Those who have been reading my blog are probably aware of my love of meaningless lists, and my trip wouldn't be complete without just a few more. So, here, in no particular order, are all of my Top Fives (and some Bottom Fives), to give you an idea of what I loved - and hated - about Africa. First, I'll do a ranking of the 18 countries I visited (I did pop into Lesotho as well, but didn't see enough to pass judgment on the place). Trust me, I did a lot of thinking about this, and took into account such [View Full Entry]

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Africa has obsessed me since I was a kid. My dream as an 8-year old was to come to Africa, and kiss a wild hippo. Yes, weird, I know. Perhaps I shouldn't have revealed that little nugget of information. Nevertheless, the history, the mystery, and the tragedy of this immense land has attracted me for years. Finally, around ten months ago, I had the funds, the air ticket, and the time to launch my own exploration of at least part of this gigantic enigma. My aim was to challenge my own prejudices, and discover whether the stereotypes presented to us in [View Full Entry]

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What better place could there be for ending an African trip than the Mother City itself, Cape Town? This city has it all - a spectacular location, cool bars, fine dining, great shopping, (relatively sharkless) beaches, mountains, wilderness, a developed infrastructure, a (mostly) friendly vibe, and plenty to keep you occupied. It has to be the most beautiful city I've seen anywhere on the continent, and it has certainly been the most westernised, the most developed, and the most wealthy. You could be forgiven for forgetting that Cape Town is actually part of Africa at all, as the city has gone [View Full Entry]

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I just cannot get my head around this Rainbow Nation they call South Africa. It is perhaps the strangest country I have ever visited. In fact, it is more like many countries, all overlapping and sharing the same geographical space, yet interacting very little. Sometimes it feels like Australia, sometimes it feels like the US, sometimes it feels like Britain, and sometimes it feels like, well, an African country. There are plush shopping malls full of affluent white shoppers, and barred-up corner stores selling mealie maize to queues of poor Africans. There are super-smooth highways carrying along the wealthy locals in [View Full Entry]

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The average life expectancy for a Swazi is now 32 years old. Swaziland is a stable, affluent, and peaceful nation. So why are people dying at my age? Because of AIDS. Swaziland now has the highest infection rate in the world - a shocking 40+ percent. Why that is, I'm not quite sure, but it probably has something to do with the size and location of this tiny country. Sandwiched between Mozambique and South Africa, Swazi is about a quarter the size of Tasmania, and is home to a million people. Travellers and truck drivers pass through on their way to [View Full Entry]

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Let me begin with a word of warning - never, ever, have anything to do with the Mozambican police if at all possible. They are bent, corrupt, rude, xenophobic, and vindictive - and that's just the nice ones. They are, without a doubt, the worst officials I have had anything to do with in the whole of Africa: most of the continent's border guards and cops have been surprisingly friendly and not bribe-hungry in the least. Then we got to Chimoio, in central Mozambique. Avoid this city like the plague. It sucks arse. It is a shitty place. It has no [View Full Entry]

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A more perfect African meeting place could not be found. It was on the shores of Lake Malawi, the very lake "discovered" by Livingstone 150 years ago, that I found him. Feared lost in the heart of Africa, here he was, immersed in conversation in the Butterfly Lodge. As I walked in, he stopped talking, and met my gaze. He was shorter than I had imagined, and his hair was longer, blonder - but it was definitely the man I was looking for. 'Bobbie Nystrom, I presume?', said I. Well, no, I didn't really, but I did say 'Bobbie?' After months [View Full Entry]

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As I sit here, writing these electronic journal entries, I sometimes think to myself - why the hell do I do this? I mean, it is a bit strange, really. When I first went travelling back in 1998, I didn't even have an email address. Communication with home was via very expensive - and infrequent - phone calls from international call centres, or poste restante in big city post offices. Sometimes news from home - or from me - would be weeks old when either end received it. Dad would send me newspaper clippings, so I knew what was going on [View Full Entry]

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Ah, there's nowhere like Africa for people to refer to you, unashamedly, by your skin colour. In Senegal I was a toubab, in Burkina Faso, a blanc, in Ethiopia, a faranji, and now, I'm a mzungu. I have been since I set foot in Kenya. All over East Africa, especially in areas away from the beaten path of tourism, little tykes run up to you, pointing and screaming, 'mzungu, mzungu!'. People shout the word at you through your window as your bus cruises through their village. In Rwanda, I even had a woman on my minibus wrap her arms around me [View Full Entry]

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After visiting Rwanda, it is almost impossible to believe that this is the very country which tore itself apart just 13 years ago. I arrived here with images of machetes, bullet-ridden corpses, intertribal warfare, and societal breakdown - instead, I arrived in an efficient and orderly country, where the people are quick with a smile and a greeting, and harmonious living is the order of the day. Now, forgive me for lapsing into teacher mode, but let me refresh you on the basics of Africa's worst genocide. Thanks to divisive rule by the Belgians, centuries of latent mistrust, various episodes of [View Full Entry]

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