The Labour and Pain of Travel

Mitchell's and my contemplation led us to different directions so as I moved south to Blantyre my Aussie travelpartner for the past few months went west towards Zambia. In Blantyre I soon bumped into Maayan and Naama, two Israeli girls I first met in southern Uganda and since then in other locations. They were headed to Mozambique as was I so the three of us set off early one morning not knowing what travels lie ahead. The delays started on our first bus towards the border where not long after taking off did a woman give birth to a baby boy making the bus take a detour past the hospital. Once we reached the border I got my first real taste of the African corruption I've heard so much about as the Mozambiqui borderpolice claimed to have run out of regular visas meaning we would have to pay $90, more than three times as much than it should be to enter. We didn't have much choice but to cough up the money and after getting some food in us at the frontiertown of Milange we managed to get a ride with a truck transporting a mountain of plastic buckets and containers. It was only a 200 km trip but the roads would be bad so we knew the 2 hour promise was an optimistic lie, we just didn't know how optimistic yet. The uncomfortable cargo I was sitting on was poorly fastened and large sacks fell off every so often, meaning we had to stop and retie everything and on one occassion we lost Maayan's bag without noticing and had to backtrack for a while in pitchblack to recover it. It was past midnight and freezing cold on top of the buckets in the strong draft and dust of the roads, when the driver had drunk one too many beers and decided he needed a nap for a couple of hours, so we sat and waited for him to wake up before completing the stretch that lay ahead, by the time we arrived in Mocuba we had made really good time, just short of 14 hours. In the small dull town of Mocuba we recharged our batteries for a day staying in the cheapest accomodation we could find which was undoubtebly a brothel, before getting on a jampacked bus to Nampula, once there we managed to get a minibus to our goal from the start, which was Isla De Mocambique. All the painful travel was well worth it once we could walk around the beautiful island which was once the capital of Portuguese East Africa. Also it has been nice to hear the beautiful language again which I grew to love in Brazil, and I was surprised at how much I could comprehend. After a couple of days among the colonial buildings and peaceful settings I decided to move on back south leaving the Israelis behind. Before I continue I would however like a minute to describe the vehicle which is the weapon of choice when it comes to African transport. It has many names in different countries, the Matatu, Dalla Dalla, Matola or the Chapa as they call it here in Mozambique, however it is almost always a white Toyota minibus with anything from 9 to 15 seats, a number which in most cases is doubled in amount of passengers. People and animals (mostly chickens) will be packed in on top of eachother, sometimes hanging out of the sliding doors, but the front row behind the driver is the real breadwinner of the van. Here an experienced conductor can interlace his passengers in a zipper-fashion, two lines facing eachother, with each person placing each of his or her knees into the crotch of the two people sitting opposite, meaning you will also recieve two knees between your legs, if this is done correctly you can easily fit nine fullygrown men into a space which was designed to seat only three. It was one of these seats I was dealt on my way back to Nampula and even before we had got on the causeway off the island I had lost sensation in both squeezed legs, the only feeling I could recognise was the burn of my barefoot against the warm metal which covers the engine. After biting my lip for 5 hours I got into Nampula once again and had planned to get a bus south to Beira the next morning but after getting the run around for a few hours and finding only expensive hotels I opted for a bus which would leave at 2 AM for Vilanculo as the busdriver let me stay on the bus overnight saving me one nights accommodation as well as getting me further south. The 20 hour trip was incident-free and the roads surprisingly good for the most part, but when I got off the bus it turned out I was still 20 km from Vilanculo so I had to get a lift on a pickup before finally getting to a guesthouse with warm showers and a bed.

Steamboat Paulie

The four of us boarded the Ilala, which is an old steamboat that has been trafficking Lake Malawi since the 1951, just after midnight. There is something oddly romantic about chugging along in an old vessel, sleeping under the stars on the wooden deck and just looking out across the waters, almost like timetravel bringing you back to colonial days. We arrived just before sunset at the small island of Likoma which lies in the Mozambique side of the lake but belongs to Malawi. Marcus and Kate left the following morning while Mitchell and I stayed on the secluded beaches, venturing into town and seeing the cathedral which looks slightly out of place and would be more suited for a small English town. After three nights we got back on the Ilala, however the romance was over as the tranquil lake had transformed into a small ocean and the 40 hour voyage was a bit rough, making sleeping on deck rather challenging. We were quite delayed by the time we reached our port of disembarkation, Monkey Bay, so the crew let us sleep overnight in a cabin before we could get on the back of pickup-truck taking us to the small beachtown Cape Maclear. We have now spent a few days here doing absolutely nothing, contemplating what our next move should be.

Africa$h

My travel trio had once again changed, Mitchell was still around but English Paul had been transferred for American Scott. We managed to catch the early morning bus from Dar Es Salaam towards the Malawi-border, however we were all running low on Tanzanian shillings and nobody wanted to exchange more so we decided to go without food or drink until we reached the new country, problems arose though when the bus didn’t take us to the border in time to cross that evening. We were forced to find a bargain of a room and then make our way to the crossing the following morning, however we didn’t have enough currency for both accommodation and bus ticket but some sneaky misleading manoeuvres made sure that the bus cost us nothing. Once in Songwe on the Malawian side of the border we were faced with our next dilemma, the exchange rates we were being offered for our dollars were pretty good, but we felt certain we could get better once we reached a bigger town, in Malawi at the moment the devaluation of the local currency Kwacha means that one can get almost double of the official rate if you find somebody on the black market willing to buy dollars. We didn’t arrive in the town of Mzuzu until it was once again too late to do any business but an albino man named Christopher was kind enough to guide us around and took us to a cheap hotel which would let us pay for our room the following morning when the black market would reopen, this did however mean that we would once again have to go to bed on empty stomachs. When we awoke the next door restaurant made us some eggs which were delicious after almost three days of starvation, and we could eventually find a rate which was satisfying, pay for our tabs and move to the nearby Nkhata Bay. The bay provided a much needed place for relaxation and over the next few days we relaxed on the sandy shores of Lake Malawi, going on boat trips and enjoying beach parties. Then we met Swedish Marcus and his Australian wife Kate who work for National Geographic, they were driving down the coast to Nkhotakota where a ferry leaves once a week for the island of Likoma, and they kindly offered us a lift, so while Scott stayed to complete his diving-licence, Mitchell and I tagged along with the couple towards new adventures.
In Camera related News:
“Once Bitten, Twice Shy?” Not for this author, one would think after learning the hazards of salt-water in the Red Sea he would have learnt his lesson but no, once again the blue waters were too tempting and after going for a swim with the camera it turns out that it is not resistant to fresh-water either, so watch this space to see if it is possible to repair it for a second time.

The Roads Less and More Travelled

Our group went in seperate directions, the Swedes flew to Mocambique, Canadian Paul and American Scott went to Zanzibar whilst us remaining four headed over the lush green hills into Burundi. According to unconfirmed facts Burundi is the poorest country in the world, something I find a bit hard to believe. Our visas only allowed us to stay for three days so as soon as we had found a hotel we got started on finding out was on offer in the capital Bujumbura, it turns out they have a busy market, a nice empty beach on Lake Tanganiyka and an amusing nightscene. After two nights we had to leave the country and while Eric went up to Kenya, the lure of beach-life made the other three of us get on a 30-hour busride across the entire width of Tanzania to Dar Es Salaam. In Dar we got a ferry across to the island of Zanzibar and it's capital Stonetown. Stonetown has shades of Lamu with it's Swahili architecture and twisting maze of alleys, but on a much larger scale. We slept one night in town and then headed up the coast to the paradise beach of Kendwa, where Canadian Paul and Scott were waiting. I don't use the word paradise lightly but this stretch of white sand definetly qualifies and I could easily have gotten stuck here for a very a long time but luckily I woke up one morning to the sound of rain which convinced me to get back into travelling mode and return to Stonetown. I stayed overnight and got lost in the labyrinth for a while and then got the ferry back to Dar Es Salaam  where I slept two nights before deciding that I was done with Tanzania and got a bus towards Malawi.

Mr Lava Man

After acquiring all the necessary paperwork required for our trip west, Mitchell and the three Pauls caught a bus to the Rwandan town of Gisenyi. We spent two nights here next to Lake Kivu preparing for our journey into The Democratic Republic of Congo, a rule of thumb that I have about countries is that if a nation puts the word Democratic in it's title it most likely does not exercise democracy. Crossing into the town of Goma didn't prove too difficult though as there were no bribes required and no real hassle. Our main reason for coming to this part of Africa was to climb Mount Nyiragongo which is the most active Volcano on the continent and had it's last devastating outbreak in 2002. The five hour ascent to the top through rainforest and over volcanic rock and lava-rubble was strenuous but once we reached the peak and could peer down into the largest lava-lake in the world, it was all well worth it as it was easily one of the most fascinating sights I have ever encountered. We spent hours just staring into the mesmerising effect of the red liquid below, then slept in cabins on the rim of the crater and started our descent early the morning after. Back in Goma we had a relaxed night out and checked out the huge market the following day. Our plan was then to head back into Rwanda but after a brief meeting with Major Arsene who is head of security in the region all that had changed. Instead we once again linked up with the two other Swedes and Americans and were having Scotch Whisky for lunch and acquainting ourselves with his various mistresses protected by two macho bodyguards. Needless to say we did not make it across the border that evening but had a night out which I doubt any of us will forget any time soon. Our second attempt at leaving the country was more successful and once we were back in Gisenyi we had a quick lunch and got a bus to Kigali. We spent a couple of nights in the capital and at the time of writing we are all preparing for one final night out before the crew will split and head in different directions.

Rwandabe

The bordercrossing was an easy one for me as Swedes for some reason are among the 4 non African nationalities which get free entry to Rwanda. Arriving in the capital was a bit of a shock as everything was so unafrican: clean, wide, palmlined avenues with streetlights, flowing traffic and drivers following traffic rules, buses with set prices, motorcycle taxis who will only take one passenger and offer helmets were just some of the crazy first impressions that met us. Rwanda has a very tragic history though as most of you probably know, just 18 years ago one of the crulest and most brutal genocides ever took place in the small landlocked country as over 1 million people were killed in a hundred days. We spent almost two weeks in Kigali visiting some of the sights, including a brilliant memorial museum, a couple of churches just outside the city which witnessed some of the worst massacers and Hotel Milles Collines where the events of the Hollywood movie "Hotel Rwanda" took place. Our visit to Rwanda happened to coincide with "Memorial Week" where the country pretty much shuts down to mourn the victims of the genocide. The first week we stayed in a youth hostel but then found out about a hotel which was going to be closed to the public due to the remembrance, so we linked up with a third Paul from England, two Swedes, an American and Mitchell who showed up in the fourth consecutive country, to turn the empty grounds into a boy's club complete with swimmingpool, tabletennis-, fussball- and pool-table. The main reason we all spent so long here was because we were waiting for our Congolese visas to be approved, which has now happened and thus we shall be making a move shortly...

Monkey Business

(Authors Note: I am fully aware of the fact that none of the animals mentioned in the following post are actually monkeys, but the title has a better ring to it than ape business.)

After being diagnosed with typhoid I decided some animal-cuddling was on the papers, and headed to Entebbe Wildlife Centre together with an American guy called Preston. We stayed overnight inside the zoo and the following day got an early start volunteering. Over the next 12 hours we helped out, cleaning the cages and feeding all the different animals. It was unbelievable how much we were allowed to do and in one day I not only saw "The Big Five" but even managed to pet them. However the absolute highlight of the day was the time we spent we spent with the orphan chimpanzee babies, a long lived dream I've had since I was a very young child, and saying goodbye to the little cuties was very tough. Back in Kampala I reunited with Canadian Paul and after a couple more days in the capital we moved across to the southern hemisphere and the small town of Kabale. The town itself doesn't have much on offer apart from it's proximity to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, which isn't slang for a nun's vagina but a National Park that houses half of the world's existing mountain gorilla population. The permit for the park is a hefty 500 U.S. Dollars (soon to be raised to $750) and the taxi back and forth from Kabale costs $100, but I knew I would regret not seeing them when I had the chance. So there are only around 700 remaining mountain gorilas on the planet and roughly 300 of them live in Bwindi while the others can be found in the rainforests between Rwanda and The Congo. Tracking them was a strenuous trek through dense jungle but after just one hour we found the gorgeous creatures having breakfast in a clearing. You are only allowed to stay with them for one hour as not to disturb them too much, but it was truly amazing to see our distant relatives at only a few metres stretch in their natural habitat. Back in Kabale we met Desiree from Colorado and the three of us took a long hike followed by a short canoe ride at Lake Bunyoni, after having seen the beautiful landscape here we decided to come and stay in the surroundings. The first night we stayed on the mainland and swam in the safe (crocodile-, hippo- and bilharzia-free) waters. The morning after we got in a hollowed out tree trunk and paddled to one of the small islands on the lake, we stayed there two nights and allthough the rainy season is just starting it was a really tranquil and relaxing place to be. We then caught a ride back to the mainland, this time opting for the pricier but less labouring option of motorboat. On shore Paul and I said farewell to Desiree and made for the border of Rwanda.