The Motorcycle Diaries



A certain revolutionary by the name of Che Guevara started out in life as doctor specialising in leprosy. He travelled from his town in Brazil right up to the north tip of South America and the plight of the poor in his continent massively influenced the direction his life would take. Admittedly the movie, the Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios de motocicleta) taught me most of that information.




I'd very much like to go on a similar journey in the very near future however it's not going to be easy. The biggest hurdle I can forsee is getting visas to travel through the countries. Saudi Arabia especially hasn't be at all accessible to me in my past attempts. As an Australia citizen I think the whole gulf portion of the Arab countries would be inaccesible to me by motorbike however, if I can get citizenship to an Arab country I think all I'm hoping will be made possible.

Now Iraq is obviously a very volatitle place. I may not be able to visit there for many more years to come so I'll exclude that for the moment, saving perhaps a quick and cowardly incursion from the border with Syria. My journey will be in an order something like this (possibly in reverse) Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, The Emirates, Oman, Yemen, Saudi, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunis, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania.

I've tried, many times to get Lebanese citizenship because, in theory, it should be very easy for me to get it as my father was born in Lebanon. In practice it's been much more difficult because as anyone with Middle East experience knows, paperwork is long and tedious process in the Middle East - often requiring a bit of bribery to grease the cogs of the process. Esentially my task is something like this... Dad's birth certificate is old and needs to be verified in Lebanon by either him going to the town where his birth was registered or by getting a copy of the 'Family Extract' of our family, then my parents' marriage has to be officially registered, my birth certificate provided and a fee for registration and then I can become a Lebanese citizen and entitled to virtually free and painless entry to any Arab country for the rest of my life. Or so I hope.

The dilema now seems to be that the town in Lebanon my Dad is from will not provide the Family Extract unless they see my Dad in person (or receive a bribe) so I can either get my Dad over there or this whole plan probably won't materialise.