Please say it isn't so.....

M

y head realizes that it's important to stay safe when travelling to certain parts of the world but my heart is always crushed when I find out that a place that I've long dreamed of going is out of bounds because of violence.

Mali & Senegal. Itinerary

I

finally got my approval for the mission to Mali so this trip is really happening!!

I wasted no time getting my flight arrangements in order and finalizing the details of my trip through Mali after my work assignment ends.  I'm hiring a local guide for my trip through Mali. I still have to work out what exactly what I'm going to do when I'm in Dakar - so many things I want to see, so little time :-(

At the crossroads. Timbuktu.

When I mentioned to several of my colleagues that I would be going to Mali, one of the first questions that they would ask me was, "Are you going to Timbuktu?". Hello?? Have we met? Anyone who knows me knows that I cannot go to Mali and NOT go to Timbuktu!

I'm out of visa pages?

How can it be? I got my US passport in April 2006 and today, when I went to get my visa for my upcoming trip to India and Bhutan, I was told they could not issue the visa because I'm out of visa pages in my passport.  The guy who was helping me said that I've been a very active traveller over the past four years.  That indeed I have been but I thought I had five pages left.  At least that's what it looked like but apparently, those five are reserved for the US State Department to indicate amendments (e.g., name change) to your passport. I have no amendments to make but I still need to sacrifice those five pages.  *sigh*