Blogs from Africa - page 3210

what an adventure the last few days have been. The train ride from Mbeya to dar es salaam was spectacular. First class was most excellent. We actually hadto book the entire train compartment for us to share it, which meant that we actually bought 4 tickets insead of two,but boy was it worth it. The compartment itself was plush (for african standards) it had 4padded benches, upon which we were suposed to sleep and sit. a table for eating, lights and a fan. it also included bedding, wonders of all wonders. The fan didn't work and the lights wouldn't turn off, but other than that. it was fabuous.I don't even really need to talk about the toilet. just assume the worst. The fun part of catching the train was that we had no real idea of ... read more

2-17-06 it’s hard to feel clean in a shower that earlier today was streaming out rawhide colored niger dirt water. The pipes behind the CFCA are being changed and so our pipes were full of the sandy water until they turned off the water entirely when me and yussef came back from his mom’s house. We peaked our heads over the fence to see how the progress was going and a guy right near the wall, a supervisor type, asked if they were making two much noise as a round saw in the hole drowned out his words. We denied politely. “But,” I said, “the water’s dirty in the house,” in french. He couldn’t hear me because of the welder that had just jumped in the hole, screeching away on the pipe. “You don’t speak French ... read more

If you came to Kenya for a two week safari and beach holiday you could leave thinking Kenya was a lovely laid back country of serene beauty where all anyone had to worry about was saying Jambo (hello) and Your Most Welcome to everyone each day. The sad truth though that Kenya is anything but that. Nairobi must be one of the dirtiest, smelliest and most squalid cities I have ever had the displeasure to have been to. A shadow of it's former colonial past, Nairobi is a sprawling metropolis of destitution and violent crime...one very big messy hole. A great introduction to African cities, but not somewhere where you would want to hang around for too long. Nor did we, as we started our long trip northwards over the top of Lake Victoria. The towns ... read more

Traveling in Egypt is a game of patience and humility. When riding the overnight bus from Hurghada to Aswan remember to hold on to all 14 ticket stubs that they give you so that you can show the fare collector who comes back to check by waking you up at 1am and every 45 mins thereafter. Show them only 13 slips and you got some 'splaining to do. When riding the train from Aswan to Luxor remember to sit away from the window to avoid the shattering of glass when you pass by small villages and the children start hurling stones at the carriage. And if you plan on taking a charter bus to Abu Simbel get to bed by 6pm the night before so you can wake up at the fixed 3am departure time to ... read more

How we do it We started out by heading to the Tourist office, not too useful, and then we saw a sign for a FRENCH Restaurant and that meant COFFEE!!! REAL COFFEE! We invited ourselves to sit with a couple our age, she is Hawaiian and he is from northern California. They had just spent about four days in Zanzibar at the fairly new and fairly good AFrican music festival: Doreen and David. Within minutes, I had my notebook out taking notes; where to listen to music practice (not on weekends, unfortunately), where to eat but not where to stay. Then, Doreen mentioned that they were thinking about the wood carvers market, about which we were totally unaware. However, I asked if they would like to share a taxi there, they would, so off we set! ... read more