BEN TROVATO CUT & RUN

There is something about the road less travelled that appeals to me. Whether it’s in the back of a Bangkok tuk-tuk or the back of a South African police van, the concept of moving towards an unfamiliar destination fills me with exhilaration. In the case of the latter, a fair amount of dread too. Indeed, fear and loathing are as much my travelling companions as intoxication and euphoria.

If you go on holiday and return home with nothing but hotel towels and good memories, you’re doing it wrong. Travel is at its best when you put yourself and your loved ones in situations that could end truly magnificently or spectacularly badly.

I thought I might share some of my worst and simultaneously most memorable experiences in places far from home.

Senegal: Hopelessly lost in a densely packed market in Dakar at sunset, lured by a shiny-eyed young rasta into a labyrinth of interlocking stalls that darkened the deeper I went.

Eyes smarting from impenetrable fog banks of ganja smoke and hemmed in by indistinct, mumbling shapes, I was relieved of all my cash and given a small djembe drum as compensation. Nicaragua: Having to flee from the machete-wielding owners of a primitive eco-lodge in the jungle far from the nearest town after racking up a terrible bar bill and discovering they didn’t take credit cards and I didn’t have any cash.

Gambia: Threatened with arrest by armed guards inside the grounds of State House in Banjul.

They accused me of working for President Yahya Jammeh’s enemies and secretly filming the premises as part of a plot to topple the government. I denied it vehemently, even though I had indeed been covertly shooting from the hip. Not for any nefarious purposes, though. Jamaica: Laughing, probably hysterically, in the back of an old car as the driver and his buddy took us down a mountain pass on a narrow potholed road without using the brakes.

“Flow with it, Bertram,” said the navigator, firing up a blunt the size of a vuvuzela.

Kenya: Lying in a tent sweating heavily and shaking like a sick dog on the banks of the Ewaso Ngiro river in the Samburu national reserve, far from medication and convinced that I was dying of cerebral malaria.

Much later it occurred to me that I might have been suffering from something less serious. Like alcohol poisoning.

Namibia: A short trip to Windhoek in the ’80s resulted in marriage, a daughter and a 10-year stay in this grim little town.

There were death threats, arrests and attempts on my life. You don’t want to know about the bad times.

France/Spain border (there were still borders then): Travelling with two fellow South Africans in a kombi, we reached the border at Irun and one of them tossed me the compacted roll of marijuana we’d been living off for a couple of weeks.

I tried to pass it to the other guy, but it was too late. A surly customs officer searched the van and found a packet of Rizlas, then frisked us one by one.

I had the roll stashed down my undies. The officer must have thought I was getting aroused and steered clear of the unsightly bulge.

Greece: Stuck on an isolated road in Crete somewhere between Iraklion and Hania in crushing heat. Savagely dehydrated, I found a tap at an abandoned building site.

The water was boiling and impossible to drink. Eventually a taxi driver stopped. The temperature gauge in his car read 43°C.

Weeks later, after picking grapes for a pittance and selling my camera to buy a ferry ticket back to Athens, I wound up living on the wharf at Piraeus harbour along with other flotsam and jetsam.

One night a tattooed German whipped out his hunting knife and insisted we become blood brothers.

Mad with retsina, we did. Another night a degenerate fisherman tried to join me in my sleeping bag.

Then there were the dock rats as big as cats. After more than a fortnight, nicking food from markets to survive, the South African embassy finally gave in and lent me just enough money for a threeday bus ride back to London. Spain: Ingesting a semisynthetic psychedelic drug and finding myself at 3am lost and alone in the narrow streets of Barcelona’s barrio gottica being trailed by a gang of Algerian muggers.

I took refuge in a tiny subterranean bar that was inexplicably still open and bought a beer.

One of the local customers unzipped his trousers, placed his prodigious member on the bar counter and proceeded to have the barmaid baste it with tomato sauce. I left shortly afterwards. London: Breaking into an empty council flat in the East End only to find that certain amenities were lacking.

I lived in that squat for an entire winter without electricity.

One of the perks of working at Shell headquarters was that I could take a hot shower after my shift ended. Less impressive was the fact that I worked as a dishwasher.

Then there were the dock rats as big as cats