Blogs from Africa

We made it to Gondar – the Camelot of Ethiopia. The trip here wasn’t too bad but ended up being 4 step journey and as expected a long day as buses leave at 5am! It turned out to be a easier than I expected as we didn’t have much waiting time and once we reached Gashena about 2 hours south of Lalibela, the roads were excellent (the road is called the Chinese road – built quite recently by guess who). The only annoying part of the trip was that our bus does not take us all the way into Gondar but drops us about 10km outside meaning we need to take a local bus into the town. The town here is something of a revelation after Lalibela. We are staying in what could loosely be described ... read more

I came across a new word recently; “bleisure”. It is the ugly conflation of the words business and leisure. To reveal the true ghastliness it should probably be pronounced in a Californian accent and should rhyme with seizure. It’s meaning is the combination of a leisure trip and a business trip. I’ve often tacked on some leisure time to various business visits. More often than not this was due to my previous employers being too mean to fly me back on an expensive Friday night flights. Often marooned in various places e.g. Houston (massively underrated) or Jakarta (un-rateable) for an extra day or so. They’ve proved to be impromptu bonding sessions with colleagues that no amount of expensive team building nonsense would ever substitute. More often there is some down time within the schedule for a ... read more

For a four day holiday weekend in Dubai (celebrating commemoration day and National Day on Dec 2nd), I decided to take a break and do something fun. While I love the Christmas markets in Europe, I wanted to go somewhere close and somewhere new. I considered Cyprus, Greece, but finally settled on Seychelles. I am happy with my decision. For most, particularly in this region, Seychelles means a resort on white sandy beaches, fruity drinks while sunbathing, and without a care in the world. I wanted this too, but I also wanted to experience the culture of a new country. Cerf Island Marine Resort seemed to meet all of my requirements, so I booked. The resort had someone, Ron, meet me at the airport where he drove me to Eden Island to catch a boat. From ... read more

Day 6: Up at 6am to enjoy the cool of the morning. Really enjoying that new Mumford and Sons album. Top notch stuff. Jumped on the Safari bus to begin the first errand to the distant attractions. Full bus, so plenty of people to yarn too as the hours of gravel roads passed by. Still getting called every name variation under the sun, but I can't claim I'm doing a better job in return. Especially with the African 'click' languages. I will no doubt repeat this, but there's something quintessentially beautiful about the Southern African landscapes. A bit like NZ, I get the sense the journey to places is half the adventure. We arrived in Soussouvlei after 6 hours on the road and set up the tents before a relatively early night. I get the sense ... read more

Decided to use this format because it's easier to put together on a phone. Day 1: A f*cking long flight. A constant stream of food. Good movies. A cheeky 4 hour nap. Doha airport is huge. Day 2: Still flying. This time over the Horn of Africa for a sunrise and no one on my row of seats. Arrived in Namibia to a rather nonchalant international airport. Got off the plane thinking "it's too hot" - a stance I hold passionately by between the hours of 10am to 6pm. A hairy shuttle to the Windhoek, weaving between cars and trucks at an average of 120km/hr and briefly thinking, 'maybe it's over before it's begun'. Got to the quaint backpackers at midday, and started browsing the options for the days ahead. Went for a stroll to the ... read more