Stax of Jax

Why? The first thing everyone asked us time and time again when we said we were going to Amboseli was why, why, why.....? I found it a little bit worrying given it was my first safari experience but I can understand the question given the reputation of some of the other national parks. The reason why we picked Amboseli and not the very popular Masai Mara is that we are planning to come back to see the Wilderbeest migration in July in the Mara so we wanted to save that for later in the year. Amboseli has a bit of a rough, untouched, road less travelled kind of feel which appealed to me and it’s also got one hell of a big draw card which no other park has, the magnificent Mount Kilimanjaro (big mountain in ... read more

Mida Creek We had read about a great sounding Eco Camp a couple of kilometers away called Mida Creek Eco Camp. After many frustrating hours trying to figure out the area codes for the phones (the whole region had changed leaving all the information in our book absolutely useless) we managed to get in touch with Billie the manager who booked us in to come and visit for a couple of days. Mida Creek is similar to a salt water estuary set on the mouth of the sea. It is a large, very wide and not so deep creek running inland, lined with pristine examples of mangrove forests. The area is well renowned for bird watching with many species living off the creek including migrations of pink flamingos. The ecological camp is a community project set ... read more

Our next stop was a small fishing village a couple of hours away called Watamu. On leaving Mombassa we had a good insight to the local village life, seeing many communities and housing along the coast as we drove down. Interestingly there are many massive aloe vera plantations along that way. We passed many (30+?!) kilometres worth of plantations. Chances are if you use aloe vera it probably is grown here. Watamu is a pretty relaxed small fishing village, located halfway up the northern Kenyan coast between Mombassa and the far north Lamu. It’s got one main street and the beach and that’s about it. There’s a thriving tourism trade there thanks to the Italians. They dominate all of the local area, particularly the next main town which is much larger called Malindi. Thankfully Watamu maintains ... read more

Mendoza You´ve probably gathered by now that there are (at least) four things that are very important to me when I am travelling. In no particular order; landscape and culture, good company/friendship, great food and last but not least red wine (my dad will contest to this one when I visit Oz)! I arrived in Mendoza, the principle wine region of Argentina very excited about my fourth aspect, red wine, especially the Malbec variety. About 6 months ago, Paul and I attended a food festival in London, tasting various wines from the Mendoza region so I knew what it was going to be all about.... Yum! With my mates up the road at a hostel that was fully booked, I checked into a plush hostel with an Ibiza villa feel about. It had possibly the largest ... read more

Next stop after the desert was San Pedro de Atacama, a small colonial town in Chile, not far from the boarder. This route seemed like the obvious way to get to Salta, Argentina which is where I was keen to spend some time on recommendation of friends. Had I known what it would entail I might have thought twice and travelled the extra ten hours back to Uyuni and caught the train! Does anything actually work in this town? Dan, Julia and I arrived mid Sunday afternoon to find this cute little town with wide dusty streets, white spanish looking buildings deserted of all people. Ah, good old siesta. Keep forgetting about that one! First stop was to try to find the bus offices to book an onward ticket, as they fill up quickly. Of the ... read more