thooper
Todd Hooper Joined: December 27th 2008
Logged in: December 6th 2011
Logged in: December 6th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
very nice
Friday 20th March We arrived at Banana Village where we had planned to meet the CRU dental team at around 4pm after our 32 hours bus journey across what seemed like the whole of Africa but in actual fact was only three countries! We looked a little dishevelled and slightly dirty to say the least and had hoped that we could have a shower before meeting everyone. Sadly Barbara caught us sneaking to our room and so they would have to put up with our dust covered faces and the slight stench of “African travel”! There were seven of us on the team including Lucie and myself. Paul and Aliya were both fully qualified dentists, Paul from Ireland and Aliya from London who was half Pakistani, half South American and had red hair! Michelle was the ... read more
4
We circled above the gorgeous island of Mauritius before landing occasionally spotting beautiful stretches of white sand belonging to innumerable 5 star resorts. Most people associate the island with honeymoons and expensive family holidays but we were there for much more important and special occasions. Lucie’s brother Jonathan lives on the island with his wife and newly born baby girl, Jordan. Luc hadn’t seen him or Nat for 2 years, I had obviously never met either of them, and Luc was about to meet her first niece for the first time! I have to admit that I was quite nervous meeting Jonathan for the first time, which is unusual for me, but all my anxiety disappeared as soon as we stepped off the plane and were greeted as we left the airport. We drove for a ... read more
Sunrise on the Island
Leaving Banana Village We had no appointments to make on Wednesday morning and so after checking out of Banana Village and a very leisurely breakfast we set off down the Entebbe road towards Kampala. The Ugandan people were all very busy going about their daily lives, which provided some great scenery on our journey. The people are sop enterprising, it seems all of them are trying to make a living in any way possible, each with his or her own businesses, boda-boda or day to day job! Infant Oral Mutilation We met with a dentist in Kampala who had supplied three Ugandan dentists to us for our first three clinics. He owned and ran his own practice, which was pretty much to western standards in terms of equipment and the services they offered. We talked about ... read more
Photo 12
Monday morning, Luc and I caught a bus from Moshi to Dar Es Salaam. It left around six o'clock in the morning and didn't arrive in Dar until around 2pm. Eight hours on the bus across one of Africa's bigger countries was not too comfortable but not one of the worst journeys I have been on during my time in Africa. Luc found it very hard despite the fact she was asleep for the majority of it. Upon arriving in Dar we were greeted by lots and lots of taxi drivers all offering the "many cheapest price" to the ferry for Zanzibar. The first price quoted was 20,000 TSH which is about £10. After a bit of arguing and me being generally stubborn we managed a price of 11,000 for a half an hour journey. Once ... read more
5895m!!
Kilimanjaro - Machame Route - Day 4 - Friday 6th March I woke up on the morning of day 4 after a very good night’s sleep, much to my relief after the freezing cold night I had at Shira Caves. We were up early and the sky was very clear. We had a beautiful sight of the summit once again and so we took the opportunity to take our team photo, all seven of us! I had with me my guide, Felex, four porters (one of whom was my waiter) and Alex my cook. They were all very friendly although I saw nothing of Alex the cook as he was always buried deep in his tent, cooking! The day started slowly as we were only going to be walking for about 3 hours and were ascending ... read more
Day 3 Morning
Kilimanjaro - Machame Route - Day 1 - Tuesday 3rd March Breakfast was served from 6am so I was up and about around half five. The power had still not come on from the night before and so the head torch was out to do the final packing of my daypack. The majority of the morning was spent running around like a headless chicken trying to organise the rental gear and settle my bill form the plate of chips and a bottle of water for the night before. We all stood waiting to meet our guides; I was the only one who was doing the Machame route from my company. My guide was called Felex; he was 56 years old and a bit of a veteran. When I asked him how many times he had reached ... read more
Road side market
So after leaving the Kwitonda group in Rwanda I took a bus from Kigali to Kampala across the border. The bus left the Nyabugogo bus station at 5.45am and I was told that I needed to be there for about 3.30am, as it gets full very quickly! I was the first at the booking office, which did not open until 5.00am. It was lucky I was the first through the door as I got the last ticket on the bus. Lucky that was until the journey got underway. I slept until we reached the border, which only took an hour or so. It was very cramped on the bus. Six seats across and the seats may have been big enough for a child but when you are sat in-between two ladies, one who is quite large ... read more
Photo 7
24th February On Tuesday morning I started my journey in anticipation of going gorilla trekking the next day. Colin dropped me off in Kabale in the morning so that I could walk to the petrol station where the taxis departed to the border. I say taxis but in reality they are actually men who own cars and charge a couple of pounds to take people to the border of Rwanda! So I load my bags into the boot of this man’s car and jump inside. There are two women sitting in the car. “Aghandi,” I said, which means: Hello, how are you? “Neeje.” Came the reply, which means pretty much the same thing. The next thing I know another woman and three of her kids climb into the back. It was cramped with a child sat ... read more
My dive!!
Lucie and Lobb!! It was very sad leaving South Africa. We had had such an amazing time and both felt that given the chance we would have definitely doubled the length of our stay, but we had other places to go and very, very different cultures to experience. Paul, who is in charge of all the schools Luc is working at, Aleisha who is an American volunteer and a driver greeted us off the plane. The sign held up for us read: LUCIE and LOBB! Lobb, now that is a first for me, I get Tom and maybe even sometimes George but not Lobb! Haha We drove from Entebbe Airport to Molly and Paul’s house, which took about forty minutes. We were hit by the heat coming off the plane, which I’d experienced in many countries ... read more
Photo 5
Friday 8th February Sorry this post if at least 5 days late. Internet in the Transkei was appalling and nowhere has Microsoft word or USB ports so have had to wait till now! We arrived in Jeffery’s bay, at Island Vibe around 8pm. The bar was already full and we had missed supper so it was a bowl of cereal for that night! The Brazilian guys and Kirsten from Norway were staying at Island Vibe as well and it was nice to be back with them laughing about their experiences at the Bloukrans bungy. On Friday morning we all decided that we’d go on a township tour. The tour guide was a guy called Cassidy, Cas for short. He was 31 and had previously been a member of staff at the backpackers. He lived in the ... read more
