My stop in England for a few days after finishing up in
Spain was less one of my usual sightseeing trips than to see a couple
friends . My friend Ben Butler was one of
the drivers on my West Africa trip late 2007 but left the tour very abruptly
about halfway into it because of an acute medical condition. He was a good
buddy for the first seven weeks or so of the trip, and I missed him for the
remainder. He ended up settling and working in Oxford afterwards, so I figured
seeing him for a few days would also be a good opportunity to see one of
Britain’s leading sights. My stay was quite brief, though, only three nights
and two days before I boarded a bus for Heathrow Airport and my flight home.

Ben is a mechanical engineer by profession, but also a kind
of kindred spirit who decided to take a break from the professional grind to
drive for Dragoman for a few years and see the world. And a mechanical engineer
comes with those important mechanical skills to be able to repair a truck when
it breaks down. I wasn’t aware of quite the degree Ben is a car enthusiast as
well. He asked me if I’d like to go for a ride in his “kit car”, to which I
responded, “What’s a kit car?”  Well, a
kit car is a car that is sold by the manufacturer as a set of parts that the
buyer then assembles into a functioning car . 
Wow, you learn something new every day! 
Hmmm, it seems like you’d have to be really smart for that.

So we headed out to the garage where he keeps his kit car,
kind of a low-to-the-ground dragster type of a vehicle in which you feel like
you’re going at full race car speed at rather normal velocities, and went for a
spin in the Cotswold Hills northwest of Oxford. 
Ben is very into racing, a passion I don’t particularly share. He told
me to let him know if I was scared as we cruised down winding country roads in
a noisy topless little contraption with the wind blowing through our hair, a
vehicle that seemed like more of a toy than a real car.

Hills are a bit of a misnomer, though, when talking about
Cotswold Country. I expected hills somewhat resembling those of the
northeastern U.S., maybe something like the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut,
but hills in England means slight undulations rather than just pancake flat.
What the topography lacks in grandeur, the quaint towns like Burford and
Chipping Camden built mostly of golden color stone make up for in peaceful
charm and architectural integrity. We were more out for a ride in the country
and didn’t dilly-dally long for much sightseeing in the villages. On the way
back to Oxford, Ben showed me the small-town west of Oxford where he grew up
and his parents still live, one where he said there wasn’t much for teens to do
on the weekends other than get drunk .

That’s a favorite pastime we both share and had quite a few
pints in the pub and bottles of wine over dinner my three nights in Oxford. I
find there are some people with whom I have some mutual interests, shared
acquaintances, and similar experiences that there’s rarely a lull in the
conversation, and Ben in one of them. It had been nine months since we saw each
other and there was much to talk about – the circumstances of him leaving the
trip suddenly, my experiences on the remainder of the trip through West Africa
he was supposed to be driving, my ill-fated recent trek attempt in the
Pyrenees, our travels in similar and different parts of the world to each
other, and discoveries of some similar experiences like both having a mugging
situation in the same city in Central Asia (Bishkek). On our last night we
celebrated the new job he was about to start with Tata Motors, the Indian automobile
company that now owns Jaguar, with dinner at Jamie’s, a posh Italian restaurant
in Oxford owned by star British chef Jamie Oliver . Ben seemed a little confused
by the fresh mozzarella cheese we had as an antipasto. “Did your egg also not
have a yolk?” he asked with a perplexed but straight-faced look.

We chose the right day for our spin in the countryside
because the next day which we spent on Oxford was a stereotypically rainy
English summer day. I didn’t bring a
guidebook for England or Oxford because I wasn’t going to be in the country for
long or do much touring. Besides that, I figured Ben would be a great tour
guide for Oxford as a native of the area and someone who’d worked elsewhere in
the travel industry as a tour leader/driver for Dragoman. I was mistaken.
Despite living there, Ben knew rather little about the city (other than its
pubs) or the university and its sights. We wandered around the city and the
university campus some but actually spent more time in pubs than in museums or
the halls of Oxford’s academic buildings. So I can now say I’ve been to Oxford,
but I don’t feel like I’ve experienced all it has to offer a traveler. I’ll have to come back again someday for more
of the touristy stuff it has to offer, because this trip was more one of
hanging out with a buddy.