Changing plans and shirts

So we’ve arrived in Kenya after our last border crossing. But the night before we left Tanzania, we completely changed course. So we’re in Mombasa instead of Nairobi. And spending our final days on the coast soaking up the humid air and Muslim culture; rather than driving through the Masai Mara on another safari and eating more dust.

We decided to visit the Ngorogoro Crater (actually a caldara) in Tanzania during a two day safari there. It is an UNESCO world heritage biosphere and for good reason. We drove up these steep mountain roads to the rim through lush tropical green growth, then we droped down, down and down into the caldara where it is like a wildlife buffet on a very dry floor with a salt lake. We finally saw lions, about a half dozen and got super close. Plus water buffalo with their massive horns. That’s two out of the Big 5, if anyone is counting. Plus tons of zebras, giraffes, elephants, hippos and impala. And the entire time you are surrounded on all sides by these massive cliffs. The other day was in Lake Manyara and Gillian was excited to see lots of monkeys in addition to other creatures of the wild.

We were super lucky and ended up doing the trip with two guys living in Seattle – Australian Peter and Tanzanian Louis. They were absolutely hilarious and we were drinking gin and hunting animals all day. Plus they had booked a fancy resort for the overnight stay, so when the tour company matched us up as a group, we got to stay there as well. And we ate a six course meal including roast beef and mashing potatos. We were suppose to have camped at a much less desirable lodge.

So only five days to go. We’re excited about have the same bed every night, no more long smelly bus rides (only short smelly TTC rides) and changing into some new clothing. We’ve been wearing the same 2 1/2 sets for three months. It is going to take 5 loads of washing to get the African dirt out. Or maybe they end up in the Goodwill bin.

See everyone soon.

Rice and Beans Strike Back

A plate of rice and beans during a hike out of Loshoto just knocked Gillian down. But she is back up again.

After Zanzibar, we hit Dar Es Salaam for a day then took another long bus ride to Loshoto to do a little hiking in the mountains through villages. Luck was not on our side for this segment of our trip. When we booked and paid for the trip, we were promised lots. But the reality of the trip failed to live up to expectations. The hikes turned out to be much shorter, there were extra charges, the ‘bus ride’ ended up being the back of a pickup and the third day of the trip was logistically impossible according to our guide. Plus the ‘picnic lunch’ on the first day ended up being rice and beans at a dirty restaurant that sent Gillian’s tummy for a tumble.

So we limped back to Loshoto a day early and we protested heavily until they refunded some of our money. Some of the hiking and villages were lovely, but the shady planning by the tour company put a damper on the trek.

Gillian has recovered after a day in bed and we’re back on the road. We’re currently in Moshi at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. The clouds kept it wrapped up today, so we’re praying for a peak (misspelling intentional) in the morning.

A few safaris and shopping is the plan for the remaining days.

Zanny in Zanzibar

Hello from Zanzibar,

The train to Gombe National Park to see Tanzania’s famous chimps turns out to be very unreliable. We learned from several locals that it could take 40 hours (the official line) or 4 days. Break downs are very regular.

So with time ticking until the end of our trip, we decided at the last minute to cut Gombe from the itinerary (just to risky) and head to Zanzibar for a few more days than planned. And boy are we happy with our choice. The island has been amazing, although a little more expense compared to recent travels. We spent four nights in wonderful Stone Town – a collision of Arab, European and African culture. The city is a little like Venice. Lots of narrow, winding alleyways, and plenty of buildings in disrepair. We arrived the night before Ramadan, so it was a little quiet, but still nice. There are a few tourist restaurants open to feed us while the sun is up, but they often have shutters closed in respect for local religion. We spent time on a spice tour and visited a national park with tons of cute monkeys. The latter made Gillian very happy.

We are now treating ourselves to four days in Kendwa, a northern beach getaway. We’ve just chilled on a big beach and spent yesterday diving some incrediable reefs. Tons of great fish and turtles.

Next we head to Losotho for some hiking than Arusha.

How many people can you pack in a minivan?

We learned the answer to this question is 23 for a small minibus during one of our many bus rides recently. We’ve been in transit for the past three days from Nkhata Bay, Malawi to Iringa, Tanzania and wiped out. Too many miles with questionable roads and suspension and smelly people/chickens/fish. And comfort certainly isn’t a feature on most of these rides.

We were very sad to leave Mayoka Lodge in Malawi. Our chalet was super nice and we had some laughs with some great people. We also broke one of our rules for Africa – no diving in fresh water. The no hitchhiking rule went out the door long ago. The problem with the water is that there is a nasty parasite. But well, the water looked so inviting and we caved on the second day. In fact, we did two scuba dives on top of cliff jumping and swimming. We’ll be paying the doc a visit on our return to Canada to see if we brought back any friends in our bloodstream. The diving was okay – viability wasn’t the greatest and there isn’t any colourful coral. But the fish (chiclids) are very interesting – they are the fastest evolving animals on the planet we are told. So there are thousands of varieties. We saw some that swim upside down and others that breed their young in their mouth and even when the young are born they retreat to mom’s mouth when dangers comes.

We hit Karonga on Tuesday night, crossed to Tanzania and stayed in Myeba on Wednesday and arrived in Iringa today. We’ll kick around here for a day or two before heading either to Dodoma or Dar. Bus info is sketchy at the moment.

We can’t believe we only have four weeks left! So we’re trying to pack in a whole lot in the time left. Zanzibar for sure. Leshoto and Aruhsa most likely. Then there is a Masi Mara safari or chimp trekking in Gombe National Park (chimps) as possibilities.

Hope everyone is well. Lots more stories to share when we return.

Alive, Well and Inspired

Hello from Nkhata Bay, Malawi.

Just arrived last night after two weeks in Mulanje (in the far south of the country) without Internet access.

We spent most of time at the Friends of Mulanje Orphans centre volunteering. The experience was incredibly inspiring. The kids and staff were absolutely wonderful to us. We can’t remember the last time we’ve laughed, sang and danced so much. This is truly a wonderful organization helping more than 4,000 kids and youth who lost both of their parents to AIDS and malaria. The organization provides food, clothing, fun, daycare, health care, school fees and much more to these kids who live with extended families. The younger ones were too cute for words and the teens were more mature and thoughtful than your average Canadian young adult. 

We’re so happy that the fundraising we did before our journey is going to help them continue to grow. Be warned: we won’t stop talking about them and fundraising for them when we return to Canada. In a few days, we’ll post some of the pictures from our visit.

We took three days away from the kids to hike Mount Mulanje. Ian scaled the peak (3000 m), the third highest in Africa so we are told. The scenery was great including several spots that looked right out of the Canadian backwoods.

More update to comes…. I think we will be lounging here in Nkhata Bay for a while. We have the sweetest lakeside chalet ever… for $30/night.

Volunteer Time

Tomorrow we’re headed off to volunteer at the Malawi orphanage for a week. We’re very excited to be setting roots down for a week in a local community. Although I suspect the labour will not be relaxing, it will be nice to sleep in the same bed and not be tortured on minibuses down potholed roads.

We’ve covered a huge distance in the past week or so. Since leaving Maun, Botswana, we visited Livingstone (3 nights), Luskaka (2 nights), Chipata (1 nights), Lilongwe (2 nights) and Blantyre (1 night).

As we’ve been pushing through, there has been a huge change in the scenery and culture. There are tons more people and villages along the highway. We no longer stare at nothing for hours out of the bus. There are many more bicycles and ox wagons, and the local huts are now square instead of round. Local markets are everywhere with different fruits and vegetables. The trees have gotten much bigger (cause they get rain here) and there are hills and valleys (the start of the Rift Valley system). There is a buzz in the air and it feels good.

We’ll write lots and post tons of great pics when we hit the beach after our orphanage work. Hope everyone is well.

Botswana and Beyond

We spent a week in Bostwana enjoying the Okavango Delta and a whole lot of schnitzel. We stayed at Old Bridge Backpackers in Maun – a great laid back place with open air showers and toilets that you pull a rope across to signify that it is occupied. The owners were extremely helpful in organizing trips and there were 5 or 6 dogs to keep any animal lover satisfied. The drinks were cold and the conversation with other travellers interesting. One of our favourite places so far.

We took a scenic flight over the Delta on our second night in town at about 4:30pm. The light was beautiful and we were simply amazed at scenery. We saw a few animals from the air, but were more impressed with the channels and makoro routes through the reeds.

After a good nights sleep we decided to try our hand at basket weaving. Sadly our basket weaving skills are sub-par, but our coaster making skills are superb! The woman who was helping us out is one of the best basket weavers in the world, having won first prize at some big competition in the States. We were lucky she was there.

We also took a two hour walk through a local nature sanctuary and were able to see some zebras up close and personal rather than from a truck. The walk, however, was just a warm up to an amazing overnight makoro trip that we took through the Delta the next day.

We, and three other Canadians, packed up our camping gear and headed off into the middle of the Delta with three makoro pollers, some food and bug spray. We took a couple of nature walks and were given a safety lecture about what to do if we saw any of the Big Five animals charging at us. Basically it boiled down to run in a zig zag fashion and try to hide down wind, unless it was a lion coming after you, in which case we were to stand still and stare at it in the eye. Fortunately we only saw giraffes, zebras and hippos.  A few elephants came about 50 meters from our camp at night, but we couldn’t see them but we certainly heard them and saw their footprints the next day.

We are now in Livingstone, Zambia. We left Maun on Sunday and managed to make it to Livingstone in about 12 hours. The trip here was awful, but me made it in one piece. Imagine the TTC at rush hour, stuff about 50 more people on the car, no air-conditioning, a bumpy ride and stand for 4 hours – that was our bus trip for part of the way. We got across the border okay, and had to pay $50 US for a Visa.

We took a cab into town from the border post which turned into one of the more interesting, if not more scary moments on the trip. Part way into town the cab driver turned off the main highway onto some dirt road in the middle of nowhere. We weren’t sure what was happening, but as it turned out, there were police check points along the main highway that our driver had to avoid because his license had expired and the car would have been impounded had he been stopped. Nice. So we took a scenic hour long route through the back roads of Livingstone avoiding the cops.

We went to Victoria Falls yesterday which was simply amazing. There were baboons everywhere which kept Gillian happy.

We are leaving tomorrow for Lusaka and then off to Malawi.

We will post more photos when we find a suitable computer…

Gillian and Ian

Out of Africa and our minds

We crossed the Botswana border yesterday after three weeks in South Africa (really just Cape Town and surrounding area) and Namibia. We managed to hitchhike a ride at the border from two amazing South African guys all the way to Maun.

It turns out public transport is really thin or doesn’t exist on this route. We were crossing two very thinnly populated countries – and the least populated areas in those countries. Anyway, they had a sleeper van so we spent six hours lying in thier bed in the back – the most comfortable ride so far. And the cost was a few beers at our hotel at the end.

Here are some quick thoughts about the trip so far in South Africa and Namibia:

• SAFETY – Crime is pretty prevalent in the places we’ve visited. More serious than any other place we’ve visited. My second cousin in Cape Town had walls, electric fences and an alarm system at her house – and that seemed to be the norm at most places. Her daughter’s home has laser beams. We’ve been advised not to walk at night and have done so – catching cabs to and from restaurants when needed. In Swakopmund, Namibia, one of the tour vans was broken into while we were sandboarding. However, these criminals weren’t the sharpest since we were standing on a huge dune in the desert and could see for 10-15 km around us. So the head guide just called the local ATV company and provided directions to where the criminals were running so they could be rounded up. We found it interesting the ATV guys were called, and not the police.
• SUPPER – We’ve sampled a few local dishes – a few traditional braiis (bbqs) of lamb and sausage, and some pork schnitzel (Namibia was once a German colony).  But otherwise, we must admit most of our meals have been like back home, including Japanese, Thai and Italian.
• SUN – We enjoyed only sunny days in Namibia; however the temperature has been mild in the day and chilly at night. We actually had to buy blankets in Namibia’s capital because we froze in our tents (with two single beds) the night before. In Cape Town, we had a few nice days, but the last three were very wet. The rain came down so hard that water was gushing from manholes like fountains.
• SCENERY – The landscape has been pretty sparse with lots of shrubs, small trees and sand/sandy soil in Namibia. With the exception of the north area, the country doesn’t get a lot of rain.  There are some nasty thorn trees and bushes that have nabbed us a few times. The dunes is Soussesvlei and Swakopmund were amazing.
• SAFARI – We really enjoyed our first safari in Ethosa National Park. But we’ve also spotted giraffe, baboons, warthogs and springbok off the side of the highway while zipping past.
• SILLY – We went sandboarding in Swakopmund. This involved lying down on a piece of cardboard and flying down big sand dunes. Certainly not for the faint of heart. Gillian was the record holder in our group – clocking an impressive 70 km/h. She also took a hard landing at the end of one ride – bruising her chins and taking a good bite on her tongue.

Standing On The Atlantic Coast

We’ve arrived at the Atlantic coast in Swakopmund, Namibia and have two months to cross the African continent to reach Zanizabar, Tanzania on the Indian Ocean. (Yes, Cape Town is technically on the Atlantic side but I have no time for “facts”).

This city is pretty much in the middle of nowhere… just desert surrounds this tiny resort town. It took four hours in a local minivan to get here. My knees are still bruised after being jammed into the seat in front of me. We’re chilling out here for 4-5 days before making the Transvera (this is the real term for crossing a continent). Tonight we may go ATVing over the dunes before a nice sunset. Then we have some  sandboarding planned tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll have some sandpaper burns before I’m done.

We’ve cover a whole lotta miles in the past week while camping in Namibia. We spent some time in Sossusvlei and explored the biggest dunes in the world. The Dead Vlei (or valley of the dead) was pretty surreal. Lots of petrified trees with big dunes surrounding them. Then we did a three day safari in Etosha Wildlife Reserve and saw lots of animals including rhinos, giraffes, zebras and elephants.

Namibia is pretty empty – being only second to Mongolia in fewest number of people per square mile. So the long rides down the highway pass very little — just some petrol stations, groups of baboons and warthogs, the occasional town and lots of massive ant hills and shrubs.

Photos from Namibia

Hands up, this is a stick up

Huge dunes

Gillian freaking on a very steep climb

Thirsty tress. 600 years without water.

More huge dunes