Hey Sportsfans,
Well we're now here in capetown with a latte in one hand and typing furiously with the other. The waistline is expanding in an inverse relationship to the bank account but hey! it's party time.
To recap the last week:
Since Swakopmund where I last wrote from we shifted the setting south to Sossuvlei(pronounced soft souffle) . This is a desert area with sand dunes approaching 400m high. They were large, orange and sandy. Pretty cool to see, hard to climb up but hilarious fun to tumble/run down. It's an awesome part of the world but amusingly enough it rained on the day we were there. The local chap who was our guide was a San man and he was 37 years old. This was the third bout of rain fall for 2008 and the first time in his life he's seen rain in June. He didn't know why and we didn't have the heart to explain why global weather patterns are changing. Sad.
Next from Sossuvlei was the desert/dessert (omit one) . I could decribe for the entire world the inside of our bus which I studied intently during thes time but i think not. We eventually ended up at fish river canyon which is the second largest in the world (the quite grand canyon) and took many obligatory photos. It was actually really pretty though and a nice spot to hunker down.
From there we basically drove to Capetown. We did stop in cederburg for an im-port-ant night of rest but didn't do much else. Next stop was the end of our tour in Capetown...
Capetown is glorious. It has a harbour 10 times that of the viaduct and long street is a much cooler, larger and more amazing version of Cuba Street. It also has rather a lot of violence and a few large townships/ghetto's but nowhere is perfect. The mountain is also spectular. We've so far visited ~6 cafes in two days to get a statistically significant cross section of the Capetown coffee's. Not bad. Kate bought jeans and I've acquired such interesting stuff as camera batteries. There is an "investment car dealership" which I find amusing - obviously their cars don't depreciate like all other ones.
Yesterday we made the obligatory trip to Robben island. It was quite an experience. Our tour was approximately as follows "HI, I AM YOUR FRIENDLY GUIDE. I AM VERY FRIENDLY. ASK ME QUESTIONS. MORE QUESTIONS. DAMMIT PEOPLE HARRASS ME. BLAH BLAH YELL YELL" etc. The other funny thing to me was that he presumed we were interested in parts of hte island unrelated to the prison where the political prisoners were kept. I couldn't believe it when he pointed out the lighthouse (it's 30 metres high - the tallest point on the island). Needless to say some people took photos of said lighthouse. After exactly 45 minutes (THIS VERY FRIENDLY TOUR IS EXACTLY 45 MINUTES HA HA HE HE OR ELSE I GET FIRED HAW HAW) we were delivered to the prison proper where an ex inmate met us. He had a fantastic voice, an interesting/sad story and 45 minutes also. Anyways, Mandela's cell was rather small, his story rather inspiring and the tour was overall excellent. The oppressiveness of Apartheid is not the best legacy I can safely say.
Anyways. We have 4 more days here before going back to East Africa/Dar es Salaam/the third world. It'll be a shock to our increasingly pampered systems but that's okay. In the meantime we'll go wine tasting, go to simon's town for food and latte ourselves stupid. Hurrah.
Congrats to Dave, Pete Reeves and other people who have things to congratulate. I love news from home. Who on earth is Adam Thompson? Casedog must be beside himself that Tanerau Latimer is getting talked about (and don't forget that he is about to be a dad).
The situation in Zimbabwe and South Africa's treatment of it is in the news here a lot. Grrr. Richie McCaw's knee dominates the sports news headlines here though. Funny.
Party on.
Jeff
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Zambia, Bostwana, Namibia
Well.
I can' believe it's been 10 days since our last post. We've been flat out on tour. Today is a bit of a down day so I finally get a chance to catch my breath and type gibberish on the internet.
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Botswana though has quite a lot of sadness too - mainly in the form of a mile high HIV rate and the slow eradication of the Kalahari bushmen. These people were awe inspiring and despite the highly touristy nature of our encounter with them it is safe to say they left a strong impression on all of us. Fences are also strangling the Kalahari which is terrible.
I can' believe it's been 10 days since our last post. We've been flat out on tour. Today is a bit of a down day so I finally get a chance to catch my breath and type gibberish on the internet.
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I can't possibly run through all the stuff we've done and quite frankly it would be a tad boring and mired in too many details. Instead i'll just talk about the odd thing here and there.
First of all Botswana - this country has all of 2 million people, a massive desert, a strong currency and fluent tourism. We loved it there and especially loved Chobe National Park. We also spent 3 days on the Okavango delta including 1 night bushcamping on an island in the delta. Interestingly enough, the island had lions, elephants, zebra, kudu and snakes on it. Thus our position seems a tad precarious - a restricted geography with carnivorous predators who have a dwindling source of food looking favourably on maybe a nice thigh of Jeff or arm of Kate, but it was fine... We even managed to find ourselves on a Cessna 206 (7 seater) on a scenic flight over the delta. Stunning view and semi-mad english pilot who delighted in terrorifying us with his tricks...
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Botswana though has quite a lot of sadness too - mainly in the form of a mile high HIV rate and the slow eradication of the Kalahari bushmen. These people were awe inspiring and despite the highly touristy nature of our encounter with them it is safe to say they left a strong impression on all of us. Fences are also strangling the Kalahari which is terrible.
Namibia - amazingly german, clean and sausage ridden place. It's very western and treats us to Windhoek lager, Herero women and treats such as strudel. This country is very much first world and the areas we have been have been awesome. We camped a night at Spitzkoppe which is a rocky outcrop in the Namib desert. Very flintstones...
Right now we are in Swakopmund. It is again delightful. Anyways, the coolest thing here are the sanddunes. We went yesterday and jumped on quad bikes to explore them. Wel;l I thought it was an exploration trip. INstead though I was put on a 350cc quadbike and after 30 seconds of induction we were driving straight up 30 metre sanddunes at maybe 50-60 kmh. It was frankly terrifying and the only reason we kept going was a small touch of male ego! Twas like skiing on steroids! Very cool and luckily we weren't injured.
ANyways, onwards and downwards from here. We are off to see some dunes that are 100 m high which should be cool. Then through down to fish river and into capetown in only 6 days. Better leave now and google me up a place to stay.
Poor NZ cricket. I wonder if Dan Carter can swing a bat? Seems he can do most things.
Ciao.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Central Southern Africa
Hey World,
Man, I cannot believe it's been so long since we last blogged. So much seems to have happened. I'll try to get through it chronically although rambling may be permissable so we'll see.
The end of our time in Nkata Bay was excellent. Kate qualified as a diver which was great. We also spent most of a week helping the staff at Butterfly Lodge with the opening of their information centre for the local community. It was cool to head out into the community and meet local NGO people who, despite being poor themselves, were fully committed to helping others who have AIDS etc etc. We also managed to attend a concert of a band called "Souls of the Ghetto" who are a Malawian Reggae Group touring Europe soon. We had a great night dancing with the locals. One other thing I managed was a night dive in Lake Malawi. Pretty scary but worthwhile. The dolphin fish are apparently rather famous (think BBC documentaries and english accents describing their incredible lifestyles) and I certainly enjoyed watching them hunt.
After all this action it was time for some bussing. We cracked into it with a nice wee 8 hour ride on the bus from hell. The first four hours were spent standing in the aisle. Not merely standing comfortably either - more contorted and funky like. At one point I thought a little kid was touching my leg. Turned out it was a chicken. A couple of police inspections and a couple of litres of sweat later and we arrived in Lilongwe at dusk. We stayed at Mabuya camp which was rather cool. We had the following day for rest but typically spent it shopping. This time though shopping involved heading to the Lilongwe markets where we each got a zip up sweatshirt. Kate managed to get a "Vegetarians are more fun" tshirt and I scored a sweet chocolate brown vest. These items should keep us warm as the temperatures plunge in the desert. Total cost of the 4 items was $5 bucks. Thanks to whoever donated them to their church back home.
Next was a 530am start and a minivan to the border of Malawi and Zambia. We managed this without a hitch and found ourselves in Zambia by 8am. We promptly hired the first taxi we found only to learn that we'd hired the passenger seat. That's right - the "nice" man expected both me and kate and our backpack to sit in the passenger seat. We packed a sad and so Kate was allowed in the back seat which was good. Bad though was this meant the guy from the backseat attempted to share a seat with the driver. Thus picture 2 guys sitting in the drivers seat, cracked windscreen and potholed road going 90 kmh. Good times. The saving grace of all this was that the taxi driver abruptly pulled to a stop next to a large bus. This bus happened to be going to Lusaka and so we jumped on (much to the annoyance of the driver who'd had to stop when our taxi driver parked infront of him). Luckily we had scant quantities of US cash with which to pay for our tickets. The next 9 hours were spent in relative comfort driving through Zambia although to be honest it looked more like the set of the flintstones movie.
Lusaka was nicer than expected but we were quickly on our way at 530 am the next morning again. This time though we were on the Mazhundu family bus - an exiled zimbabwe company who were unbelievable - movies, individual seats, a/c and cans of coke as part of the service. We arrived in Livingstone around 2pm. By 330pm we were on a "booze cruise" taking in the glorious sunset on the Zambezi river. This night ended with a little madness but was all good. Next morning was Kate's birthday. We celebrated this with a wee visit to Vic Falls. Currently gushing 10 million litres per second across a 1.7km expanse down 106 metres, the Falls are certainly cool. It's funny that you can only see water gush over the top of a tiny section at once. The steam/spray it generates means you can't see the bottom or across the whole falls at once. Doesn't much matter though as the roar, the sensation and the view are unreal. So unreal infact we went back the next day with the camera and got a few cool pics..
Zambia though maybe 3 times the price of Malawi. Beer = $3 a bottle for instance. Cigarettes still cheap as chips.
Anyways, 4th June and our Acacia tour starts. It seems like a cool group of people and the camp grounds we've had are nice. The water is now safe to drink and the beer is certainly cheaper here in Botwana. The infrastructure is on par with Zambia and thus light years ahead of Malawi and Tanzania. We are now staying in Kasane which is a really cool wee town on Chobe national park. Last night we went for a game cruise on a barge. We saw greater kudu, Botswanan baboons, fish eagles, hippo's a plenty and then elephants. The elephants were unreal. Around 40 of them showed up and drank from the river 5-8 metres from 50 wide eyed whities. The girls still managed to coo at the baby elephants and the boys were impressed with the large bull elephants... The only problem with the drive was that our bus and thus our camera were stuck at Zambian customs and thus we went without photos :( (guess you had to be there!) This was a real shame as the photography would have been so easy. Any fool with a half decent camera could produce a coffee table book.
Then this morning we were up at 530 again for a game drive in 4wd. This was cool although the game didn't really show up. To compensate for hte lack of camera last night I took 190 photos of mixed quality (like a fool) . Am still waiting to see most of the more famous animals but it's awesome cruising round at dawn. Can't wait for the serengeti...
So yeah, that's all our news. We are now living like kings, eating and drinking whatever we like and regaining much weight. The next few days see us driving to more national parks and the Okavango delta. Sounds cool to me! Hopefully it doesn't get any colder though as it's already down near freezing most nights. Our 12 dollar nylon sleeping bags are certainly gonna struggle.
Jeffo. (Oi Jeff, aren't NZers meant to be tough? I heard you were born frozen)
PS, if you want a postcard send me your address.
PSS got ma head shaved. la viva moce. doesn't look much different to normal to be honest. how odd.
Man, I cannot believe it's been so long since we last blogged. So much seems to have happened. I'll try to get through it chronically although rambling may be permissable so we'll see.
The end of our time in Nkata Bay was excellent. Kate qualified as a diver which was great. We also spent most of a week helping the staff at Butterfly Lodge with the opening of their information centre for the local community. It was cool to head out into the community and meet local NGO people who, despite being poor themselves, were fully committed to helping others who have AIDS etc etc. We also managed to attend a concert of a band called "Souls of the Ghetto" who are a Malawian Reggae Group touring Europe soon. We had a great night dancing with the locals. One other thing I managed was a night dive in Lake Malawi. Pretty scary but worthwhile. The dolphin fish are apparently rather famous (think BBC documentaries and english accents describing their incredible lifestyles) and I certainly enjoyed watching them hunt.
After all this action it was time for some bussing. We cracked into it with a nice wee 8 hour ride on the bus from hell. The first four hours were spent standing in the aisle. Not merely standing comfortably either - more contorted and funky like. At one point I thought a little kid was touching my leg. Turned out it was a chicken. A couple of police inspections and a couple of litres of sweat later and we arrived in Lilongwe at dusk. We stayed at Mabuya camp which was rather cool. We had the following day for rest but typically spent it shopping. This time though shopping involved heading to the Lilongwe markets where we each got a zip up sweatshirt. Kate managed to get a "Vegetarians are more fun" tshirt and I scored a sweet chocolate brown vest. These items should keep us warm as the temperatures plunge in the desert. Total cost of the 4 items was $5 bucks. Thanks to whoever donated them to their church back home.
Next was a 530am start and a minivan to the border of Malawi and Zambia. We managed this without a hitch and found ourselves in Zambia by 8am. We promptly hired the first taxi we found only to learn that we'd hired the passenger seat. That's right - the "nice" man expected both me and kate and our backpack to sit in the passenger seat. We packed a sad and so Kate was allowed in the back seat which was good. Bad though was this meant the guy from the backseat attempted to share a seat with the driver. Thus picture 2 guys sitting in the drivers seat, cracked windscreen and potholed road going 90 kmh. Good times. The saving grace of all this was that the taxi driver abruptly pulled to a stop next to a large bus. This bus happened to be going to Lusaka and so we jumped on (much to the annoyance of the driver who'd had to stop when our taxi driver parked infront of him). Luckily we had scant quantities of US cash with which to pay for our tickets. The next 9 hours were spent in relative comfort driving through Zambia although to be honest it looked more like the set of the flintstones movie.
Lusaka was nicer than expected but we were quickly on our way at 530 am the next morning again. This time though we were on the Mazhundu family bus - an exiled zimbabwe company who were unbelievable - movies, individual seats, a/c and cans of coke as part of the service. We arrived in Livingstone around 2pm. By 330pm we were on a "booze cruise" taking in the glorious sunset on the Zambezi river. This night ended with a little madness but was all good. Next morning was Kate's birthday. We celebrated this with a wee visit to Vic Falls. Currently gushing 10 million litres per second across a 1.7km expanse down 106 metres, the Falls are certainly cool. It's funny that you can only see water gush over the top of a tiny section at once. The steam/spray it generates means you can't see the bottom or across the whole falls at once. Doesn't much matter though as the roar, the sensation and the view are unreal. So unreal infact we went back the next day with the camera and got a few cool pics..
Zambia though maybe 3 times the price of Malawi. Beer = $3 a bottle for instance. Cigarettes still cheap as chips.
Anyways, 4th June and our Acacia tour starts. It seems like a cool group of people and the camp grounds we've had are nice. The water is now safe to drink and the beer is certainly cheaper here in Botwana. The infrastructure is on par with Zambia and thus light years ahead of Malawi and Tanzania. We are now staying in Kasane which is a really cool wee town on Chobe national park. Last night we went for a game cruise on a barge. We saw greater kudu, Botswanan baboons, fish eagles, hippo's a plenty and then elephants. The elephants were unreal. Around 40 of them showed up and drank from the river 5-8 metres from 50 wide eyed whities. The girls still managed to coo at the baby elephants and the boys were impressed with the large bull elephants... The only problem with the drive was that our bus and thus our camera were stuck at Zambian customs and thus we went without photos :( (guess you had to be there!) This was a real shame as the photography would have been so easy. Any fool with a half decent camera could produce a coffee table book.
Then this morning we were up at 530 again for a game drive in 4wd. This was cool although the game didn't really show up. To compensate for hte lack of camera last night I took 190 photos of mixed quality (like a fool) . Am still waiting to see most of the more famous animals but it's awesome cruising round at dawn. Can't wait for the serengeti...
So yeah, that's all our news. We are now living like kings, eating and drinking whatever we like and regaining much weight. The next few days see us driving to more national parks and the Okavango delta. Sounds cool to me! Hopefully it doesn't get any colder though as it's already down near freezing most nights. Our 12 dollar nylon sleeping bags are certainly gonna struggle.
Jeffo. (Oi Jeff, aren't NZers meant to be tough? I heard you were born frozen)
PS, if you want a postcard send me your address.
PSS got ma head shaved. la viva moce. doesn't look much different to normal to be honest. how odd.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Malawi
Hey Everyone,
Sorry for not posting in the last few weeks. Malawi doesn’t have the best internet access and besides, we’ve been waaaaaaayyyy too busy! (yep, busy, real busy)
Since our last post we travelled a solid 2 days of buses, taxis, minivans and bicycle couriers to get to Nkhata Bay, Malawi. We weren’t sure quite what to expect but we were quite surprised none the less! We stumbled in weary and tired at sunset into butterfly space. Unfortunately they were full. They did however lend us a tent although it was more of a nylon sack with a couple of poles and no tent pegs! None the less, the ever adaptable Jeff and Kate set up shop and unfurled our 0.1mm thick silk sacks onto the ground for sleeping. We quickly migrated to the bar next door to imbibe a healthy quantity of “local sleeping aid.” Anyway, many bottles of sleeping aid later and help from a couple of nice saffie guys(in the form of a single mattress) and we managed a full night sleep!
Two weeks later and we’re now living in a zebra motif painted hut approximately 2.5 metres from the lakes edge. It’s glorious. Each day we wake to the sound of the waves and either go for a swim, a cup of bottomless coffee or wander into town. Thus I am either feeling healthy, wired or inquisitive! We are helping out here with setting up a community resource centre focussing on healthcare, agriculture and income development. Kate is helping out with some local intellectually disabled children too which is nice.
There are over 800 species of fresh water fish in Lake Malawi. It is rumoured but generally considered untrue that one species tastes like cheese cake. The other great thing about the lake is that there is a really excellent dive school operating here. So without further ado Kate and I signed up and squeezed into our wetsuits last Monday! We had a great few days obtaining our Open Water Dive qualification although Kate fell sick and missed the last bit of the course. She is on catch up this week though! There are some cool things to see in the lake but my favourite is the upside down fish. These things have apparently realised at some point in their history that swimming upside down is a good idea and they do it quite often! Good for them. You’ve got to do something fairly spectacular to stand out from the other 800 other species!
Anyways, before I go a quick description of Nkata Bay. The people here are really nice. They also speak English which makes interaction a breeze! The tap water here is even drinkable! Having said that, Kate has been ill with Giardia so maybe we should revise that status slightly.(we are now zapping the water with UV everyday which is fun AND healthy!)
Also, congrats to Walmsley for mowing down more spare ribs than young Mr Mullin. Very Impressive. Now you’ll have even more ribs sticking out!
We are skipping off to Lilongwe, Lussaka and then Vic Falls over next weekend. Will post again hopefully from there although not if we are too busy celebrating Kate’s 27th bday!
Take care out there!
Sorry for not posting in the last few weeks. Malawi doesn’t have the best internet access and besides, we’ve been waaaaaaayyyy too busy! (yep, busy, real busy)
Since our last post we travelled a solid 2 days of buses, taxis, minivans and bicycle couriers to get to Nkhata Bay, Malawi. We weren’t sure quite what to expect but we were quite surprised none the less! We stumbled in weary and tired at sunset into butterfly space. Unfortunately they were full. They did however lend us a tent although it was more of a nylon sack with a couple of poles and no tent pegs! None the less, the ever adaptable Jeff and Kate set up shop and unfurled our 0.1mm thick silk sacks onto the ground for sleeping. We quickly migrated to the bar next door to imbibe a healthy quantity of “local sleeping aid.” Anyway, many bottles of sleeping aid later and help from a couple of nice saffie guys(in the form of a single mattress) and we managed a full night sleep!
Two weeks later and we’re now living in a zebra motif painted hut approximately 2.5 metres from the lakes edge. It’s glorious. Each day we wake to the sound of the waves and either go for a swim, a cup of bottomless coffee or wander into town. Thus I am either feeling healthy, wired or inquisitive! We are helping out here with setting up a community resource centre focussing on healthcare, agriculture and income development. Kate is helping out with some local intellectually disabled children too which is nice.
There are over 800 species of fresh water fish in Lake Malawi. It is rumoured but generally considered untrue that one species tastes like cheese cake. The other great thing about the lake is that there is a really excellent dive school operating here. So without further ado Kate and I signed up and squeezed into our wetsuits last Monday! We had a great few days obtaining our Open Water Dive qualification although Kate fell sick and missed the last bit of the course. She is on catch up this week though! There are some cool things to see in the lake but my favourite is the upside down fish. These things have apparently realised at some point in their history that swimming upside down is a good idea and they do it quite often! Good for them. You’ve got to do something fairly spectacular to stand out from the other 800 other species!
Anyways, before I go a quick description of Nkata Bay. The people here are really nice. They also speak English which makes interaction a breeze! The tap water here is even drinkable! Having said that, Kate has been ill with Giardia so maybe we should revise that status slightly.(we are now zapping the water with UV everyday which is fun AND healthy!)
Also, congrats to Walmsley for mowing down more spare ribs than young Mr Mullin. Very Impressive. Now you’ll have even more ribs sticking out!
We are skipping off to Lilongwe, Lussaka and then Vic Falls over next weekend. Will post again hopefully from there although not if we are too busy celebrating Kate’s 27th bday!
Take care out there!
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Onwards and Downwards
Hey Everyone.
We've managed to upload photos! Get to the photobucket link to check it out!!
Post-Pangani life has been interesting!! We've reduced our gear by 50% and are now travelling with only one pack and a smaller backpack! hoorah. Anyways, we left our beloved Pangani Saturday. We made it as far as Peponi's - a heavenly wee place 1 hours drive away from home and figured that was enough travel for the day. We checked in only to find out they were full and so we had to camp under the stars. Another Jeff and Kate romantic moment!!! Except that this time it was disrupted by a dose of weeping and gross conjunctivitis in my left eye!! The next morning I woke with it in the other eye so we decided to move into the resort next door (called "Capricorn"). This resort takes Visa so we felt like we were able to waste time and money with glee! Soon after we checked in Kate developed a nice little case of bung eye for herself. You can picture us sitting there eating our dinner in the most romantic setting yet of our holiday both red eyed and none too pleased!!
Anyways, we soon recovered enough to travel onwards back to Dar es Salaam. We have now been holed up here for a couple of days. On Friday we head to Mbeya in south Tanzania and from there due south into Malawi. We apparently head to Mzuzu and then hang a left and end up in Nkata Bay. We plan to spend a couple of weeks there because there is a cool backpackers hostel there that you can volunteer at. It also looks beautiful!! (http://www.butterfly-space.com/). From there we plan to be in Vic Falls, Zambia for Kate's birthday on the 3rd of June. THen on the 4th of June we depart Vic Falls on an Acacia tour that heads through Botwana and Namibia down to Capetown. We'll spend a few days there and then return back to Dar es Salaam in time for mum and dad's arrival on the 30th of June. Good times.
6 weeks in Africa have passed and we are still going strong!! Dinner tonight might even be lebanese!
Great article about bird flu in the national english newspaper this week: "hundreds worldwide have been infected by bird flu and millions more have died..." - brilliant!
Oh also - we saw a dude with a television on his head. Also another with a toilet bowl. This means we've seen a tv, a toilet and a fridge. It is our aim to see an entire apartment being carried around. Kind of like an african monopoly!
Take care. Tuliakachezi Ka Mandezi (Cool, Crazy like a Banana)
Jeff. Kate.
PS check out the jandal tan...
We've managed to upload photos! Get to the photobucket link to check it out!!
Post-Pangani life has been interesting!! We've reduced our gear by 50% and are now travelling with only one pack and a smaller backpack! hoorah. Anyways, we left our beloved Pangani Saturday. We made it as far as Peponi's - a heavenly wee place 1 hours drive away from home and figured that was enough travel for the day. We checked in only to find out they were full and so we had to camp under the stars. Another Jeff and Kate romantic moment!!! Except that this time it was disrupted by a dose of weeping and gross conjunctivitis in my left eye!! The next morning I woke with it in the other eye so we decided to move into the resort next door (called "Capricorn"). This resort takes Visa so we felt like we were able to waste time and money with glee! Soon after we checked in Kate developed a nice little case of bung eye for herself. You can picture us sitting there eating our dinner in the most romantic setting yet of our holiday both red eyed and none too pleased!!
Anyways, we soon recovered enough to travel onwards back to Dar es Salaam. We have now been holed up here for a couple of days. On Friday we head to Mbeya in south Tanzania and from there due south into Malawi. We apparently head to Mzuzu and then hang a left and end up in Nkata Bay. We plan to spend a couple of weeks there because there is a cool backpackers hostel there that you can volunteer at. It also looks beautiful!! (http://www.butterfly-space.com/). From there we plan to be in Vic Falls, Zambia for Kate's birthday on the 3rd of June. THen on the 4th of June we depart Vic Falls on an Acacia tour that heads through Botwana and Namibia down to Capetown. We'll spend a few days there and then return back to Dar es Salaam in time for mum and dad's arrival on the 30th of June. Good times.
6 weeks in Africa have passed and we are still going strong!! Dinner tonight might even be lebanese!
Great article about bird flu in the national english newspaper this week: "hundreds worldwide have been infected by bird flu and millions more have died..." - brilliant!
Oh also - we saw a dude with a television on his head. Also another with a toilet bowl. This means we've seen a tv, a toilet and a fridge. It is our aim to see an entire apartment being carried around. Kind of like an african monopoly!
Take care. Tuliakachezi Ka Mandezi (Cool, Crazy like a Banana)
Jeff. Kate.
PS check out the jandal tan...
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The Final Edition of the Pangani Daily Times
Hey Everyone,
Thanks for all the feedback on this blog/emails etc. We appreciate them :) comments are good too!
Anyways the mood has brightened since our last post and nothing major has gone wrong since! The ferry that was "broken" down on Zanzibar was of course not broken down so with some judicious payment methods we made it to dar es salaam as planned. We stayed at the dar YWCA which was okay and did nothing much of note for 3 days. Dar is nicer than we first realised and has the odd western aspect to it - meaning of course that it has pizza which is great for recovering from gastro...
One incident of amusement that will be exaggerated for years to come was my exchange with a pickpocket. A big scary one too(i.e maybe 50 kilos of scrawny local man). The story is that we were walking past the bus stand and some nice chap aggressively yanks on my shirt and accuses me of standing on his foot. Kate and I begin apologising like mad. All of a sudden I feel a slimy hand dart into my pocket and go for my wallet. With astounding speed i clamp my left hand onto his and shove/perform some crazy ninja move with my right hand. The lout falls down and the people around yell at him. We scurry away before there is any violence etc etc. Wallet saved!!
So after Dar we head to Arusha in the north. This is the town/city where all the westerners visit to go safari/climb kili etc. We were picturing maybe a Queenstown type adventure destination. While I won't deride Arusha it wasn't quite to this level. We saw the UNICTR - tribunal for rwanda which is obviously important. You can tell this in Africa by the quality of the 4WD's they have. This tribunal had white Merc's...
The purpose of this visit to Arusha was to meet with our charity to determine the future of our time here in Tanzania. Kate has been having troubles with her medical registration and despite having done everything we were meant to do we now know it'll take 3+ months, money and effort to fix. I have also been having troubles with my business volunteering in terms of the amount of work actually needed (very little) and the ethically "sub-rigorous" way in which they operate. We took this information to our charity and after some debate agreed that it would be best if we all shook hands and went our separate ways. This is a disappointing blow for our humanitarian intentions here in Tanzania but too bad.
We are now trying to decide how to spend the rest of our time and efforts here in Africa. We are currently planning a bit of travel and then we'll reassess. This travel plan is rather fluid and may involve heading to Malawi, Botswana, Vic Falls and down through Namibia to Capetown. The first step was to head home to good old Pangani and catch up with our friends. We are now doing washing like crazy (except that someone stole our pegs from our washing line) and eating our last Pangani Orange's (best in Tanzania) We'll shortly pack up our gear - except for the Wesley Snipes DVD which we have donated to the local library to file under the section "Quality American Literature," and head to Dar es Salaam again. From there we'll make a proper plan and hopefully execute it like the hard outs we are. After all, we still have zip-off pants and thus must travel!
Kate has taken over!! The blog is falling...
Just wondering if anyone knows of any companies who have money for charity lying around and would like to support an HIV based charity. TAWAHAESS (The team for assisting in the war against HIV AIDS and elimination of social stigma in Pangani) have just lost their German benefactor. They provide home based care, food and nutrition to very poor people with HIV, assist with transport to the hospital for people in the villages to get their antiretrovirals and give counseling to anyone who wants an HIV test. They also do a fair bit of community education. Their running costs are about $500 usd per month. I don't really know where to start looking but if anyone has any ideas that would be great. Unfortunately it costs $$ to set up a website so they don't have one to look at (nor do they have a computer). Cheers.
Righto, take care everyone down under. Talk again soon!
Thanks for all the feedback on this blog/emails etc. We appreciate them :) comments are good too!
Anyways the mood has brightened since our last post and nothing major has gone wrong since! The ferry that was "broken" down on Zanzibar was of course not broken down so with some judicious payment methods we made it to dar es salaam as planned. We stayed at the dar YWCA which was okay and did nothing much of note for 3 days. Dar is nicer than we first realised and has the odd western aspect to it - meaning of course that it has pizza which is great for recovering from gastro...
One incident of amusement that will be exaggerated for years to come was my exchange with a pickpocket. A big scary one too(i.e maybe 50 kilos of scrawny local man). The story is that we were walking past the bus stand and some nice chap aggressively yanks on my shirt and accuses me of standing on his foot. Kate and I begin apologising like mad. All of a sudden I feel a slimy hand dart into my pocket and go for my wallet. With astounding speed i clamp my left hand onto his and shove/perform some crazy ninja move with my right hand. The lout falls down and the people around yell at him. We scurry away before there is any violence etc etc. Wallet saved!!
So after Dar we head to Arusha in the north. This is the town/city where all the westerners visit to go safari/climb kili etc. We were picturing maybe a Queenstown type adventure destination. While I won't deride Arusha it wasn't quite to this level. We saw the UNICTR - tribunal for rwanda which is obviously important. You can tell this in Africa by the quality of the 4WD's they have. This tribunal had white Merc's...
The purpose of this visit to Arusha was to meet with our charity to determine the future of our time here in Tanzania. Kate has been having troubles with her medical registration and despite having done everything we were meant to do we now know it'll take 3+ months, money and effort to fix. I have also been having troubles with my business volunteering in terms of the amount of work actually needed (very little) and the ethically "sub-rigorous" way in which they operate. We took this information to our charity and after some debate agreed that it would be best if we all shook hands and went our separate ways. This is a disappointing blow for our humanitarian intentions here in Tanzania but too bad.
We are now trying to decide how to spend the rest of our time and efforts here in Africa. We are currently planning a bit of travel and then we'll reassess. This travel plan is rather fluid and may involve heading to Malawi, Botswana, Vic Falls and down through Namibia to Capetown. The first step was to head home to good old Pangani and catch up with our friends. We are now doing washing like crazy (except that someone stole our pegs from our washing line) and eating our last Pangani Orange's (best in Tanzania) We'll shortly pack up our gear - except for the Wesley Snipes DVD which we have donated to the local library to file under the section "Quality American Literature," and head to Dar es Salaam again. From there we'll make a proper plan and hopefully execute it like the hard outs we are. After all, we still have zip-off pants and thus must travel!
Kate has taken over!! The blog is falling...
Just wondering if anyone knows of any companies who have money for charity lying around and would like to support an HIV based charity. TAWAHAESS (The team for assisting in the war against HIV AIDS and elimination of social stigma in Pangani) have just lost their German benefactor. They provide home based care, food and nutrition to very poor people with HIV, assist with transport to the hospital for people in the villages to get their antiretrovirals and give counseling to anyone who wants an HIV test. They also do a fair bit of community education. Their running costs are about $500 usd per month. I don't really know where to start looking but if anyone has any ideas that would be great. Unfortunately it costs $$ to set up a website so they don't have one to look at (nor do they have a computer). Cheers.
Righto, take care everyone down under. Talk again soon!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Zanzibar - " Nemesis Island"
Well I guess you have to laugh about it. This post is kind of like one of those stories you write when you are seven years old at primary school using the black crayon - "the worst week was when..."
We are having a few issues with our volunteering placement at the moment. To fix it (in Jeff and Kate style) we figured a nice trip to the alluring azure island of Zanzibar would work a treat.
We are having a few issues with our volunteering placement at the moment. To fix it (in Jeff and Kate style) we figured a nice trip to the alluring azure island of Zanzibar would work a treat.
We departed Pangani last thursday at 5am on a motorized dhow. Yup. This sucker was made from mangrove and powered by an almighty 9.9 hp motor. Kate, myself, the boat captain, our rastafarian tour guide and 4 other unnecessary randoms transported across the open ocean on this thing. Anyways, despite the apparent hairiness of this mode of transport it worked fine. The guys even caught a 1 metre long fish of some description (yellow? with fins?) using no rod. Impressive.
So we land on the beach (well in the ocean next to the beach) and promptly get hit up by a cop. He was a real cop we have been assured (despite his casual clothes and photocopied badge/extortion permit). Anyways he wants us to get an immigration stamp. We refuse as we aren't immigrating and he packs a sad. Our rasta tour guide has a friend on the island who comes to help. His form of help was to take money from us and give it to the cop. This of course worked very well. It was of course annoying to see this cop and this "friend' sharing out the money 30 mins later. Crappy incident #1.
So anyways, we stay the night at premier beach resort the Kendwa Rocks. This was fine. We picked out our room and our rasta tour guide Ali decided to stay there too. Next thing I know we're standing at reception paying for our room and it becomes clear we have to pay for Ali's
room too!?! Apparently when he said he'd take us to Zanzibar he meant "I'll sit on the boat with you in return for a nights accomodation, food and money for me to get home!." So that night picture us sitting at our candle light table on the sand in a very romantic honeymoon style setting - just me, Kate and our Tanzanian Rasta tourguide. Funniest part about Ali is that he actually had never really been to Zanzibar before and thus had no idea of anything much at all. Just another hilarious situation we'd manage to find ourselves in. Thus I dub this crappy incident #2.
The next morning I wake around 4am feeling hot. I rewake at 7am and i'm feverish and feel terrible. We promptly bail from our beach resort and hire a taxi to boost the 55 km into Stonetown in south Zanzibar where a hospital and western ammenities beckon. Kate at this point secured us a minor victory in the battle against Zanzibar. She scored us a taxi for 20000TSH instead of 50000TSH. This was a grand saving except I think it meant that the driver decided to skip the procurement phase of our drive and thus we conked out of petrol half way up the first hill 500m from our origin. So we sat there for an hour. They feigned mechanical problems and took out the battery etc until reinforcements arrived. Crappy incident #3.
Anyways, we get to Stonetown a couple of hours late and promptly check into the Baghani Guest house. This place was nice and great relief for me. It had a tv, a western bog and an alright bed. It was here I spent 3 full days lolling around sleeping, sweating, feeling rotten etc etc. My efforts at going out were fascical and brief. Luckily though I tested negative for Malaria and merely had a mean bout of gastro. Kate during this time didn't really get much touristing done and generally had a bad time too. We dub this crappy incident #4.
Anyways when we go to leave the Baghani on day four we realise our small camera is missing. Cliche! Turns out that someone has clearly taken it during one of my brief sojourns out of the hotel. The safe in our room was broken so we'd been hiding our valuables etc etc and plus this place was actually nice so we weren't too worried about our gear. Management accused us of going touristing and losing it somewhere knowing full well we'd barely left the place in days. So you'll have to wait even longer for photos now. Crappy incident #5.
So anyways, after I began to recover we planned to do some tourist stuff. Some tour guide called Rasheed organised a tour for us. It was 70 000 TSH and sounded great - we had a private car to take us around and show us the industry etc. So we jump in the car which drives for 2 mins before stopping. Rasheed has to visit his aunty. After this brief delay we drive 10 mins to a plantation. We did have a good time there looking round all the sorts of trees and plants for tumeric, cardamom, vanilla, chilli, coffee, etc etc. This was nice. After about an hour though our tour finishes and the tour guide wants paid. Yup. So we have to fork out 10 000 TSH ($10 bucks) to pay for our tour. Rasheed then drives us to a "popular" beach for a swim. Kate had her togs and everything. Well after wading through sewerage to get to the ocean we see it's got all these sharp underwater rocks and swimming would be a tad unwise. We storm back to the car. Rasheed tells us that is the end of the tour. Rasheed senses our annoyance but can't work it out. We eventually tell him and so he refunds our 10 000 TSH from teh spice tour. We then have a blubbering apologetic Rasheed trying to appease us for nearly an hour. There is an encore but you've had enough of this one. Crappy incident #6.
So today we are leaving. We got up nice and early, got set for our 10am ferry but it turns out there is none. Dunno why. The 12:30 is broken and so we are now catching the 4pm. Thus I have time to share with the whole world our delightful Zanzibari experience. I am sure this island is alluring and exotic and delightful for most but it is certainly our nemesis island and one we will not be returning to for love or money...
The only real highlight for me was watching McCullum's 158* live on some random Indian cable channel. These things happen though. At 4pm we're off to Dar and then tomorrow on the 10 hour bus to Arusha. Onwards and Upwards.
Hmm. 3 more hours to kill. I wonder if Rasheed has something for us to do? or maybe Ali? or some other nice tour guide?...
Damn I'm looking forward to using our new toaster.
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