Greetings from Kampala, Uganda. Steve and I have spent the last few days really doing a whole lotta nothing, and it's been great! Well, we've done a few things.... internet (it's finally cheaper here)....enjoying air conditioning.... catching up on all the US election drama on CNN... even seeing UB40 in concert.
We had a break between tours and we have taken advantage of our hotel points to stay in a western-style hotel, complete with A/C, cable TV, and a real door that locks! Tonight we meet up with the group (6 of us total from the last tour we completed in Tanzania) to start our Uganda tour, so we go back to the not-so-glamourous life of sleeping in tents and shared dorm rooms. We'll be on the road for the next couple of weeks, so the next time I post an entry it will probably be from Greece!
Getting to Kampala was a bit of an adventure for us, so it's been nice to have time to relax. Several days ago, as we were heading to Arusha, Tanzania (close to Mt. Kiliminjaro, but not as exotic as it sounds) we had an emergency stop at the hospital because one of the guys in our group had some sort of stomach bug and was severely dehydrated. Fortunately he's doing much better now, but stopping at a small hospital in a random town in Tanzania (at night) was a little bit strange. We thought our flight from Arusha to Kampala was nonstop, so we got off the airplane when the plane stopped.... only to figure out a few minutes later, when our bags didn't come off the plane and the airport seemed like an awfully small place to be an "international" airport, that we were in fact still in Tanzania. That explains why the lady meeting our plane gave me such a weird look when I insisted she give us declaration forms, considering we were still in the same country. Fortunately we figured out the problem and got back on the plane before it left us in the middle of nowhere!
When we got into Kampala, it turns out that UB40 was playing their last concert ever, and it just happened to be when we were there. We ended up buying tickets, and when it was all over- tickets, dinner, transporation to the concert, we ended up spending less than $50US. Not too shabby. The concert itself was pretty good- an insane number of people there (over 30,000) , and even more exciting is that while we were standing in line to get in we saw UB40 drive into the super-secret back entrance to the concert venue, the Bugandan Queen's entourage, and a guy get arrested for pick-pocketing (not our pockets.)
I am running out of time- 2 minutes to go- otherwise I would write more. We have had a great, and at times very challenging time in Africa, and look forward to sharing many more tales, including gorilla sightings, with you soon!
Cheers,
Anna
Monday, February 25, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Hakuna Matata!
Greetings from Zanzibar. We have had a few days to relax on this beautiful island and enjoy a little sunshine at the beach (finally!!!) We left Malawi a few days ago for Tanzania, and when we pulled into Dar es Salaam there were American flags hanging everywhere and banners saying things like "Tanzania loves President Bush." We were a bit behind on the news, so it took a little while to figure out that Bush is planning a visit to Tanzania (probably while we're still in the country, but most likely not in the same city.) We didn't spot Madonna in Malawi, so maybe we will have luck seeing Bush in Tanzania.
We took a ferry a few days ago from Dar to Zanzibar, when we left the mainland it was overcast and very gray, when we landed in Stone Town, a port of entry into Zanzibar, the sky was beautiful and cloudless and the water bright blue and green. We had a couple of days to wander around Stone Town- named because of all the stone used in constructing the buildings- where there are lots of alleyways you can wander down and get lost in. It reminded us a lot of Venice, once you escape the craziness of San Marco Square, except without the canals.
We then headed north to Nungwi, where we are now, stopping for an afternoon to do a spice tour (one of the things Zanzibar originally got famous for.) We saw a cinnamon tree- the actual wood of the branches is the cinnamon we think of, and the roots are used in things like Vicks Vapor Rub and are very smelly! We also saw "Butterfly"- a 40 year old coconut tree climber, scale a 70 foot coconut tree with his bare hands and feet and a piece of rope tied in a figure eight that he hooked his feet into, cut down enough coconuts for a group of 25 people to enjoy, and then did a few acrobatic tricks at the top- all completely terrifying and amazing at the same time.
We're now in a little hotel in Nungwi and are enjoying the beautiful beaches, while trying to dodge all of the bracelet / wood carving salesmen that like to walk up and down the beach and harass you until you buy something. I guess every paradise can't be absolutely perfect!
In a few days we head to Uganda, where we'll get to track mountain gorillas in their natural habitat and hopefully see a few up close. Originally our tour took us through Kenya, but our company officially decided to cancel that part of the trip because of the unrest in areas we would have gone to- it's fine with us, safety first, but disappointing and it's taken a lot of last-minute adjustments to our travel plans.
After Uganda we head to Europe, and are looking forward to meeting up with family / friends in Greece, Turkey, and Italy. and We've managed to meet a lot of great Europeans on this tour who have offered free places to stay if we come visit their countries (the down side is that it's all the northern european countries- Holland, Sweden, etc where it will be really cold when we get there) so who knows where we'll end up after Italy.
It's time to go enjoy the beach for a while, hope you're all doing well and had a very happy Valentine's Day!
Cheers,
Anna
We took a ferry a few days ago from Dar to Zanzibar, when we left the mainland it was overcast and very gray, when we landed in Stone Town, a port of entry into Zanzibar, the sky was beautiful and cloudless and the water bright blue and green. We had a couple of days to wander around Stone Town- named because of all the stone used in constructing the buildings- where there are lots of alleyways you can wander down and get lost in. It reminded us a lot of Venice, once you escape the craziness of San Marco Square, except without the canals.
We then headed north to Nungwi, where we are now, stopping for an afternoon to do a spice tour (one of the things Zanzibar originally got famous for.) We saw a cinnamon tree- the actual wood of the branches is the cinnamon we think of, and the roots are used in things like Vicks Vapor Rub and are very smelly! We also saw "Butterfly"- a 40 year old coconut tree climber, scale a 70 foot coconut tree with his bare hands and feet and a piece of rope tied in a figure eight that he hooked his feet into, cut down enough coconuts for a group of 25 people to enjoy, and then did a few acrobatic tricks at the top- all completely terrifying and amazing at the same time.
We're now in a little hotel in Nungwi and are enjoying the beautiful beaches, while trying to dodge all of the bracelet / wood carving salesmen that like to walk up and down the beach and harass you until you buy something. I guess every paradise can't be absolutely perfect!
In a few days we head to Uganda, where we'll get to track mountain gorillas in their natural habitat and hopefully see a few up close. Originally our tour took us through Kenya, but our company officially decided to cancel that part of the trip because of the unrest in areas we would have gone to- it's fine with us, safety first, but disappointing and it's taken a lot of last-minute adjustments to our travel plans.
After Uganda we head to Europe, and are looking forward to meeting up with family / friends in Greece, Turkey, and Italy. and We've managed to meet a lot of great Europeans on this tour who have offered free places to stay if we come visit their countries (the down side is that it's all the northern european countries- Holland, Sweden, etc where it will be really cold when we get there) so who knows where we'll end up after Italy.
It's time to go enjoy the beach for a while, hope you're all doing well and had a very happy Valentine's Day!
Cheers,
Anna
Saturday, February 9, 2008
As I was sitting in my hammock a few minutes ago I got news that the internet was (finally) up and working again. It's been raining all morning- we woke up at 6AM to a torrential downpour/lightning storm outside and closed the bamboo shades to try to block some of the rain that's coming down sideways from our little 2-person hut on the beach. Fortunately there are blue skies peeking out now, 7 hours later, and maybe we'll have a little sun to dry up all this water! We're in Malawi right now, actually on the shores of Lake Malawi, and just heard the rumor that Madonna is somewhere in the country. If we happen to bump into her during a village tour I'll definitely take some photos, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high, this is still a big country! :-)
Since my last post, which feels like ages ago, we finished up our last tour, have crossed multiple country borders, and are now on a new tour with a new group of people that will take us into East Africa. There are so many things that I would love to post, but for your benefit and my wallet's benefit (internet is about $10 per hour here, the most expensive yet) I will try to summarize as much as possible!
After we left Durban, we headed to Kruger Nat'l Park. We did our game drives in our Nomad Tour vehicle (basically just self-guided along the roads of the park, where our tour driver Noel and guide Nathan sat up front in the cab looking for wildlife while we all sat in the back with our cameras and binoculars ready.) There are very strict rules regarding speed limits in the park- there are even traffic cops with speed cameras, because Kruger is a popular cut-through for truck drivers delivering goods- and you absolutely cannot get out of your vehicle at all (which meant we were on strict water rationing, because bathroom breaks aren't exactly available with wild lions and everything on the prowl!) As it turns out, despite it being the rainy season so fewer animals congregating at the big watering holes, we had two days of absolutely successful game drives. We saw tons of elephants, much bigger than those we saw in Addo, as well as a family of hyenas, zebras, lions and lionesses up close, hippos, giraffes, warthogs. We saw white rhinos, as well as 3 of the very endangered black rhinos (they're not actually different colors, the two types have different mouth shapes), and probably the most amazing sighting was that of a leopard that was lounging in the shade of a tree in the road in front of us. There are very few leopards in Kruger, and they typically only come out at night, so to see one at 2 in the afternoon was incredible. It was incredible to see the animals up close, in much more of a natural habitat than that of a zoo.
We also did a sunset game drive with a park ranger in one of their safari vehicles- so an open air vehicle with canvas doors. This was when we had our second run-in with an elephant. It's breeding season for elephants so the males are constantly on the look-out for femals and are very protective of their territory. We had just pulled into a turn-around at a watering hole (translation- a dead end) when a huge male elephant came and blocked the road in front of us. He was obviously not pleased with us being there- he was shaking his head, trumpeting, and generally doing everything he could to tell us to go away. We were downwind and he absolutely reeked (one way of attracting the females is the males urinate all over their back legs- needless to say, he was quite fragrant.) The park ranger revved the engine several times, moving forward a few feet and the elephant started to back up- and then he turned around and we were chasing this elephant down the one-way road. He was kicking up so much dust and we were so close that you could taste the dirt in the air- we chased him for over a kilometer, at the main road the elephant swerved off to the left as we took a sharp right. The chase wasn't over, though, as the elephant started to run after us still shaking his head and trumpeting- the park ranger drove as fast as he could over the bumpy roads and after what seemed like an eternity (more like 2 or 3 minutes) the elephant gave up chase and we all calmed down enough to stop screaming at the ranger to drive faster. As far as I'm concerned, we've had enough run-in's with elephants and hope there are no more, but it makes for a great story!
After a few more adventures in South Africa, including less than 24 hours in Johannesburg (which was more than enough for me in a lifetime) we bid farewell to our group of 11 and boarded a flight from Johannesburg to Livingstone, Zambia, where we would meet up with our new tour group. Our new group is much larger than our last, with much stronger personalities (fill in the blanks as you'd like)- 25 of us on a vehicle slightly larger than our last- so no more luxurious two seats to a person and easily stowed baggage- the new adventure begins. Steve and I made an afternoon of going to the Zambian side of Victoria Falls- not sure of the actual accolades, but it's either the largest by volume, or the longest waterfalls in Africa (or the world?) , and they are amazing. When we landed in Zambia I thought there was a giant fire burning somewhere out in the countryside, but it turns out that it is the cloud of mist rising up from the falls. When you walk towards them, there is so much water coming off the falls that it's as if it's raining from every angle- we had our raincoats/pants on and still got absolutely drenched. We would like to come back in the dry season and see the falls from the Zimbabwean side, where you can see more of the actual rock formations/falls.
We left Zambia behind a couple of days ago, and are now in Malawi for about a week, tomorrow we head further north along the lake where hopefully it will be a bit drier than it is here! One interesting note on our tour is that it's a German tour, so there's also a translator- although only a handful of people actually need the translator, and a majority of the group doesn't even speak German. This has gotten us into a couple of sticky situations, though, as the message of "absolutely do not take photos at any border crossings or police checkpoints" must have gotten lost in translation, because at three different instances in one day we had run-in's with the local officials due to photography. At one point, a police officer jumped up on the side of our vehicle and started screaming at a German woman who speaks zero English (except "okay" and "alright") who was taking a photo of the countryside not realizing we were at a police checkpoint. Another incident involved several people taking photos of a large beetle at the Zambia/Malawi border, right after we got our passports stamped (I'm not joking here) and the border patrolman said that they'd damaged the screen where the beetle was sitting and insisted on payment for repair of the screen. Fortunately for us, our guides and translator were able to diffuse the situations and no money was ever handed over and no one was thrown in jail. Since then, the photography has decreased somewhat..... but we still have many many more borders to cross!
Lunch is ready so I have to run. I have one parting piece of information to leave you with- so far, 3 out of 3 Zimbabweans confirm that they either like / love Dolly Parton's music. Our last driver had several of her CD's and would play them for us on the bus (until one of us begged him to turn it off ), and our 2 new guides are both Zimbabwean as well and agree that they dig her songs. It's not a big sample size, but still- 100% like Dolly Parton. Now THAT is a fact I didn't expect to find out in our African travels.
Cheers,
Anna
Since my last post, which feels like ages ago, we finished up our last tour, have crossed multiple country borders, and are now on a new tour with a new group of people that will take us into East Africa. There are so many things that I would love to post, but for your benefit and my wallet's benefit (internet is about $10 per hour here, the most expensive yet) I will try to summarize as much as possible!
After we left Durban, we headed to Kruger Nat'l Park. We did our game drives in our Nomad Tour vehicle (basically just self-guided along the roads of the park, where our tour driver Noel and guide Nathan sat up front in the cab looking for wildlife while we all sat in the back with our cameras and binoculars ready.) There are very strict rules regarding speed limits in the park- there are even traffic cops with speed cameras, because Kruger is a popular cut-through for truck drivers delivering goods- and you absolutely cannot get out of your vehicle at all (which meant we were on strict water rationing, because bathroom breaks aren't exactly available with wild lions and everything on the prowl!) As it turns out, despite it being the rainy season so fewer animals congregating at the big watering holes, we had two days of absolutely successful game drives. We saw tons of elephants, much bigger than those we saw in Addo, as well as a family of hyenas, zebras, lions and lionesses up close, hippos, giraffes, warthogs. We saw white rhinos, as well as 3 of the very endangered black rhinos (they're not actually different colors, the two types have different mouth shapes), and probably the most amazing sighting was that of a leopard that was lounging in the shade of a tree in the road in front of us. There are very few leopards in Kruger, and they typically only come out at night, so to see one at 2 in the afternoon was incredible. It was incredible to see the animals up close, in much more of a natural habitat than that of a zoo.
We also did a sunset game drive with a park ranger in one of their safari vehicles- so an open air vehicle with canvas doors. This was when we had our second run-in with an elephant. It's breeding season for elephants so the males are constantly on the look-out for femals and are very protective of their territory. We had just pulled into a turn-around at a watering hole (translation- a dead end) when a huge male elephant came and blocked the road in front of us. He was obviously not pleased with us being there- he was shaking his head, trumpeting, and generally doing everything he could to tell us to go away. We were downwind and he absolutely reeked (one way of attracting the females is the males urinate all over their back legs- needless to say, he was quite fragrant.) The park ranger revved the engine several times, moving forward a few feet and the elephant started to back up- and then he turned around and we were chasing this elephant down the one-way road. He was kicking up so much dust and we were so close that you could taste the dirt in the air- we chased him for over a kilometer, at the main road the elephant swerved off to the left as we took a sharp right. The chase wasn't over, though, as the elephant started to run after us still shaking his head and trumpeting- the park ranger drove as fast as he could over the bumpy roads and after what seemed like an eternity (more like 2 or 3 minutes) the elephant gave up chase and we all calmed down enough to stop screaming at the ranger to drive faster. As far as I'm concerned, we've had enough run-in's with elephants and hope there are no more, but it makes for a great story!
After a few more adventures in South Africa, including less than 24 hours in Johannesburg (which was more than enough for me in a lifetime) we bid farewell to our group of 11 and boarded a flight from Johannesburg to Livingstone, Zambia, where we would meet up with our new tour group. Our new group is much larger than our last, with much stronger personalities (fill in the blanks as you'd like)- 25 of us on a vehicle slightly larger than our last- so no more luxurious two seats to a person and easily stowed baggage- the new adventure begins. Steve and I made an afternoon of going to the Zambian side of Victoria Falls- not sure of the actual accolades, but it's either the largest by volume, or the longest waterfalls in Africa (or the world?) , and they are amazing. When we landed in Zambia I thought there was a giant fire burning somewhere out in the countryside, but it turns out that it is the cloud of mist rising up from the falls. When you walk towards them, there is so much water coming off the falls that it's as if it's raining from every angle- we had our raincoats/pants on and still got absolutely drenched. We would like to come back in the dry season and see the falls from the Zimbabwean side, where you can see more of the actual rock formations/falls.
We left Zambia behind a couple of days ago, and are now in Malawi for about a week, tomorrow we head further north along the lake where hopefully it will be a bit drier than it is here! One interesting note on our tour is that it's a German tour, so there's also a translator- although only a handful of people actually need the translator, and a majority of the group doesn't even speak German. This has gotten us into a couple of sticky situations, though, as the message of "absolutely do not take photos at any border crossings or police checkpoints" must have gotten lost in translation, because at three different instances in one day we had run-in's with the local officials due to photography. At one point, a police officer jumped up on the side of our vehicle and started screaming at a German woman who speaks zero English (except "okay" and "alright") who was taking a photo of the countryside not realizing we were at a police checkpoint. Another incident involved several people taking photos of a large beetle at the Zambia/Malawi border, right after we got our passports stamped (I'm not joking here) and the border patrolman said that they'd damaged the screen where the beetle was sitting and insisted on payment for repair of the screen. Fortunately for us, our guides and translator were able to diffuse the situations and no money was ever handed over and no one was thrown in jail. Since then, the photography has decreased somewhat..... but we still have many many more borders to cross!
Lunch is ready so I have to run. I have one parting piece of information to leave you with- so far, 3 out of 3 Zimbabweans confirm that they either like / love Dolly Parton's music. Our last driver had several of her CD's and would play them for us on the bus (until one of us begged him to turn it off ), and our 2 new guides are both Zimbabwean as well and agree that they dig her songs. It's not a big sample size, but still- 100% like Dolly Parton. Now THAT is a fact I didn't expect to find out in our African travels.
Cheers,
Anna
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