The road was long and beautiful. It winded over gently undulating semi-savannah, across the Fipa-plateau, past small friendly villages and through deep and damp forest. Wouldn’t it have been for a twist of fate we would never have discovered that exceptional stretch of bad gravel and instead we would have been chugging up Lake Tanganyika on the legendary steamer MV Liemba. The steamboat had been both scuttled and salvaged from the depths of the lake and was soon about to turn 100. Since it was put back in service in the mid twenties it had faithfully taken passengers up and down [View Full Entry]

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Narrow strips of sunlight broke through the badly constructed walls of the shack - which according to its’ sign - claimed to be a RETSULAUNT. The floor consisted of evened out cow-dung, a greyish-brown sense of cool, on which I lay flat on my back, trying to soak up as much coolness as possible. Outside the day was sweltering and languid. The men of Karonga sat chattering on rickety benches in the shade while the women sat in the belching sun outside the rice mill, with their heavy sacks of produce. Aili lay next to me on the ground and was [View Full Entry]

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00 :12. The sound of a dentist’s drill penetrating my temple wakes me up. Covered in sweat I sigh, it's just a dream. It’s not a dentist’s drill; there are mosquitoes in the tent. A wild hunt begins and ends in handclapping, then silence. 02 :23. Something has awoken the dogs. Loud barking ricochet in the distance as every dog in the village joins the cacophony. A dog yelps as his owner gives him a kick. Then silence. 03 :51. The roosters begin. It’s still long before sunset but these puffed-up poultry must be from a different time-zone. The volume and [View Full Entry]

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-“You are the reincarnations of Lord Varuna and Lord Vayu”, the priest at the Shri Sanathan Mundal Temple in Stanger, told us. We looked at each other in disbelief. -“Don’t you worry, you’re just not aware of it yet, but I’m 100% sure.” He said and smiled as we nodded hesitantly. -“Of course you must stay with us here at the temple tonight, together with the other Gods. I’ll first go and have my wife prepare us some chai.” He made no sign of joking and disappeared, skipping up the stairs to his domicile. Personally I hadn’t been the reincarnation of [View Full Entry]

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I copied the tidal-charts for the coming month, made a list of all the rivers we would encounter and stocked up on lightweight food and fresh water. Our plan; to cycle the Wildcoast along its coastline, appeared quite straight forward we thought as we studied maps and read up on Xhosa-clans and their traditions. My list of rivers numbered 42, of which 20 were blind, one had a bridge and yet another one was bridged by a car ferry. Out of the remaining 20, nine could be crossed at low tide without swimming, another nine rivers had to be crossed during [View Full Entry]

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It had been a cold night with little sleep. I looked out of the tent and found Mr Seja scraping off frost from his tent and efficiently packing his belongings into his red German rental car. We'd met him one day earlier as we - resembling two bagladies - had dragged our plastic-bagged belongings across the border at Maseru bridge. He was efficiency personified. Punctuality, rationality, German humour and break-neck driving skills all in one. With him behind the wheel we managed to see half the country in less than a week. - "Bloody cold wasn't it?" I called out, looking [View Full Entry]

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So strong was the smell of the green rolling hills that it literally attacked me with childhood memories. I wasn’t cycling through the verdant valleys of the Western Cape, I was cycling down memory lane. Through an outdoor childhood spent at my grandfathers farm, running through the high late-summers grass, pulling pranks with my grandmother as she carried firewood down to the house and eating bedtime sandwiches and drinking hot chocolate while listening to my father’s many stories. This was cycling. Never before while travelling had I felt so free. No bus to catch in the morning. I had just to [View Full Entry]

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Something had changed back in Cape Town. The winter had arrived and with the winter there was a change in mentality. The hordes of German tourists had left the city and Long Street - that busy, loud waterhole for the Bazbuz crowd had calmed down to a pleasant evening stir at weekends only. The strollers (as the begging street kids call themselves) were busy storing glue underneath the man-hole covers, and the homeless added extra sheets of cardboard paper to their beds. Truly there was winter in the Mother City and it affected all its inhabitants, but the chilly nights hit [View Full Entry]

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3000 km separated me from Aili who was in Cape Town, not that the corrupt immigration officers at Lobito harbour cared. On the contrary they did their best to hinder me to get down to Cape Town by refusing me to leave the boat. After 36 hours they realized I wasn’t going to pay any bribes and I was finally let ashore. I wasn’t allowed to stay with my friend Kabila, and the immigration officers chased him away then they stalked me as I walked around town. This made me feel a bit uncomfortable, so I quickly left for Benguela, coincidentally [View Full Entry]

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Somewhere north of Tsumeb in northern Namibia the German influence ceased. I found myself back in the African cultural heartland - unorganized, dirty, crowded and vibrant. After some lame attempts by the Angolan border-police to extract bribes, I was inside the country, swarmed by teenage moneychangers. In a dirty 4x4 a fat white man with a wry face, sat jammed between the seat and the steering wheel, which sank into his belly. He would take me as far as Xangongo for a beer, he said, which sounded great to me although I had no clue where it was. Big fields of [View Full Entry]

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