Joshua Maricich, reporter and author, Egypt; covered Yemen and Egypt in 2011:

It was quite a year, 2011. Going into it, I certainly did not expect to be deported from my base in Yemen for photographing bloody crackdowns on anti-government protesters, or to then navigate a traditional sailboat 700 miles down the Nile in the midst of the ongoing Egyptian revolution.

At the end of 2010, Yemen had just hosted a successful Gulf Cup of Nations football tournament, prompting the Arab press to ponder whether the country might be ready to join the Gulf Cooperation Council. Thus the youth-led opposition movement caught many by surprise.

As the number of revolutionaries in Change Square steadily rose from a few dozen in late January to over a hundred thousand strong by March, clashes between protesters and security forces became more frequent and violent. Plainclothes baltagiya took to the streets with clubs beating protesters and threatening journalists. The Yemeni government began denying entry visas to the vast majority of foreign correspondents. Then, on March 14, I was arrested and deported along with three Western journalists. Four days later, loyalist snipers shot dead over 45 unarmed protesters in the streets of the capital, and the Western media was forced to depend on the few remaining freelancers who admirably braved increasingly dangerous conditions to report on the least covered uprising of the Arab Spring.

Blacklisted from Yemen, I went to Egypt. Living in Cairo, I was struck by how little was being reported from outside of the capital. In particular, I was interested in Middle Egypt, the densely populated swath of country between Beni Suef and Qena that had been marginalized by the Mubarak regime for decades. Therefore, a colleague and I decided to buy a felucca and sail it the length of the Egyptian Nile. 

I'm aware that this is an unconventional approach to reporting, but by sailing through the country as it trudges through a revolution we were able to witness first hand many of the daunting challenges facing the post-Mubarak Egypt. We listened to the frustrated voices of unemployed and unmarried Egyptian youth. We saw how flare-ups of sectarian violence and the general lack of security threaten to devastate the country's all-important tourism industry. Finally, we watched the citizens of a number of governorates gear up for and successfully complete what might have been the freest and most transparent elections in the history of Egypt.

In both Yemen and Egypt, working as a freelancer allowed me the flexibility and freedom to pursue the stories I was passionate about during this truly historic time. However, it is a competitive profession and many of the freelancers covering the Arab Spring have been forced to take gambles. There is no guarantee that a story will sell, and there may be no one to assist if you get into trouble. When arrested in Sana'a or when accused of being Israeli spies and hauled off to central security in Egypt, we freelancers were on our own.

Thankfully, after 74 days on the Nile we have arrived safely in Cairo, and will complete the final leg to Alexandria this spring as we continue to follow closely the January 25 anniversary, the Mubarak trial, and the writing of a new constitution as the new Egypt continues to define itself.