Sunday, November 23, 1997

Last stop for the man who has been everywhere


Last stop for the man who has been everywhere

Jeremy Atiyah meets the youngest person to have travelled the world
Jeremy Atiyah 
Sunday, 23 November 1997
Not even the threat of war, nor nuclear attack, could have stopped Phil Haines from going on holiday to Iraq last week. While US and British forces menaced the Gulf, he and a few friends were cheerfully speeding towards the almost deserted Karameh border post - and a remarkable record.
For the trip to Saddam's fiefdom meant he was calling on the last and only country on earth which he had not visited. Mr Haines has now been, quite literally, everywhere, and, at just 35, claims to be the youngest person to have been to all 192 sovereign countries recognised by the United Nations.
Mr Haines is charmingly modest about his achievement. "I haven't yet been to all the dependent territories," he explained. In other words, he hasn't been to places like Pitcairn Island or Antarctica, meaning he is not quite the world's best travelled man. That honour belongs to John D Clouse from Indiana, who has done all the sovereign countries and all but six dependent territories.
Phil is not after publicity, nor has he had sponsors following him in emergency vehicles. He has done it, it seems, for the hell of it. "My parents have hardly been out of Middlesex and it was only at the age of 16 that I first went abroad," he says. "That was when I got a bit obsessive. When people were doing InterRail, I was going from Morocco to Norway to Turkey in one trip."
Ticking off the world's countries was something he started a decade ago, by which stage he already had a good 80 under his belt - all the easy ones, he admits. The last 50 or so have been "all the nightmare ones". The list of his latest holidays reads like a list of war zones: Afghanistan, Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia and now Iraq.
But the timing of his Iraq trip hardly ruffled him at all. "I'm used to bad situations," he says. "When I arrived in Monrovia recently, the immigration official put a gun to my chest and said, 'Welcome to Liberia'. I shook the gun as if I was shaking his hand. He liked that. I know how to avoid trouble."
Not that safety has been his main preoccupation - visas have been the thing. Mr Haines spends most of his time negotiating visa applications in stuffy consulates. "When I'm in a place like Djibouti or Albania, I'll always pop into, say, the Angolan embassy, in case they're in a good mood. Procuring visas is a job in itself," he says.
Which is just as well, because Mr Haines, who describes himself as "a bit of a bum", only works to get money for his next trip. And a "trip" can be an extensive affair; he once bought a single air ticket with 40 destinations on it. Which is not to say he never travels for pleasure. The favourite places of the man who has been everywhere are South-east Asia and Polynesia.
He has documented all his trips with immigration stamps. "You need to go through immigration," he explains. "That proves you've been to a country. Just landing at the airport doesn't count." He has got through 10 large- sized passports. Only in the case of his attempted visit to Libya does Mr Haines confess he stretched his own rules.
"I had a visa and landed in the country, but they never stamped my passport - in fact, the immigration officials physically attacked me. But I did spend a couple of days locked up in the airport before they expelled me, and I think that deserves to count."

Sunday, November 9, 1997

Can't stop, I'm doing the Canary Islands' perpetual motion cultural desert tour


Can't stop, I'm doing the Canary Islands' perpetual motion cultural desert tour

Restless Jeremy Atiyah turned his back on lazy Lanzarote's stationary beach bums and scurried round four islands in a single day
Jeremy Atiyah 
Sunday, 9 November 1997
The stationary version of the Canary Islands holiday involves flying for four hours from Britain to islands with funny names but no identifiable location on the weather map.
The temperature is 25 degrees C, the cuisine is strangely familiar, the local people might be described as international types. Welcome to a country without a context. Why not call it Holidayland?
But is there anything remotely exciting in Holidayland? Not much, unless you are eighteen and single. Otherwise, you'll need the motion version of the Canary Islands holiday.
And the motion version requires context. You need to know for example that the Canaries comprise seven main islands, starting just 50 miles off the southern coast of Morocco and spanning 300 miles from east to west.
You also need to understand that the islands closest to Africa (Lanzarote and Fuerteventura) are virtually extensions of the Sahara Desert, while the islands furthest away (La Palma and Hierro) are relatively green and wet.
On the cultural front, it might help to know that the islands have been ruled by the Spanish since the fifteenth century, with the archipelago's original inhabitants (the Guanches) having disappeared virtually without trace.
Nothing too onerous there then. I chose a motion holiday taking in the main holiday centres. To make it really exciting, I would do it all in a single day: a round trip from Tenerife, via Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria - with no stopping allowed.
Breakfast: Funny how the north coast of Tenerife is green and hilly like the Dordogne. Funny because the rest of the island comprises barren volcanic rock that looks as if it has been worked over by a cosmic bulldozer.
Anyway, the 8am flight to Arrecife on Lanzarote takes 45 minutes (another 15 minutes in the same direction and we would be hitting Morocco).
From Lanzarote airport, stationary tourists head for Playa del Carmen; motion tourists jump into taxis and head south. "We like English tourists," explains my taxi driver. "But it is strange that you eat only English food and drink English beer. Are you not interested in our country?"
What country? Actually, the landscape here is just how England would look if no rain fell for about 50 years. There are brown, bald hills and relics of ancient agriculture; old walled plantations where tomatoes and water-melons once ripened, interspersed by white villages. On the right a colossal black larva plain ripples away into the horizon.
Twenty minutes later, and I'm done with this place. At Playa Blanca, on the southern tip of Lanzarote, I await the ferry to Fuerteventura. Here on the edge of the desert lies a small resort village of whitewashed cottages, Marrakesh-style hexagonal towers and palm trees. The waters are clean and a dessicating wind blows in from the shores of Africa.
Lunch: The boat journey to Fuerteventura takes just 35 minutes. I vaguely expect to find the boat full of Canarian commuters in suits, until I remember that this is a Sunday. Hence the day trippers decked out in trilbies.
My first view of Fuerteventura is of a sandy plain, a heat haze and air thick with dust. A colossal ziggurat seems to rise like a monument from old Babylon; this turns out to be a tourist hotel.
Fuerteventura is almost pure desert. And Corralejo, the small resort on the northern tip of the island, is a two-horse, shutter-banging-in- the-wind, vulture-wheeling-in-the-sky kind of resort. The main drag is bleak and hot, and restaurants have names like Willy's Pizzeria. "Drink two-and-a-quarter pints in 25 seconds and get it free", announces a sign in one pub. Opposite the small town beach rises the Isla de los Lobos, a black slag heap in the middle of the bay.
The serious beaches though are outside town. I see a sign pointing south to the "Grandes Playas". I tell myself that Saudi Arabia probably has some great beaches too. Catching a bus south from Corralejo, I pass the ziggurat, and giant sand vistas begin filling my horizon. The buttocks of tiny nude tourists can be glimpsed scuttling up and down the dunes like crabs.
Puerto de Rosario, the capital city of Fuerteventura, is a half-hour drive to the south. It's another dead little place, containing a blinding white church and a hot square where the entire populace gathers under a shady bandstand to drink beer on Sunday afternoons. I am in far too much of a hurry to join them.
Dinner: Instead it is time to move east, on the 2pm flight to Gran Canaria. In the airport bookshop I stumble across a fascinating little volume about the Guanchos, who are thought to be related to the Berbers of Morocco. These people not only developed the world's first whistling language but also learnt the skill of bounding around mountainous terrain on long poles at dizzying speed. The book strikes me as a small step along the road towards proclaiming an independence movement. Nowadays, trendy Canarians name their daughters after Guanchos princesses.
From the air, the true desolation of Fuerteventura is revealed in its dusty magnificence. Only the western hills reveal the faintest of green fuzzes, before we are jumping over the sea to Gran Canaria.
The two desert islands I have seen this morning do not prepare me for Las Palmas, the main city of the Canary Islands. This turns out to be a huge metropolis marooned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, with roaring expressways lined by high-rise buildings.
Dazed, I wander into the old city, La Vegueta. Sweaty youths in basketball shirts lope past in pursuit of girls with delicate eyebrows. Old ladies lean over wrought-iron balconies, tiny cars muscle up tiny streets. Outrageous floral flourishes in plaster adorn the facades. I keep wondering whether this is Third World or First; the higher I walk the more precarious and provisional the houses become, like a Rio favela. Is this perhaps a Latin American city?
A stocky man in sunglasses who is washing his car vigorously looks up. "What do you expect?" he says. "We are half-way between Europe and Latin America. You can fly to Venezuela from here in only six hours."
With the oily broken tarmac, the smell of bubble gum and ducados, the modern buildings and traffic jams, this could easily be Caracas.
Nightcap: Like a vast apparition in the sunset, the volcanic dome of Mount Teide, Spain's tallest mountain, looms up out of the island of Tenerife, one hundred miles away across the dark sea. The highway along the north coast of Gran Canaria to the ferry port is as busy as the M25 during rush- hour but I am more stunned by the view.
We board in darkness, under a warm wind. Passengers range from glamorous Spaniards to chunky Canarians. There are no foreign tourists. The ship has boutiques, a bar and a restaurant and I feel like I must be in Dover.
Arrival at Sta Cruz de Tenerife is around 10.30pm. The crowds evaporate and I wander alone into town. There are cheap pensiones in these streets, where a bed will cost pounds 8 a night. It's time to get stationary.
Canary fact file
When to go
The weather in the Canary Islands is drier and sunnier in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura than in Tenerife. Nevertheless, all the islands are pleasantly mild in summer and winter alike.
Stationary holidays
Hundreds, if not thousands, of packages are available at any time of year, including large numbers of last-minute deals. Check teletext or visit a travel agent. Prices range from around pounds 200 to pounds 400 per person per week in a self-catering apartment, including flights from almost any airport in Britain. Quality of accommodation is not always high.
Motion holidays
All the islands are linked by ferry services. Sample prices on Fred Olsen Lines include Lanzarote to Fuerteventura: Pts 1,800 (pounds 8), and Gran Canaria to Tenerife: Pts 2,700 (pounds 12). Discounts for under-26s available. Buy tickets locally.
Flights on the local domestic airline Binter link up most of the islands. To book from the UK, call Iberia on 0171 830 0011. Sample fares include Tenerife to Lanzarote (pounds 43, plus tax, one way) and Fuerteventura to Gran Canaria (pounds 29, plus tax, one way).
Flight-only deals from Britain to the Canary Islands - to any of the islands - can start from around pounds 100 or even less on a last-minute charter seat booked through a tour operator. If you want scheduled flights, Monarch Airlines (01582 398333) flies direct, twice a week, from Luton to Tenerife. The fare until 18 December is pounds 170, plus pounds 14 tax.
Operators who offer tailor-made trips taking in some or all of the Canary Islands include Mundi Color (0171 282 6021), who also offer a cruise of the islands starting from the UK, Sovereign First Choice (01293 560777), Inntravel (01653 628811) and Magic of Spain (0181 748 4220).

Sunday, November 2, 1997

Could the end of the dope holiday really be nigh?


Could the end of the dope holiday really be nigh?

JEREMY ATIYAH 
Sunday, 2 November 1997
What worries me about the possible decriminilisation of cannabis is that people will have one less reason to travel. Going abroad in search of dope is one of those honourable traditions that Bohemians, hippies and new-age travellers will one day look back on with tears of nostalgia.
All backpackers worth their salt know what it is to sleep in smoky Bombay dormitories with self-righteously dirty Austrians and Germans, who suddenly whip crafted pipes out of their clothing just at the moment your eyes were about to close in sleep.
The elaborate lighting-up ceremonies, the smoky suckings and puffings, the silent offering around of the pipe like a sacred talisman; these rituals mean as much for travel as Delhi belly and the InterRail card.
And look at those generations of students riding the waves to Holland every Christmas vacation. As we all know, ragged young intellectuals do not cross the North Sea for tulips or the Van Gogh Museum. They go for dingy peace cafes where spliffs appear on the menu next to the mushroom quiche.
In years gone by, the further you travelled the further the view disappeared into aromatic smoke. Before the war the place to smoke a pipe was China. Shanghai was so sinful that a blast of opium before bed was as respectable as a glass of sherry.
In the Fifties it was Saigon and Hong Kong that filled with travelling dope-smokers, while the Sixties saw dope shops spring up on the road to Goa like garrison cities on the Silk Road. Istanbul's famous Pudding Shop was where you stocked up on the stuff before taking the long dope road to India and Nepal. And if you couldn't make it to Katmandhu you took the short cut to Marrakesh instead.
Otherwise you went to countries where the whole local culture revolved around "substances". Countries such as Columbia where a mouthful of coca leaves was the local equivalent to a mid-morning coffee, or the Yemen where cabinet ministers chewed qat to discuss the national budget.
Meanwhile, airports from New York to Singapore crunched to the sound of dope being walked on, hidden inside travellers' shoes, while rucksacks swilled with cannabis fragments disguised as bits of dirt. Personally I call it madness, but there is no end to the madness of people who associate dope with travel.
And yet how things have changed. Smoking dope in Tony Blair's Britain seems such a tame affair compared to the same, heart-stoppingly dangerous offence in, say, King Hassan's Morocco or Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore.
It won't be long before long-haired dropouts from the universities of Delhi and Bombay start making pilgrimmages to British seaside resorts, where they will play didgereedoos and relax naked under the stars. The curious residents of Bournemouth and Brighton will earn pocket money by selling dope to naked junkies.
Still later, in a long overdue act of retribution, the Chinese will send their gunboats and force us to buy dope by the tonne, whether we like it or not. We will no longer need to travel for our dope and the tides of cultural history will have changed yet again.