Our destination that first night back in South Africa was Augrabies Falls National Park, a three-hour drive from Upington. En route we stopped at a winery / distillery and sampled some lovely wine and even lovelier brandy and liqueurs. The north west is a very dry and barren area, but the inventive South Africans have worked around the conditions and produce some fabulous wines, grapes, raisins, fruit and nuts from this land. We reached Augrabies and didn't expect much more than a waterfall in a dry, dusty area, but instead found a little oasis in the desert and enjoyed it so [View Full Entry]

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We arrived into Swakopmund early in the day and settled on a backpackers that was close to town, where we could camp. It was a strange place ... the owners were not very welcoming or friendly. When we rang the bell to be let into the yard, the owner opened the gate and said "what do you want?". Gee, I dunno, we are two foreigners with a pile of backpacks at our feet and you are running a lodge ... soooooooo, maybe we'd like a place to stay??? Things improved rapidly as we met the other travellers staying here. We ran [View Full Entry]

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**WARNING** Long Blog Entry - please get comfy before reading ... We headed to Windhoek on a Sunday and ended up staying at the Cardboard Box Backpackers (it was within walking distance from the minibus taxi stand) and set up our tent on the driest piece of sand we could find. We must say, in all the photos of Namibia that you see, it looks like the whole country is a barren desert land. It has been an exceptionally wet year this year, but still, we couldn't get over the green vegetation and the amount of rain we were experiencing. The [View Full Entry]

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When we asked what time the bus passes Planet Baobab we got several different answers that amounted to 3 buses pass by anytime between 8 am and 4 pm. Alrighty then - very exact times to work with! We wanted a decent breakfast and didn't want to pack up in the dark so we left around 9:15 am and expected a long wait for the bus. We just reached the road when a gravel truck pulled up and told us the bus was about 10 minutes away. We couldn't believe our luck! Indeed, within 15 minutes the bus pulled up, we [View Full Entry]

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We arrived into Livingstone in the afternoon, on a hot, bright and sunny Sunday. We were delighted to find our accommodation close to the bus stop - always a bonus! We stayed at Jolly Boys Backpackers, where many a traveller stops for a visit to Victoria Falls. Since the price of a dorm was quite a bit more than camping, we decided to break out the new purchase (might as well right??) and found a shady little spot for our new home. Jolly Boys offers a free lift to the Falls everyday, so we signed up for Monday's transfer and decided [View Full Entry]

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We were on our Tanzanian safari when we celebrated our one-year anniversary of being on the African continent. We can hardly believe that we have been travelling for this long and that a year has passed already! However, the state of our clothes attests to our length of travel as they are certainly worse for wear, our packs are filthy, and our shoes starting to fall apart - I guess it is time to wrap up this travel adventure before we have no clothes or shoes left! The Zanzibar ferry terminal in Dar es Salaam is nothing like a BC Ferries [View Full Entry]

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We were only going to stay a few days in Shanzu before leaving Kenya - but it got extended as usual, as we relaxed into life at Melrose Place again! We took Jan and Faridah bowling before we left and Joel and Shi joined us. We had a great evening out with plenty of goofy photos and hearty laughter. We got home quite late, so it was a good thing we weren't leaving on the 6am bus the next day, but the day after. It was hard to say good-bye to Jan and Faridah and the pool at Melrose Place, but [View Full Entry]

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We decided to stay in Nairobi for a few extra days and get in a visit to the Giraffe Centre. I was intrigued with being able to feed a giraffe, so we planned our visit for Sunday. The Lonely Planet certainly made it sound easy to get to, but after taking two matatus and walking 5+ km in the heat of the day (as always with us!) we were hoping for more of a giraffe experience than we got. It was great to feed a giraffe and I even got to kiss one, but that was pretty much all there was [View Full Entry]

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Wow! What can I say? The Masai Mara ... the fabulous, awesome, amazing, wonderful Masai Mara. The pictures will say more than any words can, but I must say that although we have done different safaris already, nothing quite compares with the landscape and the animals of the Masai Mara. It is the open savannah grasslands that stretch for as far as the eye can see. We all have seen this in nature programs or National Geographic magazines, but there is something truly special about experiencing it, smelling it, hearing it and seeing it with your own eyes. Amazing. We arrived [View Full Entry]

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Departing Uganda was so easy that we didn't even realize we had left until we got to the "Welcome to Kenya" sign at the Kenyan border. Oops. We did not get stamped out of Uganda. Somehow we missed the Ugandan immigration office and since neither the Ugandan nor the Kenyan authorities seemed to care, neither did we. Our first stop was Eldoret, a small, bustling town about 3 hours from the border. It is not that far in actual distance from the border, but the road is so bad that it takes 3 hours. We decided to stop in Eldoret for [View Full Entry]

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