AnneMarie

While we saw next to no wildlife in West Africa, the stretch of East/Southern Africa from Kenya to Namibia was overrun with it! In this area, it’s not even necessary to visit a national park or reserve for game viewing. It’s common to see giraffe, zebra, baboons and countless stunning birds while driving along. In fact, some of our best wildlife encounters were in our campsites, and not on game drives! In our camp on Lake Baringo, Kenya, hippos wandered around our tents, snuffling and snorting throughout the night. In Flatdogs campsite in South Luangwe National Park, Zambia, we had to be escorted around by security as there was a couple of angry cape buffalo guarding the path to the bar! Also at Flatdogs, a dozen or more elephants wandered among us as we ate breakfast, ... read more

Famous for the famine of 1984/85 Famous for barren land, desert and death Famous for images of malnourished children with distended bellies Famous as the inspiration for the world’s greatest charity effort, Live Aid Famous for conflict and war with Eritrea Forget everything you imagine Ethiopia to be and every preconception; it's nothing like the image you most likely have in your head! Ethiopia is full of surprises! Did you know that it was one of only two African nations never colonised? Or that it’s known as the “Cradle of Humanity”, where fossils of the earliest hominids have been found? Or that 18 of Egypt’s pharaohs were Ethiopian? Not only that, but it is home to the oldest written language in the world, Ge'ez, the first ever Christian country, the origin of the coffee bean, and ... read more

Well, this isn’t exactly how I’d planned to write my blog, but unfortunately it’s the way it’s panned out! Lack of internet access, lack of bandwidth when you do have the internet (one dial-up connection shared between four people anybody??), and lack of electricity through constant power cuts over the last 6 weeks or so mean that its been impossible to keep up to date with this blog. So rather than try and kill myself writing up entry after entry now that I’ve eventually found an internet café, I’m going to scrap the hurried bits and pieces I’ve started and let the photos tell the story, while I concentrate on mentioning my highlights and impressions of West Africa! (By the way, I don’t plan to continue like this for the entire trip, but hope - ... read more

Hello at last from Morocco!!! So, to fill you in on what's been happening since I left Ireland (if I can figure out how to work this arabic keyboard ... nightmare) I left Ireland just over 2 weeks ago and flew to Marbella, Spain where I was to meet my 15 travelling buddies for the next 6 months. A great mix of ages and nationalities, yet everybody has similar interests and seem to get on surprisingly well. To give you an idea, the youngest is 19 and the oldest is ... well, to be polite I'll not mention his exact age, but he is retired. As for nationalities, I'm the only Irish person, the others being from England, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada. Unfortunately we ended up spending almost a week ... read more

Here's the Argentina and Uruguay entry, courtesy of Catherine and Patricks blog! In this episode, Cat and Pat are joined by Annemarie, Cats little sister. They visit the cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Once arriving in Buenos Aires, after travelling up the east coast of Argentina, it feels like entering a whole new country. This city is all grand boulevards, huge colonial mansions and stunning parks. Nothing resembling what we had encountered on the east coast so far. The Portenos (port people) are brash, beautiful and busy. We didn´t have a whole lot of time to check the place out initially. Just straight to our hotel and the next morning we took the cheap bus (2.5 hours) to the airport to meet Annemarie. It only takes about 20 minutes in a taxi we later discovered. ... read more