Untamed Borders

I’m somehow reluctant to doing bad reviews, but I have to be honest about my recent experience with Untamed Borders. As a diplomat and an active member of the Most Traveled People community, with almost 130 countries under my belt, I was planning for my trip to Libya, Turkmenistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Somalia to be an empowering journey after a rather painful divorce. It was, however, marked by a series of unexpected setbacks and headaches.

From the outset, the itinerary had to be redesigned due to visa denials by Libya and Turkmenistan. While I understand this is beyond the company's control, I felt somehow powerless due to the lack of advance communication on the matter. In fact, I paid for the trip in December and was only (flippantly) communicated that my applications had been rejected in February, roughly a week before my trip started. Very short noticed. In fact, this company was always notoriously late delay in their responses, probably due to the fact that they’re visibly short staffed.

Another pre-trip problem: I was told, after I had already paid the company, bought all the flights and made the necessary reservations, that the weekly flight from Abu Dhabi to Socotra was full (shouldn’t they’ve confirmed this sooner?). This problem was later solved, but it was already a sign that things weren’t going to be as smooth as I wish they were.

During the trip, having to wake up very early every single day and having no internet access whatsoever negatively impacted my comfort and overall experience. For the sake of comparison: in other trips, my guides discussed the itinerary with me and asked me when I would like to wake up the next day. They would also create a WiFi hotspot with their phones, allowing me to have internet throughout the journey.

In Yemen, my guide and driver were good outspoken funny people, but clearly addicted to a drug called khat (a kind of leaf that you chew). They deviated from the script a couple of times to get the drugs. During an excursion to the forest, our car broke down and the guide encouraged me to go take photos while they tried to get the car working again. In the end, I actually got lost in the forest and they had to desperately come after me. On the last day, the guide asked for my help with a visa to travel to Brazil. I’m a bit used to that kind of request, but he was effusive and actually asked me if I could sponsor him, which left me embarrassed and forced me to report the situation directly to the embassy, ​​since, as one knows, visa facilitation is a crime. To leave Yemen, more problems, as the number registered on the flight list corresponded to my diplomatic passport (which I was not using on this trip), and not my ordinary passport (in my possession).

Upon landing in Tajikistan, contrary to what was agreed, the agent was NOT waiting for me at the airport with a sign containing my name and/or the company logo. I was already in the taxi queue, at 3am, in -10 degrees Celsius, when he eventually found me. He said he didn’t need a sign because he had seen a photo of me, but he didn't recognize me because my hair looked different. Very professional, right? He also asked me why it had taken me so long time to disembark, as if this were big news (it was my second time at Dusbanbe airport and I already knew very well that it takes more than one hour for Tajiks to unload the luggage from the plane). The agent dropped me off at the hotel at 4am and said I would need to leave promptly at 6am. Until now I don’t understand why I needed to leave so early and only get 2 hours of sleep. After 6am, we drove to the Afghan border with the tour guide telling me joyfully stories about Tajik poets and the names of rivers and mountains, completely oblivious to the fact that I had only slept for 2 hours. I had to ask him to let me rest for a while.

In Afghanistan, my guide was very friendly, but clearly young, shy and inexperienced. It was in Mazar i Shariff that I had one of the biggest (maybe even THE biggest) scare of my entire life when, at the end of our tour of the Blue Mosque, two members of the Taliban came up to us, with guns drawn, and put us inside a car without a license plate. I thought I was going to die right there. I asked the guide what was happening and his answer made me even more nervous (an ominous “I don’t know”). We were taken to the barracks and interrogated for more than one hour. The Talibs took my cell phone and started looking at my photos. When they saw “adult” photos (I’m gay), they were visibly irritated. That's when I showed them my diplomatic passport and told them that, as a guest, I wouldn't be intimidated by foreign governments due to my personal life. Their reaction changed abruptly, and they immediately called their “manager”, who apologized to me and ensured me I was a “VIP visitor”. The “manager” mentioned that I shouldn't have gone to the Blue Mosque because it was a place of worship, but I don't know if that was indeed what motivated the Taliban's action, or if they were just looking for some excuse for what they had done. What I do know is this: If I weren't a diplomat, I would probably be in prison - or dead. Thank you, Untamed Borders, for a truly unforgettable experience! Leaving Afghanistan was an experience in itself, as I depended entirely on Kam Air, a “reliable” airline, according to the company, but which ended up being so delayed that I almost missed my flight to Dubai.

The problems with Somalia started before the trip, when, just 24 hours before the flight, I had to send a message demanding the visa document, which the company had not sent (“Kate, if you don't send me this they won't allow me to board the plane”). I ended up getting the visa document (with my name misspelled), but arrived in Somalia without knowing my guide’s contact information nor my hotel’s name. Upon landing in Mogadishu another unpleasant surprise: every single non-Somali at the airport quickly met with their guide and I was left alone because, once again, the agent was NOT waiting for me at the airport with a sign containing my name and, surprise surprise: he said he didn’t need a sign because he had seen a photo of me, but he didn't recognize me because my hair looked different. After going through passport control, the agent quickly gave my bags to a porter without consulting me. In the end I tipped the porter and he refused it, saying it was too little. The porter then demanded (not asked: demanded) I gave him 20 dollars - and the agent was also pressuring me to pay him. Naturally USD 20,00 is not a significant amount, but I’m sufficiently traveled to know when to refuse being scammed like that by an employee of an international travel company. So we started yelling at each other. I’m not exaggerating: we were literally yelling. This started to draw the attention of the police and, upon noticing that, the agent and the porter just took off.

Contrary to what I’ve been told, I had not 1 but 2 guides in Mogadishu. Both of them were very fun, informative, spoke good English and had a surprisingly good knowledge of foreign affairs (never imagined I would discuss decisions by the International Court of Justice with Somali tour guides), but they were indeed very proud of their local cuisine and were always expecting for me to try the local lemonade, or the goat stew or the camel meat. In fact, I don’t think I had power of choice over meals other than breakfast while in Somalia. The problem with that is that I’m very adventurous, but my stomach unfortunately isn’t (so I just pretended eating the food). And since my hotel was inside the green zone, I couldn’t just leave to go buy chips and biscuits - so, in the end, I was just hungry all the time. One other thing that bothered me a bit was the fact that one of the guides kept commenting about the bribes he had to pay to the locals managing the places we visited (did he expect me to pay for that? I just pretended I hadn’t heard it). This happened even after I gave him a generous USD50 tip, which is much more than what had been recommended, so I don’t know if he was commenting these things just to make conversation or if he saw me as some sort of human ATM. To top it all off, if I hadn’t insisted for us to visit the Lighthouse Beach (which was in my program), we would have skipped it altogether - and visiting Mogadishu and not going to the Lighthouse, to me, would be like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower.

Anyway, to end on a good note, here are some positive comments:
- upon learning that I had not obtained visas for Libya and Turkmenistan, the company immediately reimbursed me and even offered discounts - a professional attitude that I deeply appreciated
- Kate Archer was always very friendly when dealing with me (and seemed more confident about the information provided than her colleague Madelene Madson)
- despite the aforementioned problems, all my guides were always very nice, friendly and cooperative. In Yemen, Ali included a camping night under the stars that wasn’t even in my program. In Afghanistan, Ahmadi went to my room and gave me a hug and a small gift after our terrifying experience with the Taliban. In Somalia, Ahmed ferociously negotiated with the vendors on my behalf when I was buying local souvenirs
- the hotels were, to some extent, very comfortable, particularly giving the fact that they’re located in war zones (surprisingly Wi-Fi signal was always excellent). Of course showers and tv never worked properly, but, if you’re visiting those places, this is more than expected.
- my guides all commented that this company actually does a good job of passing on their profits and assisting local communities, which made me feel proud of having hired them
- Public Relations Coordinator, David Harrison reached out to me personally to thank me for tagging them on my Instagram posts
- although all visited countries are Muslim not even once my guides interrupted the tour to pray, even when I assured them it would be okay. They all seemed very committed in providing me not only with a good experience but also with a great impression of their countries (I heard a million times “please tell your friends about our country” - a task I’ll happily do)
- Untamed sends information sheets about every destination prior to the trip. The info is not 100% reliable, but very useful and interesting. I spent an entire Saturday reading into it.
- the company has a partnership with the MTP community
- I had indeed unique experiences visiting all of these countries and saw things less than 1% of global tourists get to see. For this, I’m profoundly grateful.