Blogs from South, Angola, Africa

Happy new year! This is sadly our final blog for Africa as we have completed the circle and headed back to Walvis Bay. Southern Namibia After leaving Cape Town with a killer hangover after a great night on long street we had a grueling 700km up to the border with Namibia. It passed fairly easily, we spent a night at springbok camping under the stars before crossing the border the next morning into Namibia. We only had 2 weeks left in Africa and we were really looking forwards to camping in the wilds of Namibia as the whole point of the trip had been about wildlife and wilderness and we had been a bit lazy in the cape staying mostly in backpackers. Our first stop in Namibia is fish river canyon which was a full day’s ... read more

Egypt - Day 1 The land of sand, sun, and people that want your money. No matter what they do, or ask, it is all about those hard earned/swindled dollar bills. Our flight from Paris this morning wasn’t a problem, but when we left Rome to head to Egypt the take off and the landing parts of the journey were brutal. The plane seemed like something out of the 1980s, complete with cigarette holders. I motion we all join together and give some extra money to Italy for some new planes! And, oh yes and the puking girl that was ahead of yes on the plane made the trip extra yummy. My favorite part didn’t even involve the planes, it was bathrooms. Whether they are on a train, a plane, or a terminal… people smoked in ... read more

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 late-summer grass would glow with a pink hue in the sunset and the great Baobabs would rise from the plains like petrified monsters. Along the roadside there were only a few houses, but the fat ... read more