travel-related

It’s a busy day tomorrow, but I did drop by Lingis for another visit today. It was a wide-ranging conversation like the previous times (I wish I had transcripts). But travel came up as it often does with him, and he asked if I knew how many countries I’d been to. I said 58, and gave rough descriptions of where, and his very first response was that I was crazy not to have gone to Ethiopia yet. He outlined the things he liked best about Ethiopia, and urged me to go there soon. And so I will.

I asked him if he knew how many countries he’d visited, and he said he never knew until this morning. (!) He was being interviewed via email, and that question came up, so he went to one of those websites with a map to help you figure out where you’ve been. He doesn’t remember his exact total, but it’s well over 100 but not 200, so he does have some places still to go.

He says that most of his remaining countries are small islands far away from everything else, and one of them happens to be Malta.

For the Milennium, I remember that he tried hard to book a trip to the North Pole, but obviously no one would go. So he had to settle for Mongolia.

Today I heard quite a bit about his first trip to Afghanistan, c. 1970. He had a wonderful experience there, and fully expects that he’ll never see it again, given current conditions.

His favorite country? Well, I’ve heard him give several different answers to that question, but on this trip he has been saying the pre-Civil War Sri Lanka was his favorite. I don’t think he’s been back there lately.