Mike & Elysia

mike and elysia

Mike & Elysia


After a long year of work and studying, we are getting back into travel mode. Our newest adventure takes us to Africa for a 40 day overland journey that will have us camping our way through Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and South Africa. After we will spend 5 days in South Africa and then we will head back to Europe where we will spend 3 days with our friends in the Netherlands and 3 days with our friends in Berlin. It's going to be a crazy summer, but who knows when we will get this kind of time again?



Total Distance: 0 miles / 0 kmMouse: 0,0

Our African Overland Adventure

After a long year of work and studying, we are getting back into travel mode. Our newest adventure takes us to Africa for a 40 day overland journey that will have us camping our way through Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and South Africa. After we will spend 5 days in South Africa and then we will head back to Europe where we will spend 3 days with our friends in the Netherlands and 3 days with our friends in Berlin. It's going to be a crazy summer, but who knows when we will get this kind of time again?



Africa » Tanzania » Centre » Iringa July 3rd 2014

Distance Travelled Today: 245 km Elapsed Travel Time: 13 hours 24 min Lodging for the Night: Kisolanza Farm This morning was another early morning. We woke up at 5:15 so that we could shower (the water was actually hot today!!), pack up and take down our tent before our 6am breakfast. We had a wonderfully prepared breakfast of French toast and Elysia's team (just her and Matt; team D, or team dik-dik) was finally on a rest day but Mike and Anna (Team E aka The Eh Team - even though Anna is not Canadian) were on clean up duty. After breakfast we were off on another driving day. We only drove 5 hours but of course due to the early wake up, we were all exhausted. We passed through some very beautiful mountains and lots ... read more
This was at our stop to admire the baobab  trees
This was at our stop to admire the baobab  trees
This was at our stop to admire the baobab  trees

Africa » Tanzania » East » Mikumi National Park July 2nd 2014

Distance Travelled Today: 393 km (ferry and truck) Elapsed Travel Time: 11 hours 11 min (ferry and truck) Lodging for the Night: Tan-Swiss Campground Today we had another early start. We left the hotel for breakfast at 5:30 so we could catch the 7:00 am ferry from Zanzibar back to Dar on the mainland. The ferry was about 2 hours on a high speed catamaran that traveled at 28 knots. We were late getting to the ferry, so we had to queue with the general public, and we were only able to get seats on the top deck. It was a nice morning, so that was not a problem at all. There wasn't enough space for us all to sit in the chairs on the deck, so Elysia sat on the ground in the front with ... read more
Early breakfast in Stone Town on Zanzibar
View from the restaurant in Stone Town
Sabotaging Masivu's bag

Africa » Tanzania » Zanzibar » Zanzibar City July 1st 2014

Distance Travelled Today: 79.9 km Elapsed Travel Time: 12 hours 20 minutes (including time walking through the spice plantation and Stone Town) Lodging for the Night: Mazson's Hotel Today we sadly departed the beautiful beach and headed to the infamous Stone Town. Unfortunately, we didn't get a final chance to sleep in, as we had to leave the hotel at 8 (this means that we had to get up at 6:30 because it takes us awhile to shower and get ourselves organized). So after having a nice buffet breakfast by the water, we were on our way. On the tour with us are people from all over: New Zealand, Japan, America, Germany, etc. When we got on the bus, everyone broke out into a chorus of O Canada, because today is Canada's birthday! We were quite ... read more
Say Goodbye to our Hotel
Ali-G showing us the spices
Sara can see!

Africa » Tanzania » Zanzibar » Nungwi June 30th 2014

Total Distance Travelled Today: 15km (by boat... and taxi) Elapsed Travel Time: 5 hours, 41 min (including mike's diving) Lodging for the Night: Amaan Bungalows (hotel) This morning we slept in until 8am and had breakfast at the hotel's restaurant, which overlooks the ocean. At 10, Mike left to go diving and Elysia hung out at the beach and the hotel, enjoying some R&R. Mike did two dives with three other people from our trip. There were also a couple of other divers on the boat. The dive boat was a traditional wooden boat with storage for the tanks along the centreline. It made it tricky to move around the boat but it was a neat way to go diving. The first dive was at Hunga reef, about 20-30 minutes from the beach. The second dive ... read more
Off go the divers
Beau, Holland, and Mike heading out on the dive boat
Underwater scenery

Africa » Tanzania » Zanzibar » Nungwi June 29th 2014

Total Distance Travelled Today: 147 km (including ferry, transfer to the hotel on Zanzibar) Elapsed Travel Time: 7 hours 3 mins (total) Lodging for the Night: Amaan Bungalows (hotel!) This morning was a sleep-in day, well relatively speaking. We were supposed to leave at 7 (much later than the past few days), so we had planned to get up at 5:45 (we're usually the first awake but the last ready. It takes us a long time to get ready, pack our stuff up and take down the tent, and Elysia is pretty slow in the morning especially since she likes to shower). Unfortunately we were woken up numerous times prior to 5:45- there were at least two call to prayers from the mosque that seems to be right behind our campsite (we heard them chanting and ... read more
The guard at the gate, keeping us safe
Good thing we didn't venture outside camp
Our transportation to the ferry

Africa » Tanzania » East » Dar es Salaam June 28th 2014

Total Distance Travelled Today: 588 km Elapsed Travel Time: 12 hrs 26 min Lodging for the Night: Mikadi Beach Resort (campsite) Today was a travel day. We had to make the journey from Moshi, near the Kenyan border, to Dar Es Salaam in our trusty overland truck, Umfolonzi. The distance was not too far, approximately 590 km by road from campsite to campsite, but the traffic in Dar Es Salaam gets nasty. To try and arrive at a decent hour we had to leave early... very early. We woke up at 3:30 so we could eat breakfast and cleanup the campsite in Moshi at 4:00 and be on the road by 5:00 am. Our guide Masivu told us that the earliest they had ever made it to the campsite in Dar Es Salaam was 8:00 pm, ... read more
Picking off the burrs off of Matt after a bush stop
En route to Dar Es Salaam
More Tanzanian countryside


Total Distance Travelled Today: 328km Elapsed Travel Time: 12 hours 35 mins Lodging for the Night: Keys Hotel Campsite (Moshi) This morning we awoke bright and early at the ungodly hour of 5:30 (much before sunrise) so that we could descend down and explore Ngorongo crater. Since we stayed the night in a campsite on the rim of the crater, it was quite a cool night (probably down to about 10 degrees or so), and we had to put on layers for breakfast in the morning. Despite our tour leader sleeping in until 6:30 (the time we were supposed to leave at for the crater), we were pretty much on our way only a few minutes later (he rebounds fast- Some of our tour members were happy to shake his tent and wake him up). Ngorongo ... read more
Clouds breaking over the crater
The sky is opening and the sun is coming out over the crater!
View from the bottom of the crater

MISSING June 26th 2014

Total Distance Travelled Today: 188 kmElapsed Travel Time: 10 hrs 27 minsLodging for the Night: Simba CampsiteMike woke up this morning at 2:45 to the sound of elephants picking and chewing grass behind our tent. They had come into the site overnight after everyone went to bed. The elephants are not dangerous when you're in your tent, because they can smell that you're there and you're not so threatening when you're inside the tent. If you were alone outside the tent, however, you would be in very serious danger! It's quite an eye opening experience hearing the sound of elephants that close - it's a real reminder that you are definitely in Africa!We woke up for good at 5:30 to get ready for our early morning game drive. We left the camp before sunrise to try ... read more
Sunrise on the Serengeti
Baboons in the morning
Little Timones

Africa » Tanzania » North » Serengeti National Park June 25th 2014

Total Distance Travelled Today: 292 km Elapsed Travel Time: 11 hours 11 min (including game drive) Lodging for the Night: Dik-Dik Campsite Our first night camping in Africa was not bad at all. Unfortunately we both awoke at 3 am and were not able to get back to sleep - a bad case of jetlag as a result of sleeping during the day on our first day. It was okay because breakfast was at 7 so we only had 3 hours to wait for our 6 am alarm to go off. After breakfast we had to repack some of our gear into one bag, and we transferred some of our things from our large gadventures truck into two smaller safari jeeps that we're going to use for the next 3 days. There was 6 of us ... read more
Masai Village in the Distance
Tanzanian landscape with Masai huts near a lake
Mike in the Safari vehicle

Africa » Tanzania » North » Arusha » Arusha City June 24th 2014

Total Distance Travelled Today: 301 km Elapsed Time of Travel: 11hrs 22 min Lodging for the Night: Meserani Snake Park Campsite Today was our first real day on our adventure from Nairobi to Cape Town. We woke early, had a great hot breakfast at the hotel and boarded Umfolonzi, our overland truck. By leaving the hotel around 7:30 we were able to beat most of the Nairobi traffic on our way south to the Tanzanian border. Still jet lagged, we had only slept a couple of hours overnight, but we managed to stay awake for the journey. We entertained ourselves by watching 'TV' (eg looking out the windows) for the drive. The roads to the border were, mostly, excellent, although we we're detoured off the main highway about 6 km from the border (and these detours ... read more
Umfolonzi is named after a river in Africa
Outskirts of Nairobi
Kids playing football near Namanga, Kenya




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