Photo: Nate Robert
SYMBOL OF A DISASTER: The ferris wheel at Pripyat, in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
Nate Robert
Inside Chernobyl – without the tourists But you might find looters, poachers, illegal loggers, and contract killers
I
was in North Africa on the edge of the Sahara desert when the global lock-down began in March. In Tataouine, a dusty Tunisian town in the middle of nowhere, my companions and I were discussing the just-announced travel restrictions. Tunisia was about to be locked down, so we could either leave the Sahara immediately, cross the
40 ColdType | July 2020 | www.coldtype.net
country and fly out from Tunis, the capital city, or stay quarantined for an unknown length of time. After organising escape plans for the group of American tourists for whom I was responsible, I needed to decide on a “safe” country in which I could bunker down and ride out the pandemic. As I was researching where to fly, flights departing Tunis began to
sell out and airlines started cancelling routes, as other countries closed their borders. My options were becoming more limited with each passing moment. For the quarantined life, I wanted a city with fresh air, inexpensive cost of living, plentiful local produce, and a reasonably healthy amount of civil disobedience in case things got a little cra-
