http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/LuBarnham/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from LuBarnham en-us Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:18:23 +0000 Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:18:23 +0000 Night time sitting on some stone steps overlooking Maputo Bay listening to and observing the sea as it crashes in and out a few metres below us. Little kids play chicken with the waves climbing to the lowest step then shrieking as the water lashes their feet before they have a chance to leap away. We have just eaten our fill of local prawns drenched in garlic butter and have bought a cold be http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mozambique/Southern/blog-461622.html I had my nose as good as stuck to the window taking in my first glimpses of South Africa. For a lot of travellers this is their first African country. It apparently gets more tourists than anywhere else in subSaharan Africa. I had studied the map and the guidebook and each time I suggested some beautiful sounding place Seth would hit me with a lsquobeen there done that.rsquo Drakensb http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Mpumalanga-/Neilspruit/blog-452283.html 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 werenrsquot 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Zimbabwe/Bulawayo/blog-449943.html Itrsquos a very cold night and wersquore 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Namibia/blog-446464.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Angola/blog-444002.html 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. Itrsquos not like we want to emigrate. In fact my heart is full of doom. What the hell are http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Congo-Democratic-Republic/West/Matadi/blog-441583.html Irsquod 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 R http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Cameroon/blog-441103.html '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 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Oxfordshire/Oxford/blog-438419.html The plunge into Central Africa brought us to a string of exoticsounding places Irsquod never heard of in my life places like Oyem Ndjole Lambarene Nrsquodende Milamila Mrsquobanza KongoBenguela 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 eac http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Congo/blog-431666.html 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 lsquodear lord protect us from the bloodsucking demons on the highwayr http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Nigeria/blog-431639.html 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 currenc http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Togo/blog-416829.html 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 hasslefree town with chilled out folks getting on with their daily business and absolutely no children asking for presents amazing. We mee http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ghana/blog-416479.html As we entered Burkina Faso the border official stamped a one week visa in our passports. Naturally it felt a little restrictive but it was a good thing preventing us from dawdling and forcing us to pick up the pace. South Africa felt a whole world and too many thousands of miles away and our aim to reach it often became clouded by the glories and distractions of the here and now. Wersquod http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/blog-405920.html In Bamako we took a box of a room the kind dead bodies might be found in come morning and I think you could even say we relaxed. Certainly we slowed down. Road travel in the Gambia and Senegal had drained our energy and we were flat like pancakes emergency Bring on the Vietnamese food Castel beers and glowing riverside sunsets Seriously there is nothing like beef Saigonese style and a http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mali/blog-405895.html Fifty kilometres it was an inoffensive distance to travel between the villages of Bintang and Tendaba. On the map it was a mere wiggle a jubilant jump eastwards then westwards passing a handful of small villages. In my head I had us relaxing beside the Gambia River by lunchtime eating chicken and chips with our feet propped on garden chairs. We had been camping badly for two days and nig http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Gambia/blog-400031.html Encircled by loud angry men who literally herd us towards the bus to Mbour while spraying us both with a fine layer of whisky tainted spittle it is at least satisfying to know that this will be the last of our Dakar experiences. When you have been hustled hassled followed by thieves and robbed even an overcrowded bus begins to look good as long as it is going somewhere anywhere away fro http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Gambia/Lower-River/blog-394690.html The journey from Rabat to Laayoune in the Western Sahara took a full 21 hours. Late at night we paused in Agadir and while sleepyeyed passengers ate tajines and salads I sighed in relief to know that from here on in we would not be doubling back on ourselves equipped with our Mauritanian visas our journey south into the unknown would now begin. The sky was full of stars and when the su http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Senegal/blog-389423.html We slept at Stansted Airport. I say we but in truth Seth slept and I woke up every fifteen minutes freezing cold and wondering why my wrist was in so much pain. Realising that this was in fact due to vigorous cleaning of the oven before moving out of our flat the previous afternoon I knew it was my most pathetic war wound to date. Such banalities I thought will at least be left behind for the http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Morocco/Rabat-Sal-Zemmour-Zaer/Rabat/blog-384650.html Having spent the past three days with a bastard of a winter flustyle head cold I am now coming out the other side of a lethargic bed and sofa ridden weekend and my head is finally clearing time for a blog. The African Alphabet draws ever closer and we find we are frequently turning to each other gawping saying lsquoMy god itrsquos only three weeks. Wersquove got to do blah blah and http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Oxfordshire/Abingdon/blog-373912.html The ferry crossing was quite rough. I lay in a halfsleep thinking about Kobo Daishi's dangerous crossing to China by ship and on a personal level of the irony of walking an 850 mile pilgrimage only to die at sea two days later. Ever the drama queen. It had been a good evening though. I'd met a Finnish traveller a monk from Detroit and a Japanese couple planning on doing the Shikoku pil http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Seoul/blog-330744.html