http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/epr/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from epr en-us Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:30:57 +0000 Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:30:57 +0000 now that i have reached my goal everything has become divine and wonderful for me. cape town is a paradise of antique book stalls beautiful cafes lovely leather couches fantastic restaurants and comfortable scenarios of every order all of which are housed in towering and crumbling colonial structures of dutch and british origin wrapped by delicate brass ornament and painted fading pastel shad http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-289332.html yesterday from graham's town there was a very strong headwind for everyone traveling west through frontier land towards george and cape town. with an overcast sky and a good chill the conditions were unfavorable for motorcycling. the road itself is three lanes wide and divided pitch black pavement with fresh shining yellow and white stripes with long beautiful cars speeding along. i spend my t http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/George/blog-289327.html onwardsyesterday morning once the freeze had lifted from the ground i lit my motorcycle up and banged west buckling through durban popping backfiring and wobbling on blown bearings worn out bushings and a loose chain. the bike has lost metal somewhere the chain can become no tighter and has resigned to derail over any slight bump of the road causing me to shutter to a halt and have to toil http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/East-London/blog-287260.html swaziland was beautiful big bend was beautiful. an old nun gave me a pair of shoes in the name of god in big bend. the cold was stinging my bare feet into spasms. the land stretches out like good young skin over a face and the face is swaziland staring up neon green eyes of strange sparkling trees and blinding white teeth of fresh painted crumbling shacks. swaziland and big bend freezing wind http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Swaziland/blog-285886.html it's been a month since i've used my physical voice for anything except mumbling thanks or using the simplest possible strings of words slow motion to speak with hassan. for the rest i use sign language. i feel like that if i do not successfully make an english friend my voice will shrivel up and be lost. i waited there on the ledge now it became dark and the stars came out slowly the big di http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/East/Dar-es-Salaam/blog-285841.html i've driven like a fiend straight down across through and around and now out my hotel window is shining strange maputo. it's a city that is still learning how to be a city the way that africans in general seem to be learning how to be people people from the television. if there was never a television imported to africa these africans would not know about wearing their hats backwards or low http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mozambique/Southern/Maputo/blog-285815.html the motorcycle is seeing no end of problems. yesterday it stranded me in the forest alone for three hours in the heat. i have half a mind to sell it here in vilankulo. if i can repair it today and leave tomorrow i should be ok to get to cape town by june 16 but we will see. my mind is spinning i am so busy with this hard type of travelling that there is never time to write or draw or take photo http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mozambique/Southern/Vilanculos/blog-285811.html hello i'm sorry to not have written but there is really no computers at all let alone internet it is dirt and mud and dirt some more. i am o.k. in a strange way the last couple of days have been a mix. mozambique is a true frontier. the world spins around and around and the africans here on the east coast spin with it. they scream at each other and laugh with each other and cry and jump aroun http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mozambique/Central/Beira/blog-281161.html the things that have happened i tucked out of mtwara on sunday. saturday night my friend Osman had his wedding party in a strange square roofless courtyard of red brick big enough to host the entire village inside. the stars and moon and some dusty clouds were the light as a team of young fellows continually fed an old CD player that was hooked up to some very big speakers in the corner. from th http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mozambique/Northern/Mocimboa-da-Praia/blog-279005.html i am deep south. the world has changed now from loose tree scapes and lonely long low shrub plains into the Africa you can imagine before having been the one from movies and books. wide fields of incredible tall yellow grass in the wind with wild twisting trees poking up and lending shade to those old rusty bicycles and their rusty riders that take long breaks from the angry African sun. the road http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mozambique/Northern/blog-277339.html hey i was having breakfast this morning while everyone else was having lunch and i was eating my rice with a fork. an old woman in a suit sat down at my table because there are no personal boundaries in Africa and she ate her whole fried fish with her fingers and scooped up rice and put her hands in her soup and picked at the fish spine and licked it and slurped. she ate every possible bit of http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/East/Dar-es-Salaam/blog-272840.html the head nun of the YMCA told me never to trust a man from the streeti'm not sure because i met hassan on the street. i have decided tocontinue on continuing on the way i have been trusting good men asthey seem and hoping the best of them. if they turn out to be crooksthen it is much more there own loss than it is mine.another interesting turn has taken place. i have been searching forfilm for m http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/East/Dar-es-Salaam/blog-272233.html i am a sucker yesterday was may day here in dar es salaam whatever that means and it meant that the internet shop here at the YMCA was closed along with just about every business in town. the entire town was deserted the usual horns and bells and yelling of the morning were gone. i sat and did nothing and ate eggs and then i went out the front door and across the street and beyond in search of http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/East/Dar-es-Salaam/blog-272180.html now i am back in dar es salaam and by no reasonable means. everything happened all at once yesterday in one long wild second. the time came to go and i went with solid water coming from the sky no gaps between the droplets of rain turning the dirt road into a mud river and i ran in a crouch through the night late night until i arrived soaked in all of the individual elements of africa hard w http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/East/Dar-es-Salaam/blog-271217.html heyi have the motorcycle now it is an old chinese knockoff bike a 125cc the brakes are good. everything seems good it has been inspected by a mechanic and even though the mechanic had no shop just a tin roof and a screw driver no shirt grey beard sitting in a squat things are done here more by instinct that certified knowledge he could tell what was in order and what was not by tappin http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/blog-269640.html hey i was going to head back to dar es salaam and go up and check out mt kilimanjaro and do a safari but i feel like it would be chickening out also it is recomended to visit mozambique in may to july which is when i would be going through so i am going to get the bike. in this way i will get a good taste of things and skip out on things that have already been tasted no other real news... rea http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/blog-269313.html helloi have been socked in out on the east coast these past day by heavy rain and foul weather generally.jambiani is a small village where once grand european hotels stood along the coast and the powder white sand but now have been reduced to crumbling wrecks. when it rains which it has done every day the sand turns to mud and the locals get wet and i run for cover. in the morning a spooky blan http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/blog-269312.html heyi have no big plans just bumming around on zanzibar. yesterday i tooka long ride out to the east coast which is where i am now. jambiani.i arrived in the evening and walked down the beach in very fine powderwhite sand and a man with the sand on his face took me to a house thathe rents out. it is a luxury apartment ashram style four big rooms ofweird old painted cement and a thatched roof and http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/blog-269309.html hey i will look into a safari and the mountain climb. last night hassan took me out on the town with his school friend and his girlfriend. we sat in the park as the sun went down in the middle of town this is where all of the young kids come on the weekend to hang out. everyone eats ice cream and fish and drinks soda and laughs and runs around from group to group shaking hands. muslim cool kids http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/blog-269308.html hey yesterday when i woke up i went to meet hassan my friend from the ferry early at 8am down in stone town by the marketplace. he was there when i got there wearing a fez already ready to go so we took off on a daladala mini bus across the island east to his village of makunduchi. he was eager for me to see where he lives and what he does in the day and to meet his family and friends. we jum http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/blog-269306.html