Haven’t you ever dreamed of dropping everything and heading off on a long journey? Antoine Calvino had been free-lancing as a journalist in Paris for several years when he decided to get away from it all for a year in order to backpack around the countries on the rim of the Indian Ocean. From 2007 to 2008, this 30-something party animal crossed India then hiked through Yemen, Ethiopia, Somaliland, Kenya, Uganda, Dubai, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and finally Israel.
Setting off on his route with no preconceived notions, and no travel companions other than his trusty Lonely Planet guidebook, his mp3 player and a portable library, Antoine Calvino brings us a keen new vision of these fascinating countries. You’ll read about breathtaking landscapes and thousand-year-old sites, of course, but more importantly, you’ll hear about the locals he meets (the ravers of Goa, the Rastas of Ethiopia, the veiled and rebellious youth of Teheran…), the emotions and surprising relationships that bloom along the way, and the atmosphere specific to each region visited. Antoine Calvino invites us to join him on a lively and welcoming journey. While his style is as vivacious and energetic as his walking pace, he also knows how to dig deeper and to pertinently analyze the situations and populations he encounters. All of this produces a strikingly animated narrative about a fascinating region.