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FOUR PLACES TO DIE BEFORE YOU SEE

I’ve been to more than a hundred countries, and had a great time in most of them. But here are a few you can skip:

1. Ghana: There are four long, skinny countries in West Africa, resembling four fingers. Three of them are very nice: Togo, Benin, and Côte d’Ivoire. The big fat middle finger is Ghana. This is the angriest place I’ve ever been—I saw a fistfight every day. One time, my driver jumped out of the cab and beat up a traffic cop. A big industry in Ghana is novelty coffins, hand-carved to look like pumpkins, pigeons, Porsches—you name it. It’s a much better place to be dead than alive.
2. Algeria: French colonists left Algeria with two gifts—surliness and the baguette. Every morning, you see cranky Algerians walking around, noshing on yard-long loaves of French bread. They’re cheap—the cost is subsidized by the government—so the locals eat as much as they want and drop the rest on the ground. By noon, the streets are ankle-deep with half-baguettes. It’s a vaguely surreal sight—no wonder Camus set his novels here.
3. Cuba: Next time you see an article on “colorful, vibrant Cuba,” look at the pictures. You can’t get a decent photo of Havana because it’s a crumbling, filthy city where nothing’s been fixed since Meyer Lansky left. Castro did the impossible and turned a tropical paradise into a little slice of Cold War Hungary.
4. Honduras: The Springfield of nations. Visit a city known as “the most dangerous non–war zone on earth” and, even worse, “the birthplace of comedian Carlos Mencia.” The national cuisine is Pizza Hut and Applebee’s, and the service leaves something to be desired. Here’s one verbatim exchange:

   WAITER: Tonight, our choices are chicken and fish.

   ME: Thanks. We’d like one of each.

   WAITER: And will you be joining us for dinner?

   ME: Yes. I’ll have the chicken; my wife will have the fish.

   WAITER: Yes. And for the lady?

   ME: She’ll have the fish.

   WAITER: Very good. Two fish.

   ME: Fine. Two fish.

   He brought our dinner two hours later: three beef burritos.

   In another restaurant, for reasons I never understood, I was literally—literally—chased out by an old lady with a butcher’s knife. So much went wrong on my trip to Honduras that I often forget to mention I was kidnapped there—my tour driver threatened to dump me in the jungle unless I paid him a hundred dollars. When I refused, he lowered his demand to one hundred quetzals (twelve dollars). I still said no. Ultimately, the driver dumped us at our destination without stopping for our prepaid lunch. Yes, I was fifty-three years old and a bully stole my lunch money.

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