Day 19 - Maun, Botswana

Here we are in Maun, and what a dump it is! Although it's quite a big town by African standards, it's pitiful. The shops are all run down and the whole place is just covered in a thick layer of dust; it's like some post-apocalyptic scene... Or Swanley.

However, we're not here for the scenery of the town, but instead this is The Gateway To The Delta. That is The Okovango Delta, one of the great natural wonders of the world where millions of migrating animals head for breeding and to refresh themselves in the rising floodwaters that fill the great sandy plains. However, I think someone forgot to tell them as when we went on a nature walk this morning, all we saw were a few miserable looking storks paddling around in a muddy pool and lots of animal poo. Shame really as Zambia was so much different. I'm hoping that our luck will change this afternoon as we're going for a short flight over the delta to see it from the air as walking around it does it no justice.

Yesterday we were taken to one of the islands on the delta by a small boat called a Mokoro. It's a bit like a canoe, except that it's fashioned out of one long piece of trunk from the sausage tree (I kid you not!!). Though since they only last 5 years and sausage trees take 50 years to reach maturity, they are more likely to be made out of fibreglass these days. How depressing. The people that use them do not use paddles to power them, instead they punt them along like the gondoliers of Venice. These punters are not as attractive though, most of them are dressed in old bobble hats and shell suits though one of them bore a striking resemblance to the Witch Doctor out of that James Bond film. Just scary. We camped overnight on the island, but even within an hour of being there, some of the younger girls in the group were starting to say how bored they were. I've no idea what they were expecting.

We're coming to the end of the Africa trip now and in some ways, I can't wait. Most of the group are OK but people are starting to whinge now and there's a lot of talking behind people's backs going on. All very childish. Some of them are looking at getting flights from Maun to Jo'Burg as they can't face the two day marathon drive. I hope they can get tickets, but again someone should point out to them that this is actually an overland trip.

One of our tour leaders has gone out of action as he has ruptured something that's causing him a great deal of pain and has to have it operated on. This leaves us with only one driver and two full days ahead of us - They obviously haven't discovered the tachograph out here...

Microlite Flight - Livingstone, Zambia.

I've just come back from a microlite flight over Victoria Falls and I'm absolutely buzzing. It was incredible! The falls looked more brilliant than ever as the water is so high at the moment. After the falls, we flew over the national park looking for the one remaining white rhino that they have but we didn't find it. We did see a massive herd of elephants, lots of crocodiles, hippos, impala and wart hogs so that made up for it. We weren't allowed to take photos during the flight for obvious safety reasons, plus I really didn't fancy letting go of the handles, but I've managed to upload a couple of them that they took from the camera mounted on the wing.

I'm still grinning...

Day 15 - Waterfront Campsite (Livingstone, Zambia)

Hi,

We've been in The Waterfront campsite for two nights now and yesterday we went to see Victoria Falls. As expected, they were amazing and much more massive than I imagined. The roar from the falling water was tremendous and the spray was like a heavy tropical storm. It was funny watching some of the water being blown upwards by the force of the falls because it made it look like it was raining upside down. The rainbows that it created were stunning, and once I get the chance to put some photos on this blog you'll see what I mean.

Last night we went on a River Cruise - commonly known as the booze cruise because all the drink and food is included. It was only for a couple of hours just drifting gently upstream on the Zambezi so was pretty well behaved. The sunset at the end of it was incredible though - the colours in the sky just out of this world. A lot of people went to the 'disco' afterwards but I didn't fancy that as I new I had to be up early this morning to go jet-boating. I needn't have been so restrained because despite having an early night and getting up at 6.30am to a wonderful breakfast of eggs on toast (made especially for us by Pete, our cook), they'd decided to cancel the jet-boating trip for no apparent reason and didn't bother telling us. I was quite angry at first, but I'm not going to let it get the better of me since this is Africa after all, and nothing quite works the way it does at home. We're still set for a flight over The Falls this afternoon in a microlight though - I'm REALLY looking forward to that. If that gets cancelled, my dark side will definitely be unleashed...

I've had a rotten cold for the last couple of days, and have been quite grumpy but I think it's on the turn now but I have hideous chapped lips and a flaky nose to show for it. Not at all attractive.

Some new friends!

Here are some of the kids from the school at Kande Village the other day. They where the most polite children I've ever met.

Sunset at Luangwa River

Just had to post this picture of the sunset over The Luangwa River yesterday evening.

Day 11 - Flatdogs Campsite (Luangwa, Zambia)

We left Malawi yesterday morning and arrived in Zambia at around lunchtime. It was a long journey as 150 km were traveled over dusty, gravel road. The border crossing was pretty smooth though, and apart from Chris having to 'persuade' the border patrol with a 'gift' for forgetting to bring his Yellow Fever vaccination card, things went pretty hitch free.

There's a distinct difference between the kids that come running to the road to greet us in this country. As well as most of them waving and shouting like in Malawi, most of them also hold out their hands expecting some sort of handout. This country is still pretty poor and the life expectancy is apparently only 33 years old! Quite amazing for 2008.

We staying at a really nice camp, and again we have escaped the tents for a couple of nights. We are in really nice chalets with proper beds and en-suite showers. It's all a bit luxurious. As we drove into the camp last night, we were treated to the sight of an elephant and her calf just outside the main gate. Hippos were wandering around the camp at night too, and we were woken at about midnight by one of them munching and groaning outside the bedroom window.

Up at 5am, we went on a safari walk and drive and managed to see a whole range of animals including crocodiles, elephants, buffalo, impala, giraffe and zebra. They were all so close, too. It seems quite unreal seeing them so close and so wild. We're doing another one tonight which will be in the dark so hopefully we'll be able to see some big cats. The other group saw a pride of lions earlier and apparently the male was quite scrawny so due a feed - we may get to see that action tonight.

Day 9 - Kande Beach (Malawi)

It's our second day here at Kande Beach and for the first time in a week I had a really good night's sleep. The cockroaches in the beach cabin were a bit scary at first, but I soon treated them as additional guests and left them to themselves, partying in the bathroom. The wind was really strong last night and at breakfast we found out that one of the tents had blown away last night - fortunately Alison wasn't in it at the time otherwise she may never have been seen again...

Our morning activity was a trip into the village to see how the locals live. I had my doubts yesterday that it was going to be a bit patronising but how wrong I was. I cannot believe that these people are living the way they are. I remember as a kid my mother telling us not to complain about food as there are people starving in Africa - she was right. Our guide, 'Banjo', took us around the village showing us how their staple food (Cassava) grows and it was an education in itself. He showed us the drying process which creates a really terrible smell, a bit like old cheese and explained how they use if for all different purposes including making bread and frying it to make chips. Banjo then took us all to his house where he lives with his family (6 of them in all) and it was no bigger than just one of the rooms in my house at home. It was tiny, dark, falling to pieces and his armchairs were in worse condition that I've seen people leaving out for the dustmen at home. It is shameful how wasteful we've become.

After his house visit, he took us to the local primary school and there were dozens of kids that came running to greet us. When you see Prince Harry on the news doing his bit in Africa, you tend to think that they're only mobbing him because he's a royal, but they do it to all visitors. It's a really welcoming but overwhelming experience. I was latched onto by a few people; two older boys called Gifty and Fred [Flinstone], plus two younger kids called Ayisa and... shamefully, I've forgotten the other one's name already... However, the school was great as when we went into one of the classrooms to observe a lesson all of the kids surrounded us and absolutely loved having their pictures taken. They then all started singing to us.

After the school, where the headteacher told us about donations and child sponsorship, etc., we were taken to the hospital. That was a real eye-opener. It was a ramshackle building that although clean by local standards, was still a miserable place that you wouldn't want to linger in. The doctor came to talk to us and she was one of the nicest, humblest people that I've ever met and she works there on her own! Incredible.

On the way back, Gifty and Fred taught me how to play Bao - a local board game made of a piece of wood with hollows cut out of it and using stones for counters. It's quite addictive! Gifty told me that he is going to school to learn how to program computers - I'm not sure how useful a skill that's going to be to him living where he does, but an education is probably the best thing that a person can have so I can't knock it.

When we got back to camp, the cynical side of people started to come out. Stories of the headteacher skimming off large percentages of the donations were circulating along with ideas of him sending off pictures of his own kids rather than the locals to 'prove' that the money was going to the right place. I don't know - as far as I'm concerned I'd rather some money got through to these kids so that they were at least given a small chance rather than no chance at all.

I must stop comparing these people's lives against our own standards - we're worlds apart.

Day 8 - Kande Beach (Malawi)

Hello!

It's been ages since I've managed to get back on the internet. Not that I'm desperate or anything, but it just shows how much I depend on it at home. Time seems to have slowed right down now and the past week has lasted forever - not in a bad way, but because we seem to be doing and seeing so much.

We left Zanzibar last Tuesday morning and the ferry crossing was ROUGH! There were so many people rushing out on deck to be sick and I even felt the effects myself. I could only prevent the nausea by focusing my gaze on the horizon and it seemed to work until I got a faint, but strengthening whiff of everyone else's vomit. Not pleasant. I felt particularly sorry for the girl sitting in the row next to ours where she was unfortunate enough to be given a sick bag with a hole in it and it made a terrible mess of her otherwise immaculate outfit. Poor thing.

Camping has been great fun and we've had about 5 nights of it so far at various campsites. Traveling into Malawi has been brilliant as the it really deserves its name of "The Friendly Heart Of Africa". Everyone is SO friendly, especially the kids. As we've been driving along the road, almost all of the children come rushing to wave and say hello to us and it's really touching - I can understand why Madonna came here to nick one of them... Their little faces are guaranteed to make you smile, even after a 8 hour drive in the back of a truck full of sweaty passengers.

We were woken up this morning at about 5.30 by loads of banging and shouting and Rich went to investigate on his way to the loo again (he's had a poorly tummy for the past three days!). As he was gone for quite a while, I went to investigate what all the comotion was. It turned out that the fishermen on the lake were returning with their morning's catch and as they came on to the beach they would beat their oars against the bottom of their small boat. Very exotic. Their catch didn't look like much, other than a few small spratts in the bottom of a wooded bowl but the kids seemed very proud of it and took great delight in showing us. The sunrise was pretty good too.

Today we were due to stay at the Luwawa Forest in another campsite, but the rain was teaming down by the time we reached Mzuzu and since the road would have been impassable we came to Kande Beach instead. I'm glad we did as it's beautiful here. The beach overlooks Lake Malawi which is huge (550 Km long) and the water is warm and clear. As we'd already done 5 days of camping we decided that we'd upgrade to a small cabin tonight with ensuite showers and a proper bed. It really feels like cheating, but since it's only about £20 per night it seems like a bargain. Tomorrow we're going to look round a local village so we can see how the Malawians live and taste some of their food and sample the culture. I hope it's not going to be patronising. In the afternoon we're planning to go horse swimming. I'd never heard of it either, but it entails going for a horse ride, then taking the horse in the lake for a swim; they love it, apparently...

There's still no facility to post photos unfortunately, so I'll have to do that when I get back unless I find somewhere to do it in the meantime.

I learned today about the mating habits of a certain type of cichlid fish that lives in the lake and I'd love to share it, but there may be some younger readers reading this and I'd hate to offend anyone!

Bye for now...

Day 3 - Nungwi (Smile Holiday Village)

Now it feels like we're in real Africa. Zanzibar is a lot less developed than Dar Es Salaam and it was amazing to see people actually living in houses made of nothing more than mud, branches and palm leaves. They weren't just doing it for the tourists either!

Swimming in the clear, blue sea water has been brilliant and I'm really excited about going snorkeling this afternoon. I'm keeping this post short because the internet is painfully slow here and for some reason they don't allow you to post pictures from your digital cameras. It seems that Africa is more concerned about preventing their computers from getting viruses than they are about personal prevention...

Well, we arrived after a very tedious and sleepless 9½ hour flight. My first impression was, well, let's just say things are basic. After getting off the flight and waiting what seemed like an eternity for our luggage to be offloaded, we were then taken to the salubrious sounding Flamingo Cafe where we had to wait for the others to arrive on the next flight. After they'd arrived, we waited for our bus to whisk us off to the port at Dar Es Salaam where we were to pick up the ferry to Zanzibar. Everything seems to run in slow-motion here, I guess it's the heat, but Africa makes the Spanish "Mañana, mañana" attitude seem positively racy!

The bus ride was an eye-opener and when it arrived, I thought it looked like an old burnt out shell of a bus with only slightly newer tires. It turns out this was in quite good nick compared to the other buses that the locals were squeezed into. A list of some of the things that that I saw on the bus ride that made me smile are:

1. A man cycling furiously along the 'motorway' on a battered old bicycle with the most enormous stack of eggs perched on the back of his bike that I'd ever seen;
2. Women riding side-saddle on the back of their husband's mopeds with no protection, other than their full Muslim dress and an old builder's hard-hat;
3. An open truck crammed full of cattle with a poor young man nestled in between them trying to keep them calm with the aid of a long stick and some harsh words;
4. Groups of little kids, dressed in their finest and having a great time playing in the dust and waving at tourists.

We had to offload our own bags from the ferry as the porters had set up their own little enterprise of fleeceing the tourists for money before even going near our luggage. The fact that they were quick enough to stow it in the staff-only section when we embarked didn't come into it. Zanzibar is interesting, in a way that the slums of London are interesting to those of us looking back at thanking whoever that we didn't have to live in them. We're off to the North of the island in about 30 minutes to spend a couple of days on the beach and do a bit of snorkeling. I'm looking forward to that.

PS - Everyone seems so happy here for some reason. I'm guessing it's the slower pace of life but the words 'Hakuna Matata' are said a lot, so I'm guessing that there really is 'No Problem' with anything...

Day 0...

I'm all packed and ready to go now, but my mind keeps switching from 'have I packed too much' to 'have I packed everything that I'll need'. Luckily, this first step is only three weeks long and when we get back we can refine the packing further and at least we won't need to take a sleeping bag on the second leg so that'll save loads of space in the rucksack.

The cab is coming at 15:20 and our nine-hour flight leaves Heathrow at 19:20. Shame we won't get to see T5 this time round though. This time tomorrow we'll be in Zanzibar, should get some nice pictures from there.