The Last Post

I have been back in the US for over three months and already the memories of the trip are starting to fade. Initially being back was quite hard, the sudden transition from North Africa to NYC was not an easy one. I missed the craziness of Africa and the way that things work, or don't work, there. However I have settled back down to life in NYC and to tell you the truth I'm enjoying it. I think the break away from 'real' life has done me good. Something inside me was driving me to travel and now that I have fulfilled that dream I am more content. I consider the trip to be one of the best experiences of my life, but I don't need to do it again for a while. I am happy forging ahead with life and work in NYC.

I did learn quite a lot about myself while I was traveling. Naively I didn't expect to, but traveling gives you a disconnection from all the normal interruptions and plenty of time to think. Mostly I learned that there are many different paths in life and you shouldn't stay stuck on one, thinking it is the only way. I thought I knew this before, but I understand it better now. If Deva and I decided that we weren't happy here I'd have no qualms about tossing everything away and taking off to do something new. I know we could. We are incredibly lucky to have the ability to do that, and we should be grateful, it is so easy to lose sight of how lucky we are.

Yep. So to summarize - life is short, fill it with good stuff :)

Signing out for the last time and on to new adventures...

Ethiopia - Pictures from Ethiopia

A few pictures from Ethiopia - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=126220&id=558597593&l=1e50a0d7ba. I'd blog but I am busy in Khartoum in Sudan.

Addis Ababa

A select few photos (too slow to upload more.)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=122292&id=558597593&l=1ba2cc08d5

I am in an internet cafe in Addis Ababa, the only internet cafe I
could find that has power today, in the back of a shoe store using a
generator. There are big power problems in Ethiopia because the
hydroelectric dams are not working to capacity due to a late rainy
season. The last week and a half getting to Addis is a bit of a blur.
We crossed over from Uganda back into Kenya and made our way North,
along what we were told would be some of the worst roads between
Capetown and Cairo. I think that information might be out of date,
sure the roads are bad, and might not even be classified as real roads
in places, but they are very passable and not truck destroying as we
had worried. The scenery along the way through North Kenya is
incredible. It is a very remote region and sparsely populated and for
good reason. A big chunk of the area looks like Mars, and not a little
bit like Mars, a lot like Mars. They could have easily faked the Mars
rover landings there. It is a volcanic region covered with red dust
and rocks. Absolutely incredible scenery and the camping we did there
is my favorite of this trip. The only serious issue with passing
through the area is that there are bandits around, and for some of the
ride we had to have two armed guards we hired at a police station
accompany us. They were very friendly and told us that only one truck
in the last month had been captured, and everyone on it shot.

It felt good to arrive in Addis, tired, dusty and in serious need of a
shower. Ethiopia, because of the lack of foreign influences (the
Italians only occupied it for a very short time) is a very very
different country. The calendar is different, the way they tell time
is different, the language is different, the alphabet is different,
the religions are different and the people are very proud of these
differences. It makes for a great country to visit and so far I am
really enjoying it.

Yesterday I went to the national museum and saw the remains of Lucy.
One of the earliest hominid fossil skeletons discovered, 3.18 million
years old. Incredible, but kept in a very run down museum which had
all sorts of additional exhibits from the Axum empire, with almost
zero explanation. After that things got interesting. I was wandering
around the city when three guys stopped me and asked me to help them
with a question they had, what did Moses send after they got bored of
mana. I told them I thought it was fish, but that I am an Atheist and
I didn't really know. They were shocked that I was an Atheist and this
caused huge consternation and a long on the street discussion, which
then led to lunch with them and then they took me to their favorite
chat den. Chat is a leaf which is chewed by many people here. It is
sold in bundles of stems and leaves in little plastic bags. You break
the leaves off, stuff them in your mouth and chew and suck the juices
from the leaf. It is a stimulant and the effect is a little like
having 50 coffees in a row. It is not socially acceptable to chew in
public though so they took me to a back alley den through multiple
dark doorways into a series of small connecting rooms. I would have
left if I felt at all worried, but it felt relatively safe, so I
stayed. In each room you could fit maybe 12 people knee to knee and
they sat around chewing, discussing politics, football and anything
else under the sun. The guy sitting next to me was a PhD in chemistry
and on the back of his hand drew out the chemical analysis of chat and
it's effects on the body. Along with the chat they served coke to cut
the bitter taste and peanuts to soften the effect on your throat.
Nobody minded that I was there and I think I learned more about
current Ethiopia in that time than in all the reading I had done.
After a while though I realized that I was *completely* wired and I
needed to leave. I was vibrating from the effects and unable to sit
still for more than a few seconds. That lasted until well into the
night.

Today I am taking it easy, going to visit the largest market in Africa
and just wandering around the city. Tomorrow we go to try get our
visas for Sudan and, if all goes well, we should be leaving to go
North then or the day after, but as always in Africa, it will happen
when it happens.

Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda

The above is a self portrait of some kids I gave my camera to.

This is really a non-post. I have a wee bit of internet so going to post some photos and take care of some other business. I'm in Uganda right now having gone west from Kenya through Uganda to Rwanda and then back again. Rwanda and Uganda are amazing countries. Some of the best experiences on this trip - going to a raucous Sunday church, visiting a village orphanage, trekking (far) through the jungle to see the mountain gorillas, camping in the bush, listening to a Rwandan talk about the genocide and reconciliation and so many other amazing experiences that are piling up...

View some photos here.

Zambia and uh, other places.

This post is going to compress a significant amount of time into the
least space possible. I am in Kenya now, having joined our overland
truck group and just starting to make our way over to Uganda.

When I last left you brave readers we had arrived in Lichinga in
Mozambique where we were going to get our car fixed. This turned out
to be quite an epic ordeal. In fact if you would like to know anything
about front differentials on early import model Toyota Land Cruiser
GX's, then I am your man. I can tell you for one thing that you should
not waste a few days trying to fit one that belongs to a pickup and
that we may have bought the last one in Blantyre in Malawi from a
scrap dealer. Through some guys running a hunting concession we were
introduced to a government guy working at the tourism office. He
offered to take us across to Malawi in his pickup to buy the part we
needed. Wonderful guy, but drives like a maniac, killing chickens and
a dog on the way, getting three fines in Malawi. He is also slightly
over optimistic, the journey which he promised would take 4 hours was
more like 8 hours and we arrived back at the border when it was
closed. With some tricky bribing it re-opened, but we got stuck on the
Mozambique side. Spending the night there was not fun.

Post the epic getting-the-car-fixed. We made our way to the utterly
relaxing cape maclear. Possibly one of the best antidotes to excess
stress. We spent three days camping and chilling on the beach next to
the lake. Eating fresh fish and swimming in the gorgeous water. After
several well earned days of relaxing we crossed the border into Zamiba
and into Lwanda park, narrowly missing a giraffe on the way. Hippos
and elephants walking through the camp and great game driving around
the park. From there we drove down through Lusaka, stopping off at an
Indian restaurant run by Amish's relatives. They loaded us up with
amazingly good indian food as we were going away.

From Zambia it was on to Victoria falls (Igazu falls in Argentia were
better.) Then into botswana across the one working ferry. We camped
in the bush that night, pulling off the side of the road and only
realizing too late that we had camped right next to the biggest
elephant we had ever seen. Bit of a sleepless night in the rooftop
tent on the car and a really really early start that morning on the
way to Main and the Okavango delta. On the delta we went in a makoro
(poled canoe) and a bush walk.

The next two days are a blur of driving in the rain, missing cows and
other obstacles on a 2500km trek back to Cape Town in South Africa.
Where we relaxed for the next few days before heading up to Kenya to
meet our truck to Cairo.

Mozambique - Pemba to Lichinga

I did not take too many photos of this part of the trip, I wish I had. The photos I took were mostly of the easier parts, I was too stressed to take photos for the other sections. Here are the photos...

Pop quiz. You are in Africa, possibly two days walk from anywhere, and you have to cross a small wooden bridge made out of rickety logs. Half way across the bridge one of the logs collapses and the front right wheel of the car falls through. The log supporting the other side of the car is looking a little bendy too. What do you do?

We just went through the practical examination for this one while on the road to from Montepuez to Nungo. It is stressful exam, on by far the worst road that I have ever traveled on, and classifying it as a road gives it far too much credit. It is basically a track through bush, dirt, sand, water, and log bridges that would be undrivable if there was any rain. It took us two days to travel the 100km and it was not an easy experience. Especially after we destroyed the front right wheel of the car along with some part connecting the wheel to the car.

We had decided to take the road on some bad advice from other travelers. There are several routes from Pemba to Malawi, and on the map the route we took is the most direct, going through Marrupa and on to Lichinga, but about 100km in the road dissapears into the bush. Hardly believing that it was a road we drove along the track until we reached a small village where we got slightly off course. We tried to make it back over to the track on the bad advice of a local. The car immediately fell into a deep ditch, almost toppling over, with the front in the ditch and a back wheel wheel way up in the air. Not a good position. With help from about 20 villagers and attaching the winch to a tree we managed to drag the car out and get back onto the track. Only to get stuck again in a drop a hundred meters onwards, this time we didn't need to use the winch, but it was only a sign of things to come.

Driving on we suddenly hit a big ditch hidden in the undegrowth. The front of the car slammed into the dip and we crossed over, but with everything in the car flying around and the sound of metal screeching. After a little prayer we tried to drive further, but there was something very wrong with the front right wheel. We got out and saw that the wheel was flat and destroyed. No problem, we had two spares, or it would have been no problem if we knew how to operate the car jack. It is an industrial strength jack that, with sunlight fading, in the heat, and with the mosquitos coming out in force, we spent about an hour figuring out. Even then, after replacing the wheel, we realized that the front right hand side of the car had something wrong. The wheel was at a crazy angle, it was obvious something had broken and we could no longer engage 4x4 mode. The car still drove, but it was worrying because we had no idea how much more of the road it could take before failing completely. Especially worrying because we were far away from any civilization, definitely no cell phone signal and probably two days walk from a town. With night falling and after the road dividing a few times we were unsure if we were following the right route, our GPS could only tell us if we were heading in mostly the right direction. We decided to camp for the night at a fork in the road and re-evaluate the situation in the morning. It was the first time that we have used the rooftop tent on the car and it was a stressful and sleepless night, just before we started to sleep we heard something walking around in the bush outside the car. Early in the morning, with the mists rising over the trees we woke up and walked both the forks. In an excellent piece of news it turned out the two forks were just alternative routes leading to the same place. The rest of the day we spent driving very slowly along the terrible track. I can't fully describe it. Huge ditches, ponds, rivers, rickety bridges, sand and mud that the car would get stuck in, roads that would disappear to tiny tracks and all of this to be navigated when we couldn't engage 4x4 mode on the car and with the right front wheel possibly failing. At any obstacle we would get out walk the track ahead and often I would walk along right in front of the car guiding the wheels along. The most worrying obstacle (and there are lots to choose from) was one of the bridge crossings I mentioned above. Half way across the bridge the front right wheel fell through and we had to winch and drive the car across, hoping the other supprting log would not break. We were very lucky that it did not.

After a long and exhausting day filled with obstacle after obstacle, and the car making some more clanking noises, we made it to Nungo where the road becomes a superhighway, ok, it becomes a one lane dirt track, but a good one! From there we drove to Marrupa, where the road becomes a proper tar road, and then on to Lichinga where we are now staying. We took the car to a repair shop here and the head mechanic told us not to drive it any more. We will be taking it in on Monday to be repaired. Until then we will be doing our best to recover and relax.

Lessons learned:
#1. For whatever reason the roads leaving villages are always the worst. Be very careful leaving, expect huge ditches.
#2. Drive slowly, even if you think the road is ok.
#3. If in doubt always have someone get out and walk the road ahead of the car.
#4. When crossing a wooden bridge spanned by logs have someone get out and test the logs and figure out which two to use for the left and right side of the car. Then line the wheels up at the logs and drive across with someone walking ahead and directing the driver extremely carefully and slowly.
#5. There are often alternative routes through the bush around large ditches and bad parts of the road. Keep an eye out for these.
#6. Along the way we would ask villagers that we would meet if we were going the right way or if the road was better up ahead. Even if they didn't really know the answer they would make one up. You can't really trust their advice unfortunately.
#7. If you can find the GPS track of someone who has done the route before I would take that rather than trusting the offical Garmin GPS map. It is crap.

Mozambique - Ibo Island

Some pictures from Ibo Island.

With my dad back in Ireland for a week I decided to head up the coast to Ibo Island for a relaxing (hahahah, little did I know) time. Ibo is little island off the coast of Mozambique. Far away from anywhere. I traveled with a British couple Angie and Will that I met here in Pemba, and we also gave a ride to a 60 year old South African hitc hiker that has been backpacking around Mozambique for a few months. Seems like a hard as nails sort of guy, he has been doing the entire thing on public transport, which around here is *not* easy. After a long and tiring drive along sandy, pot holed and bad roads we managed to catch a dhow to the island. Lots of hassle of course, but in-dhow entertainment was provided by the goat that would pee every five minutes. On the island we met Elder and Jorg, two great guys that run a guest house there. They helped us find cheap housing (me at TDM next door, and a hugely discounted room for Will and Angie) and helped us find a great guy Moammed to help guide us around.

The second day on the island Moammed took us out to Quirimbas, an island that can be reached by walking from Ibo. Well mostly walking. First you walk through mangroves, then out through a huge stretch of sand and then across the low tide waters. Which are unfortunately not low enough, we had to swim some parts. Moammed took our bag and swam with it in his hand above his head, definitely *not* as easy as it sounds. I looked like an advertisement for coke, swimming along with two coke bottles in my hands. Probably the funniest part was that a few locals came along with us, but one of them could not swim! Don't quite understand that, but along with everything else he had to be helped across. Quirimbas, once you reach it, is great, friendly people, lots of coconuts, and still untouched by tourism. We ended up eating dinner at Moammed's sister's house, or at least he told us she was his sister, turns out that he couldn't even remember her name and that she was one of his (many) girlfriends :) On the way back we hired a dhow which took us back at high tide at night. Amazing sailing underneath the stars. Well, amazing until we got stuck in the mangroves in the pitch black and had to walk back 40 minutes through the mud, slippery rocks and pointy roots. We were exhausted afterwards, and I think lucky that none of us slipped or fell and was cut badly.

The day after we decided to have a 'relaxing' day and visited the fort on the island and then walked along the coast to the lighthouse at one end. We had been told it was a short walk, but we walked for a very long way along sand, rock, mud, and at one point a big stretch of water covered in millions of star fish. Which actually feel quite nice under your feet, especially after you have just been walking over very sharp rocks. We were so thirsty along the way that we knocked down a coconut and smashed it open and drank and ate it. When I say we I mean mostly Will, I just helped with the smashing a little. Will is a great guy to have around, he seems to know how to do anything, or at least how to figure it out. He and the always upbeat Angie make a great team, I recommend them as companions for going to difficult and out of the way islands :)

After the lighthouse we tried to find an alternate, and easier, route back, but we got completely lost and ended up back in the mangroves and walking along the coast. Tired, exhausted, our feet cut up and with only a few hours of light remaining Will spotted a coconut grove where we found three guys, we bought some coconuts from them and then with a lot of sign language managed to make one of the guys understand that we would pay him outrageous amounts of money if he would lead us back to the guest house. Thank god we did that, because it was a long route back and we were very tired.

The first two days didn't turn out too relaxing, but on the third day we decided to try go fishing with one of the local fishermen. Surely that would be relaxing, lying on the edge of the boat, dangling our feet in the crystal clear water with a line over the side. It did turn out somewhat like that, but only after hours of negotiating with the fisherman. We offered them a good amount of money and they demanded a huge amount of money. After a lot of back and forth, even going to one of their houses, we did manage to organize the trip and went out, and Will even caught a fish, but and I think we were just too tired after it all to enjoy it for as long as we could have. That night we cooked at the guest house I was staying it (TDM), they kindly started a fire for us, some construction workers that were staying there lent us a pot and we ate the fish Will had caught. It was extremely tasty.

Leaving the island the next day we left on a dhow with a motor. Waiting on the beach for two hours while it filled to overloading with fish, 30 people (there was probably room for about 15 people), luggage, bikes and more. It was a long, tiring and very hot ride back to the mainland. Where, of course, the car wouldn't start. Luckily some locals and a foreigner gave us a hand and we push started it. Thank god it started.

Now I am back in Pemba, showered, rested and letting my feet recover from Ibo. I will be going to pick up my dad from the airport soon and then heading west across some remote areas to Malawi.