Karl Bushby’s Goliath Expedition

by Erik Olsen on

There are epic trips and then there are…well, there is Karl Bushby’s Goliath Expedition. Bushby, an ex-paratrooper is in the midst of undertaking one of those trips that truly flabbergast. He’s trying to walk around the entire globe. The self-declared stats he has on his site say it all:

12 years
36,000 miles
4 continents
25 countries
6 deserts
7 mountain ranges

But I guess those numbers don’t truly reflect the magnitude of this journey .And this being the 21st century ,you can go to Busby’s site and follow his journey in text, video, audio and photos. According to the site, Bushby, if he succeeds, will become the first person to complete an unbroken round the world walk.

The site says that Bushy is readying himself for the next leg of his journey, and he should be heading out from Russia sometime, well, I’m not sure when. He has apparently been having problems in obtaining the special permits required for the Chukotka region of Siberia. Here is the route is has taken and plans to take. Coming up from Tierra del Fuego way way up then over the Bering Sea and then all the way across Russia through Europe. The BBC has covered some of the story, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen more of it on US media. But maybe that will happen soon.

Film Shot in Senegal is an Oscar Pick

by Jamie Rhein on

For any of you gadling travelers in love with Africa, here is a film to see. Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea) is one of the Oscar nominated short films this year, and it’s wonderful. Not depressing. Not war torn. It is sweet and poignant, but not sugary sweet. It has also won 69 awards to date. If you take time to watch it, (see link below) you’ll see why.

From the first shot of a man paddling a dug out canoe on a river lined with mangroves, I said, “I know this place.” At first I thought it was The Gambia, but it turns out it is Senegal. The village in the film could have been my village, N’Jowara when I was in the Peace Corps. I did travel to Casamance where the story takes place. The Gambia divides Senegal in half with Casamance to the south and the section with Dakar to the north. A small part of the film is shot in Ziguinchor, the capital of this particular province, however most of it is on location in a small village that looks like any other small village in West Africa. The compounds with their thatched roof buildings, the thatch fences between each family’s compound, the simple village school, the trucks with their colorful artwork all look just like I remember them.

It’s interesting to read Luis Manso’s discussion about making this film. He is the producer and Javier Fesser is the writer/director. Made in collaboration with UNICEF, the profits are to go to UNICEF, I think.

Here is a link to the film on ifilm.com. http://www.ifilm.com/video/2771644

The Vice Guide to Travel: Congo, Chernobyl, Beirut, and More!

by Willy Volk on

VICE magazine is an offbeat, irreverent, uber-eccentric street magazine/media empire. Among its many side projects is a DVD series, featuring short documentaries arranged around a different theme. For their most recent DVD, the group from the Vice Guide to Travel went to the kinds of places that nobody wants to visit. Heading to such far-flung locales as the Pygmy villages of the Congo, the radioactive ruins of Chernobyl, and the bomb-pocked refugee camps of Beirut, the “correspondents” from Vice magazine are a fruit roll-up of Jackass, Borat, and Robert Young Pelton.

While I admire the chutzpah of these guys, you gotta wonder how much of it is fiction, how much of it is idiocy, and how much is out-and-out nerves of steel. Check out the trailer from the DVD, which’ll run you $20. Money well spent? Depends on if you like sitting around with a furrowed brow and your mouth hanging wide open in disbelief.


To see a few more clips from the DVD, head to YouTube.

Across America Frame by Frame

by Erik Olsen on

I had an idea recently that i wanted to pitch to the good folks at apple: that I do a short documentary film…or perhaps it would be better as a commercial, lots of quick cuts, whereby I drive across country listening to the songs of my ipod on shuffle. No song would be repeated and thus we’d show how much music these delightful little magic music boxes can store. Yes, I know, they’ve already thought of this.

So what, I don’t have the time to drive across country anyway. But the idea was rekindled in my brain just a moment ago when a friend of mine sent me this link to a cool project at Kodak about a guy who drove across country and snapped a picture every mile. 3,304 photos by a guy named Matt Frondorf.

Yes, it’s pretty self-explanatory…or at least, I just explained it in that single sentence. But is is pretty cool, and nicely done.

Flying Through Iguazu Falls

by Willy Volk on

Iguazu Falls is actually a series of 270 waterfalls flowing out of the Iguazu River, which serves as a de facto border between Brazil and Argentina. A World Heritage Site, some of the individual falls reach 269 feet in height, though the majority are only 210 feet. The most impressive of the waterfalls is the Devil’s Throat, a 2300-foot-long cliff that discharges as much as 45,000 gallons of water per second.

Aerial still shots of Iguazu are enchanting, and panos are mesmerizing, but nothing equals flying through the falls.

Towering over Niagra, the only waterfall in the world that rivals Iguazu is Zambia’s Vic Falls. Whereas Iguazu is wider — because it’s composed of many falls — Vic Falls is the largest single curtain of falling water in the world.