Jamaica

Food

We wanted to sample some Jamaican cuisine was part of my Armchair Travel Challenge and had heard about Jam-Welsh based at the Horseshoe Inn, Llangattock. We had a lovely Coconut Vegan Curry served in ½ pineapple and a Jamaican Spice Jerk Chicken Breast Burger, served with chilli & mango salsa, chips & coleslaw. I later gifted chef Raymond and Sheila a clock in the shape of Jamaica I had made earlier in the week.

Drink

When walking through a park in Butetown, Cardiff following a party I noticed the bins were full of empty bottles of a Magnum Jamaican Tonic Wine (16% Alcohol) – made in Jamaica. The nearby international supermarket had never heard of it but a tiny corner shop near the police station had some in the fridge – bottle purchased for future consumption. The bottle reminded me of cough mixture and there was something about the taste that had a similar resemblance too. We drank the Magnum with some Jamaican Jek chicken made at home.

Jamaica JerkcChicken and Magnum Tonic WIne

Clock

Not a bad shaped country for making a clock but barly enough room to nail the hanging triangle in on the back. Out of hands now – must remember to get some more.

Literature

I made several attempts to read ‘A Brief History of Seven Killings’ by Jamaican author Marlon James but must admit I struggled with it and never finished it. Ah, well, that’s how it goes sometimes.

Music

I’ve always liked a bit of reggae so how better to spend our ‘virtual’ time in Jamaica than by playing Bob Marley, the king of reggae.

I also heard some live Caribbean music when I gate crashed a Windrush event at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay. I caught some of the closing speeches, lots of thank yous followed by 20 minute fun Caribbean music sing-along. They started with Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. I desperately tried to remember the background to the controversy of the song being sung in rugby matches.

Film

Staying on the theme of Bob Marley we watched the 2004 film One Love about a young Rasta musician falls in love with the gospel-singing daughter of a Pentecostal preacher, meeting her as they both sign up for a music contest. It stars one of Bob Marley’s children Ky-Mani Marley. I must admit I think we watched it by mistake after I had read there was a biographical film about Bob Marley called One Love. It turns out that one has only recently been released.

Railways

Well, I wasn’t expecting to discover that. There is a railway in Jamaica! Only just and not many. In fact Jamaica has a long association with railways going all the way back to when the first tracks were laid in 1845. The railways of Jamaica were mainly for agricultural purposes and in later years more for industry, specifically transporting bauxite (aluminium) ore. There have been passenger services in the past but they died out until in the past year or two a school-train service started up and as far as I can tell is still in existence. I like the way the seats are in the same colour as the Jamaica flag.

Geocache

There are presently no Puzzle geocaches in Jamaica for me to solve. I had a look at some of the Earth caches there but I just don’t like Earth caches – and that’s putting it mildly. I find the answers can be so ambiguous. In the end I took a look ay a Virtual cache Rainbow Country that is at Bob Marley’s birthplace. It encourages visitors to find the piece of rock, now painted with a rainbow design, where Marley used to sit and compose some of his songs.

Sport

Jamaica appeared in the FIFA Women’s World Cup finals in Australia in August 2023. They made it through the group stage with a 0-0 draw against Brazil and into the last 16. If they had managed to beat Columbia they would have played England in the Quarter Final but unfortunately they lost 1-0.

The other sporting event that took place whilst we were ‘virtually’ in Jamaica was the World Athletics Championships held in Budapest. Needles to say Jamaica did well in both the men’s and women’s events. In the 200m race Shericka Jackson became the second fastest woman ever with a time of 21.41 seconds.

I also kept an eye on how Jamaica were doing at the World Lacrosse Championships in San Diego, California as I was also following how the Welsh team were getting on there.

Highest Point

The highest point in Jamaica is Blue Mountain Peak in the south east of the island. It is 2,256 metres (7,402 ft) and home of Blue Mountain coffee. By a stange coincidence I came across Blue Mountain when I was putting together a talk this month on the Mackintosh family. Alexander Mackintosh, the 24th chief of the Mackintosh Clan became a merchant in Jamaica, built a house there called Moy Hall (the same name as the family base in Inverness shaire, Scotland).

The Blue Mountains are popular for hiking and camping. The traditional Blue Mountain trek is a 7-mile (11 km) hike to the peak and consists of a 3,000-foot (910 m) increase in elevation. Jamaicans prefer to reach the peak at sunrise, thus the 3- to 4-hour hike is usually undertaken in darkness. Since the sky is usually very clear in the mornings, Cuba can be seen in the distance. Judging by the YouTube videos I watched however the summit of often shrouded in fog).

Stamps

I purchased a set of 1971 stamps celebrating the 300th anniversary of the post office in Jamaica. One of the stamps is upside down presumably a replica of an actual printing error in the past.

Current Affairs

I read around a bit about the news from Jamaica. There was quite a bit about the proposed move to cut links with the British monarchy and form a republic, a view that appears to be gaining traction since the death of the Queen last year. There was also continued discussion concerning reparations for slavery in the past.

Touring Jamaica

We were able to fly to Montego Bay, Jamacia direct from Birmingham with TUI. Where did we go? Well, naturally we didn’t stay in the same place all the time. We took some inspiration from some suggestions I found online such as the Ultimate five day tour of Montego Bay and the Jamacia Travel Guide blog by Oliver.

Bulgaria

Introduction

So the random number generator we use to chose the next country to visit has eventually allowed us out of Africa. We went to Bulgaria. I was last there some 18 years ago when it was the first country to be picked out of the hat at the start of my Guinness European Capital City challenge after visiting Dublin. That seems a long time ago now. I remember being very excited about embarking on the challenge combined with the excitement/nervousness of travelling alone to a destination I knew little about. It also had the challenge of coping with the Cyrillic alphabet.

I’ve watched a few videos of modern-day Sofia. The multitude of ‘places of worship’ are still there as are the relic of the communist era but it somehow seems tidier than it used to and maybe there are not so many missing man-hole covers as there were making it safer for the pedestrian on a night time walk. The tour of Bulgaria by Rick Steves was interesting. I also listened to an interesting interview with Bulgaria’s new Prime Minister, Kiril Petkov.

I must say that I don’t think I’ve got properly under the skin of Bulgaria in this ‘virtual’ visit meaning I’ve not attempted any whimsical imaginary trips so please forgive me. Maybe there were too many other distractions in the month we spent there or maybe I got a bit disillusioned about my failure to meet a Bulgarian. I think I’d better reign back my ambitions a bit next month.

Meeting someone from Bulgaria

It’s took a while but I did eventually manage to meet a Bulgarian. Sneja, from Plovdiv, Bulgaria runs the Pekarna stall at farmer’s markets. We met up with her at Insole Court and purchased various items made with hand-made filo pastry, a recipe taught to her by her grandmother and a Bulgarian loaf of sweet bread. It was a pleasure to gift her a clock I had made in the shape of Bulgaria.

Food

We had just the one meal at home this month, a Bulgarian moussaka – which is a bit like the Greek version but made with potatoes instead of the aubergines. And very tasty it was too.

Drink

We found Bulgarian Deer Point wine available and got hold of a couple of different bottles and very palatable it was too.

Literature

Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov. That was sure an interesting read. A labyrinth of stories. Provoked a lot of self-reflection in me. Not difficult to read but in many ways dense and not to be rushed. I lost the thread at times and read it more as a series of short stories. Well-written and well-translated.

On the lighter side I also read ‘A Brit of Bulgaria’ by Richard Clasby. Written in diary format, a good intro to life of an ex-pat in Bulgaria, but one who works as an odd job builder, does lots of charity work and grapples bureaucracy with plenty of wildlife thrown in. Strangely enough it was this book that gave me perhaps my greatest insight into modern-day Bulgaria.

Film

Zift (2008) – A man is freed on parole after spending time in prison on wrongful conviction of murder. Jailed shortly before the Bulgarian communist coup of 1944, he now finds himself in a new and alien world – the totalitarian Sofia of the 1960s and onwards to the modern day. Filmed in black and white, full of somewhat bizarre characters and events but enjoyable.

Love.net (2011) – a film about that follows the parallel stories of a number of characters who are trying to change their lives via the Internet or are simply having fun online. Not a great film but not awful. Improves as it goes on and the stories develop. Too much unnecessary titillation in my opinion (I must be getting old!). Didn’t get too much insight into modern Bulgaria except that the apartments looked very smart and modern.

Music

I tried a number of Bulgarian playlists on Spotify but I kept coming back to a CD I purchased in Sofia when I was in there in 2004. Looking back at my notes from that trip it was a band of five male singers, three of whom were blind, with an accordion performing in the street. Lots of good harmonies. I wonder if they are still performing?

A friend also recommended that I try listening to Ivo Papasov and his Bulgarian Wedding Band. Turned out to be a good recommendation.

Clock

I managed to obtain a nice bit of off-cut hardwood from a local carpentry business from which to make a clock in the shape of Bulgaria. Another interestingly shaped country, perfect for a clock!

Charity

Casting my mouse around to see if there was a Bulgarian charity I would like to support I came across the work of Friends of Bulgaria which focuses on the wellbeing of children growing up without parents or family in institutional care. What particularly caught my eye was an upcoming triathlon they are competing in and raising funds for Ukrainian refugees in Varna.

Railways

Bulgaria is the first country on our virtual tour we’ve visited that has an extensive railway network. I contacted my friend Ian who is aiming to travel by rail in every European country. He’s almost made it. And yes, he has been to Bulgaria and was kind enough to share with me his blog of his 11-day trip there. I was tired just reading it! Ian is a great planer and record keeper as well as someone who finds interesting things to do and see even in destinations described as dull and boring in guide books. I can tell you that on his trip there in 2011 he travelled 1154 miles by train at an average speed of just 30mph. He’s also good at finding restaurants, another reason I like travelling with him!

New Siemens loco about to be delivered to Bulgaria in 2022

Stamps

Used Bulgarian stamps are very inexpensive and you end up with quite and eclectic mix. Art and theatre seem to be one theme they concentrate on as well as sporting achievements.

Geocaching

When I went to Sofia in 2004 geocaching was still in its infancy. There were a few geocaches in Bulgaria but not in Sofia itself. I had an idea of creating a virtual geocache whilst I was there and did all the homework but when I returned home, put it all together and submitted it for review, it was rejected on the basis that I was not a resident of Bulgaria and could not maintain it, even though it was a virtual cache and did not have a physical geocache at the end of it. Bulgaria remains one of the few European countries where I have not found a cache.

As part of this challenge I want to solve a mystery cache in each country I visit virtually. Things have changed a lot and there are now loads of caches there including many mystery caches. I tried to solve one based on the tile game 2048 and must have attempted it more than ten times but failed every time. Instead I solved one called For Bravery and based on the date of the Serbian-Bulgarian War. Not only was it interesting but it reacquainted me with using Excel spreadsheets.

Highest Point

The highest peak in Bulgaria is Musala which stands at 2,925 metres (9,596 ft). A peak that is reasonably accessible in summer months, in particular on days the gondola is running which takes you part way up. It is snow-covered for many months over autumn-winter-spring making ascents much less common. Rob Woodall gives a good account of his ascent, when he was unfortunate enough to turn up on a July day when the gondola was not running.

Sport

Again I failed to find a game Bulgaria were competing in where I could cheer them along. After a bit of research I came across the high-jumper Stefka Kostadinova. Her world record of 2.09 metres has stood since 1987. That’s a long time! She was the 1996 Olympic champion, a twice World champion, and a five-times World Indoor champion.

Farewell Bulgaria

A lot seems to have changed since I was last in Bulgaria in 2004. Perhaps the biggest change is that Bulgaria is now in the European Union and the UK isn’t. One day it would be nice to go back there in person.

If you enjoyed reading this you may like to read about other countries we have visited as part of our Armchair travel Challenge.

Burkina Faso

Getting to Burkina Faso

I’ve arrived and according to the locals I couldn’t have chosen a better time of the year to be here. November is the dry season but still hot – by my standards anyway, 37⁰C today!

I’ve had all the jabs imaginable on top of my Covid booster: Hep A & B, polio, MMR, rabies, typhoid, diphtheria, meningitis, cholera, yellow fever, hay fever and Saturday Night Fever.

Burkina Faso map

Obtaining a visa was tricky. No Burkinabe embassy in UK so I had to apply to their embassy in Brussels.

The money is something I’ve never come across before. It is the West African CFA Franc, a shared currency between eight West African countries and the value pegged to the Euro. In 2019, it was announced that the West African CFA franc would be reformed, which will include renaming it the Eco and reducing France’s role in the currency.

I couldn’t find a direct flight from home so it was a case of travelling Air France via Paris. I arrived in the capital Ouagadougou and made a great discovery, the airport, the Thomas Sankara Airport (more of him another time) is in the city and I could walk to my hotel – never had that before on my travels. With it being the dry season the air is thick with an orange dust.

I thought I’d treat myself to a bit of luxury at the beginning of the trip – after all its not real money is it. I chose the Bravia Hotel – solely because I love the way they fold the towels.

Burkina Faso Travel

A well written travel blog can take you to your destination and you can almost imagine you are there. This blog by Joan and Lou Rose does just that. It dates back to 2005 when they toured Africa. With Joan suffering from heat exhaustion, Lou takes off alone on a 48 hour round trip to Gorom Gorom in the north-east, somewhere people are advised not to travel today because of the terrorism threat. Rather Lou than me!

Burkina Faso Food

Peanut Stew Margaret kindly served up our first taste of Burkinabe food last night. We found this enthusiastic lady, Estelle, on YouTube and her peanut butter recipe.

A visit to a local African food shop on Clifton Street and Sainsbury’s was called for to assemble the ingredients. That’s a chilli in the pot by the way, not one of Margaret’s fingers.

It was very tasty indeed. Quite heavy – you wouldn’t want to go for a five mile run straight afterwards. Already looking forward to having it again sometime.

Another night we tried Riz Gras, the national dish of Burkina Faso apparently. And very tasty it was too! Thank you again Margaret.

I had a go at making Ragout d’Igname (Yam Stew) and Burkinabé Tô. It was supposed to turn out like the picture on the left and take about five minutes to prepare. It didn’t. Note the lack of Burkinabé Tô in my picture. Millet flour took about 2 hrs to track down in the shops. My mix was grey and runny – not possible to form into balls (we are convinced the proportions in the recipe were wrong). The Yam Stew was a lot better though not as picturesque as in the recipe – and about three hours longer in preparation.

RAGOUT D’IGNAME – TRADITIONAL BURKINABÉ YAM STEW

Went out to dinner one nigh to get a taste of West African food. Visited Afrikana on City Road. I had the I had the ‘What Cheese Said’ – butterfly chicken breast loaded with melted cheese. Served with jollof rice, kachumbari and plantain. Margaret had the ‘Fried Chicken is Life’ – crispy deep-fried chicken breast tossed in a jerk sauce, served with rice and peas and plantain. The restaurant was busy and vibrant and cosmopolitan as only City Road can be – very nice.

Burkina Faso Literature

American Spy – a good read – very much enjoyed it. Not by a Burkinabe author the book certainly provided a good insight into the country and its history. Inspired by true events when Thomas Sankara, a popular Marxist revolutionary led Burkina Faso from 1983 to his deposition and murder in 1987. A fine first book by Lauren Wilkinson. A couple of copies in Cardiff Libraries.

The only English language book I could find by a Burkinabe author was The Parachute Drop by Norbert Zongo. It is about a fictional African country with a despotic leader who comes unstuck. I’ll let you guess which country was actually being written about and which leader. Zongo was an newspaper editor and was assassinated after this book was written.

Burkina Faso books

Burkina Faso Sport

So you join me today on my way not to Burkina Faso, but on a mad-dash trip to Algeria. For the sporting part of the challenge I am going to watch Burkina Faso play their last match in the World Cup Qualifiers against Algeria later today.

I was up way before dawn to make my egg and sardine sandwiches before setting off for London Gatrow. My Air Algerie flight leaves shortly from Terminal 3¾. I’ll just have enough time in the air to finish brushing up on the National Anthem, team news and some key phrases like “Offside Referee!”

After a mad dash out of the airport and into a taxi I have made it to the Stade Mustapha Tucker stadium at Blida, some 35km from Algiers. An expensive ride, but only in the imagination. There’s 14,000 supporters here, mainly Algerian naturally, all vaccinated with stringent health protocols will be in place. I was expecting fine weather but it is 16⁰C and raining. Where’s my mac when I need it.

The team is nicknamed Les Etalons, which means “The Stallions”. It is in reference to the legendary horse of Princess Yennenga. The Burkinabe supporters have a percussion band with them making a heck of a din and mimicking the sounds of galloping horses.

I’m in the Burkinabe section and hoping for a miracle – a 13-0 win that will take us through to the next round of the World Cup qualifiers to be played next Spring. The African nations have just five places allocated to them in the Qatar World Cup due to be played at the end of next year. Here’s hoping for a Burkina Faso vs. Wales final.

The team news isn’t great. Bertrand Traoré, our star striker who plays for Aston Villa, is out injured.

The teams have just come onto the pitch. Now’s the time to sing the Burkina anthem with all my might – I’ve got the words written on the back of my hand. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Half time in a tense first half and it is one a piece. The Man City winger Riyad Mahrez put Algeria ahead after 21 minutes and Burkina Faso came back with a goal from Zakaria Sanogo who plays his football in Yerevan, Armenia.

I treated myself to a Mhajeb at halftime which is Algerian flatbread with tomato and onion stuffing. Yum yum.

An equally dramatic second half ensued with Sofiane Feghouli taking the lead again for Algeria after 69 minutes before Issoufou Dayo who plays for RS Berkane, Morocco, equalized again in the 84^th minute. And so it wasn’t to be the 13-0 win I was hoping for but tense never the less. I’m off to share a strong mint tea with my new Burkinabe friends before heading home.

Postscript: Apparently they didn’t have to win by 13 clear goals, they just had to win. Just goes to prove that my understanding of football can be somewhat lacking at times.

Burkina Faso Music

One of the pleasurable discoveries of this virtual challenge to date has been Burkinabe music. Something that would have been difficult to access a number of years ago is now easily discovered via Spotify playlists. Here’s my favourite Burkinabe playlist. I also dipped into Volta Jazz and even some Smockey plus some traditional instrumental music too.

Burkina Faso Geocaching

Spoiler photo The hobby of geocaching involves using a GPS or Smartphone to find a container someone has hidden. Some of the geocaches are puzzle meaning that a puzzle has to be solved first to get the coordinates of where the geocache is hidden. My idea for this ‘virtual’ tour of the world is to try and solve a puzzle cache in each country. I naturally won’t be able to log the geocache as a ‘find’ but it should still be fun. There are only 6 geocaches in Burkina Faso, 5 traditional and one puzzle cache so my choice was limited to one: Le Centre Noomdo. It is an interesting cache and that has only been found once since it was hidden in 2017. I had soon solved and added to my ‘to find list’! Just better to remember to take the photo with me when I go.

Burkina Faso Charity

I came across this charity when doing my virtual geocahe – see above. Le Soleil dans la Main (the Sun in the Hand) is a Luxembourg based charity providing education in Burkino Faso.

Burkina Faso Clock

Years ago I used to make clocks in the shape of different countries. Shapes like Wales and Ireland were particularly popular. I even sold them in local craft shops. I thought for this challenge I would try and get back into making them. So after restocking some of the materials and bits necessary I sat down at the saw and manged to craft a Burkina Faso clock. It’s been fun getting back into doing some scroll saw work. I have a notion of trying to meet someone from Burkina Faso here in Cardiff, in a public place like outside the castle, shaking hands (or more like knocking elbows these days) and gifting them a clock. So serious question, does anyone know anyone in Cardiff from Burkina Faso?

Burkina Faso Train journey

Our choice of where to go by train in Burkina Faso was rather limited – there is only one track. It runs 622km from Kaya, north east of the capital to the border with Côte d’Ivoire. The train used to run all the way to the Ivory Coast coast but because of the worry over Ebola the border has been closed. We picked the train up at the capital Ouagadougou. Again our choice was somewhat limited, there are just three trains a week, so you don’t want to turn up on the wrong day.

I say ‘we’, I was travelling in my imagination with my friend Ian, train enthusiast, and great organiser – there was no chance of me getting lost here. It was a bit of a surprise for him – in fact he’s only just found out.

They got some new trains in 2019. When I say new, I mean second-hand from Switzerland, so they know they can keep good time. We were worried we hadn’t bought enough sandwiches so looked out of the window to find there was plenty of people wanting to sell us snacks for the journey.

We were going as far as Banfora, not too far from the Ivory Coast border. I hadn’t told Ian why – I’ll break it to him gently. Our train journey would take around 24 hours. It would have been faster by bus but where’s the fun in that. There was just enough time to have a quick wander around some places en-route. We stopped off at Bingo and in the 30 minutes we were walking around saw two fat ladies, Danny La Rue, two little ducks and a garden gate. The station building at Bobo Dioulasso was something else. Bobo is Burkina Faso’s second city and one famous for its music. They were playing Volta Jazz tracks at full blast.

Back on board and onto our final destination at Banfora. The station here looked much more what I was used to. And so I broke the news to Ian that we were here to climb to the highest point in Burkina Faso.

(above ideas cam from and Journey blog from 2015 by Robbie Corey-Boulet and a 2019 blog from The Barefoot Backpacker🙂

Burkina Faso Highest Point

According to Wikipedia, Mount Tenakourou is Burkina Faso’s high point at 747 meters or 2,451 feet. One of the attractions is that the summit offers a view over three countries: Burkina Faso, Mali at a distance of 3 kilometres (2 mi) and Ivory Coast at 13 kilometres (8 mi). Important side note: the French apparently felt that Burkina Faso’s high point deserved to be a nice round number so they laid out a 3 meter high pile of rocks at the summit to boost the height to an even 750 meters. I checked with the highest authority on Welsh mountain surveys, who has red-carded them. That doesn’t count – the official summit is still listed as 747 meters.

Mount Tenakourou

We arrived in Banfora at 10h00, just in time to get a guide who ‘sold’ us a 4X4 and driver for R1300. There was no other transport except motorbikes, and considering my dislike for them, we paid the exorbitant price.

A dusty 90 km followed before we reached the village where we paid the chief dash and were given one of his wives to hike with us.

All along the way she gave us wild fruit she picked. The Cairn was the biggest I’ve seen. The guides wanted to take us to the waterfalls but we declined, and the dusty 90 km back followed, with a flat tire to make sure life didn’t get boring.

(Text borrowed and adapted from The Gray Mountaineer and Sunrise on Africa’s Peaks)

Burkina Faso Film

The Man Who Stopped the Desert Burkina is known for its annual African film festival called Fespaco and cinema going is very popular in the capital. I failed to find a feature length Burkinabe fictional film but watched some documentaries which gave a good insight into the country. The Man Who Stopped the Desert is about a local farmer that devised a way of growing crops and trees in an otherwise hostile environment by planting outside the traditional season, lower down and adding manure.

Burkina Faso Stamps

Thought I would try and get some stamps from each country – it may make a nice collection if I continue with the challenge. Aren’t the pictures on stamps wonderful. My Dad used to like collecting stamps more for the pictures than their value. He used to glue than into an album rather than use mounts of any kind thereby making them all but worthless but he got enjoyment out of them and that’s what counts in life.

Burkina Faso stamps

These last few sections actually came early on in my month in Burkina Faso when I was doing a lot of background reading. They are a bit dry – after all I don’t want to mess around with important things like history and the economy:

Geography

A land-locked country. Arid in the north where it borders the Sahara. Crops grown by irrigation. Limited natural resources.

Economy

A particularly low-income country with most people working in agriculture. Cotton is the main cash-earning crop. Gold is also mined.

History

A former French colony, independent since 1960. French widely spoken though so are the local languages. Used to be called Upper Volta till Thomas Sankara came to power in 1983. He is often referred to at Africa’s Che Guevara. Sankara was assassinated in 1987. He was replaced by Blaise Compaoré who stayed in power till 2014. Compaoré has been living in exile in Ivory Coast and is currently on trial (in absentia) for involvement in the murder of Thomas Sankara.

Current Affairs

The trial of Blaise Compaoré was due to take place this month but has been postponed. Terrorist incursions in the north of the country dominate a lot of the news. I picked up some snippets of news from BBC Africa Today. Also looked at French newspapers online – now Google translates complete web pages painlessly things are a lot easier than they used to be.

Farewell Burkina Faso

Our time in Burkina Faso is drawing to a close. The draw will soon be made for the next place for us to visit. It’s been a real blast learning about Burkina Faso; eating the food, listening to music, watching videos, reading blogs, taking a train, buying some stamps, reading literature, history and current affairs and a few other things. Still hoping to find someone from Burkina Faso in Cardiff to give the clock to. Thank you for reading and I hope you will join me in the next country.

Progress to date: Armchair Travel Challenge