There are a lot of people who travel parts of the world for a year before going on to university. I did not do that. I started backpacking when I was 19 and settled down 2 months shy of my 30th birthday, 20 years ago in the city I still live in now. In those 10 years I lived on 5 continents and visited more than 50 countries. In 94/95 I spent a year and a half in Southern Africa. The Mandela election was in that time and it seemed an interesting time to be there for the end of apartheid. Having made some money working in S.Africa I decided to travel up through Mozambique, Malawi and back down again through Zimbabwe. The end of apartheid signaled the end of the civil war that had been going on for 20 years in Mozambique. The racist regime in S.Africa had sponsored that because they didn't want stable countries bordering them who would obviously hate them. After spending a few days in Maputo the capital, I hitchhiked, very slowly, north. There were barely any cars, but I wasn't in a hurry, so I had a great time. Mozambique is both the poorest country and the most beautiful country I've visited. The people had nothing except a smile on their face. After 3 weeks I reached the town of Nampula. To my surprise Nampula had a functioning trainstation and there was a train going to the border with Malawi in a couple of days. So I got a ticket and boarded the so slow train a few days later. I think the speed was 40 to 50 km (25-30 miles) an hour. I was watching the scenery and relaxing for hours. Having made a number of stops the train ground to a halt in yet another town. A man entered the compartment carrying a fairly large basket and started selling leaf wrapped packages. People opened them and started eating the contents. Of course I bought 1 to. I found rice, green vegetables and some meat. It even was nice and warm. Enjoying my lunch watching the amazing jungle pass by the window, life couldn't get any better. Until about 20 minutes after I finished, when my stomach started playing up. After a few minutes I made my way to the door and vomited it all out the nonexistent window feeling absolutely lousy. Hours later the train arrived at the bordertown and I checked into a hotel at the trainstation still feeling like shit. The next day I felt somewhat better and the day after that I entered Malawi chalking the food episode up to my pampered Western stomach. I spend 2-3 weeks there when I decided to make my way towards Zimbabwe and S.Africa. To get from Malawi to Zimbabwe I had to cross a stretch of Mozambique called the Tete corridor. I hitched a ride at the border with some Westerners and South we went. We stopped for drinks and a break in the town of Tete. There are many countries in the world who have a English language newspaper. Mozambique was no exception. Their "newspaper" was a folded single sheet making 4 pages called the Mozambique Times. Walking into the roadside bar a spotted 1 laying on an abandoned table and grabbed it. Sitting down with a coke I started reading. On "page 3" at the bottom of the page it said: Cook arrested. It told the story of a man who'd killed somebody, cut him up and then proceeded to cook the meat and sell it, among other places, on the train from Nampula to the border with Malawi. When I got to the "meaty" part off the story and things clicked in my brain, I vomited both for volume and distance. It came out of nowhere but my stomach kept going until well past only acid came up. 1 meal got me sick twice. I've had a lot off adventures in 10 years, but this 1 sticks out.