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Written by Randall Wood
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Tuesday, 31 August 2010 |
I've had animals around to greet me everywhere I've ever lived, from owls in Pennsylvania to lizards in Benin. But as we settled into our new home in Dakar, Senegal, somebody extra special was waiting for us in the branches of a pine tree behind our home. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 31 August 2010 )
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Written by Randall Wood
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 |

The bar, the shifting bar: Sleeping menace, slumbering hippo. A cat beneath the carpet, slinking eastwards, never in the same place twice. Now the waves are breaking in deeper water, but as soon as you paddle out they're behind you; turn to chase them and there's a monster rearing on your tail. The tide drops and the swell builds, now lumpy and gentle, now peaking with enough force to lift you off your board. The wind picks up, scattering the water's skin in a confusion of spray and chop. The bright sun makes a beeline for the zenith, penetrating the sea, now turquoise, the foam blown white and bright.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 11 March 2010 )
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Written by Randall Wood
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Wednesday, 20 January 2010 |
The sun fell behind the Possotomè hills as it does in the tropics:
quickly. The shadows stretched over the lake, and we dined on lobster and
grilled flatfish over rice. The hotel's restaurant stood on stilts over the
lake surface, and the water lapped gently beneath us as the lights reflected
over the water.
I retired to the extreme edge of the dock with a whiskey and my journal,
where I saw something I hadn't seen in ages: stars. We see some stars in
Cotonou, but the lights of the capital preclude much of a show. Here in the
countryside, there were few lights to speak of, and the sky was ablaze in a
moonless night. Orion reclined over the lake's eastern shore, and Mars and
Sirius glowed like embers beneath his shoulder. In the distance we heard
the drums of a celebration, or a Vaudoun rite. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 20 January 2010 )
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Written by Randall Wood
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Thursday, 26 November 2009 |
 It's hard not to evoke Cotonou's name in the local language, Fon, because the expression "River of Death" turns heads. But in Benin, West Africa, the past and the present are the same, and the future and the present are indistinguishable. So it is that, irregardless of what Cotonou is today, it will forever retain the soul of an African slaving hub at the mouth of a river that carried an unfortunate cargo down to the waiting slave ships. And for the moment, Cotonou is my home, and this message is coming to you live from the River. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 31 March 2010 )
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Written by Randall Wood
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Thursday, 19 November 2009 |
I'm pleased to report my website has been recommended among several other top travel writing sites in an article describing how to break into the travel writing business. There's an awful lot of travel writing out there, and not a whole lot of work, and the number of qualified writers can seem innumerable at times. So it's nice to be recognized alongside masters like Joe Cummings and Bill Bryson in this article, entitled "The Art of Travel Writing: 100 Tips, Tools, and Resources to Get Paid and Published."
Have a look here.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 November 2009 )
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Written by Randall Wood
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Saturday, 15 August 2009 |
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In August 2009, Benin celebrated its 49th year of independence. For an
American whose country was last the colony of another nation 233 years ago,
that's pretty impressive. It's a sobering trip to walk east from Gran Popo
along the shores of the Mono River through what remains of that
village's now ancient, colonial architecture. Blame economics, neglect,
differing priorities, or the simple avarice of the Atlantic coast's shifting
coastline. But the little that remains of France's colonial influence
in Gran Popo is not far from oblivion. That makes it an inspiring
destination.
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Written by Randall Wood
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Sunday, 09 August 2009 |
The elephant ear of Africa stretched endlessly to our north
through deserts and rubble. A young Fon by the name of Mathieu was at the
tiller of our small outboard; he was an entrepreneur of the sort Africa's
economic future desperately depends, and had proposed the trip to us with a
hand lettered brochure on which he had painstakingly illustrated the boat
trip's highlights. The Mono, sleek with the ripples of the morning's
southwesterly wind, slipped beneath us to the hum of the outboard and the
whisper of the morning breeze.
As our low craft slipped through wooded islets it was hard not to
appreciate the tenacity of the river's march towards the rumpled Atlantic.
The river's course widened appreciably in our descent: low villages of
concrete and adobe huts watched us from the river's edge, children splashed
each other in the warm water, and men strained to push their wooden craft in,
laden with nets... |
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 15 August 2009 )
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Written by Randall Wood
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Monday, 27 July 2009 |
 Early evenings are when the city most evoked the illusion of walking
through the pages of a Milan Kundera novel, but although I
looked everywhere for confirmation we were beyond the footprint of the old
Iron Curtain, In Prague I failed roundly. I found instead a glimpse of the
wry Czech sense of humor. The old statue of Lenin was cheerfully
dynamited a decade ago: a 10 meter high stone structure where Lenin stood
grimacing over the high banks of the Moldau, four proletariat behind him.
The Czechs called the statue "waiting in line for meat," and laughed that
Lenin was at the head of the line. But the Cold War is rapidly becoming the
leitmotif of a generation whose time has passed, and the streets are full of
mini-skirted consumers chatting on cellphones and drinking lattés... |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 27 July 2009 )
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