'We buy all kinds of crap,' Seth is telling me, 'Actually, it's you - you buy all kinds of crap.' We're in our new flat unpacking boxes and he's holding up a solar powered plastic chicken which shakes its head from side to side. I bought it in South Korea last year and it makes me smile whenever i look at it. Ok, so it may have no actual function, but i glance at it and i am back in Seoul, which is kind of brilliant. What both of us are discovering right now, as we sift through the life we [View Full Entry]

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The bus journey from Windhoek to Livingstone was one of the smoothest, most sanitised, most organised journeys we had taken in Africa, and we hated it. Carrying 90 per cent tourists, running to an actual schedule, making toilet breaks that weren’t just pit stops by the side of a field, it was a highly efficient affair. Gap year backpackers chatted and flirted and swapped travel stories as our double-decker coach roared through tiny villages. I wrote in my notebook, ‘Good God get me of this f**king bus.’ The girl in front of me was one of those great people who fully [View Full Entry]

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It’s a very cold night and we’re sleeping in our car. I'm beginning to realise exactly how small this Citigolf actually is as leg cramp sets in. Blanketless, its all about wearing as many clothes as you can put on, and snuggling up. We both look a bit like manatees. I feel like I missed something in the paperwork - nobody warned me that Africa could get cold like this. At least we have enjoyed a big braai (bbq) of chops and boerewors, and have Castle Beer warming our veins. This tiny town is called Solitaire. I say town but I [View Full Entry]

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When the last of the DRC officials had checked our passports and waved us on, we found ourselves in a big dusty square, where a group of guinea fowl pecked the remains of a soldier's sandwich, and a few sleepy shopkeepers eyed the newcomers. The Angolan immigration team were friendly, if serious, and they taught us how to say 'hello' and 'thank you' in Portuguese. I had not really turned my mind to the practicalities of travel in Angola. For days my brain had been awash with will-we-won't-we get the Angolan visa, will-we-won't-we make it through the DRC without incident... now [View Full Entry]

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We cross the Congo River. Seth is dreading immigration because he has read we may be turned back if we cannot produce an Angolan visa. Why the DRC officials would need proof of our wanting to leave their country is beyond me - the proof will be right there on my face as they scrutinise our passports. It’s not like we want to emigrate. In fact, my heart is full of doom. What the hell are we doing here? I know the troubles of very recent years have been near the Rwanda-DRC border, in Goma, far east of us, but there [View Full Entry]

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The plunge into Central Africa brought us to a string of exotic-sounding places I’d never heard of in my life; places like Oyem, Ndjole, Lambarene, N’dende, Mila-mila, M’banza Kongo,Benguela and Lubango. The few that I had heard of - Brazzaville, Kinshasa, Luanda - did not fill my heart with delight, though there was a little buzz, a small flush of excitement, connected with each, because they seemed like cities of the imagination, places that had seen hard times, were or had been hard to live in, and were visited only by intrepid explorers, coffee swilling journalists and w [View Full Entry]

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I’d like to warn readers that I have fallen in love with Cameroon, and can therefore guarantee an inappropriately long blog. Each time I try to cut down on the length of these writings, I seem to end up writing more, so if you decide to persist, do crack open a beer, or fetch a glass of wine, or a tall latte - whatever blows your hair back. We entered Cameroon via a bridge across the Cross River. It had been a slow drive from the Nigerian town of Ikom on account of our cab being stopped for numerous police checks. [View Full Entry]

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Behind a driver in a floppy white hat, and in the company of about sixteen Nigerians and Beninois, we cruised into the huge country that had occupied our thoughts and governed our plans for some time now. It was no joyride, this first journey into Nigeria. The intense prayers led by passengers on every bus that we took (‘dear lord, protect us from the blood-sucking demons on the highway’) showed how every journey undertaken was laden with a certain sense of vulnerability and danger. Smurf-hat had to pull the minibus over at every police check we came to, and we trooped [View Full Entry]

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Enter Togo, by means of the least likely looking dirt road imaginable. That there can be both a Ghanian and Togolese immigration Post at the end of this meagre country road, where the grass grows as tall as men and trees abound, seems impossible, and yet there they are. Only a few passengers produce passports and receive entry and exit stamps; the majority hand over folded notes of local currency to the border officials and resume their seats in the truck. After purchasing a visa in a nearby one horse town, we're dropped off in Kpalime. I want to call it [View Full Entry]

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And so we come to Ghana, on the hunt for the Nigerian visa. Seth has arranged to take some photos for a development charity called Trax Ghana and thus we base ourselves in the little touristed northern city of Bolgatanga for a few days. It is a compact, hassle-free town, with chilled out folks getting on with their daily business and absolutely no children asking for presents - amazing. We meet Vincent, the regional director, over dinner and he explains about the projects Trax have been working on, and arranges to pick us up the next day to drive us out [View Full Entry]

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