I am sure you have met diplomats; they probably travel far less than you do. Okay, they get to know a place very intensely - sometimes only the capitol city.

It never stops me from saying what I want to say about Ethiopia, the fact that a tour company is paid for me to go there. Book reviewers don't pay for the books they review.

People my age and younger do think much more towards Europe. We have to fill the gap sometime - we can't think we are an empire any longer after all.

I feel better off doing what I know how to do. I feel a strong element of fictional style in travel writing anyway. Some call it creative nonfiction.

I tend to prefer traveling in the Third World countries. Like Ethiopia. Or Eritrea.

I am always surprised to go into a bar in Boston and three televisions are playing different channels, all at once. We are constantly surprised by this noise and television. It means that's what we are going to get, because we always get everything eventually.

I am no apologist for Fidel's [Castro] regime. It is, after all, a totalitarian regime. So I would like to see that change.