilderness. My goal was to reach Timbuktu, crossing from Algeria and approaching it from the north-east.

I had bought five camels in the camel market in Tamanrasset, southern Algeria, with the help of a kindly Touareg. It was in Tamanrasset that I had persuaded the Touareg who live in the surrounding Hoggar mountains to take me across the Tanezrouft to Mali. Indeed, I had been lucky as I was able to track down the only man alive in this part of the country who knew the route. His name was Ouankilla but the tribesmen referred to him as amara, meaning wise-man in Tamasheq, the language of the Touareg. I had arrived in the country knowing little of how to go about my plans of travelling with these people. However, upon my arrival I was quickly taken in by a Touareg woman in Djanet, near the Libyan border. She knew of Touareg who knew tribesmen who in turn knew further people who could take me. I did not speak their language, but one of the Touareg spoke passable French with whom I could talk. Over the course of the journey I would write a small dictionary of Tamasheq for my own use and became confident in the basics of their language.

Barely anything lives in the Tanezrouft, the driest part of the Sahara the size of Germany

Now as we cowered from the wind Ouankilla read the Sands in the moonlight, a ritual used to predict our fortunes for the next day, his fingers making alien patterns of dots and dashes and circles on the ground. He was rather short with smiling eyes and a jolly nature. It had been a week into the journey before I found out he had a large beard and was completely bald. The Touareg always wear their long headcloths, called a cheche, wrapped around their faces so that only their eyes and nose show. Theirs is the only known culture where the men, not the women, are veiled. At first I found speaking to men whose eyes are only showing a little disconcerting, but in time I had slipped into the practice myself and found comfort in the obscurity it afforded.
Whenever I had travelled in the past, I had always been an Englishman abroad. I had worn my own clothes and in bringing a few select luxuries from home had been able to carry my own world with me. But now in order to go some way to being treated equally as those with whom I would be travelling, I would dress as a Touareg. I wanted to be accepted, to some degree, as one of them.

For this reason I dressed as they did in a long blue robe reaching to the ankles and a cheche twisted around my head in their fashion. I wore sandals of camel skin, but more often than not went barefoot. At first I felt very self conscious: my clothes were new and stiff and my cheche bright white compared to their garments, soiled and frayed by the life of a nomad, but soon mine too would become weathered by the desert. I used a stick twined with camel fur for riding, a dagger hung from a belt that I wore tight around my waist with a cartridge belt for ammunition for our .303 rifles. Later in the journey I was given a sword, which to the Touareg is a rite of passage and a symbol of maturity, and is worn around the shoulder.

I ate and drank as they did, drinking the brackish water from wells sometimes 75 metres deep. We would bake hard, unleavened bread from water and semolina, burying the dough in the ashes of a fire to form a makeshift oven. If we chanced on shepherds herding goats in a wadi we could buy one and eat well for a few days. The Touareg eat everything on a goat, from the stomach to the bone marrow, the ears to the lungs. Nothing is wasted. I was often offered the rectum, a delicacy to these people. Water was constantly a problem. The wells were far apart and we carried the water in small goatskins on the backs of the camels. Sometimes one well would serve an area of desert the size of Northern Ireland. In the summer these wells would quickly run dry as the nomads toiled to water hundreds of thirsty camels and I shrank from the thought of what they did for water in these hotter months. Between wells we were rationed to almost two pints of water a day. The thirst was often unbearable and I frequently passed blood in my urine. Thirst would plague my dreams at night and the sloshing of water in the goatskins would taunt me during the day.

My band of Touareg cresting a dune

I had never ridden a camel for any length of time before coming to the Sahara, but after ten to twelve hours of riding a day I learned quickly. The days began an hour before sunrise, waking to a star strewn night’s sky. The nights were often bitterly cold and we slept on the ground under a blanket, our saddles nearby. Everyday the first task would be to find our camels. Each evening we hobbled their front legs together with rope so they could walk in small stilted steps to find dry grass or acacia trees. Most of the time their tracks on the desert floor gave away their direction, but their incessant wandering only added more miles to the amount we would already have to do as they would often walk five miles in a night.

We crossed the invisible border into northern Mali. Here the Touareg were fighting a bloody war with the government in a bid for equal treatment and for a degree of autonomy. I spent a few days resting, repairing saddles and gathering more Touareg at Aguelhok in the Adrar des Ifoghas, an encampment of tents that covered an area the size of Belgium. I was treated with great hospitality and was dismayed to hear that the week after I had left the settlement had been become a battleground, the army having butchered many of its residents. Unwittingly I had saved the lives of those who had come with me, but many wanted to return to search for their families or bury the dead.

I arrived in Timbuktu after two months and found it a disappointment. The beautiful architecture of the houses and mosques was still evident, but the town’s academic allure for which had once been famed was nowhere to be seen. Men hawked trinkets on the street; radios blared by stalls in the market selling goods and clothes made elsewhere and I immediately wanted to return to the quiet safety of the desert, to the Touareg I had been honoured to call my companions on this journey.

Buy a copy of the book Amongst the Touareg here

If you like the pictures, you can also order limited edition prints of the Trans-Sahara expedition and much more here

On go the boots, a thorn-proof jacket and I always bring a long stick with me. And of course my brother, who although being rather eccentric, also likes to scrabble around in the undergrowth trawling up 3000 year old copper mines or crawling into a hidden underground series of chambers built by the early Christians. They are not always hard to find, and I remember days where we found nothing, trying to pinpoint a standing stone or ancient creep hole and returning home covered in cow dung. Still, there is certainly not just a small measure of excitement in finding something almost as old as the pyramids, hidden from view in a thicket next to a field of cows.

West Cork is where I go to unwind, and I always go there after a long and tiring expedition in Africa. For me, discovering these ancient sites around West Cork is fun and the very essence of an afternoon’s adventure.

My brother and I thought we’d film a few of our experiences and share them with you. By no means any kind of a polished production, these short clips are just to give you a flavour and to show that you don’t have to go half way around the world to have a bit of an adventure.

We’ve rather cunningly called it An Extremely Casual Guide to the Ancient Sites of West Cork, because that’s what it is. Except it’s not very fact filled, and most often than not it’s two goons with a video camera on their time off. Episode One is on Dunmanus Castle which is a 15th century derelict castle that overlooks The Sheep’s Head, or Mhuintir Bháire, from the Mizen.

Enjoy.

Comments and ratings always appreciated.

You can read more on Dunmanus Castle by going here:

Ethiopia launches a new Omo River hydroelectric plant.

Some fear the dam could destroy traditional ways of life. A new hydroelectric plant has been inaugurated in Ethiopia – part of a controversial project on the Omo River. Ethiopia hopes the cascade of dams will turn it from a country suffering crippling power cuts to a major electricity exporter.
But critics fear there will be consequences for the environment and for people living along the river. (BBC News)

Many families of tribes that will be affected by the dam that I met on my expedition to the region in 2010 were not aware of its existence. No doubt that will change in the near future as the Omo River will shrink to a stream depriving them of a valuable artery and resource in their remote lands.

Is this the beginning of the end of the tribes who live along the Omo River in Ethiopia? What price is energy demand over indigenous peoples? The dam will benefit millions, but destroy hundreds of tribal communities. What is the compromise when attempting to modernise a country, and at what expense?

To read the full BBC News article go to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8458752.stm