I stayed in riads – traditional houses built around garden courtyards, which were both really nice places to stay.

I had a wander around Marrakech’s enormous main square and palaces and markets.

I really liked Fes – it is such a distinctive city. Both Marrakech and Fes have medinas.

The medina is typically walled, with many narrow and maze-like streets. The word “medina” itself simply means “city” or “town” in modern day Arabic. Medina quarters often contain historical fountains, palaces, and mosques. Because of the very narrow streets, medinas are generally free from car traffic, and in some cases even motorcycle and bicycle traffic. The streets can be less than a metre wide. This makes them unique among highly populated urban centres. The Medina of Fes, or Fes el Bali, is considered one of the largest car-free urban areas in the world. Some medinas were also used to confuse and slow down invaders because of how narrow and winding they are.

http://www.completemorocco.com/destination-types/cities/fes

No motor traffic can manoeuvre through its labyrinth of 9000 alleyways which throng instead with a bewildering variety of people, tribes, costumes and races from the olive-dealers of the Zalagh Hills, veiled women on their way to the hammam, the industrious merchants, water-sellers and artisans, all scurrying to the sound of “balek, balek” as mules, piled high with merchandise, force their way through the sunless tunnels to fragrant souks, accompanied by the clatter of hammers in the Square of the Copper Workers to the stench of the Tanners Quarter and the ever present swarm of humanity.

It’s easy to get lost in Fes and there are lots of people offering to guide tourists in exchange for a tip.  I preferred to wander around the city by myself though. Eventually I would make it back to the main street to orient myself. As much as I like to consider myself an experienced and independent traveller, sometimes this is closer to the reality.

The tanneries are one of the most popular tourist attractions, but it would be a difficult place to work.

The cats in Morocco are well-trained:

Philip Gourevitch’s book, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families is one of the saddest I’ve ever read and outlines some of the events of the genocide. As usual, a lot of the blame for how things turned out in Africa can be put on the Europeans – in this case the Belgians and French. The Belgians created social divisions in colonial Rwanda, encouraging hatred between the Hutus and Tutsis. When the Belgians left, the rivalries intensified. The French helped train and continued to supply arms to those committing the genocide. After the Hutu president’s plane was shot down (most likely by Hutu military leaders who wanted to spark the genocide) Hutu forces executed as many Tutsis as they could find, along with Hutus opposed to the genocide. This led to Tutsi rebels in Uganda invading Rwanda, taking power and then invading the Congo in pursuit of fleeing Hutu forces. This led to the downfall of Mobutu’s dictatorship and the fracturing of the Congo state.

We also visited the Hôtel des Mille Collines (Hotel of 1000 Hills), better known as Hotel Rwanda. This is the hotel where the manager hid more than 1200 people, saving their lives. The story is featured in the movie Hotel Rwanda. (The actual hotel looks nothing like the one shown in the movie). As far as I could see, at the hotel now, there are no monuments or mentions of what happened during the war. It seems the hotel doesn’t want to be remembered for those events. We had a buffet lunch at the hotel (which was the best meal I’d had for a couple of months). It is an odd experience to enjoy such a lavish meal at such a sad place.

We also visited the memorial to the Belgian peacekeepers who were killed protecting the Rwandan prime minister (a woman who was assassinated because she was a moderate Hutu and opposed the genocide). Again, it’s something I have mixed feelings about. While of course, it’s good to remember people who died during their job, it does seem unbalanced to single out the 10 foreigners when so many other people died.

Then it was on to Uganda and Kalinzu Forest Reserve. We went on a walk to see the chimps, but the most I saw was a faraway blurry black shape in the trees for a couple of seconds. We had some baboon visitors to our camp site though.

Fortunately the gorilla trek at Bwindi Impenetrable Forest was more successful. Permits to see the gorillas are expensive ($600 US), but it turned out to be the highlight of my Africa trip and one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done. Tourists are divided into groups of 8 and assigned a gorilla family that has been habituated to human visitors. A couple of trackers set out ahead of the group and go to the location where the gorillas where the previous day, follow their trails and then radio back their location. We had a couple of guides with us and a couple of guards armed with machine guns (due to the threat of poachers and encountering other wild animals. Eight foreign tourists were killed in the forest by rebels in 1999).

Since the gorillas move around you don’t know how long the trek will take, but we were warned to prepare for a long walk and to bring plenty of water.

It took us 3 hours of walking through the forest, climbing up steep hills and crossing creeks, but we made it to our gorilla friends. They were moving around a lot and with the vegetation, it was difficult to get good photos of them, but it was wonderful to be so close to them. There was a silverback, a couple of females and a three-year-old baby. At one point the baby ran up and touched the knee of one of the girls in our group. We also saw two of the adults mating. The baby jumped on the back of the silverback while this was going on. Afterwards the silverback was about a metre away from me and the guide used his machete to lower some of the vegetation. The silverback had been about to eat that vegetation and he roared in disapproval. Having a wild silverback roar when it is standing a metre away from you is an interesting experience.

I also went river boarding on the Nile. The rest of the group went rafting or kayaking, the guide and I rode through the rapids clutching our boogie boards.

Ugandan Car-B-Que.

We spent a couple of days by the beach and went snorkelling. We also went on a spice plantation tour, where I was unsurprised to learn that I would have trouble identifying the plants that spices come from.

And then it was on to one of the highlights of the trip – the Serengeti – one of the world’s greatest national parks. We also looked at Ngorogoro Crater, another animal reserve next to the Serengeti. Most tourists travel around in 4WDs with popup roofs that allow you to stand up and get better views of the wildlife.

Even in the wild you’re required to stop at zebra crossings.

The parks are famous for their big cat viewing opportunities. We spotted a leopard sleeping in a tree.

Some lions.

We were lucky to get close to a cheetah and her cubs who were enjoying a tasty snack.

I hadn’t heard of the caracal before, but it’s a cat renowned for its leaping ability.

We also saw some lions fighting with a pack of hyenas over a kill.

Wall to wall hippos.

When Robert Mugabe took power in Zimbabwe, he was noted for his conciliatory gestures towards white farmers, but that changed and the country has suffered for years. The economy became so bad that it suffered from hyperinflation.

…prices doubled at least every day. In July, the central bank issued a banknote with a value of 100 billion dollars, but it could buy no more than half a loaf of bread. Six months later, the bank issued a new banknote of 100 trillion dollars. But the rout continued until the government abandoned the Zimbabwe dollar altogether in favour of using foreign currency.

Now they use US dollars. There are locals who try and sell old billion dollar notes to tourists for a few dollars. Mugabe has managed to cling on to power. He’s 91 and it appears as though his memory is failing. (He read the same speech twice in Parliament http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-16/zimbabwe-president-mugabe-delivers-wrong-speech-in-parliament/6779412). He is very fond of Australia and responds favorably to any criticism of his regime, announcing that – “Australia has criminal blood. There are criminals who were shipped to that place and settled there.”

Mugabe used to be known for his love of learning. When writing about Mugabe, Paul Theroux remarked “There was no deadlier combination than bookworm and megalomaniac. It was, for example, the crazed condition of many novelists and travellers.”

Mugabe was also recently awarded a Chinese peace prize.

The chairman of an award dubbed China’s Nobel peace prize has defended the decision to honour Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, for supposedly “injecting fresh energy” into the global quest for harmony.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/22/zimbabwes-robert-mugabe-awarded-chinas-nobel-peace-prize

Zimbabwe has been in the news recently due to the death of Cecil the lion (animal deaths often cause more international outcry than political deaths). http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33722688

Cecil was named after diamond magnate, Cecil Rhodes. Zimbabwe was formerly called Rhodesia. Rhodes modestly remarked, “To have a bit of country named after one is one of the things a man might be proud of.” I’m still hoping that one of the countries I’ve visited will change its name to Aidantopia.

Going on an overland truck, we were fortunate to be able to cross most borders relatively quickly (usually it would take around an hour), but freight trucks can get held up at some African borders for more than a week, causing a long line of trucks. Even the monkeys need to wait to get permission to cross the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

We then travelled on to Malawi, where we spent a few days on the shore of Lake Malawi. Malawi used to be called Nyasaland and like many African countries, had a long-reigning dictator after the country gained independence. Hastings Banda wasn’t as bloodthirsty as some other tyrants, but liked to maintain control.

No other African leader imposed his personality with such vigour and force on the country he ruled. He insisted on directing the smallest details of Malawi’s affairs. “Everything is my business. Everything. The state of education, the state of our economy, the state of our agriculture, the state of our transport, everything is my business…Anything I say is law. Literally law. It is a fact in this country.”…
He tolerated neither dissent nor criticism. No one was permitted to question his authority or his decisions. His quest for absolute control extended to interference with the courts. The strict puritan code which he so much admired became the nation’s way of life. Men were forbidden to wear long hair; women were forbidden to wear short skirts or trousers. Films, foreign newspapers, magazines and books were strictly censored to prevent decadent Western influences from harming the population.

We had some long drives on the trip and I read a few books on African history. Martin Meredith’s books The Fortunes of Africa: A 5000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor and The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence outline some of the political misfortunes suffered by Africa. Uganda’s Idi Amin is the gold standard when it comes to African dictators.

Dictatorial allcomers must bow before Ugandan president Idi Amin, who styled himself His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular. The MC and DSO were fictitious; the VC was a Victorious Cross he awarded to himself; and the law degree, too, was self-conferred. Amin also claimed to be the uncrowned King of Scotland, which later became the title of a novel by Giles Foden and of an Oscar-winning film.

Then there was the Central African Republic’s Jean-Bedel Bokassa

He liked to describe himself as an absolute monarch and forbade mention of the words democracy or elections. He promoted himself first to the rank of general and then to marshal, for supreme services to the state. For public appearances he insisted on wearing so many medals and awards that special uniforms had to be designed for him to accommodate them. He delighted in naming after himself a host of schools, hospitals, clinics, roads and development projects as well as Bangui’s new university. The front page of every school exercise book in the entire country was adorned with his picture…
Most of his wives tended to be known by their nationality; they included the German, the Swede, the Cameroonian, the Chinese, the Gabonese, the Tunisienne, and the Ivorienne…

In an attempt to emulate Napoleon, whom he described as his guide and inspiration, Bokassa declared the Central African Republic an empire and himself emperor of its 2 million subjects and made elaborate arrangements for his own coronation, using as a model the ceremony in which Napoleon had crowned himself emperor of France in 1804. From France he ordered all the trappings of a monarchy: a crown of diamonds; an imperial throne, shaped like a golden eagle; an antique coach; thoroughbred horses; coronation robes; brass helmets and breastplates for the Imperial Guard; tons of food, wine, fireworks and flowers for he festivities and sixty Mercedes-Benz cars for the guests.
The coronation took place on 4 December 1977 at the Palais des Sports Jean-Bedel Bokassa, on Bokassa Avenue, next to the Universite Jean-Bedel Bokassa. To the strains of Mozart and Beethoven, wearing a twenty-foot-long red-velvet cloak trimmed with ermine, Bokassa crowned himself and then received as a symbol of office a six-foot diamond-encrusted sceptre.
The spectacle of Bokassa’s lavish coronation, costing $22 million, in a country with few government services, huge infant mortality, widespread illiteracy, only 260 miles of paved roads and in serious economic difficulty, aroused universal criticism. But the French, who picked up most of the bill, curtly dismissed all such criticism. The French Cooperation Minister, Robert Galley said, “I find it extraordinary to criticise what is to take place in Bangui while finding the Queen of England’s Jubilee ceremony all right. It smacks of racism.”

Less than 2 years later, the French removed Bokassa after he ordered the murder of more than 100 school children.
Equatorial Guinea’s Francisco Macias Nguema executed 10 of the 12 ministers from his first government and replaced them with family members.

The central bank too was closed after the director was publicly executed in 1976. All foreign exchange was delivered instead to Nguema who hoarded it along with large amounts of local currency in his various palaces… When Nguema was short of money, he resorted to ransoming foreigners… In long, rambling and incoherent speeches, Nguema fulminated against his pet bugbears – education, intellectuals and foreign culture. He closed all libraries in the country, prohibited newspapers and printing presses and even banned the use of the word “intellectual.” All formal education came to an end in 1974 when Catholic mission schools were told to close. Children from then on were taught only political slogans…Out of a population of 300,000, at least 50,000 had been killed and 125,000 had fled into exile…

He sometimes carried out lengthy monologues with former colleagues whom he had executed. His movements were often jerky and uncoordinated; he became progressively deaf, shouting loudly in order to hear himself, refusing the use of hearing aids; he consumed large quantities of drugs, local stimulants like bhang and iboga, that visibly affected the pupils of the eyes…He took with him most of the national treasury, storing huge wads of bills in bags and suitcases in a bamboo hut next to his house.

The Daily Show had a recent clip pointing out the things Donald Trump has in common with African dictators. (The video isn’t available in Australia though).