Blogs from Africa - page 19

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Africa » Malawi » Lake Malawi May 16th 2023

With an early morning departure, it’s off to Malawi. Being a Monday morning, we pass countless children in their clean pressed school uniform walking to school. It’s worth noting that in the villages, there are virtually no washing machines – that’s all handwashed. My clothes got the same treatment at South Luangwa – not by me obviously. Pretty impressive. At the town schools, it’s predominantly rectangle concrete buildings with clear dirt yards & lovely big trees providing shade. No fencing. I’ve also noticed locals wearing clothing with pictures of, what I assume are, politicians on them – is this a form of political advertising or do they revere their politicians? I forgot to ask the guides. There’s something about the place, driving through the country, seeing life everywhere. There’s lots of activity, people going about their ... read more
2023-05-15 Goats
2023-05-15 Potholes
2023-05-15 Roadside stalls

Africa » Zambia » South Luangwa May 14th 2023

Next it’s off to South Luangwa National Park by way of a long travel day – long in time more than distance. The state of the roads, the countless haulage trucks to overtake, some speed limited at 80 on a 120 road, the military/police checkpoints at nearly every ‘council’ area, some of whom try to extract a cold drink to speed things along as well as ‘elevate themselves’ quipped Eva & the millions of speed bumps – many in rows of 3 to slow traffic coming into town, all add to extend travel time. (Ed note: Need a sports bra when travelling here.) We passed thru the Zambian capital Lukasa where we stopped at a local shopping centre to pick up food supplies as well as a camera battery charger for me. In Jo’burg, I thought ... read more
2023-05-12 Tent view South Luangwa
2023-05-13 Afternoon game drive
2023-05-13 Future king

Africa » Zambia » Southern Province May 10th 2023

The next morning, it was all aboard the Red Elephant, our transport for the next 3 weeks. Accommodating a group maximum of 12 travellers, it’s smaller & faster than previous overland trucks I’ve travelled on. With floor to ceiling windows, it allows us to get a feel for the places as we passed through to our next destination which is Gwambi on the Kafue River - though it does become a hothouse on wheels when not on the move. Travelling from Livingstone to Chirundu on the main transport route between Zambia’s capital Lusaka & Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, we passed lots of B-doubles & longer struggling with the numerous hills. To add, the roads aren’t in great condition & all traffic uses all parts of the road finding the smoothest path. During a refuel stop, also a ... read more
2023-05-08 Bismule life
2023-05-08 Keeping watch in the toilets
2023-05-08 Lunch on the suburnt elephant

Africa May 7th 2023

Continuation of Botswana Self Drive - Our next stop is ‘world famous’ Savuti Campsite in Chobe NP for 2 nights. Once in the park, our campsite is another 65km north on a narrow sandy track thru the bush. Whenever another vehicle came in the opposite direction, one of us had to climb up on the side bank of the road to allow the other to go by. The campsite was very nice with an amazingly fortified ablution building. We are talking 10’ tall, earthen backed, concrete block fronted bunker with 2 narrow entry points, barely wide enough for us to go thru. All this in the attempt to keep the elephants away from the water source. A little unnerving since we were In an open campsite area 😊 . Our first night we had a lovely ... read more
So many elephants at Marbough Waterhole in Chobe
So many beautiful baskets
Our last night in Botswana's fabulous show at the waterhole

Africa » Zambia May 7th 2023

Upon arrival in South Africa, I was greeted with a stunning red sunset & a cracking lightning storm. Apparently, Johannesburg has a very high occurrence of lightning due to the gold in the ground. The discovery of gold is what created Jo’burg & evidence of this mining is still visible around the city with mining rigs & remanent sand hills. With no river, mountains nor ocean to contain it, Jo’burg is a sprawling city. Despite being the largest city & having the major international airport, surprisingly it’s not the capital – nor the legislative which is Cape Town, nor the administrative which is Pretoria, nor the judicial which is Bloemfontein. It does have the highest court though. To get to the Airbnb flatlet, we passed thru 2 boom gates with armed guards. The neighbourhood is double ... read more
2023-05-05 Bongo Drums
2023-05-05 Good KGB
2023-05-05 Path to nowhere

Africa » Botswana » North-West » Moremi Game Reserve May 6th 2023

It was an amazing trip!! So many sights and a couple of stories, too!! Self driving allowed us to see so much of the parks. The campsites were remote with most of them 8 or 9 very large sites. We had heard stories of elephants or lions coming into the campsites, but to actually experience a couple of elephants actually walk thru was surreal, and slightly terrifying at times. And the park roads were just dirt sandy tracks of 10 -12” loose sand with the occasional deep ruts left over from the rains. Once we left the town of Maun, we did not see a tarmac road for another 7 days! We saw very few other vehicles, other than the occasional safari rig. And we loved it!! We rented fully equipped safari Toyota Landcruisers. They included ... read more
Beautiful valley at Khumaga
The elephant across the road at our campsite
Uh oh!  Elephant in our camp!

Africa April 28th 2023

Botswana - absolutely amazing!!! These pics are from our first 3 days. We did a fly in to Splash Camp in the Okavango Delta. It was fabulous! Great accommodations, but most important two fantastic guides/driver. They worked so hard to find the animals, which included watching 2 female lions and their 3 cubs attempt to kill a red lechwe, tracking the rare African dogs, lots of elephants and just stunning scenery! And these pics are just from the first 3 days!!!... read more
Following the lions
Lioness relaxing
Lioness and her cub on the prowl

Africa » South Africa » Western Cape » Cape Town » KIrstenbosch April 15th 2023

After returning to the ship we have a day in Cape Town and plan to go to the botanical gardens at Kirstenbosch. We visited them several years ago but on one of those tours where you have 45 minutes here, a photo opportunity there and feel there was so much you didn’t see. We promised ourselves if we ever had the chance we would return and today is the day. We stop a taxi and he quotes a price. Ian never thinks of haggling and just agrees. The price (while cheaper than a Cunard excursion by some margin) is still much more than we expected. We are driven to the gardens and it is agreed the driver will pick us up later in the day. Ian offers to pay half the fare but the driver waves ... read more

Africa » Namibia April 15th 2023

A day’s sailing brings us into Walvis Bay, Namibia, a harbour and town surrounded by desert. It is remarkably grey and dreary when we moor, cool enough to require jumpers, especially as we are booked on a pleasure boat to view the dolphins and seals. The boat is a game fishing vessel that is now being put to more eco friendly pursuits with a knowledgeable guide / captain and one other crew member. As we depart the harbour his whistles and two adult pelicans swoop down landing in the water immediately behind the boat. The captain throws fish for them and it is immediately apparent that while they are wild, this is something that they are well used to. One of the pelicans joins us on the boat and is perfectly happy for us to stand ... read more

Africa » South Africa » Eastern Cape » Port Elizabeth April 8th 2023

After Durban we have two sea days until we get to Port Elizabeth. The night before we are invited to the Captains Cocktail party. This occurs every three to four weeks. Normally the Captain talks to us about our voyage and tells a couple of marine themed jokes. This time he tells us that there is a special guest on board and introduced Sir Bob Geldof. We are very surprised and Bob Geldof talks about his father who worked on the original Queen Mary. He is going to give a talk before departing at Cape Town. We will miss that because we leave the ship at Port Elizabeth to do a three day safari. We leave the ship and Port Elizabeth and a mini bus is waiting outside for us and one other person. So we ... read more
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