This time I'm not going to show my most sensitive side, what's the point? Sometimes I have the feeling that, with all the horny-eyed people I have for friends, writing like this is like preaching in the desert.

And as I remember that in my last post I threatened to write about a special place in Africa, and I happened to pass by one of them a few times this summer, I'm going to show it to you.

My list of special places in Africa is enormous, but there are two that concentrated the dreams and efforts of the expeditions of the 19th century, and almost 200 years later they continue to concentrate mine: Timbuktu and the sources of the Nile.

Both then signified the African El Dorado, a promise of glory and wealth for those who found them, and they still represent those personal goals that are almost impossible to achieve. For me, it is more than just fame and money, because I could easily achieve both by signing up for Big Brother and showing off my beautiful (now diminishing) abs in my underpants, it just so happens that my great dream, so often delayed, passes exactly through these places.

I have been to Lake Victoria many times, I can't say how many (I don't know if one or none), so for me it is almost a ritual to sit on the shore and look at the stars and, while stirring my gin and tonic with my index finger, let the murmur of the waves transport me to the expeditions of Burton and Speke, Mungo Park, Rene Caillié, John Carpenter, Barth, the Lander brothers, etc etc etc.

And as I chase my own dream, I wake up thinking of all those who have found what they were looking for or who have left their skin in the game.

This time, the African music of Fatoumata Diawara, the gin and tonic and a waitress with an impressive ass (and it is well known that the ass is the mirror of the soul) awakened my poetic side and I started to remember great stories of love in Africa.

By association of names, the first gin and tonic reminded me of Gordon Laig, the eternal lover who, the day after his wedding, set out on his expedition to Timbuktu, where, at the hands of those who moments before had told him that phrase I love, "Believe me Mister, believe me..." and who advise me to always think exactly the opposite, he received no less than 28 blows, 8 of them serious. As a result of this assault he lost a hand, an ear, his jaw, etc etc and was left for dead, but he still managed to be the first westerner to reach Timbuktu, although he did not live to tell the tale.

Then I remembered Ewart Grogan, who for love travelled on foot across the African continent from south to north, just to prove to his mother-in-law (a bit demanding from what I gather) that he was worthy of marrying her daughter... (I insist, mothers-in-law nowadays are not like they used to be...).

...then I drifted to Count Almaty, that "English patient" who found love while searching for the last oasis of Zerzura. The next gintonic brought back to my memory the adventure of Michael Asher, who on his honeymoon crossed (with his wife, who had to be a saint or a dogflautist) the Sahara from west to east on the back of a camel, and then came Tarzan (and Jane) and King Solomon's mines, etc. .... This was when I realised I was starting to rave and went to bed (tempted to imitate his famous scream, but cutting myself off, as people were sleeping).

And I'm going to stop singing a l'amour, because I've just realised that I'm dispersing myself once again, because in this entry I wanted to tell you about the Luo, one of the fishing villages that live on the shores of the lake and I haven't told you anything about them yet.

The Luo are very well known urbi et orbe for several of their customs, more and more in disuse, such as the teru buru, their intense funeral ritual, or for their custom of practising as an initiatory rite the pulling out of the lower incisor teeth. I would almost prefer to be like the Nandi and be circumcised... (although I don't like losing pieces...) or like the Bachiga and celebrate the urine ceremony...

Lately they have also become famous because Obama's grandmother was born in the village of Kogelo, where she still lives. Not long ago the American president visited the village in true Welcome Mr Marshall style.

But what I think is really going to make them internationally famous is the Downtown pub in the town of Mbita, a place frequented by unconditional patrons, which with its avant-garde décor, is committed to the tasting of warm beer (so much so that you almost have to blow on it before drinking it), accompanied by an ugali tapa that would make a goat "gomit".

I admit that I may have been in better places, which I'm sure there are, but being there, enjoying a few beers in the company of some friends made me feel very, very good, I wish I could have shared it with many of you. And here I leave you for today.