Africa - Tgon's Travels

Weeks 46 & 47: Cape Maclear to Dar es Salaam

Posted on 03/06/2012

The last two weeks have been excellent, Malawi is one of my favourite countries. Week 46 started with the birthday celebration of Joana, one of the girls we had met in Monkey Bay. We stayed in Cape Maclear for a few days before we decided to head north, but on the day that we tried to leave Charlie found that he had a puncture in his rear tyre. We tried to patch it but apparently having ‘slime’ in your tyre prevents patches from sticking. We had already slept in Cape Maclear from nine nights but we had to stay a tenth night so that we could sort out Charlies bike, he put a smaller tube in the tyre to last until we could get to the next town. The next morning we set off north and stayed a night in Kande Beach before we arrived in Nkhata Bay.

Nkhata Bay is the most popular tourist destination on Lake Malawi, I prefer Cape Maclear, but Nkhata bay is nice too. We stayed in a lodge called the Butterfly which offers opportunities to volunteer in the local community, in return you get discounts on your accommodation. We spent the weekend there and then stared week 47 by travelling to Livingstonia. Most of the journey was along nice tarmac roads with beautiful views on either side, then for the last 15Km the road turned into a rocky track which winds its way up the mountain to the town of Livinstonia. We stayed in the most amazing lodge I have ever visited, Lukwe Gardens. The lodge has been there for eleven years, the owner has built a permaculture farm which supplies the lodge with fruit and vegetables.

We relaxed there for a few days before heading over the border into Tanzania, but on the way to Mbeya I lost touch with Charlie, we didn’t have mobile phones so we couldn’t find each other, I stayed a night in cheap accommodation before heading off on the long 830Km drive from Mbeya to Dar es Salaam. I arrived late at night and Charlie arrived the next day, now we are trying to arrange a ship to Zanzibar. Yesterday we had a ship that would take us but we couldn’t get past port security, the next ship leaves on Monday, hopefully we can get into the port then.

Weeks 44 & 45: Zambia to Malawi

Posted on 20/05/2012

Week 44 started in Livingstone, Zambia. I took some time to make sure my paperwork was in order and sent it off to the customs office in Namibia, this is to claim back the 450 Euro deposit I had to pay in order to have a temporary import permit for my bike. Hopefully this will arrive soon as my budget is running kinda low. From Livingstone we headed east to a lodge on Lake Kariba, a huge man-made lake on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. The lodge is on the grounds of the largest crocodile farm in Africa, they sell the skins for making bags, wallets and belts, the meat for food and the fat is used to make some special ‘healing cream’. We camped by the lake and took a tour around the farm in the morning before heading off east again to the capital of Zambia, Lusaka.

We stayed a couple of nights in Lusaka for Charlie to get his chain replaced then we split up for a few days. Charlie headed to South Luangwa safari park and I took a couple of days travelling east, over the border into Malawi to the capital city, Lilongwe. We met up again at the beginning of this week in a lodge on the banks of Lake Malawi. The lodge was in a small town called Monkey Bay and had been described as a ‘rustic camp’. The water was unbelievably clear and the weather was good, I met a couple of girls there who had been managing the lodge for a couple of months but were about to head off travelling again. We all decided to stay together for a while, as we were heading to the same place, Cape Maclear.

I had thought that Monkey bay was a paradise, but when we arrived in Cape Maclear I was amazed with the beauty of the place, beautiful calm fresh water in the lake, picturesque hills and mountains as a backdrop and lots of colourful Lake Malawi Chichlids to see when snorkelling. We have been in Cape Maclear for just over a week now, relaxing, socialising and doing a lot of swimming and snorkelling in the lake. In the evenings as the sun is about to set, children walk along the lake shore with home made instruments and busk for the tourists, I have managed to get some good pictures and videos together and will upload them when I can get some time on the internet. Cape Maclear is a place I could easily live out the rest of my life, but in a couple of days we will continue north along the edge of Lake Malawi towards the Tanzanian border.

Africa Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Week 43: Namibia to Zambia

Posted on 06/05/2012

Last weekend we crossed over the border from Botswana back into Namibia and stayed in the Ngepi lodge, we met a cool Canadian couple who travel all around the world in a loe budget style. They walk and hitchhike around, staying in cheap places and finding cheap or free ways to see the tourist attractions. They gave us some advice about Victoria Falls and other places along our Africa route and throughout Asia. From Ngepi we headed through the Caprivi strip to the Zambian border, there is a main road which runs through the Caprivi park, when you drive along it there is a chance that you will see elephants and other safari animals at the side of the road. We saw two groups of elephants before we arrived in the border town of Katima Mulilo.

My wrist has been hurting since the crash, two weeks ago, so I started looking into what the problem could be. I suspected it could be a fracture on my Scaphoid bone and decided that I should go to the hospital and get it checked out, I spent seven hours in the hospital, first I spent four hours waiting to see a nurse, then another two hours waiting to see a doctor. They sent me for an xray but couldn’t see any fracture and said it was probably soft tissue damage, so they gave me some cream, painkillers and bandages. Meanwhile Charlie was tired of sitting around in the guesthouse waiting for me so he left and crossed into Zambia, headed to Livingstone. The next day I followed him and was pleased to get into Zambia, it feels alot more like Africa, especially after the very German feeling Namibia. Now I have to start the process of claiming back the 450 pounds which I gave to the Namibian customs for my temporary import permit.

Over the last few days I have been chilling out in Livingstone, there are a lot of tourists here and it’s nice to speak with some English people again. On Friday night there was a full moon and the main tourist attraction was the lunar rainbow at Victoria Falls. A group of around nine of us set off to the park, but when we saw there were too many security guards for us to sneak in for free and the entrance was 25 US dollars each, we decided to skip it. We headed to the border and crossed out of Zambia without going all the way in to Zimbabwe, there is a large bridge which looks down onto the falls and its free to go there. We sat in a little shelter on the bridge for a couple of hours drinking beer and eating snacks with a soldier who was guarding the bridge. We saw the lunar rainbow and were out of beer, so we decided to leave. On the way back to the Zambian border post we decided to climb the fence into the Victoria Falls park, we wandered through the forest and found the main tourist walkway, we walked around seeing the falls without anyone else around then headed back to the hostel.

We are planning to leave Livingstone tomorrow heading to Lusaka and then on to Malawi.

Africa Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Week 42: Northern Namibia and Botswana

Posted on 30/04/2012

From Sepupa we headed east across the northern border of Namibia, it was on one of these sandy pistes that we met a group of Namibian motorcyclists who were on a weekend break. We decided to camp with them and found that one of them owned a garage in a town further east. We arranged to meet them after a couple of days so that we could use the garage for some repairs. So we decided to spend a night in a nearby town called Ruacana, on the way there we stopped off to visit some hippo pools. A group of local guys were having a BBQ and invited us to join them, it turned out that one of these guys was the owner of the camp site we were planning to stay in that night. We went out on the river on his speedboat and sat drinking beer and playing guitar, at the end of the evening he offered to let us stay in a luxury tent for the price of using our own.

The next day we headed to Oshakati and met the guy who owned the garage, Charlie’s tyres were arriving the next morning so Braun (the garage owner) offered to let us stay at his house. The next morning we headed to the garage and spent a few hours doing minor repairs on the bikes before heading off on the long drive to Rundu. We camped in Rundu for a night before heading to Divindu, staying in a camp called Ngepi. We took a sunset boat ride on the river and saw some elephants and hippos. The next morning we headed into Botswana to the Okavango Delta and did a two day Mokoro safari, spending a night camping on an island in the delta, again we saw some elephants and hippos. We arranged the trip through a community group called the polers trust, they have a lodge in Saronga and the lodge had just come under new management. They were feeling very generous and let us sleep in the chalet for the price of camping. On the way back to Ngepi camp in Namibia we stopped off at a game reserve and saw more elephants.

Over the next few days we will head through the Caprivi strip and cross the border into Zambia to see Victoria falls.

Africa Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Week 41: Namibia and the crash

Posted on 22/04/2012

Last weekend we left Windhoek, heading south to Rehoboth before heading south west through the mountains towards the Namib desert and a town called Sesriem. Sesriem is on the edge of a national park in the desert, we arrived there after dark and set up camp. The next morning we got up at 5am to get into the desert for sunrise. We saw some Springbok and Oryx while driving out into the dunes, then we walked around in the desert for a while taking pictures before we set off back to the camp and then drove north back to Swakopmund.

It was on the way to Swakopmund that I had my accident, most of the roads here in Namibia are not tarmac but gravel, graders drive along the roads helping to keep the gravel to a minimum. The only problem is that it moves the gravel into long strips running the length of the road. I was around 100Km outside of Swakopmund when my bike started slipping in one of these gravel strips, I had slipped before and regained control but this time the bike weaved and wobbled for about 60 meters then fell onto the left side, this is when I hurt my wrist and bashed my ribs, the bike slid down the road a little way, then flipped over onto the right side and landed on my foot. I got up and made sure I could still move all my joints, then picked up the contents of my top box, which were now scattered around on the road. After a few minutes a car arrived and asked if I was ok, the driver helped me pick my bike up, I repacked the top box and continued down the road, meeting up with Charlie after about 40Km. We drove back to Swakopmund and checked into a hotel, I limped into the room, took off my boot and my foot was swollen. We got some ice from the hotel and I took some pain killers, then rested with ice on my foot and wrist.

Luckily, when I woke up the next day my foot hadn’t turned black and blue as I had expected, everything still hurt but I could walk and ride. I cleaned the bike up and replaced the clutch lever then we spent two days resting in Swakopmund before heading north again. We headed to a seal colony in Cape Cross and were planning to take the main road to Uis, the people who worked in the sanctuary told us about a ‘new road’ which cut through the desert. We decided to take this ‘new road’ which was actually a decent gravel track until we got about half way into the desert, then it became tyre tracks through sand and gravel, which was hellish, my ribs hurt as I tried to keep the bike upright paddling through the sand but hurt even more when I had to pick the bike up again when I failed to keep it upright. It was dark by the time we reached the normal gravel road at the end of the ‘new road’ so we continued to Uis in the dark and found a camping spot.

The next night we stayed in a camping spot in a town called Warmquelle, it had its own little waterfall and natural swimming pool. After eating we went to the pool to watch the bats flying low over the water catching insects. The next day we went to the most northerly part of Namibia to visit Epupa falls. The north of Namibia actually seems like Africa, whereas the rest of Namibia feels like a German adventure holiday resort. In the north the Himba people still live in tribal villages and wear traditional clothes. We camped on the edge of the waterfalls and the children from the village came to talk to us and swim in the rock pools at the top of the falls. It really was an awesome experience. We are now heading east across the northern border of Namibia towards Botswana and Zambia, my foot doesn’t hurt too much, only when I stand up on the pegs, my wrist is fine unless I move it in certain directions but my ribs hurt most of the time, I’m taking painkillers which help.