Confession time.
First some background: Picture a naive, (extremely attractive) bachelor called Jeff who during the season of Xmas 2007 was tempted by his upcoming adventures and a 20% off sign into buying his first pair of zip-offs.
In a fit of excitement he got them home and marvelled over their quick drying temperament and zip off ease - surely would be perfect for travel.
Imagine then the disappointment when after 3 months on the road the zip-offs are rendered surplus to requirements. Here is why:
1. Who actually zip's off? In all the days I wore them I never once needed to zip off and only once zipped off for the fun of it. If you want to wear pants, wear pants. If you want shorts wear them. If you want to change then change. Also, it's way easier to regulate your temperature by switching between shoes and jandals or removing a jersey then zipping off.
2. The place where zips are needed is not around the knees. It's on the pockets. The voluminous pockets would be perfect for carrying a litre of water (if i didn't have hands or a backpack that is) or a quick meal ration. They are useless for securing your wallet though. Thus if you happen to be buying zip offs for travel I suggest you check this closely before purchasing.
3. They are, lets face it, not built for glamour.
So there, I discarded them in favour of my jeans - a sure fire travel no no. Except that jeans don't show dirt, they are good at night and look good.
Roger Kabisa.
Jeff.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
U see a nice country. Uganda.
Hey World.
11 days down the track and we find ourselves in Fort Portal, East Uganda. After rudimentary inspection we can find neither a Fort nor a Portal. If there is a case to be made for this being a portal then the case is that this area leads into the Rwenzori mountain's. That is silly though or else every second town in the South Island would also be a portal.
Anyways, before we left Kisumu we had the doubtful pleasure of the Kisumu musuem. We were optimistic as we had heard that they had a real "stuffed lion eating a wildebeest." We turned up full of this optimism to find out prices had trebled since our guide book was written. Undeterred we pressed on and saw a range of highlights. The most magnificent of these was perhaps the aquarium - (worse than an average pet store in NZ) or the turtle sanctuary (small square fenced off area with zero shade and 30 turtles. very sad) The funniest part is that these were way better than the snake park (where the snakes were actually plastic) and the authentic tribal village. The taxidermied lion was very impressive though. I can only imagine how much more impressive it would have been if it wasn't missing an ear and a significant part of it's flank.
Right, so from Kisumu we had a delightful day of minibus torture and headed into Jinja. Ugandan visas now cost $50 each which is frustrating. Obviously the rationale is that it's way easier to collect revenue from tourists at each border than have a taxation system in your country. Jinja was nice. The hostels were overpriced and underclean but the location was superb. We got a little exercise there and visited the source of the nile which was sourcy. nice. We wandered to Bujugali falls one day and had wild rice salad another.
From Jinja we headed onwards to Kampala. Getting there was easy but oh man, the bus depot was incredible. So many people yelling that you could barely think and could only really join in the yelling as a method of coping. Needless to say that Kate doesn't enjoy being yelled at and thus the stress levels peaked. We ended up taxiing on out of there and heading to a hostel called the Red Chilli. We ended up in a tent there which was cool. From there we got a room next day in mighty Dewinston St at the Hotel City Annex. We explored Kampala quite a lot over the next few days. We made it to the movies twice, an irish bar, a thai restaurant and generally overspent and overindulged. It was nice.
The best part of Kampala was the fact that we scored Gorilla permits. Previously we had been told this was not going to happen since they were booked out til November. Undeterred (we are undeterred a lot at the moment) we went to the actual offices of the permit people. There a nice lady took a shine to Kate and promised to help out. The next afternoon she rang to say she could find two for as at Nkuringa, Bwindi on the 5th of August. Hurrah. Double Hurrah. Once we stumped up with a thousand fine USD we were secured.
To celebrate we came to Fort Portal. From here we need to fill in 5 more days between here and the Impenetrable forest. To fill this in we'll prolly play cards, read books and drink Nile Specials which at 5.6% have quite a kick. We'll then head from the Gorillas into Rwanda for another fortnight. Then it's back to Kampala and eventually home in just under a month.
Congrats to Casey, Julia and their new arrival. Love it.
Jeff and Kate.
11 days down the track and we find ourselves in Fort Portal, East Uganda. After rudimentary inspection we can find neither a Fort nor a Portal. If there is a case to be made for this being a portal then the case is that this area leads into the Rwenzori mountain's. That is silly though or else every second town in the South Island would also be a portal.
Anyways, before we left Kisumu we had the doubtful pleasure of the Kisumu musuem. We were optimistic as we had heard that they had a real "stuffed lion eating a wildebeest." We turned up full of this optimism to find out prices had trebled since our guide book was written. Undeterred we pressed on and saw a range of highlights. The most magnificent of these was perhaps the aquarium - (worse than an average pet store in NZ) or the turtle sanctuary (small square fenced off area with zero shade and 30 turtles. very sad) The funniest part is that these were way better than the snake park (where the snakes were actually plastic) and the authentic tribal village. The taxidermied lion was very impressive though. I can only imagine how much more impressive it would have been if it wasn't missing an ear and a significant part of it's flank.
Right, so from Kisumu we had a delightful day of minibus torture and headed into Jinja. Ugandan visas now cost $50 each which is frustrating. Obviously the rationale is that it's way easier to collect revenue from tourists at each border than have a taxation system in your country. Jinja was nice. The hostels were overpriced and underclean but the location was superb. We got a little exercise there and visited the source of the nile which was sourcy. nice. We wandered to Bujugali falls one day and had wild rice salad another.
From Jinja we headed onwards to Kampala. Getting there was easy but oh man, the bus depot was incredible. So many people yelling that you could barely think and could only really join in the yelling as a method of coping. Needless to say that Kate doesn't enjoy being yelled at and thus the stress levels peaked. We ended up taxiing on out of there and heading to a hostel called the Red Chilli. We ended up in a tent there which was cool. From there we got a room next day in mighty Dewinston St at the Hotel City Annex. We explored Kampala quite a lot over the next few days. We made it to the movies twice, an irish bar, a thai restaurant and generally overspent and overindulged. It was nice.
The best part of Kampala was the fact that we scored Gorilla permits. Previously we had been told this was not going to happen since they were booked out til November. Undeterred (we are undeterred a lot at the moment) we went to the actual offices of the permit people. There a nice lady took a shine to Kate and promised to help out. The next afternoon she rang to say she could find two for as at Nkuringa, Bwindi on the 5th of August. Hurrah. Double Hurrah. Once we stumped up with a thousand fine USD we were secured.
To celebrate we came to Fort Portal. From here we need to fill in 5 more days between here and the Impenetrable forest. To fill this in we'll prolly play cards, read books and drink Nile Specials which at 5.6% have quite a kick. We'll then head from the Gorillas into Rwanda for another fortnight. Then it's back to Kampala and eventually home in just under a month.
Congrats to Casey, Julia and their new arrival. Love it.
Jeff and Kate.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
The megatropolis of Kisumu
Well. It's been less than a week since I last posted but when you gotta go, you gotta go.
We are in Kisumu. Kisumu is not exactly tourist central. It is however home to 353 000 friendly kenyans and thus is the third largest city in this fine country.
Our last day in Tanzania was remarkably Tanzanian in tone. We huddled outside the Moshi Hilton at 6:00am waiting for the luxury minibus we splurged for to turn up. 6:10am and it arrived right on time and it was nice too. Comfortably relieved we sat there in the bus, in the dark as it started to rain heavily. Our nice large shuttle drove us across town back to their depot where we were dumped into some leaky old minivan and hauled to Arusha. Obviously some logistics weeny had taught them how to consolidate a load. Needless to say I was nonplussed about sitting there in the dark, getting dripped on clutching my bags for 90 mins. In Arusha they transferred us back into a coach which was nice. 3 hours later we are through the border having picked up a Kenyan transit visa. Unfortunately though, our delightful bus decided it was not going to Kenya and promptly broke down. The driver and conductor being nice guys then decided to transfer all our luggage to a new bus. Problem was that they missed my book and glasses sitting on my seat. Thus picture ungainly Jeff sprinting (well running as fast as possible) back over the Kenyan and Tanzanian borders with 40 locals laughing and looking on. It was kind of like the reverse of the olympics .. you know...slow Mzungu running with fast Locals sitting and watching..
Anyways, with glasses in tow I settled into my comfy new seat only to endure 4 more hours of roading hell. We arrived in Nairobi petrified of Nairobi (thanks guide book) and dishevelled. Help was at hand though in the form of a random aussie guy we met who hailed from Newcarstle. He took us to some random lodging house and showed us the pizza restaurant where we managed a small pizza each for lunch and another medium one for dinner. In between we graced the Nairobi cinema with our presence and endured the Incredible Hulk for 2 full hours. Nairobi was bustling and interesting. Not exactly what we'd expected.
Next day we rose early again to catch the train. Except that the train was cancelled due to corruption ruining the entire service. Thus we caught Easy Coach instead. This would have been easy had the coach had suspension but alas it didn't. After 7 hours of this and some of the worst roads we've seen we crawled into Kisumu peeved and bone shaken. Luckily though we met another lady who took us to a nice hotel called the "Sooper" lodge. This is where we've been holed up for a couple of days now and it's really very good. Kisumuins are nice people and we've had a great time here shopping at the market, eating cheaply and having coffee's at the mall.
Tomorrow we're heading to the little used border crossing of Busia by catching a minibus that has Busia written on it. Could work! From there we head onwards to Jinja where I hope to have a spiritual connection to the locals.
One last thing. If it is in lonely planet it now costs double and isn't very good. If it isn't in lonely planet but is recommended by someone you meet then it costs less and is generally alright.
Ciao.
Jeff. (Kate is busy)
We are in Kisumu. Kisumu is not exactly tourist central. It is however home to 353 000 friendly kenyans and thus is the third largest city in this fine country.
Our last day in Tanzania was remarkably Tanzanian in tone. We huddled outside the Moshi Hilton at 6:00am waiting for the luxury minibus we splurged for to turn up. 6:10am and it arrived right on time and it was nice too. Comfortably relieved we sat there in the bus, in the dark as it started to rain heavily. Our nice large shuttle drove us across town back to their depot where we were dumped into some leaky old minivan and hauled to Arusha. Obviously some logistics weeny had taught them how to consolidate a load. Needless to say I was nonplussed about sitting there in the dark, getting dripped on clutching my bags for 90 mins. In Arusha they transferred us back into a coach which was nice. 3 hours later we are through the border having picked up a Kenyan transit visa. Unfortunately though, our delightful bus decided it was not going to Kenya and promptly broke down. The driver and conductor being nice guys then decided to transfer all our luggage to a new bus. Problem was that they missed my book and glasses sitting on my seat. Thus picture ungainly Jeff sprinting (well running as fast as possible) back over the Kenyan and Tanzanian borders with 40 locals laughing and looking on. It was kind of like the reverse of the olympics .. you know...slow Mzungu running with fast Locals sitting and watching..
Anyways, with glasses in tow I settled into my comfy new seat only to endure 4 more hours of roading hell. We arrived in Nairobi petrified of Nairobi (thanks guide book) and dishevelled. Help was at hand though in the form of a random aussie guy we met who hailed from Newcarstle. He took us to some random lodging house and showed us the pizza restaurant where we managed a small pizza each for lunch and another medium one for dinner. In between we graced the Nairobi cinema with our presence and endured the Incredible Hulk for 2 full hours. Nairobi was bustling and interesting. Not exactly what we'd expected.
Next day we rose early again to catch the train. Except that the train was cancelled due to corruption ruining the entire service. Thus we caught Easy Coach instead. This would have been easy had the coach had suspension but alas it didn't. After 7 hours of this and some of the worst roads we've seen we crawled into Kisumu peeved and bone shaken. Luckily though we met another lady who took us to a nice hotel called the "Sooper" lodge. This is where we've been holed up for a couple of days now and it's really very good. Kisumuins are nice people and we've had a great time here shopping at the market, eating cheaply and having coffee's at the mall.
Tomorrow we're heading to the little used border crossing of Busia by catching a minibus that has Busia written on it. Could work! From there we head onwards to Jinja where I hope to have a spiritual connection to the locals.
One last thing. If it is in lonely planet it now costs double and isn't very good. If it isn't in lonely planet but is recommended by someone you meet then it costs less and is generally alright.
Ciao.
Jeff. (Kate is busy)
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Tanzania Revisited
Hey World.
Pole Sana.
This morning mum and dad departed after spending nearly 2 weeks with us here in Tanzania. It was sad to see them go but I was also glad knowing that their time with us went well.
Anyways, since our last post we've been little travel bunnies hopping around everywhere. Our last few days in cape town were cool. We went to Stellenbosch for some wine/brandy tasting and meals out which was cool. Stellenbosch is one hell of a nice place complete with too many cafes, bookshops and art thingies to deal with. We also treated ourselves to a plush wee B&B for some time out from dorm rooms. The beauty of this move was that the place was otherwise vacant and so we ended up with our own personal chef. Hurrah. Cape of Good Hope was also cool and anothe beautiful spot. The rest of our time was spent in kurdish restaurants, cuban restaurants, hip hop cafes etc etc. Next stop was back to dar.
Going back to Dar seemed a little like going back to the dentist. We knew what to expect and after the niceness of Capetown knew it would hurt a little. In reality though it was sweet. We got through customs easily though and quickly found our meagre swahili and a cab driver. Unfortunately though we couldn't find accomodation for quite a while until we ended up at a rather overpriced dive known as the "Durban." Humpf. The next morning we trudged around and ended up in Kariakoo at the Keys Hotel which was quite fine. After a tilt at the casino we met mum and dad at their hotel. It was great to see them and to sample the chocolate they had bought from home...
Dar with parentals was different. We wandered a lot. To spice things up a little we went for a dala dala ride. Make that an illegal dala dala ride. The four of us and 23 locals...
Next morning our rented landrover turned up and it's driver (Ibrahim) escorted us to Pepone's and Pangani. It was nice going back and seeing our friends and the ocean side spots we've come to love. Mum and Dad enjoyed Pangani a lot and it was nice to be able to show them parts of Tanzania well off the beaten track. Next stop (other than various police check points) was a German cottage in Lushoto called Mullers where we were, quite simply, spoilt. No mozzies either. This spot was high in the hills and a glorious place to rest. Lucky too, cos early the next morning we were getting a ride down into town when our taxi driver flashes his lights at an oncoming bus/rustbucket. Turns out our bus decided to leave 30 mins early and wasn't going to wait for anyman. Anyways the bus ride was flat out hairy. At one stage Kate, Dad and I had random babies on our laps. Also, amusingly, a man got on holding a chicken by it's feet. This was fine with me but mum has a wee chicken phobia and was not totally stoked. Needless to say the locals got a giggle..
So yeah then it was Safari. Our driver turned up early one morning and quickly whisked us off to Lake Manyara National Park. Within 20 mins of entering the park we'd spotted Buffalo, blue monkeys, baboons, giraffes and a rare spotted turtlebird. That night we stayed at Bougainvillea lodge in Keratu (named after a flower? maybe?) where we were pampered. Some nice chap even came and lit a fire in our room. By this, I mean he lit a fire in the fireplace using wood and meths.
Next day we drove into the serengeti via a Maasai boma village and the Olduvai gorge. These stops were mandatory for anyone who's read "The White Masai" (grrrr) and studied genetics. We checked out Homo Habilis! Then around 4pm we got game driving. We spotted us our first 3 lions, some elephants, buffalos, punda's and the odd twigga. Special. Our accomodation was teh Sopa lodge where I spotted a giraffe 30 m from our bedroom window.
The next day was more of the same but the highlights were lions on the prowl, a cheatah on the hunt and a leopard on the sleep. It was amazing. The leopard in particular is a prized thing to see and so we were rather lucky. It was the best leopard siting our guide had had in 4 years. That night we stayed in a tented lodge where we saw gazelles prancing around. They even had guards who use bows and arrows as to not wake the guests if an animal stays too far at night.
We then game drove again the next morning on the way to the crater lodge. On the last morning we ended up down in the Ngorongoro crater with the carnivores. We saw countless wildebeest, buffalo, zebra and around 30 lions down there. Speechless. It was one of the great things to see. We even saw a secretary bird destroy a snake. We all agreed it was the best thing for that snake. Some quotes:
Dad - "11 o'clock - thompson's gazelle! 9 o'clock it's a not-thompson's gazelle"
Kate - "3 o'clock i think it's a lion"
Jeff - where?
Kate - "the other 3 o'clock i mean"
Jeff - nice rock.
Mum - "I hope we get to see a Cougar"
Anyways, it was awesome. I have 490 photos from those 4 days and many more memories. Turns out Kate pulled a lion troop sighting out of the bag on the last morning too so i eat my hat.
Now we are parent-free and catching our breath/darning our socks in Moshi. Kili is not far from here but the urge to climb it has gone. Overrated by all accounts.
In other news we have rebooked our flights and are coming home Aug 28. We stop in Dubai for 3 days and Sydney for another 3. We fly into Chch on the 5th Sept I think. Hurrah. We'll be around Timaru etc for about a month before making some sort of shift to Sydney...
These next 6 weeks involve some time in Kenya, a month maybe in Uganda and a trip to Rwanda. Hee hee.
See you all soon.
Jeff and his trusty master game spotting sidekick Kate.
PS this is my lion photo.
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