Thought it was nice

Just finished a book called Africa Solo that my German neighbor loaned me. It was good...bout a guy who hitchhiked through the Sahara to Kenya. I find that I get a lot of travel lit passed on to me here. I guess we all read it to get ideas and sometimes use it as justification that "i can do this". Anyways, I liked what the author had to say about the continent at the end of his travels and since I am not so eloquent, I am posting his words instead of my own. In most ways his words are congruent with my feelings on this crazy, wonderful place.

"...Though I had longed to immerse myself in a world without the complications of modernity, I'd had no concept of what such a world would actually be like. Even through I had read about the sandy vegetables and rancid meat, the crowded trucks, the mud holes, the corrupt soldiers, the long sunsets, and the melodic songs, there was no possibility of conceiving it without having seen it.
I had wanted to be alone for a while, but I had not expected loneliness that was almost physically painful. I had wanted to experience new and different worlds, but I had not expected to learn what it was like to be marked as an outsider day after day, to feel at times desperate for something familiar to hold on to. I had wanted to meet some interesting people along the way, but I had not expected to find smiles and voices and brief friendships that would stand in my mind forever. Most of all, I had wanted to find art and expand my aesthetic sensibilities, but I had not expected to be touched by Africa's quiet suffering as much as its beauty...
...In the end, I had found something that I hadn't known I was looking for. I had wanted to learn new things about the world, but I had learned as much about myself as anything else. I had learned what it was like to walk alone through the world...Africa had given me much more than its colors and rhythms, its peaceful smiles and languid sunsets. It had given me a sense of reality and clarity about myself and the world around me..."