Bust out those traveling pants and go!

Posted

If we wait for peace to break out, we won’t ever leave home. As we stand on the threshold of a new year, with horrific violence abroad grabbing the headlines, the temptation is to close and bar the door. But if you have a passion to see other lives lived in faraway places, there will never be a better time than now.

With much trepidation, in mid-November we began a month-long trip that is ending in South Africa in a few days.

We booked this journey of a lifetime over a year ago, and then we thought long and hard about all the what-ifs. Our itinerary began in Dubai, and took us through Abu Dhabi, Muscat and three stops along India’s Malabar Coast. It included places we never imagined we would get to see, like the Maldives and the Seychelles, but it also included places like Mombasa, Kenya, which is on the State Department’s “no go” list for tourists. And Zanzibar, where an Islamic radical threw a bucket of acid on two Western women a year ago because he thought they were immodestly dressed.

Also on the itinerary was Mozambique, another impoverished African nation where violence erupts often and without warning. Then three stops along the east coast of South Africa. Many of the countries were Muslim, with several demanding strict Shariah law. Violence, revolution and anti-Western protests were all I knew about these places. I wanted to know more, to meet the people, to be a good ambassador for America.

On a personal note, I don’t want to live my life afraid. The stops on our trip were exotic and romantic ports of call I’ve read about since I was a kid. Most important, my husband and several friends were also ready to sign on. So, we did.

The first issue was flying to Dubai through Doha, Qatar, on Qatar Airlines. Qatar is an Arab state that aims to please: It is officially our ally, and unofficially a financial supporter of terrorist groups like Hamas.

What I learned about Qatar, which proved true of all the subsequent stops, is that for the most part, business is business. We are welcome anywhere when we come as tourists. There wasn’t a moment of discomfort on the streets anywhere, from Zanzibar to the Zulu territory. Before we got to Mombasa, the cruise line canceled the stop, citing “security risks,” as we suspected it might.

Page 1 / 3