Kellie arrived safe and sound on the 9 of July but not without problems with immigration. One many things that I will never understand is why they insist that you put a local address on the immigration form. If you are a tourist then most likely you will stay there for one night and then move on. Kellie didn’t know which place we would stay in Dar and was too honest to put in a fake name. Luckily the immigration officer was very friendly and let her use his mobile phone. Welcome to Africa. We took the Zanzibar ferry the next [View Full Entry]

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I met Uri and Sara in Nkhata Bay and both also wanted to catch the train to Dar Es Salaam so the three of set off on Tuesday morning to reach Mbeya in Tanzania. I was stressing out a bit as it seemed an awful long distance to travel in one day, included a border crossing and we needed to pickup the tickets for the train. I also had my doubts about our train ticket reservation. The day before I was on the phone with the train ticket man in Mbeya. Lets say his English wasn’t really that good (To be [View Full Entry]

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Nkhata Bay is yet another perfect place to do absolutely nothing and has test backpackers with the best food in Africa so far. To have the best food is not that hard as most places specialize in Chicken and (very soggy) chips. Nkhata bay is as small bay on Lake Malawi with a small sleepy village. It is hard to believe that this was once the most important town in the area. The one thing that made it very attractive is a deep harbor which allowed and still does allow big ships to port. My best guess is that these days [View Full Entry]

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There are many ways from Port Mc Clear to Lilongwe but they all include a rough bumpy ride on a flatbed truck to the close port of Monkey Bay. So I found myself again standing and holding on for dear life on an overloaded truck. The good news was that there was a slow but very relaxing trip ahead. Lake Malawi is serviced by one ferry the Ilala which plows up and down the lake every week. It takes about 3 days to get up and then it turns around to go back down. It takes so long as the lake, [View Full Entry]

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After a good night of sleep it was the last time to get up early to catch a bus in Mozambique. Apparently the buses in Malawi leave later. I like Malawi already. To complete the list of vehicles used in my trip the Mozambican decided to build the border 4km away from the closest Mozambican town (but strangely enough just at the outskirts of a Malawi town). to cross these last few km you have either the choice of using your own transport which we didn’t have, to walk which is no fun or to pick one of the very very [View Full Entry]

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A train ride in Africa seems like and is a good idea. No more sharing a seat with two other people, no more sitting down for 12 hours, no more potholes which could swallow a truck, being able to eat and drink and actually enjoy the scenery. That is if you book second class. Third class is just like being on a bus. No surprise then that second class was filled with mostly white faces. The train trip starts as the buses do too at the ungodly early hour of 5am but we were rewarded with a nice seat in a [View Full Entry]

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Ihla de Mozambique played a huge role in the history of eastern Africa, the slave trade and the Portuguese dominance over Mozambique. Before the Portuguese took over the island was used by Arab traders. Unfortunately for them and fortunately for the Portuguese their weapons weren’t that great and the Portuguese took over in the early 1500. They were quick to build the Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte, in 1522 which is considered to be the oldest European building in the southern hemisphere. Shortly after they realize that they cannot defend the Island with a bible and build the impres [View Full Entry]

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This blog entry could also be called two idiots on a road trip... Jens the German guy I’m traveling with at the moment and I decided that we wanted to go up north as quickly as possible. I wanted to save time in Mozambique to be able to visit Malawi and he wanted to go from north to south. All said and done we decided that we will try to cover as much distance in as short as time as possible. We did … 4 days, over 30 hours in busses and over 1500km later we arrived. This is our story [View Full Entry]

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Tofo is your typical backpacker’s beach paradise. The beach is ok and the beer cold, plentiful and cheap. Just the thing I needed after doing nothing for three weeks. Not much more to say apart from that my headache is getting better by the minute and I left the place without any permanent damage to my liver. It would have been the place to see whale sharks and manta rays but with my knee still not in great shape that wasn’t an option. A short but worthwhile stopover was Inhambane from which we intended to get a bus further up north. [View Full Entry]

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Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, is what Lonely Planet describes as one of the most agreeable capital cities in Africa. Don’t get me wrong I liked Maputo but I fear for the worst in the other countries. The Portuguese knew how to build a city, stuff as many trees in as possible and then build some attractive building. The city is at the moment a wild mix of recently renovated building, buildings, which haven’t seen a new coat of paint in years and some, which clearly haven’t been inhabited for a long time. Not really surprising as the so-called civil war [View Full Entry]

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