Lucy and Tash's African Adventure

Back home. So, photos!

2006-10-04T21:53:00.000+01:00

Home is boring, so I'm re-living our adventures by boring my family and friends with our stories, illustrated with our pictures. Hehe. Some of our photos are online at:

http://oxford.facebook.com/photos.php?id=36802650

Hoefully registration isn't necessary to view them...!

The end has come - sob sob!

2006-09-28T19:30:00.000+01:00

Today, Thursday, is our penultimate day, and we're back in Nairobi, which now feels like our African home. Amazingly, unlike previous visits, the weather has been beautiful and sunny - and refreshingly cool compared to the tropical temperatures of Uganda. Not that Uganda was unbearable. It never topped 30C. And our last few days confirmed that it's such a pretty country.

On Sunday, Travis showed us round a few of MACRO's clean water projects between Jinja and the mighty Mabira Forest (the biggest forest in East Africa). In one of the villages we met with Vincent, the co-director of MACRO, and a part time politics teacher. Travis claims to "hate politics", because of corruption, despite throwing himself into influential debates about government and government policy in the forums he attends. I think what he means is he dislikes high politics... Anyway, by contrast, Vincent is very interested in the area so we had some interesting chats! Away from the hustle and bustle of urban Mukono and Kampala, the unspoilt fertile hills of Uganda, hosting huge sugar cane plantations as well as small-scale fruit and vegetable farming, opened out. Later that afternoon Travis drove us to Jinja, and it was time to say goodbye. After giving us a bit of a motivational speech, probably to inspire us to keep our promise of raising money when back in England for MACRO, Travis actually shed tears when we had to go our seperate ways! The previous day we'd said our farewells to Mary (his 'combination', i.e. girlfriend, who'd been cooking us food and making us yummy chai) and Geoffry, from his sickbed, which was very sad.
Geoffrey's still really sick. His condition was a lot more serious than we'd realised when I wrote the last blog. He got worse, and he was barely conscious when we went to see him at his house on Saturday night. His family (all 20 or so of them) were gathered around his bed, trying to give him some food and drink, as he was really weak. He could barely acknowledge our presence. As we waited outside before greeting him, we heard a a strange crying that I assumed was his sister or mother. That would have been bad enough, but I then realised that the sobbing was Geoffrey's. It was pretty heart-wrenching. We were really worried about him. He was no better on Sunday when we saw him before we left. On Tuesday Travis told us that his condition had been rediagnosed as typhoid. I think his condition is stable, but he will take about 2 weeks to recover. We're awaiting further news.

On a brighter note, Jinja, on the shores of Lake Victoria at the source of the Nile, was fantastic - so beautiful. We visited the official source site. It's about as touristy as Uganda gets, with a couple of bars (decked out, naturally, with English football team shirts and flags), touts offering boat trips, various souvenir stalls, a plaque, and a statue of Mahatma Ghandi. (This is one of the sites where the ashes of the Indian icon were scattered.) As for the source, there's not a lot to see, it's just the location where the Nile begins out of Lake Victoria. Supposedly water rises from underground, but it's very difficult to see any evidence of this. But when you think that this is the beginning of the longest river in the world, which stretches all the way to the Egyptian coast of the Med, it's pretty impressive. We stayed at a backpackers campsite at Bujugali Falls, about 9km up the river from Jinja. The setting is stunning: high on the lush green banks of the Nile with spectacular views of the falls (more like a set of violent rapids) from the bar. And from the showers - the cublicles have no back wall to enable a more scenic wash than your average. I went white water rafting on Tuesday. It was a pretty extreme experience. We rafted 30km over a series of 12 rapids, about half of which were grade 5, the highest a rafting company will take rafters through. Supposedly the rafting I've done in Switzerland was grade 4/5, but there were no flips involved in that! We flipped about 4 times, which meant being thrust down into the choppy white waters of the river, spat out, and thrust back under a fair few times. I don't think it helped that everyone in our boat was skinny and small - and for half of the day had only 3 passengers. The other boat was full, mainly with big bulky men, and flipped only once! My ears didn't relish the ride, and I didn't massively enjoy having my sinuses and mouth flushed out with the water that we'd for 3 weeks been advising people to boil before touching. It was soooo much fun though; the scenery (when I could breathe and see enough to take it in) was spectacular, and our African guide was hot!

We left Jinja on Wednesday afternoon, via a Kampala-Nairobi night bus that picked us up from the roundabout in Jinja town. We had a fun ride on boda-boda (motorbike) to the roundabout, it was a bit of a struggle up the hills with all our luggage but well worth it. I love boda-bodas! Not unexpectedly, we had a 2 hour wait at the roundabout - which was interesting itself. Africans haven't quite grasped the concept of roundabouts it seems: traffic was going round in both directions... The journey was fine, but I guess we're used to it by now. Even the 20 stops at roadblocks in Kenya seemed, if annoying, pretty standard. So since 5.30am yesterday morning, we've been staying at the Nairobi backpackers. Right now we're watching the Merchant of Venice. Or at least, Tash is. We're waiting for the bees, which appear to have infested our dorm in their hundreds (literally), to die so that someone can sweep them out, and so that we can go to sleep. Fun!

At 4.30pm local time tomorrow, we fly home. I'm really going to miss Africa - the food (posho, matokee, cassava, baked beans, g-nuts - yummy stodge!), the sweet chai, the ginger beer, the weather, the almost frustratingly laid-back pace, the crazy things that happen, and the beautiful African people (especially the children) and their good humour. I've even got used to the latrines and the bucket showers. We've seen a lot but there's soo much more that we've not seen - and we've visited only 3 of about 50 African countries below the Sahara. Maybe next time!

In sickness and in health...

2006-09-23T14:48:00.000+01:00

Poor Geoffry, one of the MACRO (that's the organisation we're volunteering with, it stands for Mukono AIDS Control and Recovery Organisation) counsellors, is really sick with malaria. He started feeling unwell a few days ago now, and got some medication from the clinic, but he's not been taking it regularly. He's been sharing it with his mother and sister, who are also sick. It's the start of the rainy season, and therefore the worst time for malaria. So we've just taken Geoffry to the clinic, and after his blood test (we heard a squeal from behind the curtain) confirmed how bad his infection was, he was hooked up to a drip to pump him with antimalarial drugs. He's got to stay hooked up for 3 hours or so, and come back for the same treatment for the next 2 days. He's been travelling with us today, visiting local schools to set up a school twinning programme so that Ugandan pupils can get penpals from schools in the UK. But he's been feeling rotten. Black people don't go pale or look green, but he's still visibly ill with a fever, headache and nausea. Tash and I kept insisting he take his tablets, but over here they're a bit wary about western medicine, preferring their own local herbal remedies. When Tash got a rash of itchy blisters all over her toes, Geoffry insisted we heat up a bit of plant and drape them over her feet for a while. They did stop itching. Don't think the local remedies really help when it comes to malaria though. Plus, being an "African man" he doesn't like showing weakness and succombing to illness.

The week before last we stayed in a village called Mwanyangiri with Geoffry and another councellor, Lawrence. Or "Rolence" as everyone here calls him. They have issues with their "R"s and their "L"s; railway is "layray". Bless them. Lawrence is 24, Geoffry 21, so we got along really well, it was good fun. Our "work" consisted of sitting around for most of the day, eating and sleeping (we usually managed to fit in a 2 hour siesta), despite our seemingly hectic programme. We were scheduled to start teaching at 9 each morning, but the pupils (mainly adults) tended to their farms in the mornings and, following "African time", didn't show till around 12. We were lucky if the afternoon session, supposedly beginning at 2, started earlier than 4. Again, we taught about AIDS, de- and rehydration, malaria, and helped with a bit of adult literacy, which was no more advanced than chanting the alphabet and reciting the numbers. We did a bit of weeding in the new vegetable patch, in which were carrots and cabbages were being grown. This is a project by MACRO, the idea being to improve nutrition in the village. Travis sincerely believes that the deteriating sight of the elderly people will be miraculously improved by the addition of a few carrots to their diet... The villagers were really friendly. We stayed with the village chairman and the menagerie of people he lived with, from a haggard but cheery old woman to a tiny baby girl. I'm not really sure how they all related to each other, but they were entertaining. The house was solar powered - which meant we didn't have to endure darkness every other evening. Again the food was plentiful and goooooood, we even got "greens"! No pudding though...oh I miss it! (N.B. Mum!) In the evenings, we entertained ourselves by playing cards and poking fun at Lawrence, who stays skinny despite eating for 3. We told him he had worms, hope he's not taken it to heart too much.

So today is Saturday. We're leaving tomorrow for Jinja, where Travis will be showing us a few projects before leaving us at a BackPackers Hostel. We're staying there for a few days to chill out a bit. It's a touristy place, and the source of the Nile by Lake Victoria so should be very pretty. And I'm going white water rafting, woohoo! It's reported to be the best place for it in the world, can't wait! Off to buy some leaving presents for our hosts, and to collect Geoffry from his drip.

Uganda

2006-09-09T11:44:00.000+01:00

We're in Mukono, a town in Southern Uganda near Lake Victoria and the capital, Kampala. We're in an internet cafe running on a generator, as the power is off again. It works in shifts - one day off, one day on!

We've been 'volunteering' with a charity organisation, visiting the poor villages and the school that the organisation has set up. The people are really friendly - they don't see many white people so they stare at us and wave, and all the children shout "Bye Mzungu" at us (for them, 'bye' is just like hello, they say it when they wave) and get very excited! The people in the villages are very poor and most don't have access to clean water. They don't go to school because they can't afford it (you have to pay here because the government cannot afford to send all the children to school for free). They have few clothes, and most of them wear torn and dirty clothes every day. But they LOVE their football here, and they're really good. They all support either Manchester United or Arsenal, or maybe Chelsea or Liverpool, but they love watching the Premiership games on the TVs in the bars in towns. And despite having very little in the towns and villages, Coca Cola and Fanta is everywhere. The school, for orphans (because often of AIDS) and their adult guardians, is very very basic, just a building of 3 rooms without real windows or doors, and without cement on the dirt floor. There are benches and desks, but they're a bit fragile, and there is a big blackboard (not very black). We 'helped' with a few lessons about HIV/AIDS (which infects about 55% of people in the villages, maybe more) and general hygiene (like washing fruit before eating it, always boiling water, using latrines not just going out in the bush, washing your hands - and why) and how to make a rehydration solution in cases of diarrhoea and diseases.
We're staying in a compound with security guards, we've got a rended 'house' with two rooms, pretty basic but good for Uganda. We haven't got running water and it all has to be boiled I think, and we have to have bucket baths! Hehe. There are a few families in the compound renting their accomodation because they can't afford houses, mostly young families whose young wives and children stay at home while their husbands work. The woman, Salama, whose husband owns the compound is perhaps 30, her husband is nearly 60. She has an amazing story - they are from northern Uganda, where there has been war for perhaps 20 years between the government and the Lords Resistance Army (brutal), and her father died in the war. Her mother left her children, so they went with their Aunt. A man from America, not sure of his position but I think he was visiting to see the conflict, wanted to take her to America to help her, but her Aunt was jealous and did not let him. Salama thinks she betrayed her. Instead, her Aunt arranged for her to marry a family friend who Salama had grown up knowing as her Uncle. Salama was desperate, so she had to accept. The man was a soldier and had little, but it was her only option to get away from her Aunt. Fortunately her husband was promoted a few times they have done ok, but it is a marriage of convenience, and she is only with him still because without him she would have nothing, and she wants the best for her children. They have separate rooms, and her husband is rarely at home, even though he has the time to be at home.
We're under the care of a great guy called Travis, who has been taking us round and keeping us fed! We've been on motorcycle taxis (boda-bodas), great fun! And we've been eating local food - 'matokee' (cooked unripe bananas, really good), 'posho' (can't remember what it is, I think sweet potato or maize mush), 'muoga' (cassava, really tasty), baked beans, rice, chapatis rolled in omelettes, bean samosas, and Tash gets meat (often goat but sometimes cow). It's usually washed down with African tea - 'chai' - which means any hot drink flavoured with some dried leaves, not necessarily tea leaves, often cinnamon I think, or coffee. I like the diluted hot milk with cinnamon stuff, and its always served with lots of sugar! We've also had maize porridge, mmm. The people here are great cooks, we're being spoilt!

Tanzania, Zanzibar and Beyond (Hopefully)

2006-09-03T10:38:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since the last post, and we've covered a fair bit of land in that time. Where to start?! Well it's 11.47am on Sunday, we're in Nairobi, and we've been up since 5am. Why, you might well ask. Well, we were hoping to be well on our way to Kampala, Uganda, right now, but things haven't quite gone to plan. In fact, we should have arrived in Kampala this morning. Our tour guide only booked us tickets from Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) to Nairobi, when we'd asked for a through ticket to Kampala, and the connecting bus was full (we waited till the last minute, 11.30pm, to find out). So a helpful guy at the bus station took us to a (shabby but passable) hotel by the bus station for the night and promised to help us get a bus first thing this morning. Turns out they too were full, so we've got tickets for tonight's night bus. At least we'll save on a night's accommodation. The bus journey from Dar was a world away from the Moshi-Mombasa experience. We went with Scandinavia, and paid $33 for a 15 hour journey on a modern passenger coach with curtains, head cushions, reclining padded airline seats, music, air conditioning, and were served water, soft drinks and biscuits! We even had movies. Ok so 'The Human Shield', 'American Cyborg Steel Warrior', and some wierd African film 'Baby Guards' weren't exactly must-sees, but the non-animation sequel to the Jungle Book was watchable. Tonight's won't be quite as luxurious, but hopefully will be safe!

It feels like a long time since we said goodbye to our safari group and the big yellow truck, but it was only Friday. Our two weeks in Tanzania saw us exerience the truly awesome Serengeti and Ngorongoro game parks, and some more incredible sunrises and sunsets, as well as our return visit to Marangu at the foot of Kilimanjaro. This time, the weather was with us: the views of the snow-capped summit were striking as we drove through Moshi. Inevitably, conversation returned to the subject of the climb, and I realised that I am quite disappointed that I didn't make it to the very top. Before and even during the climb, I think fear that I wouldn't make it because of AMS meant that I lacked real determination and desire to get to Uhuru. But now, a mild sense of failure has developed and preyed on my mind, and, being there again, I felt the need to prove to myself that I can do it, that, if I wear enough warm clothes and a more comfortable rucksack, I'd have no excuse not to get to the top. Having two nights at Marangu meant a welcome break from the confinement of the truck, so we enjoyed a wander into town, and chatted to some of the people we'd met on our previous stay. I went for a run, woohoo! It was uphill, so a bit intense even for me, and I was stared at a lot, but I felt so much better for it. A game of ultimate frisbee the same day pretty much wiped me out! Gitonga and Goodluck also made the most of their free time, spending a whole day in the bar getting totally sloshed on Guinness. Goodluck was too drunk to cook, so we had to do it ourselves, and we could taste the difference. Crunchy rice and soggy vegetables were not quite up to his standards! Again, the green wholesomeness of Marangu contrasted with the harsh yet striking scenery of the dry Serengeti plains. Again, the night skies, bright with millions of stars, the smear of the Milky Way as clear as the view of Kilimanjaro in daylight, was unbelievable.

We spent the last week on Zanzibar. For 3 nights we stayed in beach bungalows with real beds! Four poster mosquito-net beds! (Although I did find a small scorpion in mine...) No more putting up and putting down tents every morning and night. No more cooking. No more ridiculously early mornings. The beaches on Zanzibar are beautiful: much like Mombasa, with soft white sand, pale turquoise water, and lined with coconut palms. But better than Mombasa: being on the west coast, sheltered from the rougher currents of the Indian Ocean, the sea was perfectly still and clear. Paradise! Life centred around the Bikini Beach Bar (drinking and dancing with people from all over the world, as well as the locals) and the volleyball net. I still have bruises.

We weren't totally lazy though. As soon as we arrived on the ferry, we did the 'spice tour', a variation of which every even vaguely interested Zanzibar tourist experiences. This included a tour of Stone Town, the old coastal town of Zanzibar oozing with Arabic flavour and the influence of Islam. Inland, it is advised to dress conservatively by covering knees and shoulders so as not to offend the Muslim residents. Thankfully, it wasn't too hot. Beautifully carved wooden doorways and white mosque-like buildings along narrow alleyways give a magical timeless character to the place, especially at sunset and sunrise when the eerie call to prayer resounded in the streets. We visited the fort and the former slave holdings preserved as a reminder of the cruelty of conquest (cramped, low-ceilinged underground dungeons in which many of the slaves waiting to be sold died due to the awful conditions), as well as the first Christian church built on the centre of the former slave market. Monuments to the sufferings of the shackled Africans create a real sense of the history that took place. The spice tour itself kicked off with a delicious 'spicy meal'. Thankfully it was spicy only in the loosest sense - our rice and curry was flavoured with cinnamon, cardamom, cumin, coriandor and more, the chilli was strictly optional. We then visited a Zanzibar plantation, to see how the spices are grown, which was really cool - especially seeing boys climb giant bent coconut palms to pick the fruit. It's strange to see fresh cloves and pepper and the fruit of nutmeg, rather than the dried or powdered stuff we get in England. The boys wove bags, hats and jewellry from the leaves of banana trees for us, which we've still got. They're supposed to last a month, but I'm not so sure they'll survive so long in my rucksack.

The next day was snorkelling, off an unspoilt (and private) island about two hours away from the beach we were staying at. We sailed there on a dhow, but unfortunately it was a motorised version of the traditional Zanzibarian wooden sailboat, so not so authentic! I think I'm over my fish phobia, sort of - the water was really clear and the coral reef was amazing - we saw bright blue, yellow and black-and-white stripey fish, just like in Finding Nemo, as well as long thin trumpet fish, sea urchins and starfish, right in front of our masks. I also swallowed a bit too much sea water. The following day, despite many times thinking that maybe I should wimp out, I went scuba diving. It was fantastic! In the morning, we watched some cheesy teaching videos in the dive centre (run by expats) before having a trial run in the shallow water on the beach, decked out in wetsuits, weights and the scuba breathing gear. It was really strange at first, breathing under water. I scoffed when advised beforehand that the most important thing was to remember to keep breathing, but you really do have to make a conscious effort not to hold your breath. You have to breathe deeply and quite hard to force the air through the valve and out through your mouth against the water, and the exhaled air bubbles shudder against your face mask; it's quite disconcerting, and I did a bit of hyperventilating. The visibility was poor in the shallows too, with all the sand we kicked around getting used to our flippers. I was seriously considering backing out of the real dive in the afternoon, as I was a bit unsure about how I'd cope being unable to resurface if I panicked. And what if a big fish came swimming at me?! But my dive buddy Cat would have been alone without me so I just kind of went along with it. And it was so worth it! It was scary at first, and I had trouble equalising the pressure in my ears, but being amongst the fish on the reef 10 metres beneathe the surface was incredible. I saw a turtle only a foot away, as well as a stingray and a lionfish. Very cool!

It rained on my only pure beach day, which was a bit disappointing. In fact, it pissed it down. Played a bit of pool, footy, went for a quick swim and buried Carlos in the sand to pass the time. Our journey back from Zanzibar was a lot more interesting than our journey there. The road was pretty bad - more potholes than actual road, but we were pretty used to this by now - but the ferry was incredible. Fortunately, I'd taken a travel sickness tablet, and had dished them out. Tash had decided she'd be ok. How wrong she was. The sea was as choppy as I've ever been on, and it was only a small ferry. You pay good money for a ride like that at the theme parks. It really was like being on the Big Dipper, or the Pirate Ship. People were spewing everywhere. I was sat on the deck, where the air was fresh, salty and very wet. But getting soaked and cold was preferable to sitting down below, where fear and vomit could be clearly smelt and heard. Poor Tash had her head in a bucket the whole two-hour journey. I have to admit to laughing quite a lot at the misfortune of others on top - and at Kooz, who sat, like those on either side of him, with his head down in his lap. But whilst they were chundering, he was reading his book, oblivious. Dazed and damp after the crossing, we said our goodbyes to the group.

So here we are. As you can tell, we've got a lot of time on our hands today. Not that Nairobi is uninteresting. We witnessed a man being hurled to the ground and kicked and beaten with glass bottles at 9am this morning. On our last visit, we drove past a scene that will long be branded in my memory. About fifty people were gathered on a verge by the main road, looking up into a tree. The figure of a man, perhaps 35 in t-shirt and chinos, hung motionless from a branch, a noose around his neck. Probably suicide, Gitonga concluded, out of desperation at life. On a brighter note, walking the city people frequently stop to talk to us, usually trying to sell us a safari but often just being friendly. Wandering round the market, full of carvings, artwork and jewellry as well as fresh meat and veg, was a morning out in itself. But we're getting to know Nairobi pretty well by now; we've spent more time here, a destination that most people recommend getting out of as soon as possible, than any other place we've been to so far.

Right, off to lunch.

3 cows, 2 goats & 5 blankets...

2006-09-03T10:02:00.000+01:00

Yup, that is the price of a Maasai wife. Nice to know we're worth something isn't it? Mind you, in the UK we're worth nothing! Haha!
So yeah, we joined our Absolute Africa truck early in the morning on sunday 13th august. A big, yellow monstrosity, with no seat belts, the absolute trucks are hard to miss! We made our way straight to the elephant sanctuary and giraffe orphanage and saw baby elephants being fed with milk bottles...very cute. That night we stayed in Karen Camp in the suburbs of Nairobi before heading back into nairobi the next day to change money and pick up my sleeping bag I had conveniently left on the bus from Mombasa! And they had kept it safe for me! Good Coast bus company.
In the next few days we stopped over at the beautiful Lake Elementatia before heading to Lake Nakuru national park, where to begin with we stopped at any animal that we saw. After a while of seeing zebra, buffalo, giraffe, flamingos and various forms of antelope people stopped pressing the button for Gitonga (our extremely able if not slightly crazy driver) to stop. The most exciting thing at Lake Nakuru were the Rhinos, which were of the white variety (we thought we'd seen a black one but, disappointingly, it seems we did not). Oh and baboons infested our campsite. One large male stole a loaf of bread and ran about 100 yards away with it and preceeded to eat and leave the crusts. Evidently didn't want curly hair.
Next stop was Lake Naivasha and Joy Adamson's (of Born Free fame) home where we got to enjoy afternoon tea in her garden before watching a video of an interview with her (this was a while back, she's died now) in which she confessed that her love for Elsa (lioness she set free) was more than any human love she's ever experienced, which was evident in her remarkable ability to fall in love with men other than her current husband in matters of weeks. It happened twice. I think she only stayed with George adamson because of his link with elsa. Anyway, it was a source of amusement for all of us. We also got to go on a half day trip to see hippos (not too close!), walk through a game reserve and get up close to giraffes and zebra and see the famous Green Crater Lake, which was very beautiful!
The second evening we were there we picked up another 10 people which made the truck rather full, and meant that Goodluck (our amazing cook) had to cope with feeding 27 people! Don't know quite how he managed it!
Then followed several days of safaris (which means getting up at around 5am for game drives) in the Maasai Mara National Park, Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater. In these we managed to see elephants, lions, cheetahs and a leopard up close and a black rhino in the distance. So we saw the "big 5" a were all very satisfied with what we saw especially as we were apparently very lucky to see as much as we did. My favourite 'thing' to see though is the scenery and my particular favourites were the Maasai Mara and Ngorongoro crater. Although the Mara is technically an extention of the Serengeti into Kenya, it had more rolling hills than the southern part of the Serengeti we saw a couple of days later, (Plus, the migration into the Mara from the south was still occuring, so we saw long lines of wilderbeest and zebra all making there way slowly northward). The sunset in the Mara was just stunning; the clouds spreading all the colours of the sunset across the whole sky.
I forgot to mention that amidst all this safari-ing we got to go to a Maasai village where they showed us their traditional dances (jumping included...the higher you jump the more girlfriends you can get), their houses and how to make fire with no matches or kerosene! I also got to try on the chiefs hat thanks to Loay's insisting (i'll get you back for that one!).
Ngorongoro was just stunning. It's a volcanic caldera, so obviously interesting to me as a geologist and just to see such a massive contained crater, not filled with water stretching out in front of us was amazing. I've vowed to build myself a little house on the side of the crater one day and go there just to watch the sunrise!
Anyway, less dawdling! Next we headed back to Marangu, where we stayed at the Marangu hotel again, though this time in the campsite and without the luxury of a 4 course evening meal and a hot bath! The best thing about going back to this area was seeing Kili again in all it's splendour, peering out of the clouds and thinking, 'I made it to the top of that thing'. I felt really proud of myself! We also got a great view of Kili and thus could get some good photos.
We ended the tour on Zanzibar. It was really nice to be back by the beach, with the chilled out atmosphere of a beach bar lifestyle again. We weren't completely lazy though! As we arrived we headed straight on the spice tour, (which also included a look at the old slave market in Stone Town) and learnt alot about what the different spices can be used for. Did you know that if a guy eats alot of ginger he has a greater chance of producing twins and nutmeg is an aphrodisiac for women? I will mysteriously be adding it to my food in greater quantities when i get back.
The next day we went snorkling to an island off Zanzibar in a traditional dhow. Again, like everything, a great experience swimming right up close to loads of coral and tropical fish. Could have done with another swim after lunch for the money, but whos complaining.
Of course, the nights on zanzibar were whiled away with Konyagi (papaya gin...cheap) and dancing the night away (ahhhh!) to the variable music, or just snoozing in a hammock (must get myself on of those!). It was a great way, and a great place to end the tour, but I have to say that, despite the distinct lack of hawkers and beach boys compared to Diani Beach I found the Kenyan coast alot more striking. Although swimming in a smooth, calm sea at sunset with dhows lining the horizon is hard to beat.
So now we've left our trucking companions behind and are currently in Nairobi after a long drive from Dar es Salam yesterday, waiting patiently for our night bus to Kampala to start volunteering tomorrow! New adventures! I will really miss the people from the tour though, we had a great group (apart from 2 less amiable slovakians but we'll just ignore them as they ignored us). Hopefully we'll all stay in touch and those of us who aren't on our way home to Aussieland or New Zealand after a stint in the UK can hopefully meet up in the future! There's still so much to talk about...eh Loay?!

On Safari!

2006-08-21T10:03:00.000+01:00

We're sat at computers in a little town called Kiisi amidst the tea plantations on the hills of southern Kenya, en route from the Maasai Mara to the Serengeti. We've got (another) border crossing coming up! We've been in our bright yellow colossus of a truck for just over a week now, and I've got mixed feelings about it. We're seeing loads, and it's fun to mix with lots (28!!) of other people on the truck, but it is a bit false in that almost everywhere we go is full of western tourists, and we're following and being foll0wed by several other Absolute Africa trucks as we go. Plus, (especially frustrating for me!) most of what we actually do involves sitting on our arses in the truck for the day, only getting out to eat, shop, pee and sleep. Being in such a close environment with the same people also makes it feel a bit like Big Brother - especially when our group acquired 10 new people a few days ago! That said, there are definitely lots of good bits. We've been to the national parks and game reserves of Kenya, seeing shitloads of zebra, gazelles, buffaloes, eerie bearded wildebeasts migrating, as well as hippos, elephants, giraffes and lions up close. The scenery is remarkably diverse - from vast lakes set in lush vegetation to scorched yellow bushland stretching as far as the eye can see, dotted only with thorny acacia trees. The sunsets over the Maasai Mara (which we'd intended to view from the security of the campsite, but, due to a flat tyre in the middle of the park, we saw in the open wilderness) are spectacular and very atmospheric. We've visited the beautiful luxury home of Joy and George Adamson (of Born Free fame) on the shores of the enormous Lake Naivasha - and gorged ourselves silly on the delicious cakes they served for 'high tea', watched by cheeky Colobus monkeys. Our lunch was stolen by hungry baboons a few days ago. We've got an amazing Tanzanian cook, Goodluck, who is making me fat. Yesterday we visited a Maasai village, went inside their cow dung huts and danced with them - Tash even got to wear the chief's hat! That was very cool. Apparently our driver was arrested in the park yesterday, and our tourguide had to bribe the officer 2000 shillings to let us off after he threatened to burn him. Poor Gitonga! Ok, have to get back to the truck via the local supermarket... Hope you're all well!

If you've got sore muscles from climbing to 5895m, get on a bus from Moshi to Mombassa...

2006-08-11T13:47:00.000+01:00

Well lucy's given you a pretty accurate description of our little jaunt up the highest mountain in Africa and the world's largest free-standing mountain!!! I have to admit standing at the summit i did not feel any euphoria at having reached the highest point in Africa, it was dammed cold and Fataeli, our main guide, was eager to get us down asap, so we got cursory hugs all round, superficial grin as we posed for pictures and then headed of down the mountain. Which would have felt great but I somehow hurt my achilles heel and getting down the scree slope back to kibo hut was by far the worst part of the whole thing for me. In fact I was marched down by Fataeli who i think probably thought i'd never get off the mountain otherwise and he was right, i was taking forever. Never mind, a quick checkup by doctor chris and some good anti-inflamatories and i was nearly on the mend. I swear that climb is the hardest thing i've ever put my body through by a long long way. i pretty much spent the 6 hours on the way up in the dark thinking of all the things that would be worse than being right there at that time, most of which involved serious illness or death of myself or close family members. ironic really, cos on the way down i was in so much pain i couldn't even think of that. So it wasn't so bad. And i'd do it again in a shot i think, although this time I would pray for a 'run-free' trip and i'd camp on the crater rim so as to appreciate the top.
Luce and I were so lucky to find the Marangu hotel and the group that we climbed the mountain with. We very much appreciated the advice and confidence from the hotel owners and staff and the guides they employ and we were so lucky to join such a fantastic and diverse group of people. in particular, it was so useful to have jim's past experience of climbing kili, and it was so nice to be able to ask chris any medical questions and have him tell you to not blow your nose when you have a nose-bleed at altitude and that it is ok to take 6 immodium in 26 hours. (seriously!)
We miss the giggles and chris', er, 'good' jokes! Yeah, Kili is on sale for 120Tsh...so no need to climb it eh?
Anyway, from marangu to mombassa. We got on a bus that is meant to take 4 hours to get to Mombassa, and instead it took about 14! What fun, the whole thing jarred up and down so much it completely cured mu sore calf muscles, but didn't do anything for my back. No bother, after several roadblocks and one break down (thus a couple of lung-fulls of fumes) we made it to Mombassa, where, extremely tired, wet and dirty we quickly picked the Diani marine village as the next stop on our little adventure and arrived there at 7am just as the reception was opening. In about half an hour we were sitting outside having a very relaxing breakfast with the sun shining and a nice cool breeze. And that, apart from one day of solid rain, is how the next 5 days were spent. Sunning oursleves on the coast with the idyllic indian ocean as a backdrop. Nice. I am not a beach person, never have been, but I could just stay there and do nothing forever it was so peaceful. We ventured out for a couple of meals, one of which was in a candle-lit limstone cave...not bad...and spont most evenings listening to Tristan (from UK (Bangor) on a diving holiday) Barney (kenyan...friend of Tristans from uni), and Alex (expat knows Barney) tell us about horror stories about snakes, mobbing and the conspiracy stories of the world...(there's so much we don't know!). Great fun...could happily stay there forever and was very sad to leave. Maybe we'll get back there at the end of september and if not, planning on making it a rendezvous every year for the rest of my life.
Onwards and upwards (kinda)...we're in Mombassa for one night before heading to Nairobi for our 3 week safari which starts on sunday 13th. And very much looking forward to seeing more of East Africa...there seems to be surprises around every corner on this continent...makes you feel alive.

"We're climbing up the sunshine mountain, faces all a-glow..."

2006-08-05T12:58:00.000+01:00

It wasn't really the sunshine mountain, but for some reason that's the song we and our posse of 9 sung on the long hard slog up Kilimanjaro, 5895m. Nerves fraught from constant hassling by touts, we decided to take the safe option and opted to stay in a colonial-style country hotel in the foothills of the great mountain, in a beautiful little village called Marangu. The hotel runs its own climbs, and seemed well run and secure. It definitely was. We found ourselves in a luxury retreat, a large white colonial coffee and banana farmhouse run by an extended Irish family. We joined onto a group of 9 for the climb and took the easier 'coca-cola' route. Two didn't even make it to the start, being struck down with food poisoning from their safari. Gutting. But we are so glad we joined that group, they were great. There were Jim (about 70, this was his 3rd climb, so he was our guru - he loved it), his step-grandson Tom (15, very athletic and liked his walking stick a bit too much), Chris (26, a naval doctor and a great laugh), Cat (25, a lovely giggly Aussie actuary), Silvia (35 but you'd think 25, fab crazy Italian with a chocolate fetish), Martine (23, really sweet Dutch student who was great at Swahili), and 'Big W' (Woutijn, but you try pronouncing it - something like wow-tine; the brother of Martine with a bottomless pit of a stomach, also a student). The motto, drummed into you both before you begin the climb and by every porter and guide you pass on the busy paths, is 'pole pole' - slowly slowly! And we went veeerrryyy slowly. We were even too slow for Jim. Not that it helped us to acclimatise. There was lots of vomiting (some of it projectile, courtesy of Tom, who added flavour to our Spag Bol), diarrhoea (Tash pooed her way to the top) and banging headaches from the first night (poor Silvia - chocolate gives her migraines!). The scenery was amazing. We started the trek through lush humid rainforest alongside a babbling stream, and watched monkeys play in the canopy and as we walked through. There was a downside - hordes of biting ants, and we really did have ants in our pants. On the second day we rose above the rainforest and into the alpine zone, where vegetation was more sparse - meaning less cover when we needed to pee! The air got progressively thinner as we climbed, and certainly by the second day we were panting on the slightest of inclines. Guess that's what it must be like to be fat and unfit! The third day saw us rise to alititudes where nothing could grow. The terrain was bleak and covered in volcanic ash and rubble and littered with boulders. The final ascent was in the middle of the night at dangerous altitudes (classified as 'very high' and 'extremely high' in mountaineering terms) in a biting wind. About 2 hours into the 5-hour zig-zagged scramble in pitch black, our water froze. Six of us made it to Gillman's point, one of the summits, but only 4 to the highest point. The four included Big W, who lived up to his name by persevering nonplussed despite wommiting every 2 minutes. Tash got a gold certificate, I got a silver one. I think the cold drained me, I have never felt so completely exhausted and sapped of all my energy. Coming down was difficult - we took a long time to recover our energy, and it took me a good day to thaw out. Still, we're down now, if having trouble walking! Off to relax on the Kenyan coast for a bit! Mmmm beach...

First couple of days

2006-07-29T14:10:00.000+01:00

Lucy: We've just arrived in the small town of Moshi, in the foothills of Kilimanjaro. Finally- Tash thought every little bump in the landscape was Kili, until we passed them and realised we could climb up and down in about 3 hours. Now we can't even tell it's a mountain because it's so huge.

Tash: Tried very hard to film bits of our journey (lucy got the camcorder working...i've decided i'm technically inept) but I'm really not sure how much you can make out from the blur and the bumpiness. Oh well. I think we saw some Masaai in their distinctive red clothing, leaning nnchalantly on random bits of stick. Crossing the border was interesting...lots of 'hawking' and 'touting' but otherwise a relatively easy immigration process.

L: And the women were carrying stuff on their heads - no hands! Very impressive. At the crossing they dangled bits of jewellry at us and thrust animal carvings in our faces, even against the windows of the 'bus'. The pictures in books and TV are pretty close to reality! Still very disappointed about the weather here - Kili is shrouded in a blanket of cloud that still hasn't let the sun through!! Though we'll probably be melting when it does.

T: Nairobi to Moshi takes about 7 & 1/2 hours and we shared the journey with a few Brits (one of whom was at Oxford!), a few more Americans (one of whom had done some studying at Oxford) and some Germans (I think). All seemed very pleasant! About half were heading up Kili, the other half on Safari. Hopefully we might meet up with them at the top (which we are going to make)!

L: The Germans spoke Swahili, the Africans love it. We'll have to swot up. I think the two German ladies were a lesbian couple, and the African girl they were with was their adopted daughter!

T: Whoops forgot about a few Africans on the bus. There was the cutest little boy who had the biggest brown eyes but wasn't having any of our little waves and smiles! And evidently my usually sensitive 'gaydar' isn't working because I did not pick up on this at all!

L: In some respects being here isn't that different to Nairobi. As white girls with huge rucksacks/guidebook in hand, we're an obvious target for bus/safari/taxi/trekking touts, and we're still not used to it! But Nairobi was definitely a capital city. We got security-checked to enter the snazzy Barclays skyscraper, wandered round the university grounds, visited a chic cafe, and walked up Museum Hill to visit the National Museum. Only to find it was shut for renovation. There are lots of posh hotels and fancy colonial buildings - we dined in the restaurant of the Stanley (of 'Dr Livingstone, I presume' fame), doncha know.

T: Walking around Nairobi is like walking with an uneven limp. But although there are loads of people, all going in different directions, no-one is stressed or bothered. They have a carefree air about them, even at rush hour when there are long queues of people waiting for a random, cool-looking matutu to rush up and take them, well, home I presume. Crossing roads is somewhat interesting. We are learning to go as soon as theres a possible gap and be prepared to stop at any point across the road or alternatively run for your life (a little exaggerated!).

L: Off to sort out our accommodation and climb now, but not before we get some food as we haven't eaten since a rushed breakfast at 7 this morning! Ta-ra for now!

Made it here, all in one piece, and on time (well, not really, but it wasn't our fault!)

2006-07-28T14:51:00.000+01:00

So, we've been in Nairobi now for 2 days, and we've not been robbed. Just hassled a bit by a few safari touts and taxi drivers, but we're getting good and saying "no, thank you" and ignoring them now. We arrived yesterday morning, knackered and stinky after lugging all our baggage across hot muggy London, enduring 2 long flights, and getting very little sleep, nearly 2 days after leaving The North.

Just one thing we have to say. ITS COLD, GREY AND RAINING! We're decked out in jumpers and waterproofs! Ok, better go, this internet is soooooo slow and we've got no time left!