Blogs from Africa - page 2719

We have just returned from our 2 weeks with Dr. Siefert in some of Uganda's national parts- so much has happened that I'll split up the entry into 2 parts, and try to keep it short. We left a day later than planned, but we are taking that as par for the course. We made it only about one and half hours out of the city when a tire blew (lucky number 2 for us), so we got to change it in the blazing heat of the middle of a road in the middle of fields of papyrus. We did make it eventually, and picked up another student from WCVM on the way (Viv), in addition to us and another student from Cornell (Lena). Mburo was full of very early morning nature walks, game drives, and ... read more

Chilly Start Up at 5am for the game drive, another wonderful early start. As we emerged from the tent, an elephant trumpeted loudly, sounding really close by. Apparently, our guide had to chase him off the campsite because the staff had left the gate open - scary stuff! Definitely prefer the friendly mongoose family that were running riot around the camp. We all piled onto the open Land Cruiser, realising we had left all our warm gear on the truck. On the journey we dodged antelope lurking in the dark road and a herd of big buffalo munching away on the roadside. The Game Drive Entered the National Park at sunrise and immediately drove by a hyena, lolloping off into the bush, as we listened to its eerie laughter. We journeyed along the Chobe riverbank ... read more

Bus Trip to Feś My heart sank as I saw the bus that was to take us from Ouarzazate to Feś. We had bought our tickets the day before at the station and been assured that we would be travelling in a "large, air-conditioned coach"! Our bus had certainly seen better days and it was with a sense of trepidation that we set off at 2.30 in the afternoon for a 14 hour journey to Feś. The journey was made much longer as we stopped along the way to pick up as many passengers as possible. As the windows didn't open the only air conditioning was when the door of the bus flew open as we travelled along and we watched in amazement as the drivers wrestled with it and got it shut for a time! ... read more

Dodging the constant barrage of goats, cows, donkeys, dogs and people on the road was a gentle reminder that we had arrived within the boarders of Botswana. A couple of days of relaxed riding brought us to Maun, a good base for exploring the Okavango Delta, set in the southern region of this 'World wonder'. Trips into the delta on a makoro (dug out canoe) turned out to be ridiculously expensive for our budget, so foot-power was the name of the game on our exploration missions in and around the local area. It's always great to get off the beaten track, which usually involves walking anyway. One such exploration brought us to a local football (soccer) match. Easy to find as you could hear the music and see the rising dust off the pitch in ... read more

We were driving northbound through Namibia’s sparse, desert landscape. The wide open, grassy expanses that had defined most of the scenery during our journey towards Sesriem in the previous days had given way to large, scrubby forests of stunted trees and thick brush. The terrain was mostly flat, but, at times, rolling brown hills and jagged, pyramidal peaks jutted up out of the forest and broke up the beautiful monotony. The feeling of desolation that had been so prevalent in the southern Namib Desert was not as apparent there. I was sitting in the front seat of the same bus that had taken me to the dunes, but that was where the similarities between that tour and the one I was on ended. The bus was filled to capacity. I was surrounded by a new group ... read more