TravelStream™ news feed for member irax on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/irax en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 25 Feb 2007 14:33:03 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1158242700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1158242700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1158242700/tpod.html Sun, 25 Feb 2007 14:33:03 -0500 I don´t have a mortgage, I no longer have a job, I´m Single. Good excuse to see Asia, Australasia, South America, Africa......

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Shire, Ethiopia

going round bend with arm round me

helping me find a place in shire, which was a shit hole
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Gondor, Ethiopia

Gondor is an old Ethiopian town famed for its castles. So, being from Scotland, maybe it wasn't the best place to visit! Sure, the castles were nice, but I didn't really find myself being overly struck by them.

However, while I was in Gondor Ethiopia celebrated its new year, 1999. honestly I'm not kidding. The ethiopian year is split into twelve months, each one is 30 days long. They then have a thirteenth month of 5 or 6 days (depending on leap years) and then celbrate the New Year (Which is September the 11th according to our western calendar).

I could feel the atmosphere building in town in the days leading up to the celebration. A number of goat and sheep sellers would congregate outside my hotel and do a brisk trade with locals looking for their special New Year meal.

Another tradition of the New Year is to spread fresh grass on the floor of your house. It also forms part of the traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony. The idea is that you bring nature inside your home to get closer to it. Despite the slip hazard that it creates, it's remarkably nice.

Again I had trouble leaving town. The next bus trip was another long one. I had the ticket, and was ready to leave the next day. I was in bed by 9pm, for my 5am rise. But could I sleep? Nope. I don't know why, but I just couldn't drop off to sleep. I was still wide awake at 1am, so I watched a film, "The Four Feathers" with Heath Ledger, then regretted my decition to watch it! I did eventually drop off, not very long before my alarm went off. I felt absolutely terrible, so I stayed in bed and headed off to sleep again. There was no way I was getting on the bus today.

I really am having problems in Ethiopia with my motivation. I'm supposed to be enjoying myself but the long bus journies are overshadowing my trip. The only way I could solve this, is to start flying. Ethiopian Airlines have a really great domestic service. Each flight costs about 100 US Dollars, but would save days on a bus. I left the offices a much happier man! I was so happy that I even managed to get down to the bus station, buy another ticket for the next day and actually get up in time to get on the bus! I was off again.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1157550660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1157550660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1157550660/tpod.html Sun, 25 Feb 2007 11:02:29 -0500 I don´t have a mortgage, I no longer have a job, I´m Single. Good excuse to see Asia, Australasia, South America, Africa......

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Bahar Dar, Ethiopia

We had to get up early and back to the bus the next morning. I'd set my alarm to go off about 10 minutes before the bus was due to leave.However my new friendly friends were banging on my door half an hour early, "Mr Ron, time to get up".

Thankfully the journey in the morning was over with really quickly, only about 2 hours on the bus and we arrived in Bahar Dar! I'd barely managed to reach my medative state.

The search for accomodation was interesting. I'd decided on a couple of places to look at and headed to the first one. As I was approaching to first one, a tout headed towards me from the front door, "You looking for a room?, Do you want to look here?"
"Err, yes, that's why I'm heading towards the hostel"
"OK, come with me, I'll show you it".
"No, hold on, I'm coming to look at it anyway"
He was basically looking for commission for his troubles, even though he'd done nothing... I couldn't stomach this, and since I wasn't in the best state of mind from the journey I just said that I'm off to look elsewhere. A little up the road I started to think about cutting my nose off to spite my face so I headed back again. This time I just ignored the guy. When I entered the hostel it turned out to be restaurant. You can imagine the scene. I'm asking the restaurant staff where the hostel is, meanwhile a tout is telling me exactly where it is, and I'm shouting at the touts, "AYE" (Which is Amharic for NO). The next thing I know I'm getting a tap on the shoulder, "Having a little trouble here?". It was Kris!! He'd flown up to Bahar Dar the previous day and knew his way about.

This was brilliant. Immediately it was time to grab some food, feeling so much better. Kris took me to the slightly expensive (10 US Dollars) place he was staying, to be honest I really didn't care how much it cost, I was happy for a bit of comfort. It was so nice to bump into him like this as it meant that I wouldn't just be hanging around on my own.

One of the main attractions of Bahar Dar are the monestaries that are dottied on the islands of Lake Tana, adjacent to the town. So, we organised a trip with a local hostel and left the next day. I'd asked lots of questions regarding the trip, and been given favourable answers to all my queries. When we left on the actual trip one of my questions came back to me, I looked underneath the seat but didn't find any life vests, "Errmmmm, where are the life jackets?"
"Don't worry" I was assured, "We won't sink".
Sounds like Titanic accident prevention tactics to me.

In truth Lake Tana isn't very deep, it's just BIG. We just had to go with the flow and visit the monestaries. These were all pretty cool. The art in each monestary is excellent. There is a certain Ethiopian style which prevales in these buildings. The figures all have large eyes, hard to describe, you'll need to look at the pictures instead.

Everything was going well until we got to the thrid monestary. Out boat driver turned to Claire the only girl in our group and said, "You'll have to stay on the boat, you're not allowed to visit this one".
Well, have you ever seen a human volcanoe? I have now. Just like my life jackets, she'd asked this very question the day before, "She'd been assured and placated, in the same way as I'd been". This particular monestary turned out to be very interesting, and the priest took lots of time to explain everything to us. On returning to the boat we all said to Claire, things like "Nahhh, it was a bit rubbish", "Nothing there really".....

I'd arranged to head out to the Blue Nile waterfall the next morning with Kris, but he wasn't feeling very welll when I knocked on his door in the morning, so I had to go it alone.

It must have been abundantly clear to the touts where I was heading as they were onto me as soon as I got to the bus station. I just had to pretend I knew where I was going and walk away from them. I had to find a friendly bus company worker and ask where to get the correct bus. When I found it, it was a real old rust bucket of a banger. I was only going 1 hour down the road though so it'd do.

While I was waiting for the bus to leave several vendors came on board, selling anything and everything, from snacks to nic naks. The a priest came on the bus and started selling blessings. I've never seen anything like it. There was a very particular set of actions to follow which started with the priest using a small wooden cross to touch the forehead, then other parts of the head, and finally the receiver would kiss the cross. I just hoped that it wasn't an indication of what the bus journey would be like!

When I finally got to the small town next to the waterfall I had to avoid more touts, all of whom were being helpful. These guys must see a load of tourists and were pretty persistant. Even once I'd got to the waterfalls without any help some of them would still follow me around like a shadow. I just wanted to sit and watch the waterfalls for a while in peace and quiet, but it was fairly difficuilt to achieve.

I was actually very lucky with what I saw. Since the construction of a hydro dam next to the waterfall hardly any water tumbles over the edge, it's all chanelled through the dam. This has seriously affected the micro climate here which had developed thanks to a constant mist in the air generated by the falls. However, due to the excessive rains that Ethiopia experianced before I arrived there was too much water for the hydro plant and the waterfall was temporarilly restored to something approaching it's natural state. Quite amazing.

My next destination is Gondor, and my plan was to head out there the next day. It just didn't happen though. I've become very lethargic with my travels and I'm finding it very hard to find the motivation to get up early and travel on the bus. This meant that I ended up staying an extra day in Bahar Dar. It's not as if I did anything special with the extra day, it really was just wasted. I'm not too upset to be finishing my travels soon.

After feeling guilty about my lost day, I did actually get up the next morning, get myself to the bus station and find a bus to Gondor.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1159710360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1159710360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1159710360/tpod.html Sat, 17 Feb 2007 19:11:03 -0500 I don´t have a mortgage, I no longer have a job, I´m Single. Good excuse to see Asia, Australasia, South America, Africa......

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156K south of Bahar Dar, Ethiopia

The buses in Ethiopia aren't allowed to travel in the dark, therefore all the long distance buses leave at first light, 6am. They also ask you to arrive 1 hour early, 5am. And of course you have to wake up, finalise your packing and get to the bus station, 4:30am! It's the middle of the night!

I took a taxi to the station and arrived to find literally hundreds of people already there, and honestly a couple of hundred buses waiting to be filled for the 6AM departures. At least the station is organised, they have guys in official uniforms at the gates who point you in the direction of your bus, and as you walk along there is no shortage of other people to help you out.

I found my bus, approached it and walked straight into a big puddle that was completely obscured. My big rucksack had to go on the roof, but there wasn't anyone around to do this, so I had to stand, waiting at the back for someone to turn up, at 5:45, happy? not me. Eventually once the bag was placed on the roof I entered the bus, it was busy and there were no seats left. Another major disadvantage of traveling alone. In Ethiopia it's illegal for people to travel without seats in the aisle, therefore someone was in a seat without a ticket, the only way I could sort this out was to look lost, which worked. A passenger at the back asked me if I had a seat?, No I replied, he then pointed me in the direction of the only seat left.

Ethiopian buses all appear to be the same, they're only a little better than buses that you'd find in any city, with what are effectively benches. On the left hand side of the bus the benches fit three small people, on the right, two small people. I had the aisle seat which actually meant my left bum cheek had a seat, and my right bum cheek was in mid-air. This isn't natural and it was starting to hurt before the bus even moved, I had to get over my Britishness and get the guy to the left of me to squeeze up, brilliant, now my right bum cheek had half a seat.

Almost all the buses left at 6AM sharp. which actually just caused a huge traffic jam, taking us half an hour to get out of the station. We finally got moving and out of the city, only to then be stopped at a police checkpoint for another half hour. You could say that I was having a bad journey! At least the local that'd helped me find my seat was a really nice guy who spoke excellent English so I was able to pass the time with him. The Ethiopian countryside is actually really pretty, amazingly green, but it helps of course that I'm visiting near the end of the rainy season. It completely goes against the image that most people have of Ethiopia, namely famine and drought.

It didn't take long before we hit our next problem, the bus stopped at the side of the road around 8:30am, and the bus staff got out and had a look at the engine, something was wrong. They managed to temporary fix the problem and limp to the next town, arriving at 9am,

So now I was in a tiny place called Desse, and no idea what would be happening next. So my friendly local took me off for a cup of tea, feeding me various kind of bread and cake, he picked up the tab afterwards and wouldn't have it any other way. It's amazing to find genuine people like this around the world.

It became apparent very quickly that we weren't going anywhere fast. Table tennis is a very popular game here. There were a big group of older teenagers playing the game at the side of the road, so I wandered over to watch for a while. As expected the couple that could speak English started to chat with me, it turned out that they were in "Job Club", as you can imagine job prospects in rural Ethiopia aren't great, therefore these guys just hang around all day playing Table Tennis, I have to say they were pretty good at it too, not overly surprising.

After four hours, loads of Ethiopian coffee, lunch and a big session of diary writing, the bus lept into life, and everyone got on, almost.

As we started to drive out of the town all the passengers started shouting at the driver that we were one person short. It happened to be the guy that was sharing my bench, so to be honest, I wasn't shouting too loudly! It was amazing, the driver just ignored the calls and drove on! It really wouldn't have taken any time at all to stop and wait for him...

We drove onto the next town, arriving about 45 minutes later. This is when our missing passenger caught up with us. He wasn't happy! He'd paid a taxi driver to chase the bus, what made it worse was that he'd told the driver that he was heading for lunch thinking that it would be enough to ensure that the driver would wait for him... how foolish!

The bus rides continues, and my patience comes to an end. I think it's because I've been travelling for so long, I really think I've had enough of this, especially when the buses are as crap as this. The big bonus was that we travelled through the Blue Nile gorge. It took about an hour to switch back and forth down the side of the gorge, all the time having the most amazing cliff top (brown pant) views, then over the bridge and up the other side.

It started getting dark and we were nowhere near Bahar Dar, so we'd need to be stopping somewhere for the evening. After a couple of hours driving I'd worked myself into a semi medative state, trying to project my conscious being onto a big comfortable bed in a 5 star hotel. We drew up at the side of the road in a small town, whereby the entire bus had a huge discussion in Ahmaric (Ethiopian). I was thinking how great it'd be to stop now and get off this bus for a while, however when the bus started again it drove right through past the end of our little town. My friendly neighbour explained that the discussions had led to us aiming for the next town, despite the failing light and the desire for most people to get off the fffun' bus.

I returned to my medative state, this involved holding onto the seat in front, and then leaning my head in the crook of my elbow. It's a very negative, beaten position. And completely accurate.

So, arriving in our next little town was just amazing!!! Freedom. Now, this is where the generosity of my new Ethiopian friends came to the fore. I was basically hussled by my new friends to the nearest hostel and given a room. "This costs 10 Birr" they told me, as they then headed into the night to find other accomodation.

It didn't bother me that there was no en-suite, or even a light in the room, it was a slice of heaven in my eyes. So, I was relaxing there when the "Owner" drops past. "Ahhhh, 200 Birr for this room" he says. I honestly thought that he was joking, so I laughed. He was deadly serious.
"No, it's only 10 Birr", he was wanting about 20 US Dollars for a 1 US Dollar room!
"No, 200 Birr".
"Huelet Meto!!!, no, Asir Birr", A techique that I like to use is to use local language in negotiations, and since It'd been such a long bus ride, I'd had plenty of time to learn some new vocab! I couldn't actually believe I was negotiating like this. Eventually we came to an agreement, I'd pay 15 Birr and stay. In order to get to this price I'd actually had to pick up my bag and threaten to leave, unbelievable.

So, with the accomodation sorted I headed out to dinner with my new friends. I hadn't learnt the word for "toilet" and so had to mime it. It caused a fair amount of embarrasement so I added it to my list of new words to learn! We had a night cap, which involved a couple of beers. When I went to pay the bill at the end I discovered that one of the crafty Ethiopians had already paid it, they really can be the most amazingly friendly people in the world.

draining bus ride, blue nile gorge.

driving after dark to crappy place.

10 birr room, guy wants 200 birr. meal, drinks ethiopian pays for it. Up early on bus and away!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1157101920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1157101920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1157101920/tpod.html Sun, 17 Dec 2006 11:29:13 -0500 I don´t have a mortgage, I no longer have a job, I´m Single. Good excuse to see Asia, Australasia, South America, Africa......

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Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Ethiopia! Mention to most people that you're going there for a holiday and they'll look at you kind of strangely. It's a country with a serious image problem, from what I've heard from other people and read about myself it really is a great place to visit. I really hope that I'm able to change people's perception of Ethiopia, as a land of amazing history, food, people and countryside. With a bit of luck maybe I can persuade a few of you to consider it as a holiday destination yourself.... That's if I actually like it myself afterall! Ethiopia also represents my last month of travelling, it's 14 down, 1 to go! I'll be in Scotland again before I know it.

However, things didn't get off to a wonderful start..... I hope it's not the shape of things to come.

I had to get a visa on arrival, and I was really chuffed that it didn't take at all long. I just now had to wait in the queue to get my passport stamped. This was no fun, it took about an hour, very very frustrating. At least I'd just come off a 2 hour flight unlike some others around that'd flown in from Europe. I eventually get to the front, and the woman looks at the visa in my passport in a strange way.
"What's wrong with it?" I asked her.
"When did you get this?"
"About an hour ago, here in Bole [airport]"
"Ermm, it's been stamped already, you can just go through"

Oh, now that made me mad, it'd have taken the visa man about 2 seconds to tell me that I could just go straight though the passport section. Now to get my bag....

The Nairobi flight wasn't showing on any of the baggage belts, I must have been a bit slow getting through immigration, Mmmm. So I asked some staff which belt "WAS" Nairobi. Nope, they tell me to go to the baggage counter in the corner. That'd be the one with loads of customers waiting and not a lot of action coming from the staff. I waited for a few minutes but get impatient and have a quick look along the belts without luck.

Maybe I asked the wrong member of staff, so I try again, but nope, I'm directed to the baggage counter again. I've had a long couple of days and I'm now frustrated, tired, dehydrated. So, if that baggage man just happens to be reading this, I appologise for what I said to you!

I take a longer look at each of the baggage belts and finally I see my bag going round, it was probably having feelings of abandonment itself! but we reunite, have a little kiss and cuddle and head off to find somewhere to sleep for the night in Addis Ababa, it's only 10pm now afterall.

I have the opposite problem as usual. I can't actually find a taxi! I need to wander out into the carpark to find one for myself. When I do get one, it's an old Lada, it's cool to be here though and we drive off into the night.

But then halfway into the journey the car starts to shudder and stutter. We then get some kids to push the car down a big hill that we're near as the driver tries to bring the car back to life, but no luck. So now, I've no idea where I am, who I'm with or what to do! A little crowd of locals stand round the car, just to see what's going on and then a few of them start asking for money. I really can't handle this right now.

My driver has a fiddle under the bonnet and decides that he can't do anything, so he phones his friend who comes past 10 minutes later and takes me to the hostel, which fortunatly has a spare room. It's time for a well deserved sleep now.

Addis contains about 4 million people, but you wouldn't know it. Walking down the streets it's not uncommon to see goats and sheep grazing away at the side, or middle!, of the road. The center is fairly small and it's easy to get around on foot without having to resort to taxis (please not again!) or buses. The streets are also wide which gives you an amazing feeling of space that you'd not expect.

I spent 2 full days in Addis, getting out whenever the rain stopped long enough. I guess that's my fault for coming here at the end of the rainy season. I met Kris from Oz, and Rene from Senegal and I ended up spending a bit of time with these guys. They were kind enough to show me around a little bit, and allow me to get my bearings. I went to a couple of museums with Kris, the National museum was nice enough, it wasn't great. However we then went to the Ethnological museum, that was a blast.

It was a fairly sad place, filled with stuffed animals, moths impaled with pins and snakes in jars. However for some reason we managed to have a good joke about most of its contents, especially the two Hyenna heads that had really weird facial expressions. It's a superb place to visit so long as you don't get too upset about the obvious death that had to take place to fill the museum.

At one point while walking through Addis, Kris was passing on some information about Ethiopia in general.
"Don't pay more than 80 Birr for a donkey" (That's about 10 US Dollars).
"Is that for a half or full day?"
"No, that's to buy the donkey".
Now that's the kind of information that I need.

In the evening we went out to a little place for some food. The food wasn't too bad and we were still hungry by the end, so we ordered some seconds. When it arrived Kris picked up the little bowl of diced fried meat, spilled it into the middle of our Injera and then watched as a cockroach sprinted out from it. Kris casually scooped it out flicked it away and continued eating, as did I. Afterwards we did ask each other why we'd continued eating, maybe we'd had too many beers.

The biggest problem that I'm going to have here in Ethiopia is the poverty. Not surprisingly a large number of the population are very very poor. This means that you're constantly approached whilst walking down the street, being asked for money. It's impossible to give to everyone, so you have to learn to keep walking, saying no. I've been in poor countries before and been approached by beggars before, but nowhere else was the problem on this scale.

So overall, I've probably not painted a great picture of Addis, maybe when I get up country things will change? Who knows.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1156754220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1156754220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1156754220/tpod.html Sun, 17 Dec 2006 11:11:30 -0500 I don´t have a mortgage, I no longer have a job, I´m Single. Good excuse to see Asia, Australasia, South America, Africa......

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Stonetown, Tanzania

Before leaving Zanzibar I decided to stop in Stonetown for a couple of days, Afterall, why leave a little bit of paradise sooner than you have to.

Stonetown's a great place, I loved the atmosphere of the town as you wander around streets which are effectively just little parts of one big maze. It's very easy to loose your way around here. That's also a good thing as you're able to just wander around at your leisure and just take what comes at you.

I did get lost on my first day there as I was trying to get back to my hostel. Luckilly a very 'friendly' man saw that I didn't know where I was going and helped me back, as I said goodbye to him he puckered up "One thousand please" (about 40 pence), although I managed to haggle the price down to just 500!

I also took the opportunity to head out on a snorkling trip. I'd already done a trip on the east coast but I'd heard that the area near stonetown is much better. I booked a trip through a dive shop, I've done this before, they take one boat out and some people dive, others snorkle. However when I turned up the next day I found out that everyone else was diving, it was a little embarrassing when everyone was getting kitted up into their equipment and I just had to grab some sun cream, flippers and my mask.

I didn't really care though and I had a great time, the coral and fish are great here. The variety is brilliant and with two 'snorkles' lasting an hour each I had plenty of time to see everything that I wanted.

It was a quiet couple of days for me to finish off two weeks of quiet days! back to the mainland....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1156496880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1156496880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1156496880/tpod.html Sun, 17 Dec 2006 11:08:15 -0500 I don´t have a mortgage, I no longer have a job, I´m Single. Good excuse to see Asia, Australasia, South America, Africa......

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Bwejuu, Zanzibar, Tanzania

I caught the cheaper and slower ferry over to Zanzibar, it's amazing how they make the sea that translucent turquiose colour.

I had a quick overnight stop in Stonetown when I arrived before getting a tourist bus out to the east coast of Zanzibar. There were loads of places to choose from but I elected to go to Bwejuu, described as a quiet village with nothing to do but walk between the palm trees. It also seemed to have a really great hostel there.

The tourist bus was a real pain though, it firstly took a detour half way down the south coast to a place called Jambiani before doubling back up towards Bwejuu. Despite asking to be taken to 'Mustpha's Nest' they took me and another couple to a completely different hostel, who then quoted an absurd rate of 30 dollars per night each. It was at this point I realised that these guys were just after as much commision from hostels as possible. So I grabbed my bag and got out the bus. The guy tried to tell me that he had a duty to look after me, and that he needed to take me to a hostel. I told him to bugger off.

However, with the day moving on and temperatures rising I wasn't so happy when I couldn't find the hostel that I wanted. Locals would try and help me, but ultimately wouldn't have a clue where it was. Then I met the guy from the minibus again. He insisted on trying to help me...
"Hello my friend, you look hot, let me show you to the hostel that you want"
"Can you just tell me where it is?"
"No my friend, I will take you there, it is no problem."
"No really, I just need directions"
"Please let me help you"
"I don't want you to show me and you don't want to tell me, therefore we can't do anything, goodbye".

It was such a pain, but I eventually found it, and I'm glad I did. It's a beautiful little place with very friendly staff and travellers. Dinner is eaten at one big table so it's very easy to get to know everyone else there. As it happens my suspicion was right, the guy was after commision. He turned up later at the hostel and asked for commision from the owner, who promptly told him to bugger off as well. Apparently they demand as much as 50% of the room rate for commision which goes a long way to explain why some places charge 20-30 US Dollars per person per night. I managed to get my little room for 15 dollars, a bargain round these parts!

My room was excellent, it was above the toilets which wasn't a problem. But it had a view over the hostel and the bamboo walls let through a really cool breeze each night. It also had a brilliant balcony where I sat and watched the world go by for hours on end. The big minus point though was lack of hammocks, now that'd make things much better there.

The beach was only 1 minute's walk away, and it was quite a beach. Great white sand and a lovely coloured sea (when the tide was in), palm trees on the fringe, and barely anyone else on the beach, other than locals just going about their daily business. It really was the postcard deserted beach. Again, I spent a number of hours down here reading my books and just taking in the rays.

I spent 9 days down here in total, that was 9 very lazy days. I did venture out on a snorkle trip one day, which was nice, but not amazing. Another day I walked 3Km down the beach to the next town, Paje, to read my emails, and of course it was a lovely walk as well. But other than that I just chilled out and enjoyed myself. If you're ever in Zanzibar then Mustapha's Nest is a great place to go.

After the 9 days of great food, company, beach, drums, music, games, reading, chilling, and generally doing little each day I had to leave. And I was sad to do so, a few more days would have been excellent, however I have to get up to Nairobi for my flight to Ethiopia. Time to get moving again.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1155315660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1155315660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1155315660/tpod.html Sun, 17 Dec 2006 11:02:15 -0500 I don´t have a mortgage, I no longer have a job, I´m Single. Good excuse to see Asia, Australasia, South America, Africa......

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Mwanza, Tanzania

Oh the joys of African Travel, and I'm just getting started. If the 'How Many People Can You Fit Into A Minibus' event was to become an olyimpic sport, then the Ugandans would be gold medal candidates. I was picked up at the side of a road into an already full minibus and squeezed in. I literally couldn't move and my feet started going numb before we arrived at the next town. The relief of blood flowing back into my feet was pretty sweet.

I then had to get a shared taxi to the border on Tanzania. With one passenger in the front and three in the back our driver wanted to wait for two more passengers. Myself and another passenger offered to pay double, to make up the fare, to leave immediately and to travel in semi-comfort.
"No, We need 2 more people"
"But if we pay extra then it's the same amount of money for you, and we leave now"
"No, we need to find 2 more people"
I gave up at this.

It didn't take him long to find more people, 1 for the front and another 2 for the back (That's 5 in total back there(myself included)). What did I do to deserve this? Thankfully 2 of them were only travelling a short distance.

Then into Tanzania, things improved slightly. Myself and a new friend managed to get the, comfortable, front seats of a minibus to Bukoba, however it didn't leave for about 2 hours. That's despite promises of moving, i.e. going forward 10 meters at a time. Then half way down the road we stopped again, probably for an hour, but every few minutes he'd drive forward or backwards 10 meters and everyone thought we'd be off, only to be disappointed each time.

Eventually I arrived in Bukoba and headed straight down to the ferry port to buy a ticket to Mwanza. And with luck, I only had 5 hours to wait till the ferry left. It was ok in the end, I ended up chatting with a guy from the Philippines and some of his mates for the duration. I also learned how to open a bottle of beer using another bottle of beer, another life skill mastered.

The ferry ride was superb, the night scene was excellent as we left the dock. I didn't stay up too long watching it though as I was soon in bed, in my swish first class cabin! which coincidently I ended up sharing with Romel the Philipino. I slept all the way through into the early hours and only awoke once we were close to Mwanza. We got off the boat and Romel was met by one of his friends. Despite the time we'd spent together the next thing he said to me was "It was nice meeting you, bye!", and at that, I was dumped.

Mwanza is Tanzania's second largest city (more like town) in terms of size and commercial importance. Despite that it's very laid back and easy to walk around. The locals are all really nice, especially the owner of one restaurant that I visited a few times. He was a real character and when I ordered 'Ugali' one day he expressed his concern. It's a local dish that's basically a solid porridge made from millet. He made me try a little bit before allowing me a whole portion! To be honest it was fairly horid, but I wanted to have it at least once, for that authentic experience!

Of course the town is on the shore of Lake Victoria, which adds a great deal to the town's ambiance. There is a little peninsular that juts out into the Lake, I had a walk around some large rocks at the end of the peninsular which gave me a great view of the lake, but rather sadly was treated as a dumping grounds by the locals. And when I say 'dumping' I really mean that in the defication sense. I also found some really weird lizards here as well, their back legs and body were bright blue, while front legs, chest and head were bright red. How did evolution do that one?

I booked myself on the sleeper train to get out of Mwanza. It's not really the most exciting of places and I've decided that I want to get down to the coast quickly, specifically Zanzibar, therefore I'm now a man on a mission!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1154969760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1154969760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1154969760/tpod.html Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:53:10 -0500 I don´t have a mortgage, I no longer have a job, I´m Single. Good excuse to see Asia, Australasia, South America, Africa......

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Masaka, Uganda

My bus 'left' at 6:30am, so I was up while it was still dark. I got my stuff together and bumbled down to the bus station, and waited for the bus. And then waited some more. Around 7:30am I asked where the bus was, "It'll be here soon, just wait". So I did, then I waited some more.

Eventually the bus turned up at 10:30am, we boarded and were off by 11am. In case your maths isn't very good, that's 4.5 hours of just sitting there doing nothing. It was made frustrating by the fact that the bus company offered no explaination never mind an apology. The thing was, all the locals that took this bus appeared completely non-plussed by the wait. This is true africa style.

When the bus got going though, it really didn't hang about. It was going all the way to Nairobi but I got off 2 hours short of Kampala in a little place called Masaka, just as it was getting dark. I much prefer arriving during daylight as it's safer and you have more chance of finding a decent place to stay.

I flagged down a passing Boda-Boda (motorcycle taxi) and asked him if he knew the "Masaka Backpackers", "oh yes" he assured me. HUH!

We drove down into the town, where he asked for some directions. He then proceeded out of town on a now dark road. I was on the back of the bike with my full rucksack on with brown pants as I really couldn't see the badly lit road in front of me, perhaps he had special African eyes that allowed him to see. The pants got browner as he was hurtling down a hill and hit a small pot hole, I did a little "Jump" in my seat thankfully landing back on it, I held onto him after this. He asked again for more directions before heading down a little muddy road, at this point he half-turns to me and says, "Mzungu, you need to bring more money".

I'd already agreed a price that was higher than I thought it should have been, and here he is asked for more because he didn't have a clue where the hostel was. I was a little worried and just tried to placate him but telling him "We'll sort it out when we get there.", thinking "IF we get there".

It turned out that this dirt road was the wrong one, as was the next one. Third time lucky we got there. I jumped off the bike feeling relieved, and especially relieved when the owner said he had a spare bed, thanks! I paid off the Boda-Boda driver with a little extra cash than promised and then kissed my bed, it'd been a long day and I was so happy to arrive.

My plan from here was to head down the west side of Lake Victoria into Tanzania, but I thought I may as well spend a little time relaxing first. So the next day I caught a bus to take me towards Kampala, getting off at the equator! I thought it'd be interesting to visit since I'd also visited the equator in Ecuador, however I was mistaken. It was fairly dull, The highlight was undoubtably watching water swirl and not swirl down a hole in a bucket. Just 2 meters north of the equator water drains clockwise, and to the south anti-clockwise (or is it the other way round?). But right on the equator the water drained directly down, without any swirling. The second most interesting thing that I did here was to drink a coke with my left bum cheek in the southern hemisphere and the right one in the north. I got a Matatu back to Masaka after only a short time.

Masaka wasn't much to write home about, and definetly nothing to write about in travelpod!

So I decided to leave the next morning. However the rain was belting down, I was perched comfortably on the verranda of the guest house reading my excellent book, "Rage" by Wilbur Smith, and waited for the rain to stop. I just didn't fancy the walk down to the main road in the rain. The rain didn't stop but I didn't mind as the book was so good. It did eventually cease around midday, but by then it was too late. So instead I walked into Masaka and did many things completely unworthy of repeating here.

The rain gods were kind to me the next day, and I packed my bag again in order to say goodbye to Uganda.

Another thing that I forgot to mention in my previous posts is the attitude towards crime in Uganda! This is something that I saw first hand and it's pretty scarey. It appears that the police are rather ineffectual in Uganda, due to massive under funding and very very poor pay. So when someone commits a crime against you, it's pretty pointless calling the police, it appears that it's better to perform a bit of vigilant justice instead.

This can involve the chasing and beating of guilty parties, a mob is very quickly formed here and the punishment delivered can far outweigh the actual crime. But that's not my biggest problem. It's very easy for vigilante justice to be administerd to the 'Accused'. It's good enough here to point the finger at someone and say that they're guily, the mob will form and 'justice' will be delivered, regardless of guilt.

This is a real problem that Uganda will need to address in it's near future.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1154705340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1154705340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/irax/rtw_2005/1154705340/tpod.html Sun, 17 Dec 2006 10:50:03 -0500 I don´t have a mortgage, I no longer have a job, I´m Single. Good excuse to see Asia, Australasia, South America, Africa......

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Gisenyi, Rwanda

A shoe horn was required this time, but I got into the minibus for the 2 hour journey to Gisenyi. The bus fare was only about 2 US Dollars, I'd have loved to have bought 2 tickets so that I could travel with at least a little more comfort, but I just knew that it wouldn't work out that way, these minibuses never leave ANYONE at the side of the road that wants to travel. By the time I got to Gisenyi a number of people had got off the bus allowing the blood to flow to my limbs again.

I have to say, there isn't much in Gisenyi. The lake looks great but I was accompanied by foul weather meaning that it was pretty much robbed of it's best attraction. However I spent many an hour reading my guidebook, reading my book, writing my diary and of course writing my beloved travelpod!

The room that I had in the hostel was way in the corner, right beside the kitchens. I'd love to say that I got on well with the staff, but all they seemed to do was say hello and then laugh. Perhaps that was them being friendly, or maybe I had something stuck to my forehead for two days. One afternoon I came out my room to find them all plucking chickens, with feathers everywhere. I know it probably sounds naive, but you forget sometimes that people have to do this, I thought it was brilliant to see.

Ermmm, that's about it, Gisenyi was chilled, but I now have a plan and an idea of how to execute it. I'm heading back to Uganda and then down the west side of Lake Victoria. It's not a convensional route so I think there may be a few problems to sort out along the way! At least that's part of the fun!
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