AJ Episodes - 6 (ADVENTURE JOURNEY: The Extreme Vacationer's Handbook)

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AJ EPISODES
Episode 6: Mali, Fall 2001



	START FROM THE BEGINNING: Episode 1 Siberia, Winter 1992 Episode 2 Kauai, Hawaii, Winter 1984 Episode 3 Osaka, Japan, Summer 2005 Episode 4 Monte Verde, Costa Rica, Summer 1989 Episode 5 Aspen, Colorado, Winter 1983 Episode 6 Mali, Fall 2001 Episode 7 Sydney, Australia, Spring 1991 Episode 8 Brisbane, Australia, Summer 2006 Episode 9 Antarctica, 1999 Episode 10 Belen, Nicaragua, Spring 1990 Episode 11 On the Mediterranean, Spring 2000 Episode 12 Buenos Aires, Argentina, Summer 2003 Episode 13 LAX, Summer 2003 Episode 14 Lagos, Nigeria, Spring 2000

As Charlie lazed against his pack not far from a large flat rock on which the bloody liver of an old ram had been placed, two women dressed in brightly colored robes and balancing ceramic jugs on the crowns of their heads walked by in the direction of the grass-thatched mud huts of some unnamed Tuareg village. Nearby silhouetted camels grunted amongst themselves.

The sun was finally setting on the makeshift camp at the edge of the Sahara and the scent of roasting mutton was overwhelming.

Charlie's guide kept his yellow-brown scarf up over his nose to block the smoke as he rotated the spit. The ram's hide had been pegged behind him, and four disembodied hooves rested beside it. These would be carved for jewelry.

The flayed head hung in a nearby tree, grinning. Its exposed jawbone would someday ward off evil spirits. Today, however, the red skull's empty sockets glared with a vague malignancy from within a cloud of such noisome insects that it made Charlie think for the first time since perhaps high school of the staked pig's head in Lord of the Flies which had spoken of the normalcy of evil.

He would remember this the next morning when a child waving a decrepit transistor radio came running and shouting from the village and his guide, listening intently, translated: "He says, in New York City, a plane, a building ... (he clapped his hands to indicate an impact) ... and--not on accident!"

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