Tomorrow is Another Country

photo recap: Alanna + Dogs

2010-10-19T10:21:00.001-07:00

Many new friends along the way.

Wild Spirit Lodge, Nature's Valley, South Africa

Amampondo Backpackers, Port St. John's, South Africa

Sugar Shack, East London, South Africa

Shoestrings Backpackers, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Cool Runnings Backpackers, Senga Bay, Malawi

Mayoka Village, Nkhata Bay, Malawi (the saddest, closest-to-death dog I've ever seen)

Rwenzori View Guesthouse, Fort Portal, Uganda

Jinja, Uganda

Summary: The Rest of Uganda

2010-10-02T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hokay! Back on the blog train. Here we go. It feels a bit funny continuing on after Alanna's eloquent conclusion to all that we experienced, but that is the whole we've dug ourselves into, isn't it?

So where were we? Yes, I do recall now! Lake Nkuruba, near Fort Portal, Uganda! Kitchen embarrassments, adorable thieving children... (Aldrin, I totally forgive you).

Lake Nkuruba

Lake Nkuruba is one of Uganda's 'crater lakes,' dozens of which can be found in this part of the country. (I am not up to speed on their history, but an overwhelming amount of evidence leads me to believe that these lakes are in fact flooded craters). Nkuruba is small, round, entirely choked with lush Ugandan forest, and feels about as far removed from everything as one could hope to be. Our daily swims would invariably coincide with visits from assorted groups of local boys who'd appear on opposing shores, hop onto homemade rafts and splash over to our side to swim badly and make a lot of noise. To us, even after four days of lake visits, the kids' varying styles of undergarment remained their sole distinguishing feature.

Thinking back to failed raft-building attempts as a kid. Turns out all I needed to do was buy a plane ticket to Africa and lash some reeds together.

We had two Canadian encounters at Lake Nkuruba: first off, the lake's hefty black-and-white colobus population were paid a visit by a group of monkey researchers from McGill who stood and pointed at a group of monkeys for twenty minutes and then went swimming (hey... does that mean I'm a monkey researcher?!). We also met and spent a good deal of time with a woman from Vancouver who it turns out is on my friend's baseball team! Hi Lisa! (Sorry we didn't take any photos of you!)

If Willie Nelson were a Black-and-White Colobus Monkey

The road to Rwaihumba village, with the Ruwenzory mountain range in the distance. Behind those is the Congo! Spooky.

Packing Avocados in Rwaihumba. This village claims to have the "3rd largest village market in Uganda" (pretty big feat I know) but I assume we were there on a non-market day because, well, there was no market.

Bananas at Rwaihumba.

After a fantastic time at the smallest lake visit of our trip, we caught a bus to Kampala for the third and final time. The trip wasn't so bad, we snacked on grilled bananas and were treated to Celine Dion music videos and the second half of a Thai action film.

Our final stop in Uganda was Jinja, the country's second-most populated city. Jinja is located where the Nile River first feeds out of Lake Victoria (which is a very big deal, because the Nile is a super-long river if you haven't heard). Our choice of accommodation, the Triangle Hotel, overlooked the lake and was situated in a neighborhood of fascinating dilapidated art-deco residences set on spacious palm-lined lawns. The area had evidently been at one point inhabited by wealthy whites – our hotel was sandwiched between a golf course and an abandoned yacht club – but all the homes are now in serious disrepair and likely at quadruple their intended capacity. The walk from the minibus stop to the Triangle had a surreal Palm-Springs-via-Mad-Max vibe to it.

Spot the Man

This hotel was across the street from ours, and is definitely not a hotel any longer, but we were informed this is where Ida Amin stayed when he was in Jinja.

The Triangle Hotel pool. Best pool.

Our hotel, while slightly run-down itself, still sided as one of the more luxurious places we stayed, with poolside bar service, TV, and a private lakeview balcony. The place was giant and well past its heyday: entire wings were closed semi-permanently and the building's only other patrons seemed to be the East Indian owner's large family. But the hotel did have the standing to host an prestigious conference of some kind, because near the end of our stay, after we'd readied ourselves for yet another quiet swim under the ornamental crocodile-arch, we found our usually deserted poolside overrun with large important-looking Ugandan men in military uniform.

One evening we decided to take advantage of room service and ordered butter naan and a scotch. I made a pretty large fool of myself ordering the scotch.

One morning we hired a guide to float us out to the actual specific source of the Nile: a small patch of ripples where, he explained, the water visibly accelerates as it leaves Lake Victoria. Apparently the patch of ripples was a little more dramatic before they built a giant hydroelectric dam downstream and therefore raised the water level. Once again, a small and unremarkable landmark rendered even more unremarkable in favour of providing electricity to thousands of homes. When will it end?

And they say Africa isn't safe.

Our driver, Captain Rasta.

At the source of the Nile! Our guide was not too familiar with exposure settings but I do not hold it against him.

Also on the tour we stopped at a small grubby island next to the 'source' to stretch our legs and engage in photo-ops. While no larger than an average bachelor apartment, the island was home to at least half a dozen fishermen and a small souvenir hut. The fishermen didn't exactly have homes, but our guide led us to a group of miniscule tents – to our eyes indistinguishable from piles of garbage – where they slept when it rained.

Our guide (sorry mr. guide but I do not remember your name!) cutting up some jackfruit for us to taste.

Other valuable sights along the way included an (even smaller) island inhabited by a colony of massive yellow monitor lizards, and a tour of all the niches along the shore where fishermen stash their nets to bypass overfishing laws, as only line fishing is permitted. We passed a few fishing boats, and our guide half-joked that “all fishermen are always in a bad mood” and what with the garbage tents and the fact that their livelihood will probably be extinct within the decade and yet they're still forced to risk crippling fines in order to survive, well, it's not too improbable a generalization. (That said, the lizards seemed fairly content.)

Lake Side View Hotel

Giant marabou storks, each one of these comes up to my chest, they are everywhere. (Insert off-colour reference to Uganda's birthrate here.)

Krest Bitter Lemon, our new favourite Africa drink.

Again with the birthrate thing?

From Jinja we took a bus across the last border crossing of our trip into Kenya and bid Uganda adieu. Whether it was the country's size, its bus network or just that the places we wanted to see were fairly spread out, Uganda was the country we were able to see the most of, which felt good. It gets pegged as an 'in-a-nutshell' African country, and the description was appropriate for us: we did the safari thing, we did the crazy-ass city thing, we drank beer in loud overstuffed hostels and we drank beer among little tweeting birds. While not the first notion of Africa for most, Uganda is a beautiful little package perfectly situated for small-scale tourists such as ourselves, where every corner merits exploration (the exception being the north corner, where the Lord's Resistance Army is doing really, really awful things to people). And I haven't even mentioned that we shelled out $450 to see the mountain gorillas! That's because we didn't! And we still had an amazing time. So there.

"So how WAS Africa?"

2010-08-23T23:06:00.000-07:00

We are liars. More accurately, Scott is a lair for promising to keep up with this thing, and I am just lazy for failing to write a single post in almost two months.

We are home. We have been reunited with our families, friends and non-PC computers. We have been acing job interviews, cooking up some mean fried-chicken-free meals, playing every backyard game in the book, and soaking up even more sun (Canadian sun, not African sun – there’s a difference). It’s strange how seamlessly you can transition back to life as you knew it after five months in a world that could not possibly be more different from your own. It’s strange how much you can think about a place before you’ve been, and how little you find yourself thinking once you’ve returned.

But I do think about it. While waiting to cross the street, I am amazed when a car actually stops for me. While reading the Vancouver Sun, I chuckle at a headline that reads “Closing of elementary school forces 8 year old to walk 3.5 kilometers to school”. While sleeping safely in my single bed, I dream of the laughing, hopeful children we met and wake up to realize that some of will not see adulthood. Some may already be gone. It’s not an easy thing to come to terms with, so I push it out of my mind and check Facebook instead.

I want to tell you what Africa meant to me. I want to tell you about the mothers with the babies strapped to their backs, the colours of their kangas, the children in their HIV POSITIVE t-shirts, the ingenious things they could make out of wire and bottle caps, the houses they lived in and how fantastic it felt to be invited into them. I want to tell you about their warmth, their vitality, their faith, despite what seems like such dismal circumstances. I want to tell you about the beauty and the tragedy of Africa, but I’m afraid I’ll come up short; I’m afraid I’m not a skilled enough writer; I’m afraid that regardless of my inarticulacy, words alone aren’t enough.

It seems to me that Africa is a land of inherent contradiction. One day, the people are friendly, the landscapes are indescribable, and minibuses really aren’t that bad. The next, the people are bordering on malicious, the landscapes have turned dismal and you’re on a 14 hour bus ride with a large, perspiring woman literally sitting on top of you. In Africa, very little time is spent in the space between absolute despair and unfettered bliss, and a great deal is spent at one of the two extremes. That is probably one of the only things I can say about Africa with any degree of certainty: you will forget what complacency feels like. Africa draws extreme reactions from people, and, like the maggots that laid their eggs in our bed sheets, it’s tough not to let it get under your skin.

Africa is life intensified. The colours are more vibrant here – the reds of the fertile soil, the greens of the undulating hills, the blues of the sweeping skies. The flavours are sharper – the cinnamon and the coriander and the rainbows of peppercorns. The noises are louder, the going is slower, the journey is far more convoluted and intriguing than it appears. Everything is so pure and in the moment that even the most cautious person will want to launch themselves into the throes of it all and despite the frustrations that doing so sometimes caused, I’m so glad we did.

Everything you have ever seen or heard or read about Africa is true. All of it exists in some measure, and then some. I wish I could tell you that the kids on TV with flies on their faces are a myth, but they’re not. You will see some of that. You will see the victims of landmines hauling themselves around on the ground with whatever is left of their bodies. You will see a lot of white UN trucks, men with guns, and people who act like that’s completely normal. But you will also see laughing, energetic, healthy kids, fathers with steady jobs, mothers learning to diversify their crops, prosthetics, local languages, songs, and feel a prevailing sense of peace. It will shake you to your core. It will make you think. It will make you want to go home and tell everyone you know about it. And ultimately, it will make you want to go back.

We have returned home with memories, experiences, and a renewed enthusiasm for life and what’s important. We hiked amidst the colourful rondavels and maize crops of the Transkei. We survived a night of food poisoning aboard a decaying steamship in the middle of Lake Malawi. We joked with the border officials in Tanzania. We explored the empty ruins of an ancient city. We watched the sun set over Kenya from a fishing dhow. We ate spaghetti and watermelon for breakfast. We took cold showers. We asked for help. We paid too much for taxis. We camped on a cliff. We ate goat. We learned to say “thank you” in half a dozen different languages. We used that one a lot.

I cried over stray dogs and begging children and my faraway family. I laughed at Scott’s Zanzibari haircut, Adam and Aviel’s beauty salesperson spiel, and the disbelief on just about everyone’s face when we informed them that we were neither married nor Muslim. I was excited, anxious, frightened, depressed, ecstatic, hot, dirty, tired and hungry. I wanted to come home on more than one occasion. I also contemplated putting down permanently with relative frequency. I hated it, I loved it, and not once did I feel apathetic towards any of it.

I guess what I really want to tell you most about Africa is that you should go. There is no other way you will understand it. Even then, you might not, and it’s entirely possible that you will return home with even less to say on the subject than you did at the outset. But there is no doubt that it will affect you. Though you can’t pinpoint exactly how, and you can’t explain exactly why, Africa will move you to feel more deeply than you ever thought possible. You will see that this is not a land of rape and lions, but a beautiful, largely peaceful, inspiring place, which is so often misrepresented, ignored and abandoned by the outside world.

What Africa meant to me is not something I am capable of telling you. So just go. See it for yourself. Marvel at all the things that simply don’t translate to words. Try to understand the incomprehensible. See things from a different perspective. Let it challenge you, change you, seep into you. Then come home and tell me about it.

Yikes!

2010-08-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, so when I said that we'd 'keep the posts coming' that was obviously a gigantic -- though unintentional -- fib. Turns out when there are jobs to be applied for and apartments to be hunted and decks to be reclined upon, the motivation to hunker down and pump out a post seems to die a little. But we can assure you that there are more posts on their way, because we are going to finish this thing, darnit. So everybody should all keep checking back on an hourly basis for, say, the next six months? We'll get there. Thanks!

Just for fun, here's Alanna and mine's respective reading lists for our five months of travel:

Alanna

The Puppeteers - Renesh Lakhan
We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver
The Corporation – Joel Bakan
117 Days – Ruth First
The Whole World Over – Julia Glass
Stealing Water – Tim Ecott
Southern Cross – Jann Turner
America Wife – Curtis Sittenfeld
The Dive from Clausen's Pier – Ann Packer
Juliet, Naked – Nick Hornby
The Last King of Scotland – Giles Foden
The Condition – Jennifer Haigh
State of Blood – Henry Kyemba
The Constant Gardener – John Le Carré
One Day – David Nicholls
A Spot of Bother – Mark Haddon
The Other Hand – Chris Cleave

Scott

The Snows of Mt Kilimanjaro – Ernest Hemingway
The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
Papillon – Henri Charrière
The Corporation – Joel Bakan
Far From the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
True History of the Kelly Gang – Peter Carey
The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
Regeneration – Pat Barker
Juliet, Naked – Nick Hornby
The Last King of Scotland – Giles Foden
Pilgrim – Timothy Findley
Stealing Water – Tim Ecott
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
The Constant Gardener – John Le Carré

Homeland Security Sweet Homeland Security

2010-06-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

Well, we are home safely. Alanna and I both arrived at our respective parents' doorsteps on Monday following two plain rides, much waiting, and the frustrating bureaucratic theft of a large bottle of duty-free spirits. With regards to our online adventures we're an entire country behind so we'll keep the posts coming and everyone can just pretend we're still very far away.

you never saw this...

Diss the Cook

2010-06-14T02:28:00.000-07:00

A while back I was watching a late-night talk show on which Tom Cruise was a guest. It was one of the episodes where they wheel out a portable kitchen counter and summon a celebrity chef, who bangs together a pre-conceived dish in a minute flat just in time for the credits to roll. As is common, once Wolfgang Puck or whoever got cooking, Tom Cruise naturally joined in to 'lend a hand'. I'm sure he was well-intentioned, but it became evident early on that, from the apprehensive and awkward way he prodded whatever was sauteeing in his assigned fry-pan, Tom Cruise is a guy who does not do much of his own cooking. And me on the couch thought, “If I am ever famous enough to go on Leno, and Wolfgang Puck is a guest the same night as me, I will grasp that spatula like a pro and totally own those aubergines and everyone on their respective couches will say, hey, will you look at that Scott guy, he really knows his way around a kitchen, he doesn't have a personal chef or anything, he's just a normal person!” and my books/albums/fitness videos will consequentially sell like hotcakes.

But in rural Uganda we are not just 'normal people'. We are the bourgeois: we are people who have enough spare time and money to care about things like 'anti-oxidants' and 'the blogosphere' and 'oscar-buzz'. As in,

“Hey, have you heard? The fruit of the baobab tree is absolutely packed with anti-oxidants. It is the next super-food. It is the next goji berry.”
“Really? Huh. That is good to know, because two baobab fruits are all I have eaten in the past twenty-four hours. Also, I live in a building the size of your guest bathroom.”

Anyway, this is all pertinent to when, at Lake Nkuruba Nature Reserve & Community Campsite just outside of Fort Portal, Uganda, Alanna and I decided to save a few bucks (literally, like, two dollars) and cook our own dinner the final night. There wasn't a public kitchen, just the staff one for the camp's restaurant, but we asked if we could use it to cook some pasta and Jane, the timid, smiling young woman in charge kindly agreed. She led us into a small chamber with a rough concrete counter along one wall. The counter had two holes in the top with bars across like prison windows. The walls were covered in probably an inch of soot. There were no 'appliances', per se, just a few metal utensils and a yellow jug, presumably full of cooking oil.

Now I do fancy myself as knowing my way somewhat around a kitchen, and I've done much cooking in less-than-lavish conditions, such as on camping trips and the like, and over our time in Africa Alanna and I have concocted some very good meals in all kinds of ill-equipped and unconventional facilities. But when I stepped into that room, all of a sudden I was Tom Cruise. Except I was worse than Tom Cruise, because I'm sure that, in a pinch, he'd at least know how to turn the stove on.

Jane was kind enough to help. After adding some fresh firewood, she used a small plastic bag and a few splashes of liquid paraffin (not cooking oil in the jug after all) as fire-starter. She then left us alone in order to split more logs outside. As we watched the plastic sputter and smoke over the firewood, it occurred to me that this is the way in which much of the food we'd been eating over the past months has been cooked – beautiful flatbreads, tender fish, intricate curries – all produced over what most westerners would identify as 'an incinerator'.

And there was more. We filled a pot and brought water to a boil (really quickly, I might add) and got our pasta cooked. But then, how to remove it from the flame? This was a problem. There were some oily pieces of cardboard folded into what seemed like potholders, but of course they'd just catch fire. The solution was easy: Jane, intuiting our helplessness, simply reached down bare-fingered and plucked the pot off the stove. I guess if you've been cooking this way since you were six years old, you can do that kind of thing.

For the fifteen minutes it took for our fusili to cook, Alanna and I alternated going into the kitchen to stir the pot with a fork. This solicited chuckles from Jane and the two other camp employees lounging outside – We weren't sure why exactly, but by now we're accustomed to mystery amusement on our behalf. Earlier in the day we walked down the road to a small town, and got some chuckles from a group of girls after we said hello, and I thought, why are you laughing at me? You are the one walking down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere with a big wooden bench balanced on your head! But that's the way it goes when you don't speak the language. Anyway, cooking in the kitchen, it wasn't until we'd gone and drained the pasta together (that was too funny) that the other woman, whose English was a little better than Jane's, informed us that it was of course the fact we were cooking together – that I was participating at all – that was amusing. She then went on a short, lighthearted yet still fairly serious diatribe against the frustrations of gender roles in Uganda, much to the embarrassment of the man present, who had to leave. “You go and iron all the man's shirts, and then he wears one for two minutes and fwit!– he throws it on the floor,” she explained. She told us how much she admired the way we did things. I said something to the effect of, “we cook together, we clean together, we laugh together...” and this garnered whoops of laughter and a high-five between the two women.

So the chuckles we get on the street are possibly just along the lines of, ha ha, look at that man and woman, walking down the street like equals, what a hoot! And if I were offended by that, well, I'd have to be a barbarian, wouldn't I?

----

CRIME!

We haven't wanted to jinx anything by saying so, but since by the time this entry hits the press we'll be in the air on the way home so I think we can put it out there – over all this time in Africa we have not once felt in danger or experienced firsthand any the criminality that is supposed to be so prevalent here. We've certainly been out and about, and I think Alanna and I both expected at least something, whether it be some bills disappearing out of a back pocket or a small border-post bribe. But over the course of the whole trip, we'd been getting by scot-free.

Until Lake Nkuruba Nature Reserve & Community Campsite, that is...

Little did we know.

This is Aldrin. He speaks very little English and is maybe the offspring of one of the camp employees. On our first day at Lake Nkuruba he wandered over to where we were playing cards. Once we were finished, we tried to entertain him for a while – I attempted to teach him the names of the face cards, and then let him balance cards on my head, which he found utterly hilarious. I then handed over the entire pack, and he busied himself moving them in and out of the box and dealing them onto the table. Then he left with the cards and disappeared into the reception office.

And we saw neither him nor the cards...

Ever Again.

Aldrin!!!

Note: his name may not be Aldrin. His name may be some other name that we misheard through a thick Luganda accent as Aldrin when we asked Jane what his name was. Adrian, maybe. We sure hope his name is Aldrin though.

Lake Bunyonyi

2010-06-12T04:27:00.000-07:00

Back from Murchison Falls NP we picked out a new hotel in Kampala, same price as our previous one but with a slightly less hectic location. At least, we thought it would be the same price – the only double they had available was the “ultra luxe” suite. It was still just $35 for the room, so we said what the heck. The “luxe” touches comprised of thick tasselly curtains, three free bottles of water, a single terrycloth bathrobe, and a shiny bedspread. There was a small TV hung from the ceiling but it didn't work. Not exactly presidential caliber, but I did feel a bit out of place scrubbing my undies in the sink.

Kampala Balla

We left Kampala a second time for Kabale, way down south near the Rwanda border, our final destination being the nearby Lake Bunyonyi. Our method of travel was the Post Bus, a daily transit service offered by the Uganda postal system. It was an eight-hour trip, and we stopped at every single post office along the way as well for any roadside Jack who stuck his arm out, but as far as bus rides go it was not so bad. After a night in Kabale we caught a cab to the lake ten kilometers out of town. The road passed alongside several small rock quarries where groups of men and young boys were literally making gravel by hand – manually rolling boulders down from an exposed cliff face and chipping them into golf-ball-sized pieces with a hammer and chisel, some perched on piles as tall as themselves. They didn't look like they were working that hard.

Lake Bunyonyi is a low-key spot with a good reputation among people who like to do quiet things. Our accommodation of choice was Byoona Amagara, a backpacker-targeted community-centric lodge set on a small island. The resort offers a free shuttle to the island in the form of a dugout canoe – at a dock on the mainland we were met by a young man named Justice who lugged our bags into a heavy-looking hollowed-out section of eucalyptus, steadied the thing as we got in, and handed us each a paddle. The ride took just shy of an hour, and as we chatted (World Cup, Canadian weather, et cetera) I envisioned waking the following morning unable to lift my arms.

Do the P.A.D.D.L.E.

While it's nobody's first vision of Africa, Lake Bunyonyi is a truly beautiful place, set among steep hills cultivated in dense terraces right down to its squiggly shore, quaint and endlessly green. Byoona Amagara is located on tiny Itambira Island, one of many in the lake, which it shares with a small village and about a billion birds. We slept in a 'bio-dome', a geometric thatched structure open on one side to a private deck and a more-than-adequate view the lake beyond. The place is apparently owned by a guy in New York who donates all profits to the local community. Everything runs off solar panels, and they somehow have enough juice to screen nightly movies, at a dollar a head, from an impressive catalogue. We watched The Aviator and The Constant Gardener. Not exactly feel-good movies but there wasn't much of a need, now was there?

The first two days on the island were a bit dreary, which meant warm beer (no sun ergo no fridge) and lots of cribbage. But when it brightened up we rented one of the dugouts to explore the nearby islands. I am no stranger to a canoe, and with Alanna's credentials we were fairly positive of our ability to manoeuver. But it was not until we'd drifted into the lake just far enough to come within view of the Byoona Amagara dining terrace that Alanna in the rear discovered that the physics of a dugout are completely backwards from its fiberglass equivalent and we could do nothing but spin in circles like city-slicking novices. We (royal 'we') eventually got it figured out, though not without some concentration. Watching twelve-year-olds float by straight as an arrow while barely touching their paddle to the water was a bit hard to take.

We ventured ashore on Bwama Island, Itambira's neighbour and a former mission and leper colony. The small island is dotted with blue-roofed brick buildings reminiscent of those of Livingstonia in Malawi. The island is home to both the primary and secondary schools for the area, and arriving on shore we came across what is labeled in blue paint as the 'Bwama School Bus':

"the keel on the bus goes..."

Our guidebook mentioned Bwama as worthy of exploration, but we felt half as though we were wandering through someone's backyard. Any surface of the island not covered in pathways or buildings was almost entirely surrendered to crops of potato, maize and banana, save for an undulating soccer pitch beside the primary school. We visited during a spring break of sorts, and without kids running around it was very difficult to tell whether the school buildings were abandoned or not. Windows were boarded up, there was childish graffiti scrawled over the walls and a sombre lack of furniture. The primary school's exterior was decorated with various decisive slogans in bold black paint: AIDS KILL, ABSTAIN FROM SEX, VIRGINITY IS HEALTH, STAY AWAY FROM BAD GROUPS and DO NOT ACCEPT GIFTS, which confused us, but probably means something along the lines of don't take candy from strangers, which is no doubt more of a problem here, seeing as kids have a habit of demanding that very thing from every white person they see.

The secondary school operates in the buildings of the former lepers' hospital, equal parts historic-charming and plain old run-down. Again, the place had an aura of having been empty for decades rather than weeks, but our paddler Justice later confirmed than students were to be returning in only a few days' time.

But other than the one fitness activity to remind us how out-of-shape we were (isn't backpacking around Africa supposed to be a workout?) we easily passed the days reading our books, throwing ourselves off the beautiful dock and eating Byoona Amagara's (mostly) delicious foods. And while Alanna and I are both very bored by the majority of birds (I say if it's not bigger or brighter than a fire hydrant, it ain't worth identifying) but the little Bunyonyi birds were actually pretty cool, some with long ribbon-tails up to a foot in length and often six or seven species occupying the same bush. Still doesn't mean I needed to know their names.

Fresh crayfish from the lake figures prominently on the Byoona menu.

On the fifth day Justice paddled us back to the mainland and we were very sad. After another night in Kabale we discovered that the only bus that would take us to our next destination left at two thirty in the morning and we were even sadder. But Bunyonyi was the solitude we'd been waiting for, hard to beat on all counts, and worth an insufferable bus trip to the moon and back.

Safari!

2010-06-10T08:36:00.000-07:00

After aborting our island jaunt, we caught a minibus to Kampala, Uganda's capital. We'd been seriously craving a quiet lakeside retreat, and (at the time) pretty crushed the Banda Island thing had fallen through. The prospect of returning to another crazy capital city was not an appealing one. On top of it all, our shorts were still sopping wet from having had to wade back to the beach when we canceled on the boat trip.

And then we reached downtown Kampala. The streets were jammed in a category of gridlock I had not thought possible. The density of people, vehicles and shops were beyond what we'd experienced so far, there was mud everywhere, and it was bloody hot out. It was as if the world had conspired to affirm for us one fact: you don't want to be here! I personally had conceded to never reaching anywhere clean and quiet ever again in my entire life, but as our minibus once again became wedged in a sea of its brethren, Alanna announced we were getting off and heroically led us straight to our hotel, which was magically (to me at least) not that far away.

It turns out our accommodation (and the main minibus rank) is situated at the heart of Kampala's 'wholesale district', an especially cramped and hectic part of town. Though our hotel was perfectly adequate, leaving the building we'd often have to dodge men charging along the sidewalk with stacks of mattresses on their heads, or hefting giant industrial bags of plastic sandals off the back of a truck. The rest of the city wasn't so bad, and we came to enjoy Kampala, returning to it two more times between our excursions into rural Uganda.

View from our balcony.

Our first such outing was a three-day safari package to Murchison Falls National Park run by Red Chilli Backpackers, a hostel in the Kampala suburbs. It's advertised as 'budget' and is obviously geared towards the backpacker crowd, and the price, though not an absolute steal, was appealing. What they reserve for the small print is that meals aren't inclusive, which tops up expenses somewhat. Also, Murchison Falls National Park is a seven-hour drive away from Kampala, which, there and back, tends to cut into that oft-quoted 'three days'.

Day one was, inevitably, mostly driving. We stopped for a split-second tour of the falls themselves – said to be the 'most powerful' in the world. Here the entire Nile river squeezes through a six-meter-wide gap in the rock. But, mostly driving. I read an entire Nick Hornby novel.

Red Chilli operates a rest camp within the park, where we spent two nights in a double safari tent. The camp is unfenced, and a family of warthogs browses the property on a regular basis. After dark, hippos leave the cool of the Nile river to forage on land, and apparently wander the camp once lights are out. We didn't see any but other guests encountered a few on a late night trip to the toilet. By the way, the Nile begins in Uganda, how is this not common knowledge?

Day two we went on a morning game drive through the park and then a fantastic little boat ride up the Nile to see Murchison Falls from the water. The game drive was much what I'd expected a safari to be. We drove it in the same minibus we'd ridden from Kampala – the whole roof conveniently pops up, allowing us to stand and enjoy a 360-degree view of our surrounds. We had a guide in the vehicle spotting animals for us, though the knowledge he offered didn't go very far beyond each animal's average weight and lifespan.

aboard the ferry across the Nile

I was pleasantly surprised at the density of animals in the park – I'd expected a pocket of buffalo here, some antelopes over here, but it was pretty much nonstop animals wherever we were: plenty of buffalo, warthogs, giraffe, and a wide variety of brownish antelopey animals ranging from the goat-sized duiker to the large and dunce-looking Jackson's hartebeest. We saw a single elephant, and a lion from just about as far away as a lion can be while still being categorized as 'seen'. No leopard, darnit.

A group of baboons kept us entertained as we waited for the ferry to take us back across the river to the camp. In the morning we'd been advised to keep our bagged lunches out of sight, as the baboons will take them away from you. Monkeys are a source of much amusement and adoration obviously, but up close, once one gets a sense of a baboon's size and the way its shoulder muscles pump when it walks, 'tree-climbing humanoid pit bull' becomes the appropriate description.

Uh, buddy, you may not realize this, but, uh...

In the afternoon our group returned to the river and boarded a small double-decker catamaran for a river cruise. Our guide for the river trip was more informative that the game drive man, and over the course of the two-hour trip to the falls we passed some buffalo, a good number of crocs and more hippos than anyone could hope for.

Now I know 'once in a lifetime' is a term thrown around generously when discussing any number of African experiences, but I believe it is safe to say that no one reading this – or even the friends of people reading this, for that matter – knows anyone who's seen what we witnessed. Halfway up the river we passed a full-blown dead hippopotamus, bright pink and bobbing ribs-up in the water. Better than a leopard tenfold in my books.

Thar she decays

But missus hippo-corpse doesn't win the trophy for most photographed moment – no, such an honour could only be bestowed on when the Red Chilli motorboat intercepted us mid-cruise to heroically replenish the much-depleted beer cooler. While it seemed totally awesome at the time, the photo isn't that great and I won't include it here.

Returning down the river we came across a big daddy elephant grappling with some branches right at the water's edge. On our trip we haven't seen as many elephants as I'd expected, given that they're dangerously overpopulated in some areas, but even one alone was pretty breathtaking. Not only are they huge and majestic and all that, but there's something in the way they move about that I as a human can identify with. Whereas many monkeys share more body language in common with squirrels than people (to the untrained eye at least), I feel like if I were trapped in an elephant's body I would act basically the same as the elephants we've seen. Which is comforting, for whatever reason. Anyway, this elephant seemed a bit grumpy.

On day three on the way back to Kampala we stopped for some 'Rhino tracking' at Siwa Rhino sanctuary. In my mind, I saw this as sneaking through the jungle on the heels of a guide who'd be busy analyzing snapped twigs and rolling balls of dung between his fingers. But because the rhinos in the park are under 24-hour scrutiny, it was more like a guy in green fatigues radioing his buddies in the bush and us marching directly to the animal. Our guide was no doubt a rhino expert, and probably had much interesting information to convey, but most of this was directed at the handsome Dutch couple at the front of the line and we couldn't hear anything. We reached the rhino and met two more armed rangers who until our arrival had been lounging on a mattress in the shade with some snacks. The rhino too was installed under a tree, pup at her side, the day being too hot for either animal to move more than an occasional ear. We couldn't get too close, and the animals were difficult to see in the mottled shade. But what can you do. Everyone hung around, took photos, asked a few questions, and then we turned around and trudged back. Personally I was just as excited by the trio of frogs I discovered miraculously living in the water tank of a toilet back near the parking lot.

We'll never really know whether our money could have been spent on something less hit-and-miss, but we had fun, and I don't think we realize how lucky we were to have an entire park to ourselves for a game drive – my impression of the more popular parks in South Africa or Tanzania is that they get, er, busy. We briefly discussed doing another safari in Kenya, but both agreed that unless we doubled our budget, we'd find ourselves doing much the same thing. Maybe on a next trip we'll be financially stable enough to do some magical ten-night refuge in the Serengeti – but until then, the geckoes hunting moths around hotel lightbulbs will keep me just as happy.

Into Uganda

2010-06-07T03:58:00.000-07:00

The Night Boat

From Zanzibar, we chose to return to Dar Es Salaam via the night boat, a ferry that leaves the island at 10pm, sits offshore for a few hours and then sails overnight to Dar Es Salaam for a 6am arrival. In theory, this meant we could sleep during the voyage and save on a night's accommodation. Our seats were comfortable enough, but due to several factors, it didn't go as planned.

Firstly, there is the issue of air-conditioning. I am perplexed about how the bodies of Africans work. Seeing as they stroll around in dress pants and sweaters in the kind of heat us Canadians can barely endure in shorts and tshirts, I would assume their systems are accustomed to warmer temperatures. But whenever there is an opportunity for air-conditioning, they really crank it, and seem to delight in icy-cold air that Alanna and I, again with our minimal clothing, find it hard to fall asleep in.

Secondly, Africans will happily fall asleep anywhere, irrespective of comfort level or surrounding distractions. (This is easy to explain, once you've seen the conditions under they're expected to take their naps as toddlers – Africa babies spend much of their day strapped to their mothers' backs with an expertly knotted sheet or blanket, and we've seen children dozing peacefully in this manner while their mothers hoe patches of soil on a hillside.) As we were getting settled, a TV at the front of the ferry treated us to a martial arts film, and we assumed once it ended bedtime would officially roll around. But they kept coming, at substantial volume, one after another (one of which, for those who care, featuring the gratuitous toplessness from a former high school classmate), throughout almost the entire night. And everyone slumbered on regardless.

Finally, it was a very rocky journey. Alanna and I both have fairly sturdy stomachs, but even I was feeling the quease. Alanna had to visit the bathroom, and in the morning described it rather nightmarishly as this chaotic, vomit-coated chamber full of angry squatting women.

So anyways, we arrived in Dar Es Salaam at sunrise with barely any sleep at all, which was too bad.

Uganda

The crowned crane, Uganda's national bird.

From Dar Es Salaam we caught a plane (again with the frigid air) to Entebbe, Uganda, bypassing what we saw as a week spent in iffy busses over bad roads. Entebbe is notable as the site of the 1976 hostage-rescue raid by the Israeli army during Idi Amin's reign, dramatized in The Last King of Scotland. It was therefore a historically poignant introduction to a country, but not surprisingly the airport was a pretty standard airport – though apparently there are still a spray of bullet holes in the command tower.

Prior to guidebook blurbs, our knowledge of Uganda amounted to its depiction in Last King of Scotland (the book of which Alanna and I have since read) and the excellent documentary War Dance, exploring the lives of refugee-camp children as they prepare for a national dance competition. And this is Uganda for most people – if your mind doesn't immediately come to rest on the horrors of Idi Amin regime, then you may instead think of the more recent bloody civil conflicts, such as the atrocities committed by the super-evil Lord's Resistance Army. Or the AIDS epidemic, or the general hunger, poverty and malaise associated with much of the continent. 'Tourist Mecca!' does not rank high on the list.

But the country has been stable and relatively peaceful since the 80's, and our airport shuttle led us through trim suburban greenery on our way to the hostel, past roadside flowerbeds and within view of Lake Victoria's sparkly shores. A far cry from the smog and grit of Dar Es Salaam – not to mention whatever pitiful dustbowl I'd had in mind. (One would think we'd have moved beyond the whole 'exceeded expectations' schtick, but apparently not.) Most African countries have a bigger middle-class than one would imagine, and Entebbe came across as a clean, comfortable town, quiet and cool. On our walk into town we passed a squad of jogging soldiers – public singing in Africa, whether it comes out of a church or from a mass of buff sweaty army dudes, always inspires a potent envy – and were introduced to Uganda's healthy population of marabou storks, teenager-sized and pretty disgusting.

We also became acquainted with a new (questionable) mode of transportation, the motorcycle taxi, or boda-boda. At African borders, the two countries' respective posts are often separated by a wide no-man's land, and the name comes from their origin shuttling passengers between the two posts, border-to-border. Like minibusses, boda-bodas are often painted bright colours and decorated with Christian or Muslim (or nonsense) expressions. Also like minibusses, they appear in varying states of roadworthiness. The accident rates for these things are appalling, but everyone uses them: businessmen, the elderly, and many mothers, who use them as a school-bus system. Women always ride in dignified side-saddle fashion, although we read an amusing newspaper article recently about 'hot-blooded' drivers blaming the wandering hands of their female passengers as a leading cause of collisions. Helmets for both driver and rider are supposedly the law.

In Entebbe we visited the Wildlife Education Center, a facility the locals call a 'zoo' though it is in fact a rehabilitation center and sanctuary for injured or rescued animals (the difference amounting mainly to the quantity of guilt one feels in attending). While it wasn't cheap – twenty bucks a pop – it was a most gratifying animal experience. We were able to gaze at most of the creatures you'd hope to see in Africa, including lions, rhinos, crocs, deadly snakes, and a ton of monkeys and chimps. And while one's typical zoo experience involves staring at a bored, lonely, motionless animal, these primates were active. They put on a show. We watched a group of red-tailed monkeys, and then an island of rescued chimps, for the better part of two hours. We were so, so happy. As icing on the cake, a troupe of vervet monkeys – a species we're almost not excited about anymore – wanders freely about the property, and are more comfortable with human presence than we're used to, letting us get very close.

red-tailed monkeys

Vervet monkey, chimps in the background.

At the WEC we went on a 'nature walk', basically a short dark tunnel through the hugest, creepy spiderwebs, populated by equivalently huge and creepy spiders.

Camels!

This group of Australopithecus were rescued in Mombasa. They're allowed to hunt certain kinds of protected antelope because "it's part of their culture" and "they've been doing it for literally millions of years."

Our plan after Entebbe was to visit the Ssesse archipelago in Lake Victoria, hoping for a similar experience from we'd had on Likoma in Malawi. We made it all the way onto the boat before turning back. We'd wanted to get to a specific place – Banda Island – and the men in charge of the boat headed there were dubiously vague about departure time, price, and trip length. The first quote was a ten-hour voyage, but once hearing we weren't interested, the man somehow let us barter him down to two hours, and then an hour and a half. If only it were always that easy. Not to mention the route has an unconvincing safety record – Phillip Briggs, our most trusted guidebook author, says he straps himself to a big plastic jerrycan every time he makes the trip. Plus there was a guy hassling us for money after carrying us both into the boat unsolicited. It just seemed like an all-round bad idea. We'd already created our share of not-fun boat memories for the trip, so we relocated all our valuables and electronics into chest pockets, waded to shore, and gave Banda Island a pass.

Which was fine, because someone else told us later the place was crap anyway.

Jambiani

2010-06-06T04:14:00.000-07:00

The morning we left Stone Town for the legendary beaches of Zanzibar's east coast, it rained. For the next three days, it rained. On the fourth day, the sun shone through and we caught a glimpse of what we were beginning to think we might only see on postcards, but mostly our beach holiday was characterized by rain, at times heavy, giving way to light showers and drizzle in the afternoons, with a 90% chance of an evening thundershower. Or y'know, just plain old heavy rain.

Needless to say, there was a lot of Toto singing going on.

We had known going into this that we would be visiting Zanzibar in the low season, a period known – quite aptly as we would find out – as 'the long rains'. Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, we figured we knew what rain was and how to deal with it (brellies, wellies, Gore-tex and the like), but I think it's safe to say that Africa has redefined our concept of wet weather. When it rains, it pours. And as for that rain jacket you've been toting around for three and a half months thinking that you can't send it home because you'll be happy you have it when the rainy season comes? The fact is that no matter how water-proof you manage to make yourself, when the rains come, there's really no avoiding getting wet, soaked, saturated to the bone. This is no pina coladas and getting caught in the rain, this is a tall glass of more-than-you-bargained-for and getting caught unprepared.

Jambiani village is stretched over a few kilometers of coastline, and is described by Lonely
Planet as “a sunbaked and somnolent collection of thatch and coral-rag houses”. (The writers of Lonely Planet seem to have an affinity for the word 'somnolent' and will use it any chance they get, regardless of whether or not it actually applies – in this case, unlike Dar Es, it does). Arriving in Jambiani in the rain, we were met with the definition of somnolence: boarded-up shops, empty streets, women and children huddled under leaky awnings – everything wet, everything grey, everything not looking at all like the postcards.

We had hired a car and driver in Stone Town to tour us around our beachfront accommodation options in Jambiani, and hopefully score us a deal. The first place we went was a lovely 2-bedroom suite, with bathroom, kitchenette and private yard that usually went for $80/night. It was offered to us for $40, but as we didn't really need that much space, and $40 is still a little more than we're used to paying, we decided to move along. In total, we visited five places, two of which were closed for the season, two of which were open for business but completely vacant, and one of which won our vote with free breakfast, wireless internet and imitation Vache Qui Rit cheese. I'm pretty sure I can withstand just about any meteorological condition nature can conjure up if there's cheese to be had – especially if that cheese is packaged in cute little wedges and contains what is probably 150% of your annual recommended intake of saturated fat.

Despite appearances of being shut for the season, on our walk through town we met numerous people who invited us into their homes/restaurants and offered their services as tour guides, dhow captains, taxi drivers and in the case of Mr. Fruit, deliverers of fresh Zanzibari produce. In search of a place to eat lunch one afternoon, we passed the 'Karibu Restaurant' – a pile of saturated plywood and moldy thatch topped by a family of goats. Naturally, we figured Karibu Restaurant was no more, and continued along on our search for food. It was only on our way back to our hotel that we met the restaurant's proprietor, Hassan, who informed us that he was very much open for business and urged us to let him cook us dinner. Unable to say no to home-cooked fish masala, we gave him a few dollars to buy seafood, and promised to return at seven.

As it turns out, Karibu Restaurant is undergoing an extensive renovation thanks in part to the generous donations of travellers from all over the world who have eaten Hassan's food over the past 15 years. Therefore, we were welcomed (or Karibu-ed) into the family home, and seated in a makeshift nook decorated with faded photos of satisfied customers and a deflated beach ball inexplicably hanging from the ceiling. Unusually for Africa, the food was delivered to our table very promptly, and in copious quantities. We had each ordered a serving of curry, one with rice, one with chapati, and Hassan had cooked us an additional eggplant dish “as a gift” – he did not want us to leave hungry. The food was delicious, but far too much for two people, no matter how hungry. Apparently, huge portion sizes are a point of pride at Karibu Restaurant, where you eat, as the sign states, “antil you say Hassan please don't kill me with food”. Hassan is also quite proud of the fact that a photo of his sign exists somewhere on the Internet, and I suppose I should write to tell him that now it exists twice – with all this publicity, he should expect a big turn-out for his re-opening.

The following day, we awoke to a welcome change of scenery: what once had been dark and grey and dismal had given way to vivid blues, greens and the whitest sand I have ever seen. The Lonely Planet is in fact spot-on with their description of the sea's “ethereal shade of turquoise” and with the sun finally shining, we hurriedly pulled on our swim suits for the first time since Likoma and made a beeline for the water. Unfortunately, the ocean we encountered was not at all like the ocean we were expecting – at home, you are rewarded for a bold dive into the depths with invigorating refreshment, in Tanzania, you just end up feeling sticky, and even more uncomfortably hot than before. It's not luke-warm, it's just plain warm, and with the long tides, getting out to dive-able depths would likely take you hours of wading through thigh-deep bathwater. It was probably one of the least satisfying dips I've ever taken, but the scenery was indeed some of the most memorable.

So that was our vacation from our vacation – a little disappointing, slightly more indoor reading than we may have counted on, but enough colourful characters and subtle adventures to make the rather expensive cab ride worthwhile. Plus, being the only patrons to an entire stretch of resort accommodation, willing to brave less-than-ideal conditions for the promise of cheaper prices and an empty stretch of sand, we were made to feel like the intrepid travellers we like to imagine we are. And there's no shaking that feel-good feeling of being someone's first customer in weeks – never a waiter more happy to see you. Of course, we tipped generously, our travel egos reaching critical mass.

Zanzibar: Stone Town

2010-05-31T00:25:00.000-07:00

Zanzibar has been a standout destination for Alanna and I ever since we began our Africa research. The name alone conjures an old-world exoticism shared with the likes of Timbuktu and Casablanca. These are places about which I know nothing, but prior to the trip Zanzibar seemed to be a member of the same club, and evoked the same vague ideas of coastal African decadence (incense, steamer trunks, monkeys with hats, et cetera). I still haven't a clue about the other two (they may well not even exist anymore!) but at least we've got Zanzibar pegged.

The tropical island, part of an archipelago of the same name, is as historical as it gets – it's been a major player in intercontinental trade routes since the first century and Stone Town, the island's largest and most famous settlement, has been a town for about as long as people have been naming things 'towns'. At various points in its history the island has belonged to Persian and Arab traders, Omani sultans, the Portuguese, and the British, who controlled the island under a protectorate until it unified with newly-independent Tanzania in 1964. Zanzibar is a significant world supplier of spices, most notably cloves, and is famous for its carved doors and implausibly beautiful beaches.

Door!

More doors! The brass studs are to deter war elephants, obviously.

Zanzibar operates partly as an independent state – I'm not sure how it works but we had to pass through customs upon arrival after a four-hour ferry ride from Dar Es Salaam. We spent the trip cooped in a comfy VIP section (VIP-ness and caucasian-ness being synonymous, apparently) while Muslim prayers played a little too loudly on small TVs. The 'MV Flying Horse' docked in the harbour next to a huge pile of shipping containers, an introduction that didn't exactly scream either 'old-world' nor 'exoticism'. After entry formalities we rapidly became best friends with a middleaged tout who was more than willing to lead us to our hotel. Assuming he'd demand payment for his services we were apprehensive, but another man in the crowd yelled, “you can follow this man, he will not ask you for money!” so off we went. Our impromptu guide hurried us into the narrow maze of streets, all the while providing us with a detailed itinerary of the Zanzibar spice tour (the long-winded explanation of the Zanzibar spice tour is an area of expertise of all touts, we would soon learn). The info was nice and all, but he kept our attention to a point that, once reaching the hotel, we had no recollection of how we got there.

For me, Stone Town was beyond disorienting. The map in our guidebook resembles a bunch of carefully arranged shards of broken glass. It took us a few tries to figure our way back to the ferry dock, where the street was wider and we could find our way to the more touristy shops. Stone Town has what I've heard described as a 'tourist ghetto,' a sterile, compact district of air-conditioned souvenir stores and restaurants seldom visited by any local who's not a security guard, a taxi driver or one of Zanzibar's merciless touts. But Stone Town's tourism setup is such that this was virtually the only place we could find to eat – possibly because if any restaurant opened in more stimulating surrounds, no one would be able to find it.

The view from our hotel's rooftop terrace.

Drinking coconut from a vendor. First he hacks off the top with a knife and hands it to you with a straw. Once you're finished you hand it back and he expertly scrapes all the meat out of the inside and gives it back to you. It's different from coconuts at home, the meat is soft and gelatinous.

common sights: texting, unrefrigerated meat.

Stone town is noted for its unique mix of Arabic, Persian and Swahili architecture, which all seem to be variations on large dim multi-storey buildings with few windows. Often, if it weren't for the many storefronts at ground level, exploring the deeper reaches of Stone Town would feel like walking a narrow alley between two old prisons. It's only once you get above the buildings, or manage a peek into an open door, that you realize that most have courtyards, and the balconies and windows face inwards. The shops themselves – when they aren't a row of needy curio vendors – are suitably old-fashioned: closet-sized convenience stores, woodworkers' shops, and tailors seated at antique Singer sewing machines.

One of the dozens of curio vendors, all hawking the same stuff we've been seeing since Zambia.

A definite highlight – and the one instance where we were able to participate in something not reserved for tourists – were the meals at Forodhani Gardens. Every night at sundown the harbour-side park converts into a street-food market, where forty or so tables sell variations on a few themes: chapati rolled with egg, skewers of fruit, and, most popularly, barbequed seafood. The men behind the tables are all polished salesmen, assuring you of the freshness of the day's catch and the dedication and integrity of that table's respective team of fishermen.

The spreads at some of the seafood tables are astounding: lobster, shrimp, octopus, calamari, and often five or six kinds of fish including marlin, swordfish and shark. As with the rest of Africa's fishing industry, it does make one a little worried at the amount of seafood left in the sea. All is precooked – your selection is reheated over a grill and served with sauce and salad over your choice of flatbread, all for about three bucks.

Cane juice was something that Alanna discovered in Dar Es Salaam, and is a most refreshing and perfectly-balanced beverage. The long cucumber-width cane is pressed mechanically with a few key limes and a shard of ginger and sieved straight into your glass, a large beer-mug's worth for about fifty cents.

Our other activity of note in Stone Town was the world-famous spice tour, which was half fascinating, half making fun of a high-maintenance family of Americans. Instead of visiting a true spice plantation, our guide walked us through a demonstration forest, showing us a plethora of spices in their living form, peeling bark and crushing leaves for us to smell and taste. Never have my fingers been more aromatic! Not surprisingly, most spices look pretty boring when still in the ground.

vanilla!

peppercorns

nutmeg

After a visit to some very dull Persian ruins we were served a delicious lunch, cooked by some local women and incorporating many of the spices we'd just seen. To cap the day off we were to visit a beach – Alanna and mine's first saltwater since South Africa and our first Zanzibar Shore Experience. Well, after a long backroad drive we emerged onto possibly the filthiest, most unswimmable, least appealing stretch of sand on the island. Alanna and I, being the easygoing, non-complaining type, would have probably plunked ourselves on a maggoty log and sat there for the allotted hour, but luckily a talkative older woman in our group demanded to be taken to a better beach. Our driver obliged, and we were bussed to a more suitable spot. The new beach was divided down the center, split between an upmarket resort and a crowded fishing village. On your left, people are using the beach as a surface on which to sun themselves and nibble tapas, on your right people are using the beach to stay alive.

dirty beach

In flowery guidebook introductions the world over, Stone Town is unanimously exalted for its magical, time-capsule quality. Possibly the victims of lofty expectations, we found this to be a little exaggerated. Yes, it's a spectacular place – one does get the impression that life has been rolling along without much variance for centuries, and the carved doors are indeed the handsomest things on hinges, but at the end of the day a narrow stone street is just a narrow stone street. (But what was I expecting? Dancing girls with bells on their toes? Cardamom tossed from the rooftops?) I'll admit that the robed, soccer-playing children and noble old men congregating at the mosques did make one reflect on one's modernity (and, come to think of it, one's exposed ankles). In the end, with all it's become, we felt it was difficult to access what makes Stone Town so special. There's a funny paradox to traveling: the places attempting to cater to tourists are always the places we don't want to be. Imagining Stone Town fifty years ago, we probably would have enjoyed it a little more, when the hassle involved would simply have been the challenge of getting by in a culture different from one's own – for us at least, a much more appealing option.

All Roads Lead to Dar-Es

2010-05-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

Into Tanzania

We've traversed this continent in many a vessel – plane, train, boat, bicycle, and every manifestation of bus imaginable – but until recently one mode of transport was noticeably absent off the list: the automobile. (Okay, so we've caught cabs, but for the sake of this introduction's success, let's say those don't count.) Lucky for us, a pair of Israelis with a pickup truck offered to give us a ride across the Tanzanian border to Mbeya, where we were planning on taking the train to Dar Es Salaam. Turns out they were headed to Dar as well, and while a train ride offers a certain romanticism lacking in a four-door Isuzu, logic outweighed sentiment and we joined Adam and Aviel on the 900km journey that comprised our triumphant return to coastal Africa.

"Guiness in Malawi!" I thought, but it was a strange non-alcoholic malt drink tasting like carbonated Ovaltine.

Crossing into Tanzania we left the lake views behind in favour of lush, deep-green hills dense with crops of banana, tea leaves and the ever-present maize. It also meant moving from a country of zero traffic-law enforcement to one with police roadblocks every half-hour. Up until now we'd seen self-driving as a glorious and carefree method of travel, but after contemplating the risks of flaunting foreign license plates through a continent rife with corruption, we realized how much potential hassle we were avoiding by choosing public transport. But we can happily report no incidents, and most of the traffic police were more amusing that intimidating (“the family of Jesus!” one officer exclaimed, upon learning Adam and Aviels' country of origin).

road-trip compatriots

We stretched the drive to a leisurely three days. Our two stopovers served more as refill stations (stomach and wallet as well as gas tank) than anything else but that didn't mean they weren't memorable: Mbeya will hold a special place for introducing us to the avocado milkshake (sorry, guacamole, but we won't be seeing you around the house much anymore) and at our hotel in Iringa we encountered a most puzzling breakfast: a small bowl of beef soup, followed by a plate of plain white bread, half a boiled potato, spaghetti, and a slice of watermelon:

On top of getting across the entire country in comfort and under budget, our Israeli hosts were great travel companions, both generous and entertaining. Adam (in the middle) piloted a tank in the Israeli army for three years only to fail eight consecutive driving tests – he points out, with a tinge of disappointment, that pedestrians and drivers react differently to an automobile than they do to a rolling piece of war machinery. Needless to say Aviel does the driving (though we caught him discussing the four-way-stop as this strange and irrational concept, possible only in a society of wussies, and it showed). The two funded their travels selling cosmetics at a department store – “easy money,” apparently – and much of this wealth seems to be spent on ice cream. In their company we settled into a happy habit of seeking the stuff out two or three times a day.

One advantage to catching the train to Dar Es Salaam, we'd believed, was that it passed through Mikumi National Park, and that wild game was often visible from the tracks. We were pleased to discover the highway bisected the park as well, and for a short section of the drive on our final day we zipped along with buffalo, zebra, warthog, baboon and elephant visible from the road– and all for free! What helped make the moment a highlight (and an extra touch unavailable on a train) was having Paul Simon's Graceland playing on the car stereo, setting the mood oh-so immaculately. I mean, it wasn't a safari or anything, we were traveling at a good clip, so the animals are sort of tough to spot in the photos:

The transition from wild African highway to urban congestion was quick – one moment we were cruising through valleys of baobab trees, next to alone on the highway, and then all of a sudden we found ourselves sandwiched among the slow churn of semi-trucks and minibusses destined for Tanzania's most populous city. The sides of the road were still thick with foliage, but we sensed we were near (the gps helped, naturally). The freight drivers are basically suicidal in Tanzania – they jostled among each other on the narrow road with bold disregard for the wellbeing of everyone involved. If I'd been driving, I would have given up, pulled over, burst into tears and possibly vomited out of anxiety, but Aviel navigated the situation admirably, and with limited expletives.

Dar Es Salaam

skyline from Cousin David's hotel

Once in the city, we found our hotel tucked among a busy cluster of auto-spare dealers doing business out of shops barely larger than the vehicles they carry parts for. We spent two nights in 'Jambo Inn' before moving around the corner to 'Safari Inn,' basically an identical hotel (same noisy ceiling fans, cold showers, and friendly staff) for less money. For such a major city, Dar Es Salaam has almost zero tourist draw. Nevertheless we spent a total of six nights in the city, doing little else, now that I think about it, other than eating curry and walking to the post office and back. At Mushroom Farm in Malawi we spoke with a traveler whose main qualm about the city concerned the amount of mud flicked onto the rear of the leg via sandal, and he was right. The roads are often just big long potholes and every morning, April being the rainy season, a short-but-brutal downpour ensured everything stayed good and frothy – we'd return from our daily post-office jaunt with chocolatey veins crusted down our calves. (The locals seem to have modified their flip-flopping technique to avoid this, as everybody's legs but ours were spotless, but their method escapes me.)

being smart, concealing our valuables

Though Dar is not all mud and boredom – in fact out of the cities we've visited it was one of the more memorable. Over the centuries, with nods to the ivory, spice and slave trades, East Africa has garnered a strong Indian and Arab presence, and Dar Es Salaam could at times be mistaken for somewhere in the Middle East. You feel as though you're in the shadow of a mosque wherever you go, and all of a sudden chapati and roti have replaced maize porridge as the starch of choice. Plus everyone is wearing robes. And did I mention it's hot? A heavy, tropical humidity that ensures the flow of sweat out of your pores is as steady as that of blood through your veins. Cold showers in our hotel, yes, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

After many anticipatory emails, Dar Es Salaam is where we finally met up with my second-cousin David, who is currently amidst a sort-of-crazy, pretty-much-everywhere-in-the-world motorcycle odyssey. Alanna and I graciously accepted his offer to buy us drinks at the rooftop bar of his hotel (pretty swanky, a/c and all the rest, but no Safari Inn). We were able to introduce him to Adam and Aviel, and they exchanged some gps software doohickey, the cause for more celebratory beers. That's what friends/relatives are for! It was good to see a familiar face, even if you haven't seen that face in several years and that face is covered in notably more facial hair than you remember.

Dar Es Salaam was christened (allah'd?) as such by a Zanzibari Sultan in the 1860's, and means “Haven of Peace.” While it may have been the case at the time, it is a slight misnomer at present. Not that Dar is an unpleasant city, but after a while it just got tiring, for the same reason it's appealing: its density, its hustle, its energy. I had to sort of psych myself up just to walk to the bank. We visited the nearby mall – and the movie theatre within – three times, for respite just as much as to pass the time. I could get used to it all, yeah, but I could also get used to a mud hut, and at least then I'd have a good excuse for having the stuff all over my legs.

Leaving the Lake

2010-04-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

Nhkata Bay

When confronted with the prospect of leaving our glorious island retreat after a seven days, Alanna and I shared a similar sentiment: why bother? Here's a place where you're on a first-name basis with each of your fellow guests (and your bartender), where the village kids bring you roasted Malawian tree-nuts with no motive other than to expand your worldly food knowledge, where the beach could be mistaken for somewhere in the Caribbean except no salty residue! These things add up. In our eyes, to return to mainland Africa was to willfully subject ourselves once again to the gauntlet of cramped minibusses, hassling curio vendors, scary border posts, prospective muggers, ticks, warlords, pushy prostitutes, the lack of french toast, et cetera. But the itinerary prevailed, and after one last stop at the bar for something for Dad (can't you hardly wait, Dad?) we shipped out.

Well, it did not take long for the dreaded gauntlet to close its walls around us (contingent, of course, on a gauntlet being something that has walls). The Ilala ferry was four hours late, and boarding the ship was just as perilous as getting off a week before, except it was carried out in complete darkness. (On top of this, Alanna and I had the extra challenge of maneuvering on and off the lifeboat while attempting to hold our styrofoam takeaway containers upright, but that was of our own doing.) We reached Nkhata bay at 3 o'clock in the morning. The ferry was meant to pull up to a jetty (which makes disembarking quick and painless) but it was currently under repair, and unusable. The Ilala lowered its lifeboats and just... sat there.

We bobbed around in the tiny bay for four hours. Word eventually came round that using the lifeboats on this stretch of shore was deemed unsafe (ha!) so the plan of action was, evidently, to bide our time until the earth's natural cycles gently eroded the beach into a less hazardous shoreline. I guess it was decided that was going to take too long (Malawians are so impatient) so the Ilala moved to an adjacent bay and disembarking began. The happy ending to this episode is that we were picked up in a private rowboat that took us directly to our hostel and that we will never have to get into an Ilala lifeboat ever again.

Looks so innocent, don't she?

Nkhata Bay is a popular stop with those traveling through Malawi, and the lakeshore is dotted with much budget accommodation. We secured ourselves a lovely double room with views of the lake at Mayoka Village. We'd heard unkind things about the area – swarms of pushy vendors and that it is, in general terms, a “dunghole” (I've polished the language some), but our experiences were all positive. Walking into town meant passing a long strip of curio hawkers, but they were mostly of a Rastafarian persuasion and reluctant to leave the shade of their huts. In town, we took our business to a womens' crafting collective (oh how I love you, price tags and indifferent salespeople!). Having prepared ourselves with returning to meat-and-maize for three meals a day, we were happily surprised at the food (homemade pumpkin ravioli and zucchini-flower tempura, anyone?) and fresh fruit juice, long-overdue.

Lunch in town, a regional soccer match for entertainment

Life's essentials at the market (spot the sleeping man)

Mayoka Village shoreline

Our next destination was Livingstonia, after a short stopover in Mzuzu, where we slept at a strange hostel run by a pair of severe alcoholics (or did we just catch them at a bad time? I don't think so). Like the town of Livingstone in Zambia, it's named after David Livingstone, the explorer/missionary/much-admired Doer-of-Good who, like Cecil John Rhodes, seems to have left his mark all over the continent. Livingstonia is perched sort of in the middle of nowhere atop a plateau overlooking Lake Malawi, and is most easily accessed by a 15km-long dirt track that begins at the lake's shore and snakes up the side of a mountain to the village, 700m up.

In the blistering sun, that's a decent hike. All our guidebooks warned us that transport up the hill was scarce and walking was often the only option, but we'd met many travellers who had either been to Livingstonia or were headed there, and there was a hostel of good repute a little ways out of town, so we decided to give it a shot. We disembarked our minibus at the turnoff, and after a snack of Coca-Cola and mandasi (semi-sweet balls of deep-fried bread) we ventured forth. The first thing we encountered was the first thing we often encounter wherever we go: children (there are a lot if them in Africa, if you haven't heard). And the script is always the same: “hello! Hawayoo? Give me money! Give me sweeti! Give me pen!” The delights of Africa children probably deserves its own post, but I'll say this – the kids ask for these things but I'm sure it's just a shot in the dark, a 'might as well try' situation (on Likoma all we ever heard was “give me ballooni!” meaning one legendary person at some point got off the Ilala with a big bag of balloons and everyone since has had to deal with the repercussions). It's part of the ritual of interacting with kids here, and once they know you don't have anything to hand out they're just as open and sweet. Anyway, on the road to Livingstonia it was different: a small group of kids ran up and asked for the usual (funds, confections, writing utensils) and on learning our pockets were empty, they settled for “hugs?” Long story short, Malawi is great.

After an hour of swimming up the mountain in our own perspiration, we flagged down a shiny new pickup truck, a Livingstonian driving his British holidaying friends up the mountain. They were more than happy to let us cram into the back with their luggage and supplies. They invited us into the cab but we gestured towards our armpits and politely declined. So we summitted in style, passing many more unlucky souls, all locals, trekking up and down the road, often with heavy-looking head-cargo.

We spent three lovely nights at the Mushroom Farm Campsite, a rustic, small-scale non-mushroom-farming place with picturesque compost toilets (there's a word combo!) and a kitchen running entirely on wood heat. They provide tent pads (we rented a tent for $4) and a few thatched huts, all perched on the edge of a spectacular cliff overlooking at what felt like half of Malawi. Here we rendezvoused with friends from Likoma (one of which we've been running into periodically since Pretoria and just recently said our final farewells here on Zanzibar) and made a few more. Dinner each night was served by candlelight around a tiny table and we could have stayed much longer.

A view like this...

...means a sunrise like this

On the second day we walked into Livingstonia, another two hours up the road on foot. Originally settled by the Scottish as a mission, there was much ado in various literatures about the architecture ('charming' and 'colonial' were thrown around a lot) and what we found was a long, sleepy avenue dotted with muted brick buildings and many pine trees (I've detected a strong correlation between white missionaries and pine trees and it is a mystery). Nothing revelatory – if I'd lugged my entire life up a mountain on horseback I wouldn't be in the mood to worry about ornamentation either – but pretty charming indeed. There was a small museum displaying a creepy old decaying latex anaesthesia machine.

On the walk to Livingstonia. It had just rained, and the mud was perilously slick, but this kid ripped past on his way down screaming his head off. And oh look, a view!

The other thing to do near Livingstonia is to visit the waterfalls, a twenty minutes' walk from the mushroom farm. Nearing the trailhead to the falls one undoubtedly gathers a throng of young “guides” (indispensable, really) who will lead you down a short path to the top of the falls, a swimmable pool above, and a couple of small caves behind the falls themselves. What with South Africa's drought and Victoria Falls' excess, we've been starved of some good waterfall-viewin', and this certainly fit the bill. Lots of water plunging a great distance into an amazing lush valley, with more views than you can shake a small child at.

From the top of the falls...

...and looking back.

An aerial acrobatics demonstration. The pool was about a meter deep.

These hard-working guides led me to a cave behind the waterfall.

The slogan on the Mushroom Farm's business cards is “Tired of the Beach?” Impossible, of course, but it was refreshing to get into the mountains, up where it's cooler, greener and 'humid' rather than 'muggy.' Livingstonia was our last stop in Malawi, a country that lived up to every high expectation, with possibly the world's best inland beaches, its friendliest people, and one unforgettable old boat. And we got (almost) through without mentioning Madonna.

-------------------------------------

Hey! You've made it to the end of the post!
Crazy Awesome Contest Time!

Malawi once had a president named Banda. He declared himself to the post for life, and got a little senile and did some iffy things, like commissioning a brand-new, sort of weird 'capital city' to be built next to the existing capital, Lilongwe.

He also ordered a nationwide ban on a certain song.

What was that song and why?

The first person to comment with the correct answer will receive a handmade card handwritten and addressed to you from Alanna and I (the card was not handmade by us, Malawians did it). Parents, I think you're getting cards already, so maybe leave the playing field open for now.

The game is on, Huzzah.

Lovely Likoma

2010-04-28T04:57:00.000-07:00

Teaching the local kids to be sun smart

If it weren't for the scorpion-spiders, I could have easily kicked off my sandals and settled into a lakeside hammock on Likoma Island for the rest of my life. Plunging into the lake at 7am each morning, a giant mug of coffee and two slices of French toast for breakfast, devouring books, magazines, travel guides, in and out of swim suits, walking to town, buying giant avocados and miniature bananas, games of cribbage and bao, waiting for the sun to set, the placid water reflecting the painted sky and finally the stars. We were initially concerned that we'd grow restless on tiny Likoma, sick of the set menu and sand between our toes, but after a week we learned that it's pretty hard to get bored in paradise – especially with spider-scorpions scuttling around your toes.

Hands down, the most comfortable beach chairs in the world.

Scott developed a bit of a posse of local boys during our stay. Being flung into the water was one of their favourite activities.

We call this one the Jesus, for obvious reasons.

Likoma lies a few kilometres off the Mozambican shore, about halfway up Lake Malawi – known as the Calendar Lake for measuring 365 kilometers long, 52 kilometers at its widest point, with 12 estuaries flowing into it. The island's only link to the mainland (besides dug-out canoes and local fishing dhows – neither of which have a great safety record) is the ancient, battered, but undoubtedly enduring Ilala ferry, which covers the Monkey Bay to Chilumba route once a week in either direction.

The mighty MV Ilala, running a mere 3 hours behind schedule at the time of boarding.

We boarded the Ilala at Chipoka, and purchased two first class deck tickets, which meant we'd be spending the night in the open (blissful under a blanket of stars or freezing under a thin cotton sarong, depending how you look at it). Downstairs, the economy deck was dense with farmers, traders, children, crates of empty bottles, bags of maize and cassava, basins of fish, furniture, clothing and chickens. The steamer is very much the lifeline of the lake and I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the boat were to break down or be taken out of service for any length of time. Given its age (it was assembled with parts from Scotland in the 1950s) this doesn't seem too far-fetched.

Apparently, on another sailing, they played "My Heart Will Go On" on repeat throughout the night. Probably not the best song selection given the fact that the the Ilala only has two operational life boats and was without a doubt exceeding its capacity.

Twenty-four hours later, the Ilala pulled into Chipyela Bay, Likoma Island. As there is no jetty and the water in the bay is too shallow, passengers and goods must be loaded and offloaded in the lifeboats. There's a lot of yelling and pushing and throwing, and I'm sure even if I did understand Chichewa, I would find the whole process chaotic. The boats are designed to carry a maximum of 22 passengers, but the Ilala crew seem to regard this as a bare minimum, and only when rounded out with several dozen sacks of maize and cement mix. By the time the boat is 'full' and the boatman points it towards shore, there's usually mere inches inches of clearance from the water.

One of Likoma's slogans is “Turn your watch ahead one hour and back a hundred years,” and stepping onto the beach, you feel as though you are discovering a strange and exotic land that has remained unaffected by the passage of time or the proliferation of technology. Notably, Likoma is the last place on earth with a single-digit telephone system and until recently, the only vehicle on the island was the hospital ambulance.

But Likoma's main claim to fame is its cathedral – a building as impressive as it is out of place. Built by Scottish missionaries in the early 1900's on a site previously used to burn witches, the church served as the headquarters of the Anglican Church of Malawi until 1940. It is a grand and beautifully constructed building, featuring intricate stained-glass windows, carved wooden pillars and pews, and a crucifix made from the wood of the tree beneath which Livingstone's heart is buried.

Unfortunately, we arrived on Likoma a few weeks late – mango season had just ended. The beach where we stayed was lined with mango trees, which (had they been bearing fruit when we visited) may have canceled out the scorpion-spider issue and convinced me to put down my roots for good. But there were no mangoes to be had, and the scorpion-spiders proved to be a menace I could not imagine contending with long-term.

Our beach hut teeming with scorpion-spiders

I really have been making progress with my fear of all things that creep, crawl and slither – I recently watched a man put a snake in his mouth and didn't cry, vomit, or run screaming from the scene – but scorpion-spiders? Scorpion-spiders are a whole new breed of terrifying. Like almost any animal that evokes human fear, they are ten times as afraid of you as you are of them. They are less than one hundredth your size and you can squash them with your sandal. They are virtually harmless to humans. And still... and still. When you have to go pee as many times during the night as I do, the stress of crossing the floor in the dark is too much for one woman to bear. More than once, I made Scott get up and run around the room scaring them into the corners so I could dash outside to relieve myself. I mean, LOOK AT THIS THING. If that doesn't make you whimper and recoil in fear, nothing will.

Simply horrifying

Well, except maybe this.

Scott shaved his beard! Fortunately, the end result is much more attractive than these in-progress shots, and I'm very pleased to report that my boyfriend's face is back and better than ever. However, it's good to know that he can pull off the hillbilly look, should circumstances ever demand it.

Each day on Likoma was much like the one that preceded it and like the one that followed. There were no surprises, nothing that really merited a letter home or a blog post. We went snorkeling. We drank a lot of Coke and Fanta. We played cards. We ate, breathed and slept. And yet it was one of the most memorable parts of the trip for me thus far. It was just so... nice. I probably couldn't come up with a blander, less meaningful way of putting it than that – nice is what you say about something that there's nothing else to say about – but for me that's what it was: nice. Just nice. And when it comes down to it, not even the scorpion-spiders can detract from this view.

Dreams of Zambia

2010-04-20T05:30:00.000-07:00

There's this little term thrown around over here, a concept exchanged knowingly between travelers wherever we've been, called 'African Time.' It's a simple and sort of charming notion that time just works differently in Africa, and when dealing with any kind of schedule – pick-up or departure times, opening/closing hours – things are going to be slightly more, let's say, relaxed. We've found this to be too true, and aside from companies geared specifically at uptight Western travelers (namely the BazBus), to be in a hurry in Africa is to be doomed. Minibusses always leave only once they're full, and it's uncommon to sit in one for any less than 45 minutes before it rolls out (our record is three and a half hours). The coach busses we've bought tickets for have been anywhere from an hour to three hours late. That's a long time to sit with one's luggage in a cramped van or at a bus depot, yes, but this is Africa, it's just how things work. African Time had been until recently a mildly amusing quirk of sub-Saharan culture, like the kid we saw wearing a busted soccer ball for a hat. Until Zambia, that is, where it reared its ugly, sluggish head.

Like good travelers, we bought our bus tickets from Lusaka, the capital city, to Chipata, around 700km away near the Malawi border, a day in advance. Eight-thirty departure time, be there at seven forty-five, easy, no problem. (We arrived actually at more like seven thirty-five, because that's just how good we are at traveling.) Mornings at the Lusaka bus depot are hectic and crowded, but our taxi driver dropped us off right in front of our chosen coach. One tout grabbed our bags while another led us onto the bus. A pair of Zambian men already occupied the best two seats at the front, which they were ordered to vacate so that us tourists may have the finest view. The tout insisted over our protests, proclaiming, “because this is an adventchah!” and the two evictees didn't seem too grudging, so we installed ourselves. I confirmed the departure time, which the tout said was half-past nine, not half-past eight, as we'd been told the day before. But what's an hour in Africa?

We waited on that bus for over SEVEN HOURS. Seven hours, doing close to nothing but staring onto the same patch of pavement for the temporal equivalent of a full session of secondary school, or a transatlantic flight, or four feature-length films. It's important to note that the bus sat idling as we boarded, and remained so the entire day, tauntingly, as though it would leave at any second.

Over the course of the SEVEN HOURS, these are the events that occurred:

Someone handed me a baby.
Since there is more than one bus company at a time bound for one destination, we watched the mob of bus touts and their scary-aggressive tactics in convincing undecided customers to board their respective vehicles. This includes much yelling, shoving, the grabbing/dragging of limbs and luggage, often borderline physical abuse aimed both at each other and at potential passengers. Needless to say we were relieved to have bought tickets in advance.
At 8:30 sharp the driver appeared, sat down, and got nice and comfortable behind the wheel, only to nudge the bus sideways a foot at disappear again, the tease.
We were subjected to plenty of Christian programming (“the woman's role in the household is that of a helper”) through ear-stabbingly small speakers.
We turned down a multitude of hawkers who came onto the bus selling everything from electric razors to lollipops to large framed mirrors.
Alanna (ever the daring one) ventured out and peed three times. I only went once. She also located us some meat pies, the only thing we ate all day aside from unsweetened oatmeal that morning. (Have you ever had sugarless oatmeal? It's an atrocious food.)
One of the touts came onto the bus to demonstrate Zambian dancing and to discuss the American method of dancing of standing with one's arms crossed and bobbing one's head, which he could still pull off much better than I.
On one of her urine trips Alanna met two Zambian men whose cunning icebreaker was, “hello! Do you only like white men?” Later when she was reading under a tree across the road they came by to chat, and offered her a free cola. She promised she'd say goodbye to them before we left, she did not keep her promise.
The woman sitting across from us dispensed a superhuman amount of breast milk into her baby (the one I'd held, though she was not the one to pass it to me – the passing around of babies by strangers is common practice in Africa). We were exposed to a single, yet entirely odour-free, diaper-changing.
I took a total of zero photographs.

Ready for the clincher? The bus DID NOT LEAVE. EVER. Over the course of the day we learned the bus would only leave when full (hence the touts' desperate measures for gaining passengers), and those in charge, after seven hours of presumably hanging around with their fingers crossed, had decided that a trip to Chipata wasn't likely before nightfall. We were informed of this just before three o'clock in the afternoon.

A fellow disgruntled passenger who was going to be very, very late for a job interview took us under her wing and negotiated for our tickets to be transferred to a different company's bus, one that was full enough to leave that day. Within ten minutes we were on a different coach, I on a heap of luggage in the aisle, as they'd run out of seats (After an hour on the road I did get to sit down properly, but the air conditioning was broken and I endured much of the ride with cold water dripping from the overhead vent onto my crotch).

The seven-hour trip took ELEVEN HOURS. The only point of interest on the drive was a refreshment stop at a long row of stands piled with Zambia's favourite road-trip snack, some form of dried spatchcocked fish. This is where I took the second of our two photos to remember Zambia by:

The coach pulled in to Chipata at 2am (we'd scheduled, doe-eyed that morning, for a 4pm arrival). Alanna had researched a scenic guesthouse for us, but we basically let our cab driver take us wherever he darn well pleased as long as there was a mattress. He dropped us at a sparkly chain motel with remote-control air conditioners. Our bodies and luggage had taken on the scent of dried fish during the voyage, but it all seemed natural, somehow.

And you might ask, "what's your other photo from Zambia? Adorable children? Memorable African architecture? A sunset? At least a sunset!"

Of course not:

Trains, Touts and an Invisible Wonder of the World

2010-04-14T15:27:00.000-07:00

Back in Bulawayo following our sojourn at Great Zimbabwe, Scott and I may very well have purchased the cheapest first class rail tickets in the world. At $10 US apiece, we reserved a private 'coupee' compartment for the 12-hour overnight journey to Victoria Falls. The bus could have gotten us their in a third of the time, but speed and efficiency be damned, we were going to arrive in style.

After a long and sleepless night next to the sink-toilet.

Arriving at the station after dark on the night of departure, it became very apparent very quickly that we had not in fact scored the deal of the century. Once we found our compartment (we only got it wrong, maybe, four or five times?), we had to dig our headlamps out of our bags to see what it actually looked like. Chartreuse and white speckled paneling covered the walls to almost-match the hospital green mattresses on the beds that folded away from one wall. On the opposite side, in the corner, was some sort of metal receptacle, which we deduced was not a toilet but a sink that happened to smell suspiciously of urine. Not surprisingly, the tap, like the light switches, did not work and probably hadn't since the 1970's – a time when 'Rhodesian Railways' (their insignia is still everywhere) wasn't horribly out-of-date.

Aside from spotting an elephant at Hwange sometime around 6am (our first Big Five! Very exciting!), the train journey was fairly unremarkable. It was cold, there were a few cockroaches, and when I couldn't sleep, I tried to list all fifty states. I couldn't. We arrived in Victoria Falls around 11am, just four hours behind schedule – not bad, if our more recent experiences are anything to go by.

Walking out of the station, we were struck by just how different the town was from anything else we'd experienced in Zimbabwe up to that point. There were sprinklers watering manicured lawns, Land Rovers cruising up and down the main drag, and a large, unsightly travel/shopping/restaurant complex mimicking the style of Great Zimbabwe. What wonders tourism can do for a place.

Ambling around with our backpacks and guidebook, it didn't take long for the touts to spot us and come running over, waving billion dollar bills and salad spoons at us. After Coffee Bay and Hogsback, I had thought that we were reasonably well-versed in hassling, haggling and the art of saying no, but until we met the relentless 'artists' of Victoria Falls (everyone we met claimed to be a carver or a weaver or a painter), we really had no idea just how persistent, constant and intense the harassment could be. Once safely inside the gates of our hostel, we were reluctant to leave – they were quite literally waiting on the other side for us to come out.

But after half a day sparring with pool noodles and downing soft drinks (in the bizarre and unfortunate absence of fruit juice, we've been getting our liquid calories almost exclusively from Coke and Fanta) it was time to get out and see the falls that give the town its name. We headed out early and managed to avoid too much hassle, but at the gates to the park were met with a competitive bunch of raincoat-renters, all vying for our $3/coat. Trying to be fair, we split our business between two different guys, only to be told that it all goes in one pot. I guess that's just how they do things in Victoria Falls – relentlessly, competitively, desperately.

Livin' it up with Livin'stone.

Mostly, this is what we saw.

For a brief moment, the mist cleared and we were able to snap this shot. Ooh! Aah!

Once suited up in ultra-chic head-to-toe yellow plastic, the deluge began. It wasn't so much that the heavens opened up as that the water crashing down over the falls was sent splashing skyward and back down on our heads. Apparently, viewing the falls at the tail-end of the rainy season does have its drawbacks – there is such a thing as too much water and the spray made it nearly impossible to get a clear view of the falls. But the $20 park fee wasn't a total waste – we got a shower with unparalleled water pressure, and were treated to a highly entertaining display of monkey acrobatics.

The next day, we crossed the Zambezi, leaving Zimbabwe behind for good. I wish that I could urge people to put aside their reservations about this country and discover it for themselves, but having seen what tourism has done for the one corner of the country whose international reputation has not diminished under Mugabe, I hesitate. Zimbabwe needs your tourist dollars desperately (just ask one of the dozens of so-called artists) but in our experience, the best part about Zimbabwe (Vic Falls excepted) is the virtual non-existence of tourists. In most of the country, people are friendly, sincere, and eager to help out, not because they want to make a buck or sell you their wares, but because that's just how you treat guests. So go to Zimbabwe, explore its ancient ruins, discover its stuck-in-the-50's cities, meet its charming people – just keep it on the down-low, it would be a shame to see the country become one big adventure mall.

Next stop, Zambia!

Great Zimbabwe

2010-04-12T02:57:00.000-07:00

As well as being the country's namesake, the ruins of Great Zimbabwe are supposed to be the nation's second-most visited attraction, next to the tourism behemoth of Victoria Falls. That may be so, but in keeping with our experiences in Bulawayo, we didn't exactly have to sweat over other foreigners crowding our photos. Lodging within the park consists of double-bed huts, dormitories, en-suite chalets, and a campground, all spaced generously across manicured lawns with views of the ruins; and fives minutes towards the main road sits a four-star hotel with white-linen restaurant, bar, tennis court and swimming pool. There was a large village's-worth of beds available in all, but aside from a brief conference of some sort at the hotel, our only neighbours among all this accommodation was one other young couple with a tent. Needing a kitchen to reheat our can of curry, we ended up in a spacious chalet that along with a stove (which we only used once) had two bedrooms and a television. We've grown accustomed to the twenty-square-foot life of dorm-hopping and by no means needed the space, but the ability to scatter our meagre belongings across the surfaces of three separate rooms was a luxury in itself. I had a candle-lit bath. The TV had only one channel, the Home-Videos-Of-Church-Sermons Superstation.

Why this amused me? I don't know. It's a flaming billy club!

We welcomed Great Zimbabwe's sprawling emptiness, aside from the tinges of pity towards the armies of idle hospitality staff and overalled men raking the same patch of soil day after day. Though the term doesn't usually bring to mind anything outside Europe, GZ is indeed a medieval city, dating back almost one thousand years, and is the largest ancient structure in sub-Saharan Africa, home to 20,000 at its peak. Research shows the sophisticated structures were built by the local Bantu people of the area (though colonial authorities of yesteryear were eager to prove otherwise) and there is much evidence pointing to healthy trade routes through Mozambique and beyond – a museum displays ornate artifacts from India, Persia and China, all excavated from the ruins. Also in the museum are a set of treasured soapstone birds, one of which is reproduced on the country's flag. Their significance as national emblems was offset somewhat by their being modestly propped within a dim, stuffy papier-mache 'cave' diorama, dead moss glued to the walls.

Watch out, mid-century British man!

The ruins themselves are epic. Divided into two 'enclosures,' one laid whimsically on the peak of a huge stone 'whaleback' and the other more bulky and spread out within a valley, they satisfy all the criteria for a good castle romp: winding passageways, narrow doors, and the sense that you're the first to move among their walls in centuries. What differentiates Great Zimbabwe from similar European structures is their classification as 'free-stone,' meaning no mortar or sealant was used in their construction. Everything we explored was built of stacked, free-standing granite, at times two meters thick and eleven meters high, and all we had for company were a community of blue-tailed lizards and more loftily dropped baboon dung.

Making use of the natural landscape in the Upper Enclosure

Poo with a view

While the state of Zimbabwe's tourism economy sometimes overshadows the sights themselves (in commenting about our visit since, “we were all alone!” is often the first thing from out mouths), visiting the ruins was an affirmation of what the country has to offer – we visited a solid, world-class attraction, with a singularity and historical resonance that no game lodge or snake park can match. So please, come to Zimbabwe! And maybe do a little littering while you're here, or scuff a footpath at least – tell the groundskeepers Scott sent you.

While waiting in a minibus this guy wanted his photo taken, so here he is.

Into Zimbabwe: Bulawayo

2010-03-30T11:08:00.000-07:00

We had no kitchen at our accommodation in Bulawayo, where we spent the first of our days in Zimbabwe, so we were often looking for places to eat. In areas of Africa less touched by tourism, sit-down restaurants are scarce, most eateries being of the take-out variety: bare concrete floor, stainless steel counter and rarely more than a Coca-Cola poster for decor. Many had good-sized menu boards on the wall with a wide variety of options, all for $1-$3 a serving: meat pies, beef stew, vegetable curry, samosas, and sadza (stiff porridgey maize meal, an African staple). But whenever we stepped up and tried to order off said menu, the woman behind the counter would look at us like we were out of our minds.

“We don't have it.”

“What do you have?” We'd ask.

She would then have a quick exchange with a man in the back room.

“Chicken and chips?” She'd say.

Chicken and chips, chicken and chips, chicken and chips. Regardless of what the menus show, apparently all Zimbabweans eat is chicken and chips, meaning a piece or two of anemic fried chicken and some soggy fries, freed at last from their heat lamp and stuffed into clear plastic bag. The one time we decided to eat at a sit-down place (you know, with tables, chairs, laminated menus, etc.) we told our waiter after he'd brought our drinks that we'd like to order food as well. He got a bit frantic and scared, ran to the kitchen, and came back saying, “here's what I can get you– I can get you chicken, some pieces of fried chicken... and some chips on the side. Yes?”

Disregarding the argument of whether these menus should stay posted, I assume they at one time more accurately reflected the repertoire of the establishments upon whose walls they were nailed. This is Zimbabwe, however, and while the situation has improved plenty, the menu boards above Bulawayo's take-out counters are evidence that, possibly in more stable times, the veggie curry was once available. In the same way, there is evidence of a once-healthy tourism economy in Zimbabwe: outside our hotel, a safari company's sandwich-board advert had been given a permanent home hidden behind the locked grate of a neighbouring doorway. On the highways we passed countless disused rest-stops, their picnic tables and garbage bins shrouded in overgrowth; in the tourist-info pamphlet rack there sits a fantastic brochure for Zimbabwean golf which likely hasn't been moved since 1973, and in the three nights we spent at our two-storey, fifty-room hotel right downtown, we were utterly alone.

In the courtyard at Berkely Place

People evidently just don't go to Zim without a reason. Prior to going ourselves, we'd met only three people who'd crossed its borders: a young woman who was born there and had gone with her boyfriend to visit relatives (fair enough), and one other Irish fellow who'd been on the road for over a year, traveling overland all the way from Europe (and who was contentedly riding minibusses with a backpack the size of a Frigidaire, therefore fitting into the 'crazies' category and needing no reason). President Mugabe's reckless tampering and the country's general economic and political woes have tagged the country as one best avoided. And as many a local will eagerly relay, this was true as recent as 2008, when inflation peaked at five billion percent (someone please explain to me how that is possible) and the supermarket shelves were barren. People are happy to complain about Mugabe, and use similar rhetoric to folks at home complaining about any disfavoured Western politician. “This is a peaceful country,” is what we heard time and time again, and while we're sure life in Zimbabwe is not all singing and dancing, as tourists we experienced a country as easy, friendly, and pleasant as one could hope for.

Upon arrival in Bulawayo, one of the first things that struck us was the money: since the Zim dollar is altogether worthless (more on that to come), the country now runs on US currency. We were armed with mint-fresh notes from home, but the first domestic bill we received (as change for a serving of chicken and chips, of course) was the soggiest, most worn out little one-dollar we've ever seen. The date said 2006 but it looked like it had spent the last four years taped to the forehead of a coal miner. While US money is dominant, no American coins are used – we received South African change, eight Rand going into one dollar. To help with the confusion, many stores accept Rand as well, the exchange rate varying from 7:1 to 10:1.

That extra year can make all the difference!

Bulawayo is striking in that the city has apparently undergone zero development since the 1950's. I'm no expert, but the entire downtown core hearkens to a single era of architecture, with little modification over the years. Boxy buildings, rarely extending higher than six or seven storeys, are graced with evocative art-deco lettering, and the double-wide boulevards are lined down the center with turquoise lampposts. In amongst the time-capsule edifices are a few Victorian buildings from the Southern Rhodesia gold-boom years (Zimbabwe has only been called so since 1980). At the edge of the city sits a mammoth relic of a power station that, while apparently plagued with mismanagement and inefficiencies, sure looks cool. The freshest and most contemporary additions to the city are the beer ads.

Whether or not said ads can be erected level is another story

We took a train from this station. More on that soon!

If the company we kept at our hotel was any indication, it's safe to assume we were the only travelers in the entire city. There is not a great deal to do in terms of traditional sights, but we did make it out to the Bulawayo Railway Museum, behind the train station. Neither Alanna nor I have ever been ones for steam engines, but it was good fun, and pleasing in how it differed from anything similar at home. One of the museum's most significant possessions is the luxury rail car used by our pa l Cecil John Rhodes in his travels around the country. Given the man's stature no expense was spared, and the car remains outfitted with piles of original silverware and crystal. The car's value must be astronomical, and we would have been satisfied simply gazing into the windows, but the museum's 'acting curator,' a guy my age, produced a key, and led us through a casual tour of the car, encouraging us to touch or pick up anything we pleased. Any such exhibit at home would have been sequestered with velvet rope, but in Zimbabwe, Rhodes' most precious cutlery is fair game.

After the Rhodes car, the curator left us alone to snoop around the acre-plus yard of train cars and engines on our own. Some were locked, some weren't – we were permitted to wander as we pleased, force doors open, and climb over things. I wouldn't doubt that we browsed the best and biggest large-scale train collection on the continent, and in terms of bang-for-buck and pure explorability one would be hard-pressed to find an equal anywhere. Many a four year-old would have thought they'd died and gone to heaven, and there there's something alluring about big weighty machines that even a flimsy art student like me can't deny.

As far as food goes, we did manage to find some more diverse meals, including a very decent fast-food pizza chain that had – gasp – a vegetarian option (though the chicken and chips thing still plagues us, we're in Malawi now and thought we were ordering shawarmas for lunch today but received what was basically chicken and chips with fancier seasoning). Bulawayo was the first real instance of us being without certain amenities we'd become used to on our travels: namely any form of self-catering kitchen, or hot showers, or toilet paper in the bathrooms, or cheese in the supermarkets (we are going to miss you, cheese!). I felt we were on the brink between the “well-established backpacker circuit” form of traveling and something different – 'harder' may not be the right word, but at least more alone, more expected to step out of our comfort zone a smidgeon. But who am I kidding, there was fast-food pizza, so really, how hard can it be?

Black, White and Gold: Johannesburg in a Day

2010-03-27T12:01:00.000-07:00

In South Africa, just about everywhere you go, the word on everyone's lips seems to be 'crime'. Crime in the cities, crime in the country, crime with guns, knives and fists, sex crime, gang crime, war crime...You begin to wonder what people would talk about at the dinner table if it weren't for rape and homicide. You also begin to wonder how much of this dinner-table gossip has directly contributed in the erection of high cement walls trimmed with electrical fencing, and how much of it might well be entirely unnecessary.

Nowhere is the topic hotter than in Johannesburg, where the extremes of poverty and wealth compounded with the ubiquity of illegal firearms make for an often deadly combination. Although we remain skeptical that Johannesburg is in fact overrun with gun-toting criminals who would kill for an iPhone, we were swayed by the stories of fellow travellers (some of whom were mugged before even leaving the train station) and decided to base ourselves in Pretoria, about 50k from the madness.

With its colonial government buildings, wide tree-lined avenues and malls teeming with moneyed teenagers and familiar brand names, Pretoria did have a safe, sedate feel. Walking in the suburbs, passing the dignified embassies of Algeria, Slovakia and Singapore (Canada's was a mauve, stuccoed eyesore straight out of Richmond, BC) you couldn't possibly feel further from harm. But aside from the city's graceful gardens and buildings, and a handful of uninspiring museums, our attention was inevitably drawn to its louder, more vibrant and extravagant neighbour: Jozi, Jo'burg, eGoli – Johannesburg.

Given all the negative things we'd heard about Jo'burg (and the fact that we lacked our own transport) we opted to stretch our budget and sign up for an organized tour. Not ten minutes in, we were regretting our decision, as our tour guide – a doddering Afrikaaner woman who had apparently been in the business for 25 years – turned out to be about the least informed 'local expert' one could possibly imagine. Half of the things she told us either came from the tour brochure or were written on a plaque right in front of us. It was like like paying $500 for a university course, only to be read to from the textbook by someone with a PhD in the subject. However, we did have to give her credit for knowing where all the stars stay when they come to Johannesburg – and for having an (almost) close encounter with Richard Branson.

Despite our guide's inability to tell us a single thing we didn't already know, and her blatant disrespect for, well, just about everything, she did serve her purpose of getting us to the sights and home again. First, we visited the Hector Pieterson museum, which commemorates the struggle for equality, with particular attention paid to the role that youth played. In June 1976, school children in Soweto marched to the police station to protest against the implementation of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in their schools. More or less completely unprovoked (accounts differ – some argue that the children captured/beat/set fire to a police dog) police opened fire on the children. In about fifteen minutes, 23 children were shot and killed, including Hector Pieterson, a 13-year old boy who became an icon of the struggle when this picture was published in newspapers around the world.

A few blocks away from the museum is Nkagane street – the only street in the world where two Nobel Prize winners have lived (Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu). The Mandela home has been turned into a museum, where tourists can wander through rooms showcasing photos and memorabilia of South Africa's favourite political family. Of particular interest are the letters between Nelson Mandela and his daughters Zeni and Zindzi, and certificate from the CIA apologizing for their part in his arrest and subsequent 27 years of imprisonment.

Both museums offered sobering insights into South Africa's turbulent past, but for us, the most affecting experience came late in the day at the Apartheid Museum. Deliberately constructed to reflect the sombre, restricted atmosphere of apartheid, visitors enter the museum through either the 'Blankes' or 'Nie-Blankes' entrance – race is assigned at random. Scott is white and I am black. Through the first corridor, I can see and hear him, but a wall of bars separates us – whites and blacks do not mix. Reunited, we spent the next three hours immersed in the horrors of (and eventual triumphs over) apartheid. At every turn, you are confronted with candid black and white photographs of township life, shockingly racist excerpts from Nationalist Party speeches, video clips of resisters being gunned down by police. In one room, below a series of hanging nooses, you learn about the 121 political prisoners who died under apartheid rule, many of them at the hands of the authorities who created cover-up suicide stories to mask the true circumstances surrounding their deaths. Despite feeling a bit overwhelmed with information (the museum spans about 300 years of compelling history) it is the personal accounts of those who lived it that resonate for long after you leave the museum. You can't help but be absolutely awe-struck by their perseverance in the face of such crushing oppression. You also can't help but be similarly awe-struck by how long it was allowed to continue, finally coming to an end a mere 16 years ago.

Regardless of Johannesburg's reputation for brutality and lawlessness, there's no denying that it's the country's – and perhaps the continent's – epicentre. People aren't leaving the city, they're flocking to it. Long after the gold mines (which were the city's initial raison d'etre) have closed, people from all over Africa continue to be drawn to Jo'burg, for its reckless consumerism, its vibrant arts scene, its endless possibilities. Sixty years after Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu opened the country's first black law firm here, in a society divided along racial lines, Johannesburg has emerged from apartheid a complicated city, scarred, but forever promising.

Durban

2010-03-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

If this entry comes off as coloured slightly in the negative, it is possibly only partly the fault of the city – in Durban we had to endure the final in a series of camera woes, where we were charged R200 to be told Alanna's year-old Canon (which she'd carried from Port St. John's, where it came in contact with a very mischievous Indian Ocean) was basically unfixable. Alas. We've since shelled out for a new one and the photos will resume as we get up to date. Since we have no photographic evidence of Durban, I'll throw in some random photos of the trip so far, and we can all pretend they're relevant.

In Cape Town, in the Castle of Good Hope Prison. All the wooden beams in the cells were covered with delightfully typographic carvings, and were often not without a sense of humour.

In Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Cape Town. A botanist with some family issues?

We both knew little about Durban before embarking on our trip, but over the course of our journey it has earned itself a mediocre reputation, and looks to be hot on Joburg's heels as the least safe place in the country – the big wall-map at our hostel had suggestions of where not to go. Much of the tourism literature markets the city as a beach-time summer-fun city, less for backpackers and more for those with a vehicle and a family and an eye on resort accommodation. The city sports an urban beachfront in the tradition of Waikiki and Miami Beach, and dolphin imagery abounds.

Ostrich eggs at the supermarket in Outshoorn, the 'Ostrich Capital of the World.' R29 is about $4.

In Cango Caves, Outshoorn. Crawling through tiny holes very far underground, lots of fun!

Behind the beach, the downtown core is a dense grid of drab apartheid-era office towers, dusty Victorian architecture, and a significant (so we're told) number of Art Deco buildings, in all stages of repair and lack thereof. Like every South African hub, Durban is in the midst of a comprehensive facelift prior to the World Cup – most noticeably in the renaming of streets to reflect a more historically representative nation. Bid adieu to the anglo comforts of Alice Street and Point Road, say hello to Masabalala Yengwa Avenue. The marathon-long blocks are crammed with tiny businesses, and, as is common in these parts, those unable to afford retail space simply set up shop in the gutter. Opposite the supermarket a man had established his own, and on a shanty plywood table was milk, cheese and other perishables laid out in the 28-degree urban swelter. Cell-phone faceplates seem to be big business, and often we passed young guys on the sidewalk holding a single leather belt or polo shirt, ready for barter.

In Storm's River, among the drab general stores and tourism facilities there was a storefront dedicated solely to some guy's Cadillac collection.

A bathtub at the edge of a cliff at our hostel in Hogsback, a strange Tolkien-themed town way up in the forest. There was a drought and we'd have felt bad filling it up.

For those less keen on sandcastles, Durban's claim to fame is its Indian population, the largest outside of India. The city's novelty dish is 'bunny chow,' basically curry in a bread-bowl (which we didn't eat), and there are a few beautiful mosques around (which we didn't see). We spent most of our tourist hours trudging through areas we ought not to be, grappling with an info-booth clerk's incorrect directions to the pick-up point for a city tour (which we didn't find). The only real worthwhile thing we had time for was the Victoria Street Market, a two-storey curio mecca in a bland pinkish building. Apparently, the original market had a little more historical pizzazz, but became too unsafe for tourists, though the new one is still rather close to one of our hostel's no-go areas. Inside we browsed dunes of souvenirs: an endless maze of Big Five carvings and salad spoons. One can only hope whoever makes all this stuff is earning a fair wage. The rules of African retail apply, and if the stall owners were any more coercive they'd have lassos. We explored the less foreigner-centric fish and meat market next door, but the four-dozen-too-many severed sheep-heads on display (skin on, skin off, your choice!) made our visit somewhat brief.

At Bulungula we met Evan from Hamilton, Ont. who was in the process of fashioning a cribbage board with scrap wood and a hand-drill.

Stoney Ginger Beer is our carbonated beverage of choice in Africa. Spicy ginger bite, beats Canada Dry tenfold! They often come in reusable silkscreened glass bottles like the old days.

So that was Durban. I feel we didn't completely give it a fair chance, but even if we did, my guess is that the city's most appealing sides would reveal themselves only in the company of an experienced local. For us it was the place that stole our cameras away, the place that overcharged for minibus rides, the place where not even the tourist-centre staff seemed to understand the bewildering city grid.

Up to the Roof

2010-03-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

Southern Drakensberg

It hurts to say goodbye to the beach, but if it means installing yourself at the foot of the most badass mountain range in the world for a few days, well, wounds heal fast. I speak of the Drakensburg, a crescent of mountains which spoon the northeastern edge of Lesotho. While unassuming on a map, the pure age of these mountains reduces us twenty-three year-olds to mere specks in space and time. In a day's walk one can find dinosaur footprints in the hills, Bushman rock art in the caves, rainbow trout in the rivers (introduced by homesick Scottish settlers, natch) and the firepits of marijuana smugglers hiking their loot overnight into South Africa – basically all of prehistory up until, let's say, fifteen minutes ago. Before passing into Lesotho proper, we stayed at a backpackers' called Sani Lodge just outside and, because we can smell a bargain when we see one, settled into a three-night package deal which included all meals and a couple guided tours.

And we're barely at the top!

The main draw of this corner of the Drak is Sani Pass, a frighteningly ill-maintained set of hairpin switchbacks that weave up the mountains to the Lesotho border at the summit. The route is 4WD-only, by law. We were lucky enough to have the tour to ourselves – just us, a beige 1970's Land Rover, and our guide Matthew. We gathered that he'd recently broken up with his girlfriend, and the day was nuanced with a subtext of loneliness and regret.

The drive to the base of the pass is scenic beyond comprehension, rippled velvet-green slopes topped with stacked plateaus of basalt and sandstone. Being proponents of self-guided travelling we came to understand the value of a tour guide – the amount of knowledge our man Matthew could emit in a single day was astounding. An evolutionary quirk, for example, dictates that the Drakensburg's foliage must burn up once every five years to stay healthy, as certain seeds won't germinate without fire.

The switchbacks of Sani Pass. There was a dead horse at the side of the road.

At the top of Sani Pass, vehicle and bowels intact, we crossed the border. Once again, the shift in scenery was abrupt: the lush grasses gave way to barren rock, and stark shrubby mountains extended into the distance at unlimited visibility. We were in Lesotho (le-su-tu), the most elevated country in the world, the so-called 'Roof of Africa.' The country is completely surrounded by South Africa, but maintains a distinct and unique culture. On a stop for lunch we were met by three Basotho shepherds (the Basotho being the people of Lesotho, their language being Sesotho). The Basotho are a herding culture, and boys as young as fourteen are sent into the mountains to graze sheep and mohair goats, working alone or in pairs and living in makeshift stone huts, hours from the nearest town. Their get-up is the instantly recognizable combination of balaclava, heavy wool blanket draped over the shoulders, and galoshes, all in drab grey or brown. We saw them throughout the country, out on the hills or mounted on ponies next to the highway, and they have a timeless air about them, both grubby and dignified. One of the fellows we met played a homemade musical instrument made from string, a stick and a tin can. From their looks, one imagines them confounded by simple kitchen appliances.

All that said, I am still not accustomed to poking cameras into the faces of strangers, so I'll have to (bashfully) rely on this poached photo from a photography blog, where you'll find another informative post about the area surrounding Sani Pass.

Thanks, young shepherd! Thanks, John Queenan!

On the same tour we also had the privilege of visiting a village and popping into a local home for some homemade bread (cooked in cast-iron over a sheep-dung fire, very tasty) and traditionally-brewed sorghum beer (think very watered-down bread dough and you're getting close). Because of the short shelf-lives of such items in a landscape without refrigeration, any household with a surplus of perishables will sell them off, signaling the sale with a coloured flag outside the hut: red for meat, green for vegetables, white for beer, and yellow also for beer.

The following day we set out on a hiking tour through the Drakensburg foothills, and were once again alone with our guide. We explored the scenery and learned about the Bushmen, the true indigenous people of the area who hunted and gathered for millennia until as late as 150 years ago, when they were rendered basically extinct by white settlers and emigrating tribes from the north. While the Bushmen, or San people, lived all the way out to Namibia, The Drakensberg shelters the largest and most well-preserved collection of their paintings, and is a World Heritage Site because of it. There occurs much speculation over the paintings' intent, but the reigning theory is that they're depictions of witch-doctors' trance-fed hallucinations. In keeping with early rock art elsewhere, they look to be hunt fantasies – fat, healthy animals, in this case eland, pursued by armies of muscular men. Being somewhat of a big-game enthusiast myself, I got hot under the collar just looking at them, and had to go dip my head in a creek.

On the hike we spotted three species of antelope, they all looked basically the same but our guide was excited.

Lesotho

The taxi rank at the foot of Sani Pass is a decomissioned trade station from when the shepherds would bring their wool down on horseback in exchange for goods. This occurred until the 80's, now the wool is transported directly to Durban, the nearest city.

For most people one trip up Sani Pass is enough, but we did it doubly – first in a Land Rover, spacious, and with snack breaks; and two days later, crammed into a rickety van with our backpacks and fourteen other people. While Sani Pass is a scenic and thrilling tourist attraction (I've so far neglected to mention the “The Highest Pub in Africa” waiting for foreigners at the summit), it is also a functioning border post and the most viable way in and out of Lesotho for many of its residents, who travel to nearby Durban for supplies. The minibus taxis running up and down the pass are outfitted with four-wheel-drive, but they do lack the turning radius of the SUVs, and we had to pull three-point turns around some of the switchbacks, reversing tooth-clenchingly close to the precipice. Through customs at the top, we were met with women selling homemade balls of bread and maize porridge. The summit of Sani Pass is barely a kilometer away from the highest point on the continent south of Kilimanjaro, and it was foggy and vaguely Mongolian.

We came to spend over a week in the country, for the first time relying solely on the local minibusses to get around. We slept everywhere from a local Farmer's Training Center to an prim thatched-roof guest cottage, to a puzzling B&B in a building that would have passed for abandoned had we not known otherwise. We did feel Lesotho lacks the tourism infrastructure of its lone neighbour, especially for those without their own transport. But who can blame them, as the country gets few visitors – many travelers opt to visit Swaziland, South Africa's other doughnut-hole country, instead. Accommodation was ill-marked and restaurants were scarce, and there was often just not that much to do for a couple of budget sightseers as us.

Sunrise over Mokhotlong

Morija Guest House

Though whatever Lesotho lacks in conventional sights, it makes up for ten-fold in its friendliness and its people. While we met many wonderful folk in South Africa, the country can't rival Lesotho in the almost unanimous warmth and openness of its citizens. From a bumbling tourist's perspective, the sight of a determined group of young men marching with conviction in your direction (in a large, dirty, overwhelming African capital city, no less) is supposed to be a signal to flee. But in Maseru, after we'd unveiled our guidebook to get our bearings, the men tromped up and proclaimed, “why are you looking at that book when you could so easily be asking us?” Each member of the group introduced himself with a handshake, and we received a set of clear and eloquent directions, and they offered their phone numbers if we happened to lose our way again. Each time we wore a lost look, someone would abandon their post to help us on our way, and all we had to do at the minibus ranks was show our pale Canadian faces and we'd be asked our destination and guided to the correct vehicle.

A Mokhotlong taxi rank, under one of Lesotho's spontaneous and short-lived storm-clouds.

The bad news is that I decided to abandon my camera on one such minibus, and, with Alanna's out of commission from water damage, we are short on photographic evidence of this pretty little country and the dinosaur footprints, crazy spiral plants, and god-awful breakfasts contained therein. It is depressing how much the lack of a little piece of electronics can hamper one's experience of a place, but at least we were without in Lesotho, a country that, while admittedly not all photogenic all of the time, left its indelible mark in other ways.

Bulungula

2010-03-01T08:38:00.000-08:00

When you're traveling for six months in Africa, and simply updating your blog sets you back about eight dollars, you're constantly on the look-out for ways to save a few bucks. So when we heard that Bulungula Lodge offers free first night accommodation to those arriving by public transport, we jumped at the opportunity. The hostel staff in Coffee Bay (our departure point) were skeptical that it could be done, but with a simple set of directions sent to us by the staff at Bulungula, we hailed our first ride with confidence.

I should probably clarify what I mean by 'public transport' for those of you who might, like I did, mistake it for an organized, safe and comfortable way of getting from point A to point B. When it comes to public transport in South Africa, organization, safety and comfort are all quite literally foreign concepts. There are no timetables, formal stops, regulations about baggage or alcohol consumption, and certainly no capacity limits. You will never see a 'Bus Full' sign here. What you will see are customized vehicles emblazoned with things like 'Thanks God!' and 'Shut Up!' careening around pot holes at break-neck speed blaring everything from gangster rap to gospel. And unless you're claustrophobic or you really have to pee, it's really not a half bad way of getting around.

The first two minibus trips were surprisingly quick and painless. Disembarking at the taxi rank in Elliotdale, we were greeted by two lively Xhosa men who were extremely eager to take us to Nkanya (the closest town to Bulungula) non-stop, straight away, for the low price of R400 (about $60). Unfortunately for them, we're not as gullible as the colour of our skin would have them believe, and after telling them that R400 was much too much several times, they released my bag and let us find our own way. In the end, the two-hour trip cost us R25.

Nearing the end of the terribly-maintained rural road to Nkanya, the driver asked us where exactly we were trying to get to. When we told him Bulungula, he informed us that we should have gotten off a long time ago, that it was too far to walk, and that there was no transport that could take us there. He knew nothing of the river we were supposed to cross, or the ferry that allegedly operated there. Not wanting to abandon two clueless tourists on the side of the road, he called his friend, who thankfully knew a bit more about the area, and assured him that we had not in fact gone too far, and that we were still very much on track. From the end of the road, we need only hike a kilometre down the hill to the river, where we would be met by the eskepeni (ferry) operator, who would point us in the direction of the lodge.

When we got to the river, there was no sign of any type of conventional ferry, and the only people around were two very energetic kids monkeying about in a nearby tree. When Scott asked them if this is where the ferry came, they said 'yes'. When Scott asked them if he should just shout for the ferry, they said 'yes'. It quickly became apparent that the answer to every question was going to be 'yes'. Thankfully, after less than five minutes of wondering what to do, a boy seemingly sprung from the reeds on the opposite riverbed, waved at us and pushed a rowboat into the water. When he first reached us, he seemed like a very serious, diligent little ten-year-old, but once he'd ensured that we were safely in the boat and that the mud had been cleaned off my sandals, he became very chatty, albeit mostly in a language we did not understand. By the time we left him, about all we had ascertained was that he had babies in his family, watched boxing on TV, and was good at fishing. Also, I am a girl and Scott is a boy. It was nothing short of a revelatory journey.

From the shore, it was about a forty-five minute walk through undulating green hills dotted with multicoloured rondavels, maize fields and roaming donkeys and cattle. Before we even reached the lodge, we could tell that we were going to regret our decision to stay only three nights.

We were greeted by a very bubbly and animated host, who excitedly showed us around the property, making stops at the paraffin-powered rocket showers, the composting toilets and the rain-water collection system. It seemed as though every form of natural energy was being harnessed, and that the environmental impact of the lodge was very consciously being kept to a minimum. In fact, from the very beginning, we could tell that Bulungula was hands down the least intrusive (socially, culturally, environmentally) place we had stayed and almost seamlessly integrated with the place and its people. Literally, figuratively, and in the best way possible, it was miles away from anything we had experienced.

Recognize this guy? All the photos in our header were taken at Bulungula, and this could very well be the same donkey that appears up there.

Our humble abode for three nights

Bulungula just seems to be doing everything right. While our hostel at Coffee Bay also claims Fair Trade accreditation and extensive community involvement, Bulungula did things a bit differently, and in our view, a bit better. While Coffee Bay created jobs for locals to clean, cook and run the hostel, Bulungula encouraged locals to create their own, by setting up their own separate businesses, running village tours, taking guests on fishing trips, or operating a restaurant. Since these are private businesses, guests of the lodge pay them directly, eliminating the middle man, and empowering them in a way that I don't think is fully achieved by employing them as housekeeping staff. The other obvious difference was that the lodge was physically within the village. There were no gates or barriers separating the tourists from the locals – village children and dogs ran freely through the lodge, and guests were encouraged to wander the hills and talk to the locals (who as a community own 40% of the lodge). Notably, this was the only place so far where we were encouraged to pick up any of the local language.

Miles and miles of sand, why not practice your hand stand?

A morning dip in the Indian Ocean

On our second day, we signed up for a guided village walk, where we met some locals and developed a deeper appreciation for their way of life – much of which seems virtually unchanged for centuries. We visited the home of the sangoma (traditional healer), the headman (second-in-command to the chief) and the shebeen (the village pub, where men and women congregate to talk and drink Xhosa beer out of a communal recycled paint can). We were warmly received wherever we went, and were made to promise that we'd come back, and next time, with friends.

We were also taken to various projects either initiated or funded by the lodge. There was a lemongrass farm used for producing rooibos tea, a restaurant serving tea and pancakes, an agricultural diversification project, and most recently, an impressively-equipped and well-run pre-school. The school fees are entirely covered by proceeds of the lodge and donations, and the only requirement of enrollment is that at least one parent makes him/herself available once a month to come to the pre-school to work in the kitchen or help out as needed. It was pretty cool to step into a classroom that looked identical to one you would find in Canada, save the fact that all the posters for fruits and seasons and animals were in Xhosa (plus, you know, it was housed in a thatched-roof rondavel). 47 children aged 3-6 attend the school daily, with additional after-school programs running a few days a week for older children.

While Bulungula is probably far from most people's ideas of a utopia (clothes must be washed by hand, electricity is scarce when it's cloudy, the toilets kind of smell), you can't help but feel a sense of peace here. In the modern world, we are supposed to be increasingly connected, but when you visit Bulungula, you realize that in fact, in many ways, we are moving in reverse. When you talk to the people and see the way they live – close to the earth and each other – you'll find yourself wondering how and why we have deviated so dramatically from such a harmonious existence. Although there are no doubt problems here, you feel assured that they will not be glazed over for the benefit of tourists, and that the solutions will be both democratic and sustainable. More than anything, you will leave Bulungula with the memory of an ineffably beautiful place, and the inspiration to lead a more grounded life.

A Walk on the Wild Coast

2010-02-28T14:16:00.000-08:00

A typical skyline on the Transkei, each home with its own small crop of maize.

Whoever draws the borders in South Africa has an easy job. I assume the process is longer and more involved than simply swatting at a map with a felt pen, but all the boundaries through which we've passed, both interprovincial and international (as this entry comes to you from the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho) have been lessons in contrast. The first border we crossed (and it's the first that's most memorable, don't you find?) was from the Western Cape – home to metropolitan Cape Town, the moneyed Winelands, and the aforementioned Garden Route – to the Eastern Cape, South Africa's poorest province, and for good reason.

During apartheid years, much of the province was cordoned off as an independent nation, the Transkei: a 'homeland' where millions of black South Africans – those unable to contribute economically – were relocated, essentially making them foreigners in their own country. It was reincorporated in 1994, though the area is still over-populated, with little industry and infrastructure, and its inhabitants, mainly of the Xhosa tribe, live in traditional round thatched-roof huts. As we passed into the Eastern Cape the difference was almost immediate: the dense mountains, forests and numerous gas stations gave way to shallow hills of grassy farmland, dotted with livestock, small villages, and women with various cargo balanced on their heads. Moving into the Transkei (the old border post sits across the Kei River, literally 'trans Kei') meant another shift – less money, more huts, and even more livestock, often on the road. (A favourite joke here is the Transkei Big Five: goats, sheep, cattle, horses and donkeys.) Both Nelson Mandela and his successor Thabo Mbeki grew up in the Transkei, and the house-arrest compound where Mandela spent the final years of his sentence sits not far from the highway – we passed it on the 20^th anniversary of his release.

In the Transkei we spent our time on the Wild Coast, a section of coastline between East London and Port Edward that, with an unfortunate thank-you to its disenfranchised past, is so pristine and undeveloped one forgets they're in the 21^st century. The Africa we felt we'd been missing was finally at our toes: an endless exchange of rocky cliffs and empty beaches in both directions, with barely a four-sided building or stretch of pavement in sight. The Indian Ocean is warm, the beer is cheap, and an ATM is hard to come by.

Looking both directions on Cinsta Beach

Private 'safari tent,' Buccaneer's Backpackers, Cintsa

The cows come down to the beach in the afternoons to cool off and deter ticks, who don't like the salt in the sand. There are dogs everywhere, and if you're a well-fed Transkei dog you may be the happiest dog alive. The dogs here have owners, but no master. We often went for a walk and unwittingly brought a stranger's dog along with us. That said, there are innumerable strays, many in rough shape.

Lonely beach cow in Port St. John's

A village dog near Bulungula.

On a hike to The Gap, a rock formation not far from Second Beach, Port St. John's. On this trail we encountered people headed the opposite direction, as there is a village on top of the hill and this trail is part of their everyday commute. Beats the Massey Tunnel.

After crossing The Gap.

All our accommodation was in or near small villages, but moving between them often required a two-hour drive inland to Mthatha, the former Transkei capital, and back out again, as only hiking trails or four-by-four roads connect each stop. The towns in the area serve mainly as supply outposts for the villiages, often no more than a general store, a bottle (liquor) store and a row of grubby vendors' booths. The poverty on the Wild Coast is apparent, but the people are cheerful and welcoming, and the little tourism the area gets looks to be mostly (but not completely) beneficial.

A cloudy day at the cliffs in Coffee Bay. Goats and Donkeys graze dangerously close to the edge.

On a hike to Hole In The Wall from Coffee Bay. Our guide was Joseph, who grew up in the village and now works at the hostel, leading daily excursions to points of interest.

Hole In The Wall

Joseph bought a few fresh crayfish from some local men and cooked them over the fire. Technically they're out of season and it's illegal to catch them. Alanna and I, not wanting to be complicit in the depletion of the ocean's natural resources, only tasted a little bit.

One hostel employee in Port St. John's (you may remember him as our braai friend from the last entry) says he's been searching for a decade and he's found his paradise, there in the Transkei, next to the beach. It's easy to see why: there's a special atmosphere to the Wild Coast, a rhythm that moves through the virgin scenery and into its people and makes it a hard place to see in your rear-view. Its remoteness and its unhappy history are both a blessing and a curse, and as a tourist, despite the industry's efforts and assurances, one can't help but feel only a little intrusive. But it is a healthy feeling, I think, and merely a symptom of being somewhere so precious.

View over the hills on the drive back from Hole In The Wall.

Coals Notes

2010-02-27T11:23:00.000-08:00

Aside from Cricket and calling each other “broo,” the national pastime of South Africa has got to be the braai. All over the country we've sensed much buzz over this near-sacred ritual, and it seems to be a significant pillar in SA's national identity, an activity for all South Africans from all backgrounds to enjoy. Naturally I wanted to learn more, and of course partake in a braai myself.

Though once I got the gist of all that a braai is, I thought, guys, what the heck, that is just a barbeque, people do that all over the world, your national pastime might as well be 'doing the dishes.' And that is mainly true– for those who are unfamiliar with the term braai, a local can say 'it's a barbeque,' and things are settled. But Alanna and I have since participated in a couple braais ourselves and, while there is meat and flame and beer involved, I've picked up on a few distinctions.

Firstly, South Africans are rigourous meat-eaters, and they appreciate their meat unadorned. Both times we braaied there was nary a salad in sight, and in Knysna when a fellow traveller suggested tossing a few veggies on the grill, he was quietly ridiculed behind his back (though he did win in the end, much to Alanna and mine's quiet delight). A good braai is either solo meat or meat wrapped in a plain white roll, garnish and condiment-free. At the Knysna braai this is the only picture I managed to snap:

While hamburgers are widely consumed at restaurants, a beef patty is not for the braai. The protein of choice here is the boerwors, pronounced boor-vors, in the best Dutch accent you can muster (and not to be confused with the Boer War, fought between British colonialists and Dutch farmers between 1815 and 1914, slightly bloodier). It is a long, spiral sausage, well-seasoned, and made of pork, though I'm no expert.

Also, South Africans are passionate advocates of charcoal grilling, and wood is best. In every town we saw signs for 'braaiwood,' and the two in which we participated were over wood fires. Gas seems to be the preferred choice for indoor stoves, but a South African with any dignity wouldn't be caught dead using it for their precious meat.

The site of our second braai, In Port St. John's

Clint, our Braai-bassador at Amopondo Backpackers, gets things started.

Braai number two. We couldn't find any rolls at the supermarket so we used whole wheat loaf-bread instead. Tasted fine!

Finally, a noticeable difference between our bbq and the South African Braai – and the one I most appreciate – is the acknowledgement that such a social ritual exists within the braai at all. While Canadians and Americans gather for a barbeque to chew, chat and have a cold one, not giving it a second thought, South Africans take pride in recognizing the active cultural role such a ritual plays: the socialization and sharing that takes place, and a surrender to the feasting instinct that has manifested itself since the first human stepped out of the Great Rift Valley and speared an antelope. While a barbeque is an outdoor meal with fire, the braai is a candid prayer to the joy of food and community – and something worth ditching the relish for.

The Not So Secret Garden

2010-02-19T07:54:00.000-08:00

East of Cape Town, the stretch of coastline between Mossel Bay and Port Elizabeth is seen by some as a backpacker's paradise. A combination of hikeable parks, surfer-happy beaches and an efficient network of quality hostels make South Africa's 200k Garden Route a hotspot for beach bums, adrenaline junkies and nature lovers alike. This is where the bungee jumping, whitewater tubing and wave-riding top the to-do lists – though you certainly won't get funny looks for opting to spend the day on the patio, beer in hand. The cherry on top may well be the popular BazBus service – a daily hop-on/hop-off shuttle (with an unlimited time-frame as long as you're moving in one direction) that makes transportation a bit of a non-issue. Naturally, we moved west to east and hit some popular spots as well as some a little off the beaten path.

Our first destination was Knysna (NIZE-nuh), which is situated at the far-end of a sprawling lagoon, flanked at its entrance by two stone outcroppings known as 'the Heads'. Believing they were only accessible by car or pricey paddlewheeler, we didn't arrange to see them, but a wander to the touristy waterfront area turned into a lengthy trek and we did manage to reach this dramatic rocky gateway on foot.

The lagoon itself is pretty, though overdevelopment tarnishes the landscape some. The summer homes that crowd the shore (and the likely-mistitled Leisure Island) are also a threat to the Knysna seahorse, who makes its home in the lagoon's sea grassy shallows. There were two live specimens on display at a deli in the waterfront area, much to Alanna's delight. They are bizarre and fascinating creatures.

On the stroll home we detoured into the town's industrial district to pay a visit to Mitchell's Brewery, South Africa's largest (and possibly sole) independent brewer, hoping for a tour. It proved a little pricey – especially since we'd splurged for a scenic lunch at The Heads an hour earlier – so Scott bought a few bottles instead and settled for a poolside tasting. A couple of the beers held shades of homebrew, but it was a refreshing change from the status quo.

From Knysna, we headed to Nature's Valley, which, judging by the view from our room, is an accurate (though bland) name for the area.

While this isn't where the granola bars come from, Wild Spirit Lodge certainly did cater to the granola-eating, djembe-tapping crowd. Fresh off the hostel party circuit, the serenity and old-world hospitality were a welcome change, as were the comprehensive recycling and composting facilities.

The main draw of the area is its well-maintained network of trails through the indigenous forests of Tsitsikamma National Park. Our longest hike led us along a river and across a beach to a(nother) lagoon -- sandy, crystal-clear and full of splashing local children.

After a quick swim, we resumed our hike, forging onwards along a dried-up riverbed in a steep jungle valley. Alanna put on a brave face clearing spiderwebs, while Scott sang the Indiana Jones theme. The trail out of the valley was a grueling stepped climb under the hot mid-afternoon sun, with spectacular views we were too winded to fully appreciate.

While many hostels offer a nightly home-cooked meal for guests (at varying costs) we usually prefer to self-cater. At Wild Spirit, however, we opted to join in for their wholesome and generously portioned vegetarian curry dinner, which did not disappoint. It also gave us the opportunity to chat with some of the other guests – both locals and foreigners – discussions which, wherever we go, inevitably turn to crime, safety, and the realities of South African life. We would assume that most locals would have grown weary of such topics by now, however, the few we've spoken to have been more than willing to provide an insider's perspective on the issue. At Wild Spirit, we talked to a Capetonian currently working as a civilian pilot in Afghanistan, who had a unique perspective on the dangers of working in the Middle East (one stray bullet through his fuselage in 10 months) versus those of living in his home country (where his family, friends and co-workers fell victim to numerous break-ins and assaults over the same period).

After three great nights at Wild Spirit we hopped back on the BazBus (but not before receiving hugs from staff!) and rode to Storm's River, a mere twenty minutes along the highway. Most people we met on the Garden Route had given themselves six or seven days from end to end, whereas we had two weeks and could afford such dilly-dallying. On the way our driver slowed as we passed over the Bloukrans River bridge, site of the bungee jump, so we could have a look at the drop – all 216 meters of it - advertised as the highest in the world. There was much nervous giddying among those who'd signed up for the jump.

Storm's River Village, a single fresh-paved road with a few scattered stores at the end, seems to exist mainly for the sake of tourists and the many 'extreme' outdoor activities they're willing to pay money for. Bungees, bikes, quads, innertubes, abseiling (rapelling), and zip-lines through treetops and across waterfalls were the attractions advertised on the walls and flyer-stands at our hostel. These were all well outside our daily budget, so we again did what we're best at – we hiked to a body of water via a forest. Still within the bounds of Tsitsikamma NP, we touched down at the mouth of Storm's River, where waves against raw rock sent juts of froth hundreds of feet into the air.

Our second day we hiked into Plaatbos Nature Reserve and swam in the river. We'd seen posters advertising blackwater tubing, and now we knew the reason – because of tannins in the earth, the river was tinted a deep red-brown, and when swimming you couldn't see your feet.

While we enjoyed the natural beauty and the ease of travel along the Garden Route, at times the jewel of South Africa seemed a little too shiny, pre-packaged and tourist-geared. While a few areas we visited appeared unspoilt by tourism, many locations seemed to have been tarnished by overdevelopment and commercialization. The upside to this influx in tourists is that many locals are able to earn their livelihood on our dollar – hawking local crafts, acting as guides and providing other valuable services. However if it's fantastic scenery and culture you're after, leave the Garden Route to the surfers and skydivers and find your own piece of paradise further east along the Wild Coast – which is where we headed next.

Whites and Wines

2010-02-01T06:57:00.000-08:00

Most of what I saw in Cape Town fell into two categories: that which seemed genuinely 'African' and that which did not. Riding the southern suburbs train while a woman preached gospel and blind children begged for spare change? African. Being served souped-up veggie burgers on Long Street by a troupe of trendy white waitresses? Not. In the end, I found more things fell into the 'not' category than the African one. Waterfront mansions, French cuisine, Lady Gaga blaring from everyone's speakers – I left Cape Town wondering if I was even in Africa at all.

And then we arrived in Stellenbosch, and everything we found un-African about Cape Town suddenly seemed to epitomize Africa in comparison.

To sum up Stellenbosch in three words: everyone is white. To sum it up differently, this was where apartheid (pronounced apart-hate, not apart-hide) was conceived and it shows.

The second of the European settlements in South Africa (following Cape Town), Stellenbosch's streetscape is lined with three-century old oak trees and white-washed Cape Dutch architecture, giving the town a distinctly European feel. Add to that the fact that nearly everyone is jabbering in a hybrid of German, Dutch, French and English (Afrikaans is the only European language to ever evolve outside of Europe) and you're left feeling like April 1994 never even happened. As a fellow-hosteler commented, "It's the white man's dream of Africa.” In fact, the only blacks we saw during our stay were in coveralls, digging a ditch on the outskirts of town.

A rather boring picture of U-Stell

This was perhaps exaggerated by the fact that our hostel sat on the University of Stellenbosch campus -- allegedly Afrikanerdom's most prestigious educational institution -- and that our visit coincided with something along the lines of Frosh week. From our assessment, no one in the town is over the age of twenty-four. All the girls are thin and tan and wear exposed neon bras. All the boys are jocks who wear trucker hats and seemingly have an aversion to footwear. And they all drive shiny Volkswagens and drink copious amounts of Castle beer – often simultaneously. It's a pretty town overrun with fresh-from-the-nest youth, where you can hardly hear yourself think over the beat of the electronica emanating from 'Academia', U-Stell's student housing complex.

Despite the Orange County/Euro-rave vibe, it was easy to have a quiet, relaxed and thoroughly enjoyable stay in Stellenbosch. After all, it is the heart of the Winelands, making it easy to escape to the serenity of one of the two hundred plus wine estates for a relaxed outdoor tasting of some of the region's excellent wines in the shade of vine-covered pergolas.

Lacking private transport of our own, we opted to do a tour of the Winelands (including Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschoek) and for R300 (about $45) we were shuttled around to five wineries and were given the opportunity to taste more than twenty different wines (by the afternoon, we were feeling the effects of the high South African alcohol content, so we had to pass on a few of them). We first went on a tour of the vineyard and learned all about the wine-making process, and were then briefed on how to properly taste the wines (nose, taste, finish – that's about all I can remember). After that, it was time to start drinking.

At the Boschendal Estate

The first wine we tried was a sparkling wine made using the traditional Champagne method. When the French found out that South Africans were producing 'Champagne' and calling it so, they objected and demanded that it be re-named to reflect its origins. The wine-makers came up with an alternative name, and in South Africa, this prestigious category became known as Kaapse Vonkel (Cape Sparkle). Having tasted Simonsig's Kaapse Vonkel, I can say that it's better than most authentic Champagnes I have tried – bearing in mind that I know absolutely nothing about wine and have never purchased a bottle costing more than $20.

Our Kaapse Vonkel being opened in true Napoleonic fashion, sword-style

Another notable wine we tasted (besides my beloved Gewurtztraminer, which tasted like lychee juice) was South Africa's signature Pinotage variety. Pinotage was bred in 1925 by a professor at Stellebosch University who wanted to combine Hermitage and Pinot Noir grapes to create a grape that both produced good wine and was easy to cultivate in South Africa's warm climate. I wasn't totally sold on it, but since our guide assured us that so much of wine-tasting is subjective, I'm not about to dissuade others from giving it a try. Besides, supposedly it tastes like dark chocolate and blackberries, which sounds just lovely.

Where the magic happens

Feeling rather Okanagan

Also a highlight was the Fairview Estate in Paarl, which not only gave us six wines instead of five, but also threw in a cheese tasting! And really, Scott and I are nothing if not connoisseurs of fine artisinal cheeses. We sampled Gouda and Feta and Brie and Blue and half a dozen others and they were almost all delicious. The three Frenchmen on the tour were inclined to disagree with our glowing reviews, but as I recall they turned up their noses at the Gewurtztraminer as well, so obviously they had no taste.

And that is how we spent our time in Stellenbosch: drinking wine, eating cheese, and marvelling at young white South Africans' horrid taste in music. As for the authentically African stuff? I have a feeling it's coming, and when it does, we'll be glad we've had this time to eat, drink and revel in the comforts of what seems a lot like home -- albeit tempered by a hint of lingering colonialism.

The end

Here be Baboon Feces

2010-02-01T02:53:00.000-08:00

Simon's Town

Near the end of our Cape Town stay we popped down to Simon's Town, an hour south of the city by train, for two nights. The single-street harbour town has three claims to fame, most noticeably being home to South Africa's navy– fit, uniformed people often outnumbered pedestrians on the sidewalk. While epaulettes are pretty and all, we visited mainly for the other two: it is the town farthest south along the Cape Peninsula (and therefore closest to the Cape of Good Hope), and habitat to SA's largest and only protected colony of African Penguins.

Boulders Beach, where the penguins be, is an easy walk from town. As with most tourist pulls in the country, the parking lot was fringed with vendors behind overstocked tables of curios and souvenirs, in this case mostly penguin-related. Also present was a talented group of traditional African singers busking to an empty patch of lawn. For R35 ($5) we were permitted access via boardwalk to a raised platform overlooking the small cove the penguins call home.

We'd already seen penguins on Robben Island but these ones were more accustomed to a human presence and we could get much closer. The birds are certainly entertaining in their nonchalant, waddly way – their walk is akin to a man running with his pants down. 'African penguin' is a relatively new name for the species, having replaced 'jackass penguin,' for the mule-like braying sound they make. I'm not sure they've forgiven us yet for that one (though the sour expression they carry makes me think not). Upon arrival the viewing platform was empty, but when we left it was stuffed with tourists, and on our walk home I was happy to see the singers had an audience. We also passed through a graveyard and I found a terrifying bug.

terrifying!

The following morning we'd planned to rent bikes and ride to Cape Point. The two hostel loaners were taken so we had to procure ours from a grizzled Afrikaaner running a small bike-rental outfit from his café. His only patron was his friend, another grizzled Afrikaaner, who introduced himself as an artist, and offered to draw our portraits. A tattoo artist from next door (more leathery rather than grizzled) dropped by to point out Alanna's sunburn and warn us about the intense Cape Town sun. The artist gave me a bikini-woman drawing as a parting gift.

Our bikes were 'CaliforniaBike' brand and lacking front deraillers. The route was beautiful, every bit the raging coastline one would expect at the edge of a continent. There were a significant number of signs warning not to feed the baboons, but for all our looking we did not see a single one on the ride down. A generous amount of droppings though, mostly deposited on the tops of rocks and highway markers like dung-trophies. The ride was 20 kilometers of gradual uphill with occasional steeper sections, and at times very windy. We stopped for lunch at an info center 5 kilometers from the Cape but I think we both knew at that point we wouldn't be riding any farther. Our asses hurt.

The Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve, which we entered (for a fee) a little over halfway through our ride, is apparently home to more plant species than the entire British Isles. If so, most of these species are in bush format, and away from the coastline the landscape is scenic in a subdued, homogenous way. We ate lunch (samosas from the 7-eleven in town) and after admitting to each other we weren't eager on biking to the end, we resolved to instead walk through some dunes to a beach visible in the distance. That was too far as well, unfortunately. We turned around, refilled our waterbottles and began pedaling home. It was a day of unreached destinations.

Cape Point is visible here in the distance.

After a false alarm (a grey dog), we finally got our primate on the ride home. We stopped at a man-made swimming lagoon and Alanna was accosted by a solo baboon coming down the trail. We watched for awhile as he sat and munched a plant, alone in the wind.

a man-made swimming area, as coastal currents make open-ocean swimming dangerous.

our monkey

Upon dropping off our bikes the tattoo artist came by again and suggested a tattoo as a souvenir. He and the café-owner came off as a little bored, but pleasant people, and eager patrons of the Simon's Town spirit.

Observatory, observant

2010-01-28T07:40:00.000-08:00

Observatory

Our accommodation for most of our time in Cape Town was the suburb of Observatory, fifteen minutes from the city. It's a decidedly bohemian neighborhood and the only place we found in the city where the locals wear shorts. (I feel that most of how I look, being in Africa and all, is pretty much at odds with the locals, so at least in that small regard I was able to fit in.)

Me one hundred percent not fitting in

Backpacking in South Africa is a popular industry, and the network of hostels in the country is astounding – there were at least three in Observatory alone, all within a four-block radius. Yet outside the town's main street we barely saw any young-person travelers like ourselves.

Hostel relaxing

In all our train trips to and from the city and down the peninsula we didn't see a single person who didn't look like they were going to work, and it was strange– I don't know where all the people go (or whether they go anywhere at all).

Observatory train station (the clean end)

The food is splendidly cheap so far. We ate out almost every day in the city, spending (honestly) fast-food prices for high-quality meals. Our most expensive dinner out included an appetizer, two mains, two desserts, bottled water and a bottle of wine for $35 each, including tip. And this was a classy establishment with a clientele twice our age.

Anniversary Dinner...

Bottles of beer are $2.50 max, though there seems to be a bit of monopoly on beer and not much selection from place to place. Many have maize (Africa corn) in them. Eateries and bars, as with most of the neighborhoods we explored, seem to be pretty segregated. Even on Long Street, where things are fairly evenly mixed on the sidewalk, we ended up eating (whether intentional or not) surrounded by all white people most of the time.

One disappointment so far is the juice. The two of us being somewhat of fruit-juice aficionados and considering the tropical climate and all, we were anticipating a high-quality selection– and selection there is, with multiple fridge displays per supermarket displaying various exotic flavours, including papaya, grenadilla and lychee & pear. But most that we've tasted so far are diluted, oversweetened, and mostly grape or apple juice, regardless of the flavour on the label. Even the 'lite' juices are artificially sweetened to the point where they sting one's tongue. Same deal with produce: I'm convinced the people who live here buy their fresh fruits and veggies at some super-secret locals' market and leave the wrinkly stuff for the clueless like ourselves.

Anniversary breakfast (and the only juice photo I have)

So far, Africans are terrific litterers. On our first train-ride home from Cape Town I sat across from a moody guy my age who stuffed a handful of trash out the train window as it sat in the station. I figured him a badass for so boldly neglecting the environment – what with endangered species mere kilometers away – only to observe not two minutes later a clean-cut father essentially teaching his young daughter the same method of disposing of her popsicle wrapper. Not helping the situation are the armies of poor-looking folk hawking soda and mini bags of chips from train-car to train-car. Even since Cape Town, in the mostly-white towns, the attractive whitewashed old Dutch buildings create an illusion of cleanliness while the filthy parks and ditches tell a different story.

Deceiving clean building

Cape Town in Review

2010-01-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

Table Mountain, And Cape Town below, as seen from Robben Island

A few days ago we left Cape Town for good after a little over a week of exploring the city and its surroundings. It was a swell time for sure, and I feel we were the busiest we'll be for the majority of the trip—we hit all the major tourist pulls, a few less significant ones, and did a lot of exploring on our own. I can say with confidence we got a fair and comprehensive impression of the city.

Cape Town is nestled rather spectacularly into the base of Table Mountain, an imposing, flat-topped hunk of millenna-old rock (six times the age of the Himalayas, it is believed). South of the city extends the Cape Peninsula, at the end of which sits the most south-western point in Africa, the Cape of Good Hope. (One would think the most southern point in Africa—Cape Agulhas—would be the cause of more excitement, but apparently not.) The city began as a recharging station established by the Dutch East India Trading Company, an institution akin to a pro-slavery, musket-happy Hudson's Bay Company. The DEITC's influence is widespread and profound, including the instantly recognizable Cape Dutch style of architecture, the widely-spoken (though somewhat inelegant) Afrikaans, and the nation's love of all things sausage. The Brits arrived sometime later, spawning a whole other set of descendants who in turn threw their own habits into the cultural mishmash. Not to mention all the indigenous tribes who were obviously here first. And there are also many Muslims. SA has nine official languages, only one of which I can pronounce correctly.

Rhodes memorial, overlooking the University of Cape Town

One can't mention South Africa's past without bringing up Cecil John Rhodes, for whom, it seems, white South Africans have a huge éréction. A multi-multi-millionnaire and a righteous imperialist, Cecil seems to have owned most of southern Africa in the late 1800s, even going so far as to name two countries after himself (Northern and Southern Rhodesia, which today make up Zambia and Zimbabwe, respectively). Striking it rich in the Kimberly diamond mines, Rhodes founded DeBeers, which at its peak accounted for 90 per cent of the world's diamond production. At various points in his life, he sat as prime minister of the Cape Colony, founded the University of Cape Town (the oldest in southern Africa) and created the Rhodes Scholar program partnered with Oxford University. You can't go far in Cape Town without seeing a tribute to Cecil and his (now controversial) vision of Africa.

The Bo-Kaap

The downtown core, though not exactly beautiful, has a ragged hustle and bustle that Canadian cities simply don't achieve. We spent a lot of time (and most of our restaurant budget) on Long Street, where upmarket boutiques and eateries mingle with two-century-old mosques and bathhouses, and well-heeled trendsetters mix with shoeless children. Three blocks away sit the rows of squat pastel homes that make up the Bo-Kaap neighbourhood, a tight-knit community descended from Muslim slaves. Beyond that, further down the coast, sit a series of upper-class enclaves where whitewashed beach condos descend sheer cliffs to the windy, white-sand beaches below.

Even if the city buildings aren't pretty (though a few of them are), Cape Town is unabashedly photogenic, thanks to the backdrop of the iconic Table Mountain and the adjoining Devil's Peak and Lion's Head. Given the choice between a strenuous three hour hike up the mountain and a quick and painless ascent in a gondola, we chose the latter.

Once at the 1,000m summit, the Table's surface, though rugged, is just as flat as it appears from below, and host to a variety of flora and fauna. We came across a family of dassies – cousin to the elephant, though really more reminiscent of an oversized guinea pig – and a generous scattering of lizards. And the rocks seem so old! Not a jagged edge in sight, making our Rockies seem infantile.

A dozen or so kilometers from Table Mountain, Robben Island's barren landscape and eerie silence stand in stark contrast to the natural beauty and vibrant goings-on of the city. A leper colony, institution for the mentally handicapped, and most notably a maximum security prison that housed resisters of apartheid, Robben Island lives up to its monicker of 'Exile Island'. Once off the boat, we were given a bus tour of the island by a young man named Kent, who supplied a prodigious amount of information about the island and its former purposes. It is from the sandstone quarry where the likes of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu laboured for years that the Cape Town harbour is most visible. Afterwards we were met by a former inmate, in our case a man named Sparks who'd been convicted of 'recruitment' and 'terrorism' in the 1980's. He gave tour of the prison, including the cell block in which he spent seven years, and told stories of an activist's life behind bars.

He, along with many other ex-political prisoners, has fully reconciled with his captors and those who supported the oppressive regime that put him there in the first place. Rather than viewing the island as a reminder of a dark period in his life and South Africa's history, he sees it as a symbol of the resilience and freedom of his people. On the island we also saw African penguins, which to us are a symbol of awesomeness.

Useful plants garden, Kirstenbosch

Cape Town is the only place on Earth where you can see one UNESCO World Heritage Site from another, the first being Robben Island and the second being Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. Situated on land donated by (you know it) Cecil Rhodes, Kirstenbosch is the first botanical gardens to showcase exclusively indigenous plants.

This is made all the more exceptional knowing the Cape Peninsula and area alone makes up one of seven unique floral kingdoms in the world. (To put this in perspective, another kingdom is the Boreal Kingdom, which consists of all of Canada, Most of Europe, and Russia). The pride and joy of this unique kingdom (and of the Cape Tourism Board) is Fynbos, meaning 'fine bush', a family of plants unique to the Cape and covering much of its land. Species of Fynbos vary from fine groundcover to shoulder-height bushes to the King Protea, which features a stiff, spiny bloom, and is SA's national flower.

Camps Bay beach, Signal Hill in the background

Cape Town defied our expectations of what an African city could be, and more than once we remarked that we could see ourselves living here. Given Cape Town's numerous draws, we were a little surprised by how few tourists we encountered, but less surprised by those we did encounter who were happy to be carted from attraction to attraction, making little effort to get a real sense of the city's rhythm. Perhaps this wariness is to be expected in a city that employs more security guards and public safety officials than bus drivers or mail people. Our experience was profoundly positive and we would recommend Cape Town with confidence.

Written by Scott & Alanna

Kaapstad: The First 24 Hours

2010-01-14T20:01:00.000-08:00

Our trip to Cape Town went surprisingly smoothly. Our flights departed and arrived more or less on time, both our bags and their contents made it to their destination intact, and Gino (our cab driver) greeted us at the airport with this sign:

I had expected something to go wrong – a missed connection, a lost backpack, a cracked seat-back screen, but nothing did. Nothing that made us so much as sigh at our misfortune or sarcastically remark, “This is Africa” – nothing that put our mettle to the test.

As we drove into the city, the freeway cut through the Cape Flats – the endless cardboard and corrugated metal townships that sprawl out from the city centre – we noticed that although some of these were as decrepit and impoverished as we had imagined, others seemed less so, with cars parked in driveways beside small, sturdy looking homes made of brick. The financial divide was not as stark as we had anticipated.

We arrived at our hostel, a pleasant building with an almost heritage-y feel from the inside and a vaguely Mediterranean feel from the outside, at half past midnight. With one final waft of greasy hair and unwashed bodies we both fell asleep, only to find ourselves wide awake four hours later.

The next morning we arrived in the city and found ourselves somewhat unprepared, with no real map or destination or plan of attack. We'd taken the commuter train in from the suburb of Observatory, where the hostel is, a fifteen-minute ride for which a return ticket costs just under a dollar fifty. Our first introduction to Cape Town were the minibusses jumbled outside the station – a gaggle of privately-owned quasi-taxis piloted by young men touting what we assumed to be various destinations, jamming as many passengers as possible into their vans, and driving about with little regard for other vehicles or pedestrians. (Which, by the way, are provided only about five seconds to cross any street, making jaywalking inevitable.)

We eventually made our way to the decidedly more tourist-centric (and crosswalk-friendly) Waterfront area, which is characterized by a mix of authentic and inauthentic Victorian architecture, restaurants and a plethora of jewelery retailers. While not the type of place we wanted to hang around for too long, it did provide us with a chance to shamelessly pull out our guidebook and get a feel for where we next wanted to go, which ended up being a 17^th century castle.

For R25 (about $3.50) we were given access to three museums and were permitted to explore most areas of the castle at our leisure. The few areas that we did not have access to, we were able to see on a short guided tour that gave insight into the castle's various functions over the years (namely, torture, detainment and punishment). The castle still houses a division of the South African army and we showed up just in time to witness the changing of the guard and the discharging of a very tiny canon. The castle also features the oldest bell in Africa!

In keeping with our European theme, we picked up a baguette and some Brie on the way back to our hostel and enjoyed it on the patio before retiring for an afternoon nap, which became a 12-hour sleep until 4am the next day. At least we saved money on dinner!

With blistered feet and sunburned skin, we eagerly await day two.

Prep

2010-01-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

With all of Alanna's educational preamble, I thought I'd shed some light on what I've been doing to prepare for the big trip:

Saving Money

Since maybe the tenth grade I've been using a whiskey tube as a piggy bank, dropping a coin or two in whenever I've had some to spare. It got heavy, and in lieu of lugging it back to Victoria when we moved out, I popped it open:

Just shy of 180 bucks! not shabby.

Protecting Our Belongings

As a Christmas gift I sewed Alanna a fabric laptop case from an old sports coat. If Fagin owned a Dell, he'd be proud. Behold:

Familiarizing With Local Culture

Mainly via this link : Awesome Tapes From Africa, provided by a pal named Cody.

As far as I can tell it's a Brooklyn guy who seeks out cassettes of obscure musicians from all over Africa and makes them available on the interweb. There is a ton of stuff on here, just browsing the covers is worthwhile. I think my favourite of what I've heard is Karamoko Keita. I know everyone says the Blues originated in Africa, but a reminder every once in a while doesn't hurt.

For your dance parties, I preemptively request Ata Kak.

...And we're all ready to go! That's how it's done, folks.

FOUR Things Alanna is Excited For

2010-01-08T12:40:00.000-08:00

(Because he inspires me.... and because our relationship is sustained by friendly competition)

1. Being very, very bad vegetarians.

2. Babies. I've heard that it's common for mothers to plunk their children in the laps of strangers on cramped 16-hour minibus rides across the desert -- nothing could appeal to me more.

3. Improving my already stellar Swahili (ex. "Naweza kupata biya ndizi rafiki wa kiume mzungu wapi?" means "Where can I find banana beer for my white boyfriend?")

4. Serenading my white boyfriend with this song when I discover that despite all my research, I have booked our beach resort vacation-from-our-vacation right in the middle of what is called 'the long rains'.

Also, FOUR MORE SLEEPS.

The Things They Carried

2010-01-05T12:52:00.000-08:00

We booked our flights in August. We got out vaccinations in November. Last week, we crammed our belongings into Scott’s parents’ truck and handed over the keys to our apartment. None of it felt real until today, sitting on my bedroom floor, surrounded by small stacks of clothing, film canisters filled with medications, a travel towel of dubious absorbency. They are the only familiar things I’ll have for the next six months -- no home made dinners, no weekend paper, no iMac, no 20-minute hot showers, no jeans.

My approach to packing was simple: seek out other people’s lists, highlight good ideas, toss out bad ones (like ‘wristband wallet’ and ‘ridiculously overzealous med kit’). After all the fun I had writing my three-part series on budgeting advice, I’m almost tempted to give a blow-by-blow of the final packing list, but I think it’s best I refrain. Most of the clothes I’m packing came from the Gap end-of-summer sale or a free box in Victoria. Most of my other travel implements came wrapped in holiday paper and as far as I know, came from the North Pole in a sleigh. None of this is particularly helpful.

The one thing I will endorse here is the same thing everyone who’s ever done any backpacking will tell you: pack light. I think this becomes all the more important the less developed the countries you are visiting are, and the more you want to move around them. Given that we’re headed for sub-Saharan Africa, and plan to be on the move more days than not, it’s vital to our shoulders and our sanity that we keep the size and weight of our packs down.

Initially, we’d hoped to have only carry-on, but after the underwear bomber incident and ensuing (bat shit crazy) security policy review, it seems unlikely that we’ll be living out that particular dream. Meaning, at 11:30pm Cape Town time a week from now, you’ll find me buzzing around the carousel, praying aloud with my boyfriend that an opportunistic baggage handler didn’t slice through our nylon packs and steal my rainbow button-up from 1980 or his ratty grey hoodie.

Perhaps it will turn out to be a good thing that our packing list in no way reminiscent of an REI shopping spree -- no one’s going to want to steal our stuff, and if it weren't for the freckles and blonde hair, we just might succeed in blending in with the locals sporting their second-hand t-shirts.

Don't mess with TEXAS!

Three Things Scott is Excited For

2010-01-01T13:07:00.000-08:00

Savoury banana dishes
Banana Beer
Seeing where they filmed Lion King

The View From 12 Days Away

2009-12-31T19:55:00.000-08:00

Today was my last day of work.

You know how when you're a kid, waiting for Christmas or your birthday or whatever to come is absolute torture? And when it finally does come, no matter how awesome it is and how much icecream cake you eat, you're always left feeling just a little let down? Well, today was nothing like that. Leaving my office at five o'clock with no plans to return feels like what I'd been waiting my whole life to do. The walk home was one big choreographed dance party.

(Full disclosure: I left at 2, took the bus and didn't technically see any animated birds,
but everything else you see here is a pretty accurate depiction of my experience.)

I was thinking about writing a post about all the things I am thankful for regarding this job, lessons I have learned over the past 16 months toiling in an office, pretending to be genuinely thrilled by the very act of showing up to work in pantyhose every day. But then I remembered who I am (a cynical ex-office worker) and that plan clearly went up in smoke.

Then I began writing a list of petty, small annoyances about this place that I won’t miss (the sound of the photocopier jamming, the awkward elevator rides, the curt tone of one person in particular) but then I decided to live and let live. It's over. And no matter how much I want to pour bleach in the coffee maker or pay tribute to the Office Space printer smash scene, I've decided to keep my dignity intact. I am moving on and up and all of those platitudes.

I am going to Africa. Holy [long chain of expletives redacted for the protection of innocent eyes and ears everywhere]. It's been in the works for months (years?) and with just twelve days to go, my mind is beginning to panic. In a good way -- I am positively panicking. The Africa that has eluded me for so long is finally within striking distance and I could not be happier.

It is often suggested (by people more poetic than I) that Africa gets under your skin and into your blood. Which is to say that once infected (choice words, my dear) with the beauty of the land and the affection of its people, it is difficult to distance yourself from it -- literally or figratively.

Although this trip will be my first experience of Africa, already I am enraptured by this amazing and utterly unique continent. The excitement, the uncertainty, the element of risk -- it fascinates me. It represents so much freedom from the conformity and monotony of life as I know it. It represents freedom from plodding to work in the drizzling rain to sit around and watch the time tick by, day after day after day after day.

But I must remind myself that I am romanticizing it too much. At the mere mention of Africa, my eyes brighten, then glaze over as I look longingly into the distance (invariably east), thinking only of sweeping savannas and uninterrupted blue skies. Worried voices mention something about corruption, violence, disease, but I need look no further than photos of African children laughing and chasing cars, to convince myself that they have been deceived, that this is a wonderful, euphoric place. At my core, I know that their concern is warranted -- there is greed and suffering and poverty here too, just as there is anywhere in the world.

I've been thinking a lot about what I want from this trip, a justification for a year's worth of obsessive budgeting and planning and eager anticipation. Do I want an "authentic" African experience? What does that even mean? Is it the life experience of a typical black African, something I could never have, something I wouldn't even want if I could? I suppose that is about as authentic as you can get: a rather miserable experience that international aid organizations, doctors, politicians and volunteers are working hard and spending billions of dollars annually to improve.

Whether it's what I want or not, it's not something I'll ever get. The closest I'll get is an experience manufactured to keep me within a safe viewing distance of the authenticity I'm after. Because I'm white. Because I can afford bottled water, and malaria tablets, and a flight out of there when things turn ugly. Like it or not, mzungu, you've got it made.

We are all visitors, whether we're there for three weeks or three generations, and we're all asking ourselves whether we're doing the right thing, or the wrong thing, or the right thing in the wrong way, and finally we settle -- albeit uncomfortably -- on "our intentions are good". We mean well, and though it might not always seem like enough, it's all we can do.

In the end, I know that we will return home affected -- changed by what we've seen, struggling to describe our experiences to ourselves and to others. Right now, I tell people that I am travelling to Africa to experience it -- to run with shoeless children, to bear witness to incomprehensible poverty and injustice, to hear the stories that break hearts and then heal them. But I know that it won't take long for me to want to change it. And bleak and preemptive as it may be, I think that the ultimate discovery of this trip might be that I cannot change very much.

But who knows what we'll see, and what sense (if any) we'll make of it. These are just thoughts rattling around in my skull as I try to anticipate the upcoming changes in my circumstances and perspective. For now I'm happy to be officially unemployed and about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. Tomorrow (figuratively, for now) is another country.

Merry Christmas from the Both of Us

2009-12-25T12:32:00.000-08:00

(Maggie would also like to express a rather sullen holiday greeting)

Having just had my first Skype conversation (with my mother in the next room), I feel compelled to take a moment to write a word of gratitude to the Internet. Are you there Internet? It's me, having my mind continuously blown by your greatness.

Thanks to the magic and wonder of the Internet, I can post words and images here, and within minutes have them read by faraway friends and family, some of whom I haven't seen since I was *this big*, some of whom sent me incredibly generous donations to my travel fund, some of whom I hardly know or have never even met. Thank you for your interest and support; it means the world to us.

So wherever you are, and whatever you're doing, happy holidays and we look forward to sharing our journey with you in the very, very -- 18 days very -- new future.

Fear and Loathing

2009-12-23T17:06:00.000-08:00

Moments ago, I opened up my Internet Explorer browser to see this feature story on the Globe and Mail website: Canadian Couple Attacked in South African Nature Reserve. And then I scrolled down and read a about the 737 that overshot the runway in Jamaica, jostling and bloodying passengers before skidding to a halt, metres from the Carribean Sea. "This does not bode well," I said to my co-worker.

My first thought was something along the lines of "Oh god, more fodder for the fire, I'm going to spend the holidays futilely talking my way out of the 'Africa is dangerous' spiel." But once I'd finished rolling my eyes at what I tend to dismiss as Westernized sensationalism, I decided to see what the South African papers were saying about the story. As it turns out, in the Mail and Guardian – a paper that dedicates an entire section to "Crime" – there was not a single mention of the story. Why? Because stuff like this happens all the time. As it turns out, the helicopter that airlifted the Canadians to hospital was diverted from an area just outside of the reserve, where it was attempting to airlift another body.

And then (because I'm a masochist) I decided to read the comments and reactions of the readers. There was the usual idiocy of people praising Apartheid and people suggesting that the victims could have defended themselves had they been properly armed, but there were also a few that I feel bear repeating. Comments which I don't entirely agree with, but which for one reason or another struck a chord with me as this whole 6 months in Africa thing becomes increasingly tangible.

"Let's face it -- this isn't a "one-off" attack. Caucasians in South Africa have been targeted as part of a "reverse-apartheid" for years, and if you're not obviously African, in my opinion, you should not go -- there are many safer, beautiful places to visit. It's not worth risking your life over."
"This is one of the reasons I left SA to come and live in Canada, and why I will not return with my family until the SA government gets tough on crime and Mugabe-- the risks of traveling there are very real and very high (we had our car broken into the first night that we were in Cape Town several years ago, and on the same trip my wife was accosted on a train)."
"Is there no hope and future for that continent? The birth place of homo sapian seems to be rushing into utter chaos and anarchy. A shiver goes down my spine if Africa is only a preview for the rest of the worlds future."

I am not dissuaded and I'm not afraid, but I am sobered. "The risks of travelling [to Africa] are very real and very high" and that is something that I need to be reminded of. I am going to encounter people there who are well-versed in xenophobia, people who despise me for my skin colour, my gender, my affluence. I am going to encounter people there who have nothing, people who are desperate. Despite what I may have said in the past, this is not the same as travelling to Europe or Australia. This is travelling to a place where women are more likely to be raped than learn how to read. This is a place where you can be killed for your camera, your cell phone, those fake pearl earrings that cost you $8 at Claire's. This is not the same thing.

"Why Africa?" It's still a question I get asked a lot, and while once I fumbled my words - landscapes, people, animals? - now I am constantly improving my answer, responding with a conviction I once lacked. I am going to Africa because I strongly oppose the fear of difference that has seized societies worldwide, from the right-wing evangelicals in North America, who make their life's work the denial of gay rights, to the autocratic regimes of leaders like Mugabe, who systematically rape women to maintain a hegemonic rule that is destroying Zimbabwe.

I think that a lot of the problems in our world stem from fear - fear of change, fear of difference, fear of losing the ability to define one's country, religion, self. When you travel, you become more exposed to the world; and when you are more exposed to the world, you understand it a little better than you did before; and when you understand it better, you fear it less. To realize that, sometimes you have to put yourself in uncomfortable, perhaps even dangerous situations. Certain experiences are worth the risk; I'm inclined to think that this is one of them.

Oreo Cookies and the African Disposition

2009-12-18T10:25:00.000-08:00

*Alanna and I have got under a month left here on planet Normal Life, so I figured it was about time I showed my e-face on what has been up to this point a single-user (though lovely) weblog. As Alanna has been doing a great job of writing about things that actually exist (i.e. real information, facts, maps and graphs and numbers etc.) I've figured it's up to me to write about things that don't exist (i.e. half-baked theories, things that may well be very incorrect, etc). So here goes:

Early in our Africa-related internet-perusals Alanna and I came across this video of a man conducting Kiswahili lessons via youtube:

Basically, it's a man standing in the middle of his wife's kitchen, plucking up objects seemingly at random and naming them in Kiswahili – the catch being that the majority of the objects in his kitchen he proclaims as having "no Swahili word." He also complains about his kids leaving globes everywhere ("what are these things doing here, in the cooking place?"), and at the end pulls out a giant yellow sign to plug his travel website, which he calls "Kenya's official website."

Anyways, Alanna and I found the video pretty funny. I've tried describing it to a few people but it doesn't really translate, so to speak. But in doing so I got to thinking about why exactly I found it funny, and got to worrying that the humour I saw in the video comes from a place of condescension or even benign racism. Alanna and I talked about it and I decided that this isn't true, because for the same reasons I find Mr. Mutooni to be funny, I also find him to be awesome. He's awesome in a way that (to generalize and over-simplify) I've noticed many Africans to be, and in a way that as a Canadian I find enviable.

For me, the humour in the video stems from its amateurishness, and Mr. Mutooni's lackadaisical attitude towards presenting himself on video: he is somewhat unprepared, the kitchen is cluttered, and the camera-person (I'm assuming his wife) endlessly fidgets with the camera (and whispers "peanut butter" when Mr. Mutooni can't remember the name of the jar he's holding – hilarious!). And you'd think that, when conducting a Kiswahili language lesson about kitchen objects, one would make sure the objects that one picked up would, y'know, actually have Kiswahili names.

But that's what makes him so great! If it were a typical North American conducting a similar lesson, he would have adopted a phony on-camera persona, maybe cleaned up, rehearsed, and basically tried to make himself seem cooler, and therefore different, from the person he actually is. And through one of the great Paradoxes of Youtube, the video would have been dull, not to mention I wouldn't have remembered a single new word (as I did with Mr. Mutooni's video: kisu! Knife!).

Though Mr. Mutooni is not typical: perusing his other videos we learn he's a smart, opinionated man who is obviously passionate about his culture, language, and the promotion of Africa and Kenya as tourist destinations (though I'm pretty sure he lives in New Jersey, I'm not sure what is up with that). And it is Mr. Mutooni's lack of need to put up any fronts, to depict anything to the world other than his true self, which I find admirable. Lately there has been a focus in North American culture on personal branding, and in the most superficial of meanings, what with Twitter and iPhone and all the requisites. Yet I seem to find such great examples of people of the African Continent being so comfortable and confident in their own identity, regardless of how others may see them. And it is funny, a lot of the time: dudes doing quasi-traditional dance in front of a giant suburban hedge to a Soulja Boy parody, for example. But it is also fantastic, because there's no whispers of 'trying too hard', or being 'ironic' – it's just untainted pride and fun, which I feel is tougher to achieve in this 'western' world of ours.

Not to mention it's strangely comforting, being Kenya-bound myself, knowing that out of an entire kitchen, the Swahili only have words for about six things. If I've got a hankering for broccoli, all I'll need to say is "broccoli," and that is a huge load off my shoulders.

Addendum

2009-12-16T08:16:00.000-08:00

Remember a while back when I wrote this post about why Africa is the way it is? And about how part of that has to do with its treatment by the media? And how I had that distorted map illustrating news coverage by continent?

Well, today I found something even better.

(via)

My love for graphs like this one almost makes me happy that the sociology department now requires me to take a course in quantitative analysis. Almost.

According to this researcher, "*Unhappy thoughts means some combination of foreign aid, immigration and refugees, civil war and guerrilla warfare, terrorism, 'war crimes, genocide or crimes against humanity' (all one category), famine, drought, or AIDS." Also, "Over the whole period, this collection of negative topics averaged 28% of total articles on the continent."

I wish our news would stop filling our heads with these unhappy thoughts. I wish I could tell someone I'm going to Africa, and have them say, "Wow! You're going to have so much fun!" and not, "Wow! You're going to get yourself killed!" But I have my doubts that the New York Times is ever going to create a tag called Happy Thoughts. People just wouldn't take them seriously.

It's All About the Benjamins, Baby: Take Three

2009-12-09T08:11:00.000-08:00

Part Three: In which you suddenly have $12,000 in your bank account and are about to set off on a life-changing adventure

This is the part where I channel my inner Jillian Michaels and tell you that “I know this isn’t easy, but if I’m going to make big promises to you, I’ve got to give you a [financial formula] that’s going to deliver the results that you want and deserve” (pretty good, hey? I swear I’ve got that whole work-out memorized). Basically, saving money is just like working toward any other goal. You want to get fit? You jump around with Jillian Michaels for half an hour every day. You want to get good grades? You spend your weeknights holed up in the library. You want to save money and travel the world? You follow this guide and I promise, you will.

Money is not some big, scary thing that is by nature out of your control. In fact, money is one of the few things in life over which you have almost complete control. I don’t understand people who are so afraid of seeing their account balance, that they crumple up their ATM receipts and lament the day their statement comes in the mail. Sure, we all succumb to impulsive, frivolous spending every now and then, and there’s definitely a sort of sting that comes with dealing with the aftermath in the form of a Visa bill, but to actually be afraid of a number? It’s absurd. Get to know those numbers - the more conscious of them you are of them, the more they seem to grow.

The message is simple: anyone can do this. Yes, Scott and I were fortunate in that we had supportive families and decent(ish) jobs, but it is my belief that long term travel is well within anyone’s reach. All it takes is determination and a willingness to make a few short-term sacrifices. Before you know it, you too will have $12,000 in the bank and be jetting off to an exotic locale, whilst your unenlightened co-workers continue to toil at their desk jobs, bemoaning their dismal finances, feeding their addictions to caffeine and shoes.

Plus, saving for travel is just so much more fun than saving for the standard stuff like a new computer or car or a down payment on a townhouse. Life should be about the experiences, not the stuff, that you have. Learn to put that philosophy into practice, and just about everything becomes a whole lot more enjoyable.

That’s about all the motivational Jillian Michaels speak I can conjure up at the moment, but rest assured that I’ll keep you posted on how we handle our funds on the road (something I’m more than a little anxious about) and whether or not all this scrimping and saving turns out to actually be worth it (anyone care to speculate?) Thanks for tuning in, I’ve had an unusually good time writing this, and may have just discovered my true calling as a financial advisor.

Ha. Ha.

It's All About the Benjamins, Baby: Take Two

2009-12-02T08:02:00.000-08:00

Part Two: In which you are horrified by how much your latte habit is costing you

Welcome to the second installment of How to Save Money and Travel the World, with your host and financial expert, Alanna Hardinge-Rooney. In our last episode, I showed you how to create a realistic and precise budget for your future travels. Today, I will show you how, with a little practice, patience and potting soil, you can grow money on trees!

If only. In reality, when it comes to saving your cash, there ain’t no such thing as a get rich quick scheme or easy money – just hard work and determination. Look at what you’re spending your money on now, perhaps even track your finances for a couple weeks, and see what you can do without. Chances are, you’ll be surprised by how excessive your lifestyle has become, and how easy it is to cut back on things you’re better off without.

Tip number one: get cookin’. As a downtown cube dweller, I developed an unfortunate taste for bought lunches. This is fine if those lunches are going on the company credit card, but if you’re footing the bill, this habit has got to stop. Even seven bucks once or twice a week adds up to $50 a month – two days of traveling in Africa. Find recipes that appeal to you, make a shopping list, and go buy a week’s worth of food. Make large portions so that you can bring left-overs as lunches, eliminating the need to pop out for an overpriced sandwich or salad. At the supermarket, try to save anywhere you can – go for the generic brand, buy in bulk, pay attention to what’s on sale – but don’t buy food that doesn’t excite you. No matter how focused on the prize you are, no one can sustain themselves on oatmeal, Kimchi and K.D. for eight months without losing it.

No coffee. This doesn’t really apply to Scott or I, but from observing others, I’ve learned that the Starbucks addiction is an affliction of many. At our office, endless tea and coffee is provided for free, and most people still make frequent coffee runs downstairs (returning with disposable paper cups – oh, the horror!) This is total madness. You might as well be throwing your money in a landfill. If you really can’t live without your grande extra-hot no-whip soy caramel macchiato, treat yourself to one every now and then, but certainly not everyday and for goodness’ sake, bring your own mug!

Shopping. Working downtown, I have developed a new appreciation/abhorrence for consumer culture. People congratulate one another when they purchase things. Things they don’t need. Things that waste money, support exploitation, harm the environment. You do not need those shoes. You do not need that handbag. You do not need those Rock & Republic jeans, that Benefit lip gloss, that gaudy Juicy Couture charm bracelet. When you’re hiking Mount Meru, you’ll laugh to yourself how ridiculous you were, how little any of that matters. If you really can’t keep your debit card in your wallet for more than a few days, hit up your local thrift store, or head for an outdoor store, where you’ll find some stuff you can actually use on the road.

Entertainment. Prepare for your social life to take a bit of a hit. Seven dollar pints at the bar is just not economical. Restaurant are out of the question. Even an $8 movie on a rainy Sunday afternoon is one night’s accommodation up in smoke. What to do? Invite people over, host a potluck, play board games, have a dance party in your living room. Take this time to do some of those projects you’ve been putting off, pick up a new hobby, learn a new language. Go to the library. Seriously – if you’re anything like me, the library will keep you entertained indefinitely. Read some historical fiction, memoirs, journalism from the areas you’ll be visiting. Check out some guidebooks, look at their map collection, plan your route. Rent movies – for free! I cannot endorse the library enough, and though the prospect might not excite you now, replacing your bar nights with staying in to read, will save you hundreds, nay thousands of dollars.

Your place and your stuff. What are you going to do with it? Keep it or let it go? Unless you’ve got an amazing apartment with impossibly low rent, I say let it go. Pocket your damage deposit, sell your lumpy couch and unsightly shelving unit, and purge your closet of things you never wear. Inevitably some things will remain: a box of winter clothes you won’t be needing for a while (hooray!), a mattress, a stereo, a few kitchen appliances. Unless you really have no other option, do not rent a storage space. Ask your parents to store it, see if your friends will baby sit your house plants or CD collection. This will save you money – like, $500 or so – so it’s worth seeking out all your options, even if it means that you’re stuff ends up strewn all over the city (or in our case, two different land masses!)

There are a million ways to save your money. The main thing is figuring out where you can cut costs and sticking to your budget. I guarantee that once you’ve started saving, and seeing what opting out of things like salon dye-jobs and Starbucks lattes does for your account balance, living on the cheap almost becomes a fun competition with yourself to see how much you can save. Not to mention the added benefit of knowing you’re doing something good for the planet and society. Minimalism for the win!

It’s All about the Benjamins, Baby: A Money-saving Odyssey in Three Parts

2009-11-26T15:45:00.000-08:00

Alternately titled: Alanna Fancies Herself a Financial Expert

When it comes to frequently asked questions (besides that which has already been discussed), the thing that most people want to know about our trip is how can we afford it? Did a wealthy great aunt bequeath her estate to us? Did we set up a meth lab in our apartment? Did we invest our savings in Google and Whole Foods?

No, no, no, and it wasn’t gambling or a gift from God, either. The truth is much simpler: we got jobs and we saved. We decided to do something and we did it.

On paper, it doesn’t really add up. Our pay cheques are really quite paltry, the cost of living in this city is insane, and one of us just wrapped up four years of university that certainly wasn’t cheap. And yet, we’ve managed. We have more money in the bank than ever before, and we still treat ourselves to things like fancy cheeses and a bottle of (cheap, Chilean) wine more than we probably should.

The funny thing is, almost without exception, the people who ask us how we can afford it make far more money than we do, yet they are seemingly baffled by the perceived costs of a trip such as ours. This leads me to believe that there is a misconception about the costs of international travel. Sure, you could easily blow our six month budget on a six week (or even six day) African safari, spending your days tracking wildlife on private reserves and your nights in five star resorts and lodges, but you don’t have to. There are other options. Not all travel is prohibitively expensive.

A lot of travel blogs I’ve come across go into great detail about their budgets – what they estimate the costs of their trip will be, covering everything from airfares to camping equipment to immunizations. While this is absolutely fascinating for people who love crunching numbers and scrolling through Excel spreadsheets (i.e. accountants), it didn’t really do a whole lot for me. I haven’t spent a lot of time researching the cost of a bowl of mealie pap in Umtata or the cost of a dorm bed in Mwanza, nor do I think that that sort of precision is necessary, or particularly helpful to those in the process of drafting travel budgets.

I do, however, see the value in sharing some of my own money-saving tips and emphasizing how attainable long term travel really is. I honestly think that anyone (yes, anyone) can start at this point, with an empty wallet and bank account, and in less than a year be taking off for an extended period of vagabonding. If you have credit card debt, a hefty student loan, or a minimum wage job, you’re going to have to work a little harder, but I still think you can do it. Let the penny pinching begin!

Part One: In which the only math skills you need are addition and multiplication

Step one is an obvious one – decide where you want to go. Break out the old atlas (or use Google Maps, if that’s how you want to be) and have a good look at what’s out there. Since we’re talking about long term budget travel, there are a few places that you can pretty much forget about right away – mainly, Europe. Don’t let me crush your dreams of Paris and Berlin and Milan, but if you’re headed there thinking a few grand is going to cover several months of living and traveling expenses, think again. Your $35/night hostel bed in Amsterdam could buy you three or four days of beach bumming in Guatemala or Malawi. If you really want to stretch your travel dollar, you can cross off Western Europe, North America, Japan and even Australia, from the get-go, leaving yourself plenty of fascinating destinations to choose from. Travel Independent has a great section for wanderlusters trying to decide where to go and what to see.

Next, purchase a ticket. There’s a ton of information out there about this, and from what I’ve read, what it boils down to is this: air travel is expensive. There are certainly some deals to be had, and if you spend some time getting creative with your dates and pricing a variety of different airlines and ticketing agents, you just might get one of them. Most airlines will let you book fares up to eleven months in advance, and some of the best deals become available well in advance of departure. However, I would caution against becoming too caught up in getting the lowest fare. You might find that you end up having to pay several hundred dollars more because you were banking on fares dropping and they didn’t. Also, having a ticket purchased well in advance is one less thing you have to worry about as your departure approaches, and a great incentive to start saving for other parts of your trip.

Which brings us to all those other parts of your trip. Before you even get on that plane, you’re going to be doling out some cash – and no small sum either – on some rather pesky but totally necessary details like insurance and immunizations and equipment. If you don’t have a passport, you’ll need to get one. It will be the best $85 you’ve ever spent. Depending on the length and itinerary of your trip, you could be spending anything from a couple hundred to a couple thousand on travel insurance. We’re going with World Nomads, where a comprehensive six month international package costs $355. Another non-negotiable is immunizations and drugs. Unfortunately, few of these are covered by MSP or your employer’s insurance policy. It is possible to keep costs down to some extent by paring down the number of shots you get and by choosing cheaper or generic drugs (i.e. don’t get Malarone) but keep in mind that it’s your health in the balance, and $100 for a vaccine that could save your life? Sounds like a pretty good investment to me.

Another potentially major expense to consider is that of clothing and equipment. If you’ve done much traveling before, you can probably save most of your shopping dollars, but if you haven’t, you might surprise yourself with just how fast the money goes, even if you’re just picking up the essentials. Item number one on your list should be a backpack. You’re going to want something comfortable and small. Seriously – there’s nothing you’ll need for six months on the road that won’t fit in a forty litre pack. You might also want to buy some clothes to go in that pack. It’s probably not in your best interest to invest in a whole new khaki wardrobe, but a few high-quality outdoorsy items probably aren’t a bad idea. Besides that, you might want to think about purchasing things like a sleeping liner, a mosquito net, a head lamp, a travel alarm, and a caseload of DEET insect repellant (especially if you cut costs by opting out of anti-malarials).

Once you’ve added up your pre-trip expenses (which probably total somewhere in the $2500 – 3000 range) you can start estimating your on the road costs. This basically looks like this: accommodation + food + transportation + activities = don’t be totally distraught, you can do this! Honestly, staying in hostels, making most of your own meals, taking local transportation and steering clear of expensive tourist activities, you can travel in most countries (barring those listed above) for under $30 a day. You can plug your locations into this Travel Budget Calculator, and it will give you a rough estimate of how much you’ll need. Keep in mind that this doesn’t take into account costly one-off activities like shark diving and elephant riding, so any figure you come up with should be considered as a minimum. You’re going to want to add at least another thousand (or two, or three) to that number if you want to partake in such activities, or if you’re easily seduced by drink specials and full moon parties.

Altogether these things add up to a pretty sum, but think about what you’re getting – food, shelter, transport, fun – all in some of the most incredible places on the planet. In all likelihood, your on the road budget isn’t going to be much higher than your at home budget – the only significant difference being that you’re not going to have any income (unless you put a ‘donate’ icon on your blog, but you won’t see any of that here). No matter if your budget is $5000 or $20 000, it’s not as daunting as it seems. Stay tuned for part two, in which I reveal just how much the average office worker spends at Starbucks in a week, and show you how to turn your caffeine cash into a rewarding experience abroad!

Home and Away

2009-11-16T16:31:00.000-08:00

Here’s the thing about me: I like to think about travel. A lot. I like to plan, I like to budget, I like to fantasize, and yeah, when it comes time for the actual travel part, I like that too. But I find that I get so excited by overseas travel that I rarely give much thought to doing the same here in Canada.

I spent most of my adolescence wishing I was anything but Canadian. Give me the cobblestone streets and sidewalk cafes of Europe, or the colourful lanterns and bustling markets of the Far East any day. Give me a foreign accent, a chic sense of style, the talent to play an obscure instrument, and life would be infinitely more interesting. In a city like Vancouver, where just about everyone seems to be from somewhere else, I’m left feeling seriously lacking culture wise.

But as devoid of culture as Canada may be (don’t take that too seriously) it sure is beautiful. Unfortunately, when you’re born into a place where mountains collide with sea, where you can escape into verdant rainforests on a whim, or plunge into a clear, cool lake in the summertime, you can’t help but take the natural beauty that surrounds you for granted. It’s home. It’s comfortable. And regardless of how stunning it may be to those who haven’t spent their lives here, it’s not nearly as exciting as, say, Africa.

That said, every now and then I’m shaken out of my complacency, my indifference for this place. Every so often I see what they see – the blues and the greens and the vastness of it all. My world gets blown wide open and I appreciate, seemingly for the first time, how utterly spectacular the landscapes I’ve become so accustomed to really are.

One of my favourite parts about travel is seeing how even the most mundane things are different in other countries – items in the grocery store, street signs, public transport – things that make walking down the street an eye-opening adventure. But as exciting as that experience can be, it doesn’t come close to truly opening your eyes to the things you see every day, and coming to realize that no matter where you go and what you see, this place you call home? Is the place you want to keep coming home to.

Photos taken on a recent trip to Sechelt, British Columbia. Thanks to Ron and Diane for hosting us and showing us the beauty of the Sunshine Coast.

Pourquoi Africa?

2009-11-04T08:51:00.000-08:00

So the last time I tried to explain this, I opened my mouth (or should I say, web browser) and the entire history of Africa came spilling out (okay, maybe not the entire history, but all the important bits anyway). And while it’s all good and nice to put this trip into a historical context, I still feel as though I owe everyone a more personal explanation. This is a blahg, after all – you wouldn't be here if you weren't looking for a little voyeurism.

I find it a bit odd that I can’t remember the exact moment that we decided to do this. I’m constantly impressing Scott with my uncanny ability to recall exact details about obscure events, like what I wore on our third date or how much our electrical bill was back in March, yet as I wrack my brain to come up with the definitive tipping point of this trip, I draw a blank. Did we just wake up one morning, look at each other and say, “Let’s go!”? Did we carefully weigh the pros and cons of various destinations, deciding finally on this one? Did we scribble down where we most wanted to go, fold it up, and on the count of three, lo, we both wanted to go to Africa? I can’t remember.

There was always an assumption that once we finished school (or in my case, gave up) we’d get jobs, make some money, suit ourselves up like a North Face ad and set off for New Zealand or Western Europe or some such place. It’s what twenty-somethings with liberal arts educations, crappy customer service jobs, and a yearning for more do – they go abroad, meet like-minded fellow-travelers, get drunk on hostel-sponsored pub crawls, and supposedly find themselves. It sounds like a good time, but we eventually decided that it wasn’t for us. If we were going to spend our life’s savings (not much) on a trip across the world, then damned straight, we were going to do it right.

One of the major catalysts for me was a growing desire to escape. A year and a half in the so-called Real World had given me a rather disdainful attitude toward conventional adulthood in North America. I hated the 8 to 5, the 40 hour work week, the daily commute, consumerism, television, celebrity culture, Swedish furniture, apartment rent. And two weeks annual vacation? Puh-leeze! It’s a big world out there, and two weeks isn’t nearly enough time for me to see it, meet it, eat it, and get up close and personal with it. The economy is in the toilet, everyone’s on anti-depressants, and the view from my cubicle? Particle board. Asylum blue. A calendar marked up with things like Tax Seminar and Boss’s Day. There’s so much more to the world than what I can see from here.

So why Africa, then? Because we want to discover another planet located on Earth. The one we know is nice enough – mountains and ocean and skyscrapers and sushi spots – but we crave change. We want something that’s going to smack us in the face, offend us, challenge us, inspire us, ask tough questions, demand real answers, not give us an easy ride. A friend described Africa as “the Holy Grail of travel” and until recently I agreed with her that it was something you worked towards as a traveler, testing the waters first with jaunts to Germany and Costa Rica, gradually adding to your experience, heading for Indonesia or Ukraine, India or Peru. Then and only then, with a well-worn backpack and a sun-creased face, did you attempt Africa.

But we're throwing caution to the wind because 'gradual' isn't really our style . It’s not that we don’t want to see those other places – we do – it’s that we’d much rather do the ‘hard traveling’ now, and save the cushier destinations for our golden years. It seems that with age, you become accustomed to certain luxuries that you are less and less willing to give up. At 22 and 23, the luxuries we're giving up are few, and we’re happy to do so in the name of adventure and thriftiness. We figure Africa is a good destination for people with limited funds, open minds, and agile bodies. The French Riviera, on the other hand, is arguably better visited with a thicker wad of cash, a sophisticated mind, and what’s the difference if you’re agile or not when your main activity is sunning yourself on the balcony with a glass of Pinot Noir? It just makes sense: Africa is for now, beyond that comes later.

So your question then? Pourquoi Africa? The best answer I can give you is this: We want to see the world, and we've decided to make Africa our first stop.

That, and there's penguins at the beach.

(via)

War and Peace: the Africa edition

2009-10-22T20:06:00.000-07:00

Preface: When I set out to write this, I wanted to give some sort of justification for choosing Africa (of all places!) as a travel destination. I also wanted to quell some of the concerns about the risks of traveling in Africa, as I have yet to tell someone about my plans and not have them respond by informing me of how dangerous it is. (It’s dangerous. I know.) In the end, this piece accomplishes neither of those things. It does, however, accomplish lengthiness, and if you happen to have a keen interest in colonial African history, you just might make it through to the end. If not, I’ve included a few pictures (and a video!) that do a pretty good job of summing it up the main points.

* * * * * * * *

Tell someone you’re going to Africa for an extended period of time and you’ll invariably be met with gasps of awe and concern. Awe because it sounds enviably romantic and adventuresome, and concern because it sounds troublingly risky and unusual. Why would you go to Africa when you could go to Europe and gape at ornate architecture and gorge on chocolate croissants? Why would you go to Africa when you could go to Koh Phangan and work on your tan and sip from coconuts? But mostly, when given the choice between a place characterized by relative security and one besieged by corruption, violence and political paralysis, why on earth would you choose the latter?

These are not easy questions to answer. Initially, I tried to assuage their fears (and my own) by seeking out success stories─ things that would shed some light on the Dark Continent, things that would make everyone sleep better. When people mentioned the genocide in Rwanda, I would tell them how resilient and progressive the country has proven to be: their roads and transportation network are lauded as some of the best in Africa, their parliament is the only one in the world where women hold the majority (56%), and their strict ban on plastic bags and mandatory monthly cleanup day qualify them as leaders in the fight against environmental destruction.

It has been my experience, however, that people aren’t interested in listening to success stories. Africa as a peaceful place is a pretty tough sell when you’re dealing with people whose ideas of the continent are informed solely by a very one-sided and negative media image. And I couldn’t really blame them, either. Try as I might to hone in on the positive, I found it hard to ignore the news stories highlighting the volatility of the continent that flashed in my periphery– warning signs that cautioned against taking an overly idealistic view. True, there are huge swaths of the continent that are peaceful, where farmers tend to their crops, children go to school, and life has achieved a level of normalcy we don’t readily associate with Africa. But it is also true that between 1990 and 2007, Africa accounted for 88% of the world’s conflict death tolls, 9 million refugees have been internally displaced and 12% of the continent’s children have been orphaned. Indeed, hell has seized parts of the continent, and there’s no sense in ignoring that millions of people have been, and continue to be, killed by bullets, machetes, hunger, bad water and disease.

So, rather than brushing off people’s insistence that Africa showcases humanity at its absolute worst and trying to convince them otherwise, I decided that a far more interesting and worthwhile effort would be to concede that they just might have a point. I can chalk it up to biased media coverage, dated stereotypes and the sheer physical distance that separates their landmass from ours, or I can admit to myself what I already know, and try to understand why it is that 5.4 million people were killed in the Congo, why 800,00 in the Rwandan genocide and why nearly 400,000 in the recent Darfur conflict. The question I wanted to answer was a simple, but difficult one: Why is Africa the way it is? What instigates these conflicts and enables them to continue? And why isn’t anyone paying any attention to them?

Over the past several months, my reading material has been almost entirely limited to books about Africa. Guidebooks, history books, memoirs– anything I could get my hands on that would give me some insight into this diverse and complicated continent that until fairly recently, I knew very little about. One of the main themes that surfaced in nearly all the works was that of war and conflict. Unlike the wars I learned about in school, where I knew the contributing causes, what was at stake, and which side came out on top, with Africa, the causes and outcomes of war were not always so clearly defined. Even after having read 500 plus pages on the Rwandan genocide, I still didn’t really understand what triggered the massacre.

It seems to me that when it comes to Africa, journalists have a tendency to dumb down complex realities for their western readers. I don’t know whether this is because it’s easier to get the story and get out, or if it’s because they’re actually worried about alienating readers by delving too deep into the issues. Regardless, news in the western world is about front pages and headlines, not lengthy explanations and background information. Rather than describing the historical and cultural complexities of a conflict, it is much easier to call it chaos and be done with it.

Not only are media reports of Africa incomplete, but they are also hard to come by. In 2000, Vigil Hawkins completed a study of some of the major western media outlets, surveying what percentage of their media focus fell where. The table above illustrates the proportions of coverage allotted by the BBC. Africa, he found, did not even figure in 10% of the coverage. According to Hawkins, “the death toll from the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is literally one thousand times greater than that in Israel-Palestine, yet it is the latter that is the object of far greater media coverage … [and where] the intricacies and nuances of the conflict, political situation and peace process are almost obsessively analyzed and presented … [African] conflicts are frequently brushed off and dismissed as being chaotic, or worthy of some vague pity or humanitarian concern, but rarely of any in-depth political analysis.” Too often, it seems that Africa just isn’t worth the trouble.

Oversimplified and distorted media coverage makes understanding African conflicts difficult, and the majority of westerners don’t have the time or motivation to question what they read and hear when it comes to something so seemingly removed from their day-to-day realities. This does not make the question “Why is Africa the way it is?” unanswerable, it just makes addressing it more difficult. Despite simplistic media messages, Africa’s problems do not stem exclusively from political corruption, human rights abuses and lawlessness– these are but symptoms of some of the underlying causes.

One of the most glaring factors influencing Africa today is the lasting impact of European colonialism. Often westerners take an attitude that suggests, “yes, we did some bad things, but it’s been a long time, and they’re worse off now than they were then.” While in some cases, this might ring true, it is hardly debatable that colonialism has had devastating consequences across Africa– consequences that are not overcome overnight.

The way that Africa was carved up, as colonial powers ruled and then abandoned Africa, had the effect of gathering many different of ethnicities and cultures under a nation that did not reflect, nor have the ability to accommodate, such diversity. A nation is a group of people you are born into or feel you belong to. The nations that were arbitrarily determined by the Europeans were neither of these things, and with the way colonialists exploited a largely self-manufactured difference, it’s hard to imagine that they thought they were actually helping Africans.

In many areas of the continent, colonial administrations did not have sufficient personnel or resources to adequately govern the territory, thus necessitating a reliance on locals to run them. Europeans selected who they wanted to have in power, dividing people into categories based on characteristics that had previously held little to no significance. One example of this can be seen in Rwanda, where prior to the arrival of the Belgian colonists, the country’s two main ethnic groups (the Hutus and the Tutsis) lived more or less in harmony. When the Belgians came, they gave the power to the Tutsi, believing that their lighter skin and more delicate features made them superior to their darker-skinned Hutu counterparts. This fuelled Tutsi resentment, contributing in part to the eventual genocide in 1994.

Not only did the Europeans exploit arbitrary differences, but they created them. One of the most profound and lasting impacts was the implementation of Tribalism. Based on very premature assumptions, colonialists supposed that just as they belonged to different nations, with distinct cultures and common languages, so too did Africans belong to different tribes. This, however, was not always the case. The notion of tribalism was largely a European construct designed to serve European interests. In fact, the Zulus of South Africa as a separate ethnic group only came into being in 1870; the Solis of Zambia only became Solis when they were told they were, in 1937.

Despite this, many people dismiss colonialism as a reason for Africa’s problems. “They’ve been handed independence and look what they’ve done with it,” they say. The fact is that colonialism grasped the continent for close to four centuries, and its effects cannot be overcome so quickly. In the words of Bob Geldof, “Consider the extent to which the Second World War of just six years has pervaded the consciousness of our developed world for two generations and imagine how four centuries of enslavement might have seized the entire social and cultural ethos of an undeveloped continent.” The damage caused by colonialism has become entrenched in African societies across the continent. The extent to which it permeates all facets of life makes it a difficult thing to forget or move forward from.

Here is a 10-minute film clip that shows how colonialism continues to affect current struggles, using Uganda as an example.

The film that this clip has been taken from (Uganda Rising) is excellent, heart-wrenching
and highly recommended. You can view it in its entirety on YouTube by clicking here.

It’s also worth noting that many African countries have only achieved independence from colonial powers in the past few decades. The newest independent nations include Eritrea (1993), Namibia (1990) and Zimbabwe (1980). Not to mention the most obvious colonial legacy of all, apartheid in South Africa ended just fifteen years ago. These nations are new, they have had little opportunity to establish themselves and develop a national identity. My own country, Canada, has been an independent nation for over 140 years, and we’re still grappling with how to accommodate our two linguistic groups– English and French– in a way that is accepted by all. Given the way that Africa was divided up, with little regard to existing ethnicities, languages and cultures (of which there are several thousand) it should be no surprise that developing stable nation-states is proving difficult.

Another legacy of colonialism has been that of the single party state. It was introduced by Europeans as the only method of effective method of governance and control in places that were characterized by a great diversity of interests. Dictatorships were implemented. Widespread poverty and oppression proliferated. And when the Europeans pulled out and granted their colonies independence, it’s true that things did get worse. Between 1960 and 2003, 107 African leaders were overthrown, two-thirds were murdered, jailed or forced into exile. Just three retired on their own accord, and not one was democratically voted out of office.

Colonialism also had a devastating impact on the Africa’s economy. For four centuries, Europeans siphoned Africa’s wealth of resources, from rubber to diamonds to oil to people. It has been argued that even independence served the interests of the former colonialists more than it served the interests of Africans. According to former Tanzanian president Julius Nyere, “It seems that independence of the former colonies has suited the interests of the industrial world for bigger profits at less cost. Independence made it cheaper for them to exploit us. We became neo-colonies.” In many ways, international trade agreements and economic policies have effectively picked up where colonial arrangements left off, whereby many nations have been forced to concentrate on export to stay afloat. Institutions like the World Bank and the IMF loan developing countries money, which encourages them to increase their export, often at the expense of service programs and education. This, combined with ongoing limited rights to land, has severely curtailed African development.

Colonialism is a big contributor to why Africa is the way it is. It planted the seeds for conflict, and manipulated industries in ways that have had long-lasting and detrimental effects on development. But there are other factors as well, such as the proliferation of weapons in Africa following the Cold War, when major powers like the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union saw a viable and profitable dumping ground for arms they no longer needed. The propagation of these small arms has no doubt fuelled many recent conflicts. The table below demonstrates the west’s complicity to conflicts in the developing world (shown in blue).

According to this table, 71 per cent of reported arms exports come from the USA, Russia, France, the UK and China. Incidentally, these five countries are also the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The hypocrisy is maddening. How can we simultaneously champion peace while profiting from an industry that kills people in such a direct and obvious way? We are inhibiting our own mandates for peace, acting in a way that renders success impossible.

The legacy of colonialism, the West’s continued support for exploitive regimes, the proliferation of arms, and policies that maintain dependency and poverty have had the cumulative effect of turning many African countries into what some have dubbed “failed states,” characterized by chaos and suffering. In 2001, Tony Blair called the state of Africa, “a scar on the conscience of the world.” As deeply offensive as this statement is to Africans, many of whom have worked very hard and made great progress to overcome incredible obstacles, I think it speaks to why Africa is the way it is, and why its problems are in many ways our problems.

In researching and writing this piece I have developed a better understanding of Africa and the ideas (both founded and unfounded) that people have about it. I have come to accept that Africa does have many problems, and that these problems re-enforce one another. Surprisingly, learning about war and conflict has not made me apprehensive about traveling to Africa. More so than the stories of hope and resiliency, it has eased my fears. There may be madness, but there is logic to it. Africans are not irrational beings, resorting to primeval violence at the slightest provocation; they resort to conflict because they feel as though they have no other choice. They have been exploited for centuries and they want things to change. And in many places, they have. Great strides towards peace and reconciliation have been made in the past few decades, and I think more than anything we will be struck by just how safe and welcomed we feel. Africa is an exceptionally diverse continent, with unparalleled natural beauty and fascinating people– to be turned off by its turbulent history and a handful of scare stories, would mean missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime.

Contact

2009-10-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

In preparation for our six month journey through the developing world, we decided that there was one luxury that we weren’t going to give up: the ability to contact anyone, anywhere, at any time thanks to a little phenomenon called the Internet (Have you heard of it? It’s going to be huge!) And so we bought this:

Our 2.6 pound pride and joy

We named it Rafiki (less because Alanna is compelled to humanize everything, and more because Microsoft asked us to), and treat it with all the love and affection of a (very small, very sleek, and extremely capable) child. We love it like McAdams love(d) Gosling.

Anyhow, all of this is to say that you can contact us! In Africa! Assuming there are some wi-fi hotspots in some of the hot spots visit, we will be updating this blog on a semi-regular basis as well as checking the following email addresses:

aharding@uvic.ca & smokeandflames@gmail.com

Send us dispatches from your part of the world, pictures of your pets doing funny things, and any grammatical advice you may wish to impart (seriously, does the period belong inside or outside of the parentheses? You’d think for someone who doesn’t know, I’d play it safe and limit my usage of the finicky bracket, but what can I say? My life is full of afterthoughts).

We will do our best to get back to you in a timely manner, but understand that connections will be spotty, electricity will not always be available and, oh yeah, we’ll be on the trip of a lifetime and might be too busy riding elephants and dancing with lemurs to respond. But we’ll do our best. We love you all.

Route

2009-10-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

I had lofty ambitions of creating a highly accurate and interactive map with lots of buttons and fancy features for all you armchair travellers out there… but alas, even Google Maps is too technical for me. Luckily for you, I still know my way around a little program called MS Paint. Behold!

Oh, the places we'll go!
(Click to enlarge)

A thing of beauty, am I right? Getting those jagged international borders juuuust right was no easy task using the pencil tool, but I think you’ll agree that the results are of almost textbook quality.

The blue line is our intended path of overland travel. Starting in Cape Town, we’ll make our way along South Africa’s East Coast (beaches! surfing! penguins!), with a detour into the highlands of Lesotho (the kingdom in the sky) before continuing up the Wild Coast (where we’ll be staying in a treehouse!) to Durban. Then, it’s on to Jo’burg where we hope to catch a bus to the Zimbabwe border and onward to Bulawayo and Victoria Falls, where, resisting the urge to bungee jump, we’ll cross the bridge into Zambia.

From Zambia, we’ll be mostly in transit, but will be making stop-overs in Livingstone and Lusaka before entering Malawi. Once in Malawi, we’ll be spending the bulk of our time lakeside, popping our malaria pills with our pawpaw and waiting for the weekly ferry to come.

Relaxed and rejuvenated, we’ll head to Tanzania and the narrow alleyways and exotic scents of Zanzibar. We’ll then travel inland toward the lusher landscapes of Rwanda and Uganda, where we will most likely decide against doling out $500 for a gorilla permit (chimpanzees are reportedly about a tenth of the cost… and ten times the fun!) From there, we will travel west along the equator, through the tree dotted plains and deep valleys of Kenya, ending up on the island of Lamu― a paradisical place where donkeys are the main mode of transport. Finally, our last leg brings us to Nairobi, six months and more than 2500 miles later.

About

2009-10-16T11:36:00.000-07:00

This is the story of a boy and a girl and 2547.51 miles of possibilities.

Note our prominent chins.

A few of you may know the large-handed guy as Scott, who three years ago met and fell instantly in love with a blue-eyed, freckle-faced girl named Alanna. They drank beer, danced until closing and walked home in the rain. He gave her a dollar bill ring, she gave him a piece of beach glass, and it was official.

They've since graduated from university (well, Scott has anyway), found the perfect apartment in the city (which will soon belong to someone else– tear!) and made scads of money doing jobs that they loooooved (j/k).

Recently, they've decided to leave their first-world comforts behind and travel all the way to Cape Town, South Africa, with hopes of making it to Nairobi, Kenya by summertime. That's where the 2547.51 miles comes in. 2547.51 miles of elephants, lions, savannas, sunsets, millet beer, deep-fried beetles, Pygmies, poisonous snakes, mosques, Massai, malaria, and mountains... or so they've been told. Truthfully, they have no idea what lies ahead.

This blog serves as a means of keeping in touch with the folks back home (hi mom, dad, Grandma Diane and Maggie!) and as a cautionary tale of what happens when unruly hair gets unrulier (or in Scott's case, when greasy hair gets greasier). Don't let our poor hygiene ruin your ideas of world travel!