(Originally posted on MySpace)
One of the most unusual places I have been to lies in Sudan. Near the city of Dongola, which is on the banks of the Nile, there is a stretch of desert which is entirely covered in flat, pinkish pebbles.
The area is not flat, it consists of small, rounded hills, all roughly the same size. The pebbles look very neat, as if someone laid them out one by one and then used fine sand to fill in the spaces between. So they're embedded in the sand without being covered by it.
There are some tracks but they are hardly visible because the surface looks the same wherever you go. You don't need them either, because the terrain is very easy to ride through. It's almost like riding on tarmac.
The hills (pebble dunes, you could call them) just go on and on, and you just ride up and down all the time. Pinkish pebbles as far as you can see.

 The scenery looks almost artificial because it's so uniform.

(Originally posted on MySpace)
...during my motorcycle trip in 2000, among others:

- various monkeys, mainly in Mali
- 1 elephant (not in a park) in Burkina Faso
- a wolf-like animal that was running along with us for a while, in Mauretania
- a bright green snake that was crossing the road
- flamingoes and pelicans and other birds in Mauretania
- a desert fox, very pretty, in Sudan
- giraffes in Niger
- small white herons of the kind that keep the parasites off the cattle
- an ant-eater in Chad (very briefly)
- a tiny little cameleon, bright green, in Chad
- a very big scorpion without a tail, looks like a spider, inside our mosquito net... the scorpion didn't survive this encounter
- a LOT of frogs in a toilet/bathroom in Senegal, which was good because they kept the cockroaches away
- wonderful vultures in Chad Lake!

(Originally posted on MySpace)
...during my motorcycle trip in 2000, among others:

- various monkeys, mainly in Mali
- 1 elephant (not in a park) in Burkina Faso
- a wolf-like animal that was running along with us for a while, in Mauretania
- a bright green snake that was crossing the road
- flamingoes and pelicans and other birds in Mauretania
- a desert fox, very pretty, in Sudan
- giraffes in Niger
- small white herons of the kind that keep the parasites off the cattle
- an ant-eater in Chad (very briefly)
- a tiny little cameleon, bright green, in Chad
- a very big scorpion without a tail, looks like a spider, inside our mosquito net... the scorpion didn't survive this encounter
- a LOT of frogs in a toilet/bathroom in Senegal, which was good because they kept the cockroaches away
- wonderful vultures in Chad Lake!