Lake Eyasi is one of a series of salt lakes near the Ngorogoro highlands. The plan was to camp near the lake and visit the Hadzabe tribe, a group of people culturally similar to the San Bushman. Our drive took us through some rough roads, which had James wishing (for the twentieth time) that he had brought his mountain bike. The campsite was fairly basic, but instead of bugs flying onto our plates, we had monkeys jumping onto our tent. Once again, camp was set up, we had lunch, then we set off to locate the Hadzabe. Our guide/translator was from [View Full Entry]

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Safari time! We flew from Zanzibar to Arusha (the plane was only two hours late), then transferred to Masai Camp, a campsite and safari company. We were booked on a 6 day safari with Tropical Trails which would take us to some of Tanzania's world famous national parks. Early Tuesday morning, we loaded our gear into a Land Cruiser and along with our guide, Stephen, and cook, Kasim, set off for Tarangire National Park. En route we stopped for a morning tea of fried green bananas and goats intestines. No kidding. Kind of tasted like pork crackling, but that could have [View Full Entry]

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From the frantic pace and noises of Dar es Salaam to Pongwe Beach Hotel, a place designed with an itinerary of relaxation in mind. James and I hopped on a ferry on Monday morning with this destination foremost in our minds. Despite being a calm and sunny day, I spent most of the two hour trip over with my eyes closed, concentrating on ignoring the not so pleasant feeling of sea sickness. A great start. At the dock we weren't besieged by touts as we were expecting, but did, of course, receive the usual offer of a discount taxi ride. Instead, [View Full Entry]

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After having a few days to ourselves, and in one location, at Livingstone, we were hitting the road again. Our destination was the city of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, on the edge of te Indian ocean. From there we would be heading to the island of Zanzibar. We left Livingstone by bus, heading firstly to the city of Lusaka. The trip is about 450km and is supposed to take about 6 hours by bus. However we had heard some horror stories of it taking 12 hours. We chose a bus line that was recommended by some people we met and [View Full Entry]

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After a quiet night in at the hostel (what could we have done to top an elephant ride!) we woke on our last morning in Livingstone. For a final fling before we left we were going to Livingstone Island for breakfast. Livingstone Island is located at the centre of the Zambezi river, right on the edge of the gorge that the falls plummet into. We caught an early taxi to the Royal Livingstone hotel, which is right on the banks of the river, out of Livingstone town and close to the Falls themselves. This hotel has to be seen to be [View Full Entry]

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(Photos to come soon!) After such a close encounter with the King of the Jungle, Karen and I decided to keep the adrenaline pumping and started the day by doing our washing and banking and buying bus tickets for the trip to Lusaka. OK, so not the most exciting of mornings but this stuff still needs to be taken care of, even when you are traveling in exotic places like Africa. We had more interesting things planned for the afternoon though, and after lunch we were picked up from our hostel by Safari Par Excellence and taken on the short drive [View Full Entry]

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James and I decided that because there was no water on the Zambian side of the border, we would investigate the Zimbabwean side. This, however, was not the only reason. We had also booked a jet boat trip and visit to see lions, which we were both super excited about. Our excitement waned considerably when we discovered that the jet boat was cancelled because there was not enough water (same old story!). Although the lion thing was not until 3pm, we caught a free shuttle to the border at about 10am. The border crossing itself took about 30 minutes, after which [View Full Entry]

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Our internet access has been non-existent for the last week so we are going to do a brief update on each day. Day 1 We drove. A lot. 850km, mostly on paved roads which is a blessing. I believe the highlights were seeing a shop called Kalahari Fried Chicken and all yelling 'KFC' at the same time, crossing the border into Botswana and seeing a semi-trailer that had crashed and incinerated. Now, before you start believing that we are callous and hard-hearted, let me fill in the facts. The driver was unhurt. There were no other cars involved (maybe a goat [View Full Entry]

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Did you know that the highest sand dunes in the world are found in Namibia? Well neither did we until we started researching for our trip. Now that we have been there ourselves we can honestly say that they are truely awe inspiring. We didn't have our tape measure with us, so we can't confirm that they are the world's tallest, but we can say that the biggest one there is called Big Daddy! So, it was 400km drive to get there, on dirt roads, in 30+ degree heat in a van with no air conditioning. It was a bit of [View Full Entry]

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Nine hours driving. That is how long it took to get from Windhoek to Etosha National Park. Namibia is a big country. But it sure was worth it. Within five minutes of driving in the gate we were presented with a waterhole with several giraffe and a bull elephant. Fantastic! We had joined a camping tour with Wild Dog Safaris. We camped for our first night at Namutoni campsite. It was such a great introduction to camping, with the best campsite bathrooms I have ever seen. A small detail, but an oh so important one! As we ate dinner on that [View Full Entry]

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