Following our relatively relaxing time in Zanzibar, reboarding Pangani and saddling up for more driving along Tanzania's less than perfect roadways wasn't exactly high on my list of "must do" activities, but because we were headed towards Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation area - arguably the climax of the trip - I was able to keep my good spirits as we bumped and lurched our way north from Dar. The "highlight" of what was essentially a travel day was when we stopped in a small village for lunch and to take Janice and one of our other group members, [View Full Entry]

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After spending the night at a Masai campground near Chitimba (where we had the best group meal on the trip so far), we crossed the Tanzanian border and headed towards Dar es Salaam. The capital of Tanzania in everything but name, Dar (as it is affectionately known) is a fairly large city that is hot, dusty, dirty, full of traffic and incredibly humid despite being right next to the Indian Ocean. That night we rested up and escaped the heat in the camp's pool while hearing from our tour leader about the options for our four day / three night excursion [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Zambia, we headed off to Malawi, known as the "warm heart of Africa" due to the friendliness of its people. With almost a quarter of the country being covered by Lake Malawi, the country's population is largely clustered around the shores of the lake. Our first two nights in Malawi were spent at a place called Kande Beach, which to be honest, wasn't that impressive. The lake shore was nice, even though it did rain a bit (though nothing like the rain we experienced in Zambia) and I did get to go scuba diving, but the big drawback was the [View Full Entry]

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Stopping briefly (45 minutes) at Victoria Falls (just writing that sounds ridiculous - I have no idea why people designing these trips think that 45 minutes is enough time to appreciate one of the world's natural wonders) was a bad start to a worse five days spent in Zambia. While I am certain that Zambia is a lovely country with a lot going for it, my lasting memories will be of one thing - rain, rain and more rain! Upon arrival at our campsite we stared out the windows of the overland truck at the muddy lake where we were supposed [View Full Entry]

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Sitting at a small cafe in Kasane, Botswana it is the last day of 2007 as I write this entry and enjoy the best capuccino I've had since leaving Cape Town. It has certainly been an interesting year - the purchase of Mercury by HP and the subsequent restructuring, the decision to take time off and the traveling in South America and Africa (so far) have definitely made 2007 a year to remember. After leaving the Delta, we drove ~700 kilometres north to the Kasane region and the Chobe National Park where we would spend a couple of days and celebrate [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Ghanzi and the Kalahari Bushmen, we headed further north into Botwana to the town of Maun - the gateway to the famous Okavango Delta. The world's largest inland delta is a swampy, low lying area covering a large section of Botswana. Fed by a number of rivers in Namibia, Angola and Botswana and disconnected from the ocean, the delta dumps 11 cubic km of water onto the Kalahari Desert every year irrigating 15,000 square kilometres. After a night at Sitatunga campsite near Maun, we boarded an open-sided truck to drive through local villages and bushland before arriving at the edge [View Full Entry]

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Crossing the border into Botswana from Namibia, we made our way to our campsite near the town of Ghanzi. Here we stayed in grass and mud huts overnight and the next morning were met by a group of Kalahari Bushmen (and women), also known as Khoi-san or "San" people. The San are thought by some scientists to be amongst the earliest (if not the earliest) modern humans. The San people originally occupied much of Southern Africa until their territories began to be squeezed by the migration of the Bantu peoples which took place starting from around the 14th century. Over time [View Full Entry]

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It is now the 23rd January (I started writing this entry on the 5th) and we are in Dar es Salaam after leaving our overland tour a day early to avoid traveling into Kenya. This is the first Internet cafe with equipment fast enough to upload photos etc that we have encountered in the last month! In order to avoid fatigue, yours and mine, I will break down the last several weeks into a number of different entries to be enjoyed at your leisure :-). Enjoy!! After leaving Swakopmund, we headed for the Skeleton Coast of Namibia to an area known [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone, We are currently at the town of Kasane in Botswana and just visited the Chobe National Park on an early morning game drive. With over 55,000 elephants, Chobe has the highest elephant population in Africa and is the premier wildlife spot in Botswana - unfortunately for us, it rained early this morning and we didn't see a single elephant! The joys of wildlife viewing :-( Anyway, we have seen some cool stuff in the last couple of weeks so I will try and do a proper blog entry with photos etc sometime over the next few days. In the [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone, Hope you have all been well since our last blog. We are now in the small, very German town of Swakopmund in Central Namibia on day six of our 41 day journey across Africa. After leaving Uganda we flew into Cape Town, South Africa (via Nairobi and Johannesburg) to spend a few days relaxing and seeing the sights before joining our group for the overland trek that will take us from Cape Town to Nairobi, Kenya. Cape Town is a very pretty and modern city very similar in many ways to Sydney, but also quite different. Despite the fact [View Full Entry]

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