Blogs from Africa - page 8
Tafraoute
Motorhome News from Morocco 2 22nd January 2012 The Saffron Trail - into the desert, and that red warning light is still trying to tell us something! We came to Tafraoute on an anti-clockwise route previously recommended by friends; from Tiznet on the Atlantic coast, climbing up the precipitous road into the Anti-Atlas Mountains. For the Imelda Marcos fans amongst you, Tafraoute is the place to come for shoes; the round toed Berber variety, plain or delicately embroidered, yellow for the gents and red for the ladies, all hand-made in the tiniest of dingy workshops on narrow alleys in the souk. I guess we take bread for granted back home. But it's a staple food source here; either a french-stick/baguette or something round and flat rather like a thick pancake. In Tafraout we hunted down the ... read more
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Sleeping through the afternoon yesterday meant that I couldn't sleep at night, so I gave up trying and settled for one of the rubbish magazines that I had bought to read on the plane. As I sorted through the magazines, I found a Virgin Atlantic safety card tucked in amongst them. I'd obviously picked it up by mistake whilst clearing out my seat pocket on the plane. Initially I felt guilty to have deprived Virgin, but only for three seconds, because I'd actually spent about half an hour before take off trying to take photos of the funny pictures on the safety card. My favourites are the child with a ridiculously long head (the elasticated band of the oxygen mask would never go over it), a man with a 60s mullet wearing purple sunglasses with an ... read more
Photo 6
The last 24 hours have been an emotional rollercoaster. I knew that there would be some tears when I left my home and my family, but I didn't realise just how difficult it would be. I think that in some naive way, I thought that my excitement would overshadow any sadness that I felt, but the truth is that I couldn't even give my dog and cats one last cuddle because I knew that I would start crying before I'd even walked out the front door. And the truth is also that when I got on the train, I cried all the way from Camborne to Truro, and I got choked up at random points during the day, for no apparent reason. Sometimes the sheer magnitude of what I was undertaking threatened to overwhelm me. Staring ... read more
Heute morgen war wieder strahlender Sonnenschein angesagt und diesmal wollten wir auch gleich das gute Wetter nutzen und haben uns nach dem mäßig leckeren Früchstück auf zum Tafelberg gemacht. Nach etwas Schlange stehen sind wir dann (Schande auf unser Münchner Haupt) nicht hochgewandert, sondern haben die Seilbahn mit 360 Grad View genommen. Zu unserer Verteidigung muss man sagen, dass es bereits gut 30 Grad hatte und es einfach viel zu warm zum hochwandern war. Oben auf dem Berg haben wir dann aber noch eine schöne kleine Rundwanderung gemacht... es ist so touristisch wie im Sommer auf der Zugspitze, aber nach den ersten 3 Höhenmetern ist es wieder fast menschenleer. Es war keine Wolke am Himmel und wir konnten bis zum Kap der guten Hoffnung gucken und hatten auch auf Kapstadt eine grandiose Sicht. Auf dem Rückweg ... read more
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I woke up today later than planned as I hadn't had the best sleep the night before with demonstrations continuing on Tahrir Square well into the night. At breakfast I got talking to a doctor about the same age as me from Alexandria who was down for the Anniversary the day before. However, he said he wasn't there to celebrate, but to ensure that revolution was enforced. His attitude was different to the general atmosphere the day before, but he was certainly representative of what some people felt about the anniversary. I got a bus from near Tahrir out to Giza this time for the Pyramids. As we got close an Egyptian guy helped me to get off at the right spot. I was pretty ignorant to him after the day before, expecting him to try ... read more
Op weg uit de Dades
De tourgroepen zouden deze ochtend om 7 uur ontbijten, dus wij zijn om 8 uur verschenen, wat de eigenaar wel handig vond. Buiten was het koud en een beetje bewolkt, dat zijn we niet gewend tot nu toe. Na een paar boodschappen te hebben gedaan in de lokale supermarkt zijn we terug gereden richting de grote weg. Vandaag was het gasflessendag en je zag allerlei mensen, voornamelijk vrouwen, met gasflessen lopen of langs de kant van de weg staan. Eenmaal op de hoofdweg was het maar een uur rijden naar onze volgende bestemming, de Gorge du Tohdra. Vanaf de hoofdweg voert een smalle weg door een aantal dorpen en ga je met haarspeldbochten omhoog. Uiteindelijk kom je uit in een vernauwing waarbij rotswanden enkele honderden meters boven je uitsteken en de rivier de Tohdra doorstroomt. Ook ... read more
Markt in Jorf
Een paar opmerkingen vooraf. Als het goed is zijn jullie nu ook weer bijgelezen tot waar we ons nu bevinden in de pre-Sahara. De tijd vliegt voorbij en als het goed is vliegen we zondag terug naar België. Dit is nog niet zeker, aangezien de Belgen vanaf zondagavond 22 uur een nationale staking beginnen. De vlucht zal doorgaan en indien nodig naar het buitenland uitwijken. Welk buitenland dat is weten ze nog niet, maar vorige maand gingen alle vluchten naar Maastricht toe, we horen het wel en houden jullie op de hoogte. We zitten nu lekker in de zon in de binnentuin van ons hotel in Merzouga. Na het ontbijt in Tinerhir zijn we snel weggegaan uit deze plaats voor een rit van 200 kilometer naar Merzouga. We reden steeds verder weg van de Atlas en ... read more
Heute haben wir zunächst noch ein tolles Frühstück auf der Terasse des Chartfield Guesthouse mit Blick auf das Meer und die Kaphalbinsel genossen. Dann war ein wenig Organisieren angesagt: zum Glück war der Inhaber von Chartfield ein Deutscher, der uns Super geholfen hat. In nur 30 min sind wir dann nach Kapstadt reingefahren und zu unserem Neunen b&b. Rose Lodge liegt im Bo-Kap-Viertel und ist für seine Noten Häuser bekannt: wir sind in einem grauen, aber daneben ist noch rot, Grün, gelb, ...... Da es irrsinnig heiß war, haben wir nach der Rückgabe des Autos erst mal beschlossen eine Tour durch das Viertel zu machen und die Wanderung auf den Tafelberg auf den NachMittag zu verschieben. Allerdings war es auch hier Super warm, so dass man immer nach dem Schatten sucht. Wir waren aber schon auf ... read more
Ayssinian Roller
At this point, other volunteers come to me with bird questions, typically curious about the identity of a certain birds they have recently seen. Far and away, the most common bird that I get asked about is the Abyssinian Roller. Its long tail and the varying shades of vivid, ultra-florescent blues make the bird a stunner for birders and non-birders a like. Furthermore, on any given day, I may see over 20. This number has only increased with the burning of fields. They are everywhere right now and last week, I thought the whole mountain might burn. I literally, started packing some of my valuables that night as a large portion of the mountainside glowed red with fire. Evidently, the villagers must know something about this I don't, they've been down this road before, since they ... read more
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I was woken up fairly early to the sound of loudspeakers coming from Tahrir Square. Today was the one year Anniversary of when the Revolution began in Egypt, which ended Mubarak's rule. Nobody was sure what would happen today as the military have remained in power despite elections being held and promises that power would be handed over. I left the hostel and walked around the streets around Tahrir Square. There was more of a festive atmosphere than anything else, although I did come across one or two marches with people holding pictures of people who had died. Amidst the celebratory atmosphere, it was easy to forget that today was also the anniversary of the deaths of many people's loved ones. Having spent some time seeing what was going on, I decided to head out to ... read more
