Africa fascinates me. Or is it just travelling solo? In the last few days, I have taken 3 Uber rides in Cape Town and all 3 drivers happened to be from Congo DRC.

As I travel solo, as I spend hours by myself, with my own thoughts, my imagination soars and I am constantly thinking ahead – what will be my next trip, what will be my next country, how I must travel through countries that people think are unsafe; how I must get embroiled in troubles and find my way through them.
You know people with obsessions which we lightly, casually call OCDs? Someone wants to keep their room, surroundings spic and span. Someone wants their wallet arranged in ascending order of notes.
Someone wants their pillows to be put in the exact same arrangement.

I realised my compulsive obsession yesterday while sighing about my trip getting over. I don’t target countries by wishlists. I target countries by the map. If I am in country, I want to go to all the neighbouring countries near it. Now that I am in South Africa, I feel happy about having done Zimbabwe and Zambia but I feel extremely about wanting to visit Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Namibia. Some of these countries half the people havent even heard of. They might not be super exciting in terms of activities or modernity. It doesn’t matter if some of them would never make it to a Travel & Leisure or Condenast “10 countries to visit in 2024” list.

But that’s my weird obsession. I want to do one country after another in a region. I don’t like opening a map and seeing that I have done a couple of countries in a region and left out the others. No matter where.

So much to see. Congo, Sudan, Lebanon, South America, Christmas Island, South Georgia, Atghanistan, sigh! Some day I’ll do them all!