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I'm going to try and sum up the last month as best I can! I'm sat in an internet cafe in Arusha, Tanzania with 3 days left of the overland trip from Johannesburg to Nairobi, its been a long month but I'll try and fill you in! Its going to be a bit of an essay so I apologise! The mission flight from Sydney to Jo'burg (via.. DUBAI!?) wasn't as bad as we were expecting. The first leg - 16 hours went pretty quickly as I got some sleep and there was some good music and films etc, we had 4 hours to wait in Dubai which was mainly spent at starbucks and taking note of the cheap duty free to take advantage of on the way back to England (again via dubai). The next leg was fine too and watched loads of films, the time flew by. We arrived in Jo'burg ontime, the airport was undergoing renovation to the extent that I was almost convinced I'd arrived back in Delhi! After some dire warnings about safety in Joburg from a local on the plane we were feeling a little apprehensive. Our bags too ages and robs never actually materialised. Apparently
it hadnt even left Dubai and was on the next flight. Typical. We arranged to have it delivered to the hostel we were booked into - Backpackers ritz - where the overland trip began. Our pick up was waiting and we crammed into a car with another english guy from Bristol and headed towards the city which looked vast spread out infront of us. Joburg gave off a bit of a sinister feel with everyone locked away in security compounds surrounding nearly every building - 6 foot high walls topped with electric fences while gangs hung on street corners. The hostel was in a nice suburb where the security was even tighter - clearly as there was more to protect - and we got buzzed through the double fence to be checked in by a quirky guy on reception. The hostel was an old english mansion and was seemingly a pretty comfortable place to spend the 3 days until we began the tour. We wandered outside and down to the ATM to get some Rand out, constantly looking over our shoulder in the dark. We never actually felt at any risk in Jo'burg, I think it was purely all the
horror stories people drill into you before you go that makes you paranoid! Ordered in Pizza as we were starving, only 3 quid for a large. fantastic. Finally some relief from Australian prices! Forced myself to stay up till around 10pm to fight the jet lag and chatted to a few people in the TV room before crashing out.
The only thing I was particularly intent on doing in Jo'burg was visiting the Apartheid museum so the next day us 3 and a guy called Bill from california also on our tour organised a taxi. Jo'burg seemed huge but remarkably green and we passed old gold mining shafts and 'empire road' - a few relics from the past! It was a fantastic museum detailing the history of the nation and Jo'burg and the timeline of Apartheid which amazingly only ended in 1994 with the nation on the brink of civil war. I had learned bits about the regime before but I never knew how bad it had actually been, it shocked me. It took us a good 3 hours to get round everything and I felt a lot more educated on South Africa's rocky history. Took a taxi back to
the hostel and picked up some crappy noodles which I cooked in the kitchen. They were rough. We hung out in the tiny hostel bar in the evening where we met 2 cool swedish guys - Tobias and Andreas - both on our overland tour, and a bunch of others including Gazs German clone - Joe. The legendary barmaid kept supplying free drinks and me, andreas and a couple of others were the last in the bar and I passed katie at 6am, said good morning as she said good night.
Next day, feeling slightly worse for wear, the cool barmaid - genie - took us out to some shopping place where we just chilled out in the sun at a bar and chatted. In the evening me and Rob got the necessary dollars for our trip from the bank. At 6pm we went down to the pool room for the pre-departure meeting of our tour with our bubbly guide Jackie. One surprise was that Acacia (the overland company) had put lots of different groups together as one. So out of 24 people here only 12 of them would come all the way to Nairobi with us, and our guide
and driver only as far as Victoria Falls. The others were going to cape town and some stopping at Livingston which seemed a shame. Anyway we left the next morning at 6am with all our stuff loaded onto the truck (basically a lorry with seats and lockers but in the back and all the gear underneath). We were driving to Kruger National Park and with a few stops for food and the like we drove all day arriving late evening just in time to do a night game drive in Thorny Bush Reserve. After hastily putting up our tents in the cool campsite - 2 to a tent and very easy to put up we headed out on the night drive which was excellent, seeing elephants, giraffes, zebras etc and a lion. Headed back to the campsite and had some beers round the campfire and some excellent food served to us, wasnt expecting this kind of treatment. The next day we went for a game drive in Kruger National Park which was pretty good but we didnt see any cats or rhinos which is what I'd been hoping for, although we did see a 5 legged elephant which gave us
a few laughs...! Back at the campsite we had some more beers and some amazing food - impala (like a type of antelope) and warthog. Both amazing! The kids of the ladies who worked at the campsite put a cool show on for us before we went to bed. Early nights and horrificly early mornings had began! The next day we were up before sunrise and drove all day north into Botswana, guilty westerners had McDonalds for lunch in Polokwane before crossing the Limpopo river into Botswana. We passed a lot of rural South Africa with beautiful mountains and villages with similar wealth to that I'd seen in Uganda, South Africa has such a huge wealth divide. Botswana was very flat and sparsely populated with huge open plains and roads that seemed to go on forever. We camped in the evening at a little site in the town of Palapye. Nice facilities yet again and we spent the evening in the bar after setting up. Highlight of the night was playing pool against this old afrikaner guy who didnt understand english and definitely didnt understand pool. It turned into a contest of potting anything with anything. Found it so hard
to keep a straight face and when I potted the last pool on the table he shook my hand and accepted defeat. Hilarious. After plenty of beers me and the swedes hatched a plan to go to Zimbabwe and for them to join us for a bit in Uganda! Another early start and another long day of driving, we passed through huge open plains stopping only onece in Francistown for lunch. We reached Elephant Sands campsite about 3pm. It was literally in the middle of nowhere on the edge of a watering hole. Really nice place. After setting up we had a few beers while some of the others left to go on a nature walk that for 25 dollars we didnt fancy. Hilariously just after they left there were elephants spotted about 200m from camp so we went to see for free. It was awesome seeing them totally in the wild, not even national park! Supposedly they wander though camp to the watering hole sometimes! I had a shower which turned out to colder and saltier than the sea before an evening in the cute bar drinking the worlds best cider - Savanna Dry. Me and Rob got taught
some funny swedish from the guys and we had some jokes including a classic from Andreas where he explained why he wasn't going to send a postcard of a baby leopard to his elderley gran as she might be convinced it was him. Up at 5.20am as it was finally my day to be on the cooking team and we rustled up some excellent porridge and fried toast for everyone. Rob was last up so Jackie collapsed our tent on him, classic! We set off for another long day of driving north through Botswana towards Chobe National Park. The road was seemingly endless and we saw nothingness for most of the ride apart from some cool wild elephants. Our campsite on the banks of the chobe river was a nice one and for the first time there were some other overland trucks there. We'd paid the 30 or 40 dollars for the cruise on the chobe river into the park that evening - nicknamed the 'booze cruise' as everyone fills a cool box up with beer to bring unboard. I'd stocked up on the lion lagers and we headed to the boat. It was great fun and we got amazingly
close to a herd of washing elephants and a big group of hippos. The scenery was stunning too and it all went very well with cold beers. The other side of the river was Namibia and a 5 minute drive away are the borders to Zambia and also to Zimbabwe. 4 countries all meeting in such a tiny area! The sunset was totally amazing, the essential African sunset. Slightly tipsy we went back and I helped the team cook spag bol before a night in the bar yet again, chatting to guide Jackie about Zimbabwe as she is from there. After yet another early morning we set off for Zambia. Our first stop was the Zim border where a few of the others were crossing with a company to go to some touristy 'walking with lions' place. They were crossing here to avoid having to pay Zambia twice if they crossed from there (140 bucks!) as they could enter Zambia from Zimbabwe and meet us there later. It was at this point that me, an american called Heather, and the swedes realised that if we were to do Zimbabwe we would have to go through here otherwise it would work
out very expensive, paying zambia twice. After a lot of debating and some stern warnings from Jackie advising us not to I decided not to go and was seriously regretting my decision as I saw the swedish guys crossing by themselves, they would meet us later by crossing from zim to zambia at victoria falls, we were camping on the zambia side. I was really interested to go accross to Zimbabwe and maybe talk to a few people about what was going on to see if we really do get a true story from the media. When we got to the Kazungula crossing of the Zambezi river into Zambia, me and Heather were gutted and wished we'd gone. The whole routine of the tour had begun to get a little tedious and a day travelling into the unknown by ourselves again had seemed so appealing. The Ferry crossing was so slow with one barge taking 2 trucks at a time and only one barge running. There was a "queue" (scrum) of about 50 trucks on each side. A cheeky bribe got us to the front of the queue and it only took us about 2 hours to get over. It
was cool to see some real africa with people crossing with stuff to sell and loads of belongings. It was great, a little bit of chaos! I reluctantly coughed up my 140 dollars for my Zambian visa (having just watched the aussies pay 55 and be offered multiple entry - giving the option of going to zim - for 80 dollars. Multiple entry for a British citizen was 440 dollars). I want to know what the UK charges Zambians. We drove the 60km to Livingston, The zambian side of Victoria falls - one side is zim one side is zambia. Before we went to the campsite we went to the falls. It was absolutely amazing, such a breathtaking site. Tones and tones of water being thrown over the edge of a cliff. Stunning. As it was high water at this time of year we got DRENCHED (my bin bag poncho didnt hold up). It was an amazing force of nature and as we walked along we had tones of water dumped on us. The noise was deafening! We caught a glimpse of the bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe over the gorge past the falls - home of the bungee jump
we'd been anticipating before we even came away. It was HIGH! Drenched and nervous we went back to the truck and drove on to the site where the people who'd done the lion walk in zimbabwe were already waiting. The campsite was very upmarket with nice rooms on site too, and a nice bar and restaurant. We set up and had a mad rush to get ready for the Zambezi river cruise at 4pm in which we'd all decided to cross dress. I'll let pictures do the talking but we all looked hideous. Especially me, Rob and Fraser - a hilarious scottish guy who was wearing a 'kilt' (tarten thong). Needless to say we got a few looks from the respectable folks on a nice sunset cruise. The bar was open so the 3 hours were great. We had so much fun, role reversal proved hilarious. Katie was perhaps the manliest man we'd ever seen and me and Rob were nothing but cheap sluts. By 7pm we were all well and truely tanked and went for a little dance in a place on site. Some shenanigans followed and fun was had by all. Toby and Andreas returned from their Zimbabwean
adventure with some great stories which made me regret my decision even more. Although the cruise had been awesome and I would have missed it. I was determined to find a way to go as Acacia was dumping us on this expensive campsite for 5 days. Anyway, the day after we were woken at 7am so a guy could show us all a sales pitch for the activities on offer - all horrifically touristy. As planned we signed up for the bungee, along with Bill the American and Alex from Birmingham. At 2pm we got ourselves a taxi down to the border post. The bridge is actually no mans land so you have to leave Zambia to get onto the bridge. They give you a bridge pass for bungee jumping so you dont get stamped out and void your visa. Once on the bridge it was a bit surreal, the falls on our right and the gorge on our left. It was VERY HIGH! (111meters - 3rd highest in the world or something) We'd all been given numbers and katie was called first, she was really scared which led to them pretty much shoving her off the edge, brutal! Watching
katie go was weirdd, my number was called straight after and it was then that I started to brick it. I was sat while a guy wrapped friggin towels around my ankles. He was talking about something but I didnt take anything in. Suddenly he asked me to stand up and I awkwardly shuffled to the edge and made the mistake of looking down into the swirling rapids of the zambezi river. It was probably the most nervous I've been in since... forever. But there wasn't much time to think as they went 5,4,3,2,1 BUNGEE! It was AMAZING! The first 2-3 seconds of free fall really f*ck with you, like you're flying but that you're about to die, then you start to enjoy it and the bungee stretches and u get thrown up and down all over the place, pretty brutal. What a thrill! Still bouncing around and with all the blood in my head I started to notice the stunning view, the falls, rainbows, the gorge. It was amazing. A guy got hoisted down to me and I tried my best to have a casual conversation with him as he winced me back up to the bridge. WOW. I
was just back in time to see Robs jump. So cool and so much scarier than sky diving but I would definitely do it again! We strolled casually back into Zambia without anyone even stopping us having heard our videos wouldnt be ready for buying until tommorow. This gave me an idea. As it had been so easy to go onto the bridge without getting stamped out, and so easy to go back in. Then surely I could go to Zimbabwe without them noticing and just claim I'd been bungee jumping... I would test it out tommorow! We went back and showed off the pictures and videos Toby and Andreas had taken on our cameras for us. That night we went for a farewell dinner in town with everyone which was really nice and good fun but such a shame after only a week or so to be losing Jackie and Paul our legendary driver plus the other half of the group. I was starting to get quite annoyed with Acacia, struggling to understand where exactly the 900 pound tour price goes as food, camping and all the activities except for a few are covered by us. It was beginning
to seem very bad value, we were losing half our group, our guide and driver and we were being dumped on this expensive campsite where we had to pay for meals ourselves for 5 days and where the only things to do were activities like the bungee, which at 90 dollars was the cheapest. It was a nice evening and when we got back me and Fraser the scot caught the extra time and penalties of the champions league final which was certainly entertaining! We had to be up at 7 again to pack our tents away as they were leaving with Jackie and the truck for cape town. We moved into new ones from a new truck and had breakfast. Today was the day I planned to get into Zim. After saying goodbye to Jackie and the others heading for cape town and waving them off, me, rob, katie, heather and bill all headed back to the bridge. My plan was to go through as I had done yesterday except keep going and go into Zimbabwe. Then when I crossed back into Zambia later, if I was stopped I'd just say I'd been bungee jumping. If at the Zimbabwe
side it looked like they were being stringent with checking peoples zambia visas had beens stamped (I'd let Bill + Heather go first, they had multiple entry visas as thats what they give US citizens - all v confusing) then I'd just turn around and go ba ck and meet Rob and Katie at the place to buy the bungee videos. A guy called Elvis who'd been working as a chef on another overland tour and lived in the zim side of vic falls was coming with us to show us around. We'd met him in the bar and he was heading home. I crossed the bridge and nervously approached the Zimbabwe border post. Inside I filled in the visa form and watched heather and bill be quickly given visas by the friendly guy. I went for it and handed my passport and visa fee over. I could honestly say I was as nervous as the bungee but ended up with a lovely full page zimbabwe visa and a big smile. Walking into Zimbabwe I high fived heather, job well done! It was a good moment. It felt good to be away from the tour and doing something exciting again.
Victoria Falls town was a strange ghost town of empty resort hotels and operators. Pretty much all the tourism for the falls had moved across to zambia and livingston. First things first we needed to change some money. Elvis wanted to use a black market guy - like most people in Zimbabwe do as the government rate is never as fair. Having been warned by Jackie that if you hold Zim Dollars without a receipt and police demand one then you could end up in jail It didnt sound like a good idea so I told him I wanted to go to a legal bureau. We sat under pictures of a smiling Mugabe and waited for a free tender. Todays exchange rate - a computer print out on the wall - was declared as $729,767,292 to the pound. It was $369,000,000 to the US dollar, up 63,000,000 in the 2 days since Toby and Andreas had been here (we figured out that we also used the same exchange bureau!) so for 15 dollars each we got one hell of a big stack of money. The ten cents and 1 dollar notes I found stranger than the 500,000,000 notes as surely
1 zim dollar isnt even worth the paper its printed on. Armed with a stack of money we walked around what proved to be a very peaceful town and paid 1.3 billion for a round of beer at a bar the guys had recommended. We chatted to Elvis about everything and also a bit to the nice guy on the bar who remembered the swedes. Afterwards we got a taxi out to Elvis's house as he'd invited us for dinner. It was a poor neighbourhood with modest little houses but the TV and dvd player made me think they were doing ok, for african standards at least! His sister cooked some traditional food for us, maize and beef stew which was pretty good and I also got chatting to some guys in his local bar about Zimbabwe. They were really nice and told me to take the photo of us smiling together back to the western media to prove there was no violence here. Life did seem to be going on fairly normally although vic falls isnt really a fair representation of the country as a tourist town. Perhaps its totally different in Harare. After dinner we said our thanks
and goodbye to Elvis and got a taxi back to town. Went into the local supermarket only to find half the shelves empty. I paid 240,000,000 for a little fredo bar (remember those!?) before we headed back to the border and got stamped out. I didnt see any signs of violence or even one policeman which was quite surprising. I really wonder what its like elsewhere. A highlight was bumping into a guy on the street in newcastle top. Fantastic. I strolled back into Zambia uncontested, job well done and a very interesting day. I was glad I'd done it. Back at the site we met up with the others and at 6 had a pre-departure meeting for the leg up to Nairobi which was brief. We didnt even have a guide yet. It was all a bit all over the place in our eyes. We wondered if there would be a clear division in the group with half the others starting afresh, and half having come up from cape town. I didnt like how Acacia had done it at all. The next day I went into Livingston town with the swedes and Bill the American. We had a cool
lunch at a local place for peanuts before spending the afternoon at an internet cafe backing up all my photos since thailand onto CD as I had no space left on my memory card! It was again nice to be doing our own thing and actually experiencing some of Africa instead of just seeing campsites. In the evening we were a bit late back and everyone had gone out for a night out in town. Instead me, toby and andreas ended up having a hilarious drunken night at the campsite, sitting on the boat, on our truck and chatting for ages round a fire to the night guards. They said we were the first guys to really talk to them like this which was really sad! The next day we had nothing to do so just lazed about at the campsite, wrote my last blog etc! It was back on the road tommorow and we still didnt have a guide. We all had a little bitch about staying in Livingston at the expensive campsite for so long. We could surely have had an extra day in Zanzibar or Kruger or anywhere instead! The next few days were purely driving days,
we spent the day on the road and the evenings at campsites on the way up to Malawi. I was finding it a little annoying that we were for example camping 5km south of the Zambian capital Lusaka and then driving through it in the morning. Why not have a day, or even half a day exploring a capital city, all the campsites had become the same in my memory. It was getting a little dull, like a taxi service. Anyway we crossed into Malawi (hoping noone noticed my zim visa and date) and headed for the lake. We spent 4 days on the lake at 3 different heading north. The lake is huge, maybe the length of england it takes up half of Malawi's area. The water was beautifully warm and it even had waves. The bonus though was that the water was fresh and we didnt get salty! Perfect. So spent these days lounging in the waters, playing volleyball and conquering rocks. The usual. Malawi had to be the most beautiful country we'd been through so far with dramatic hills and stunning beaches. Again though we breezed through the capital Lilongwe - only deemed worth a 1 hour
stop. At one beach we stayed at for 2 days - Kande Beach - we did an organised 'village walk' which I was not keen on. Sounded like we would just walk about some poor peoples neighbourhood and see how poor they were. It could never be an authentic experience and it wasnt. We saw what they ate, the school, health clinic (both very good) and got followed around my young guys trying to befriend us before trying to sell us stuff. As soon as I didnt buy something from 'my guy' our friendship was over and he was completely grumpy with me. Apparently this village gets 2-4 tours a week. So all the speeches and talks by school and health clinic and locals before asking for funds were very well practised. I just found myself afterwards totally disillusioned with Africa and the tour, there was nothing genuinely african about it. This whole trip, by the end, we'd figured out would have cost us between 1700 and 2000 pounds for 4 weeks. Ridiculous. I spent 2000 over 3 months in India, Hong Kong, Thailand and Oz. It had ruined my budget and made travelling lose its excitement. The new group
werent great and the guide and driver hadnt even bothered to introduce themselves to the new lot properly or explain how things differed on this truck. I would never reccomend overlanding to anyone if they enjoy travelling independently, its too expensive and feels like a school trip. If you do want to definitely overland dont use Acacia. Crossing into Tanzania I reflected on all the countries we'd been through so far. South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi... I didnt feel like I'd properly experienced any of these countries. All we'd done was see campsites and campsite bars. We'd breezed through towns and capital cities, not deemed important enough to stop. Although clearly Livingston had been worth 5 days as Acacia can make a commission off the activities people do. (Or I would guess so). I should say though that we have had some really good times and met some great people on the trip. Crossing land borders you wouldnt expect a huge difference in scenery but tanzania looked very different to malawi straight up. Lush green hills and dense banana plants surrounded villages and there was a pine forest we drove through that reminded me of England! We stayed at campsite
that nice where we got a nice meal before driving on the next day towards Dar Es Salam. Our gateway to Zanzibar. Again we only stopped in Dar for an hour or so before driving another hour out of the city to a campsite... when we were coming back into the city in the morning for the ferry. So so stupid. Why not just stay in a hostel? On a positive note, driving through dar was really exciting. Such a vibrant place, tropical and colourful. It was how I imagined West Africa to be! Our campsite was a nice one on the Indian Ocean Coast and finally they had Tusker beer - a really nice one I'd first had in Uganda, plus a pool table! I turned into pool night in more ways than one as we all got pissed up and me, rob, andreas and toby spent the wee hours inventing sports for our new and proud nation of swegland - taking the best of both. Our best creation was chair throwing. Masaii warrior security guards looked on confused.
After 3 hours sleep - painful - we grabbed our stuff and got a little ferry across dar harbour blasting
out reggae music and walked to the zanzibar ferry terminal. Basically everyone else had booked all their travel through our guide and were sticking together. Convinced we could do it much cheaper and more excitingly on our own we opted to just turn up and go with it. We arrived in stone town - the main population base for Zanzibar and full of culture. It was a slave trading base for the arab slave trade from africa and hence nearly completely muslim. We walked through the tightly packed maze of alleys and found a guesthouse for ten dollars a night with comfy enough rooms! Zanzibar had a complete power cut for weeks so the whir of generators was everywhere as we wandered around and explored. It was like walking around in the past. Felt like it could be europe, arabia - such a cool place. We spent a few hours getting lost and exploring before crashing out at the guesthouse for a bit in candlelight as it had got dark. Finding our way around in the evening was hilarious, like the blitz. We stuck together as it was pretty much a muggers paradise! Had food at a big street food
market which was fun although we were hounded from all angles! Had a few (warm) beers at a very dark bar before heading back. The next day we headed up north about an hour to Nungwi - the backpacker beach with the girls who'd joined us and the swedes away from the other group. We passed lush green tropical scenery - a little like goa - and rural fishing villages before reaching nungwi. Haggled hard to get some nice rooms for only 12 dollars a night. Bargain! It was great to be in control again, haggling, finding our own accommodation, going places on our time etc etc. We spent the next 2 days lounging on the perfect white sand next to the most amazing turquoise water and swimming in it. We conquered the fishing boats moored quite far out and declared them the first of the sweglish navy. In the evenings we chilled at this cool reggae bar on the beach. Made the mistake of eating at an all you can eat sea food BBQ that made me throw up all night, lovely when theres no running water in the middle of the night as its on generator!! Anyway it
was a nice chilled 2 days and a beautiful location, however, spoilt as hell over the last few months, it was all pretty standard! Travelling had begun to lose the wow factor and the thought of going back to the truck the next day didnt help! But it was a nice 3 days doing our own thing and relaxing on the beach. The last beach before I'm home! The next day we went back to Dar, the ferry broke down which meant it took 4 hours instead of 1 and a half. It was so bumpy too so we all felt very relieved to be back on solid ground back in Dar!! Went back to the campsite we'd been at before and got an early night ahead of the long drive the next day. We spent the whole day on the road on the way up to Arusha. A 2 day journey, we spent one night at a campsite by some pretty hills and chilled round the camp fire before making it up to Arusha the next day. Arusha is a big town in the north of Tanzania and the base for safari to the Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater. Broke,
us 8 (the girls, us and the swedes) opted only for a day in the crater as opposed to the 3 day 400 dollar serengeti and crater trip the others are on! Saved 200 bucks so cant complain, and the crater is supposed to be the best bit by far so really looking forward to it tommorow! The others have all gone so we got the local bus into Arusha town and I've been sat here for about 4 hours!! There no way I can get pics up but I'll do it as soon as possible. Been watching Euro 2008 depressed theres no England but we've adopted sweden! Tommorow we go to the crater before returning the day after. Then on the 12th we drive north into Kenya and FINALLY finish and get off the truck in Nairobi. We say goodbye to Katie (so weirdly!) on the 13th and on the same night me rob, toby and andreas plan to get a bus to Jinja, in Uganda. Source of the Nile and where our friend Joe we met in Goa is rafting, so need to see him! Then check out Kampala for a few days before saying goodbye to the
swedes and bussing it to Mityana on the 20th for our final month. I hope that wasnt too painful to read! It hasnt been a bad month, if thats the impression I've given. Purely its been so expensive and not worth how much we've spent on it, plus losing the independence of how we've been travelling before has lead to it being a little tedious. Really looking forward to seeing everyone, its very soon now! Hope everyone is good, send me some emails and fill me in on whatever's going on!
Luke 😊
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