Blogs from Africa - page 3213

Arriving in Loshoto Like the town, the Lushoto bus station is small but it has all the accoutrements of bus stations everywhere … cab drivers, touts, food vendors, newspaper vendors, etc. all hawking their wares or services. Standing there with our suitcases and looking like antelope to a pride of Lions we freaked and tried to scurry up the road to safety. A few of the more persistent official tourist bureau guides followed us. We succumbed to one of them and went to the official tourist bureau office. With hindsight, I think it might actually have been the official one, but then, who knows?. Our guide suggested two hotels in our price range (read that cheap). We stopped at the Sun Hotel, the closest one, first. They wanted 12,000 TSh for a hot room with torn ... read more

Got a bit more of a tan this week..yes!!!! A friend who me and Kelly have made called Louise surprised us yesterday and took us out of Pretoria.thank God and she wanted us to see some townships. this was full on with shacks upon shacks, rubbish everywhere but the bizarre thing was that the people who lived in them looked clean and well dressed - i don't know how? Its crazy that you get so much poverty in one part and then all of a sudden 2 mins down the road there are well off people and gorgeous houses...can't quite get over that! Had a lime milkshake yesterday- it was stunningly lekker (nice) had never tried one before. the weather here is mad with huge raindrops one minute then glorious sunshine the next and massive clouds ... read more

throwing up and diarrhea at the same time. after 4 months here with hardly a rumble in the tummy and i get sick. but it wasn't that bad, 'cause that was yesterday and i'm at the internet cafe at night and the only ickiness i felt today was when i ate too much and probably too zealously cause i was so hungry. it was the sandwhich i ate at evasion or the brochettes and frites before that as the sun was setting and bob marley was playing, followed by some Malian music. Yussef was writing a text message to mom and dad and a travelling vendor was at the next table showcasing little cars and helicoptors made out of old(but shiny) fanta cans. the sun was lost in the pollution. even the pirouges were lazy and ... read more

Moshi - Mt. Kilimanjaro 2-13-06 We left Kampala at 5:10 Am on a well maintained, Kenya Air 737 jet. The 1-1/2 hour flight to Nairobi was uneventful as was the turboprop flight to Kilimanjaro airport. Upon arrival we learned that there are no busses from the airport to Moshi where we planned to stay. It cost $50 US to take a cab for the 15 mile ride to town. Tell me cabbies aren’t the same everywhere. Later we learned that we could have taken a cab about 1 mile to the main road and flagged down a bus from there to town for about $2. Moshi is a scruffy smallish town, but it is where you stay if you can’t afford the luxury safari lodges near Kilimanjaro. We found a decent place to stay, the Kindoroko ... read more

Feb 13 Happy Valentine’s Day everyone; the shops here seem to be as eager to get your chocolate covered money as anywhere else in the Westernized world. Everywhere I go there are teddy bears and specials on pink lingerie…just like home. Weather: still lovely. Views: still beautiful. Still messing around with various bits of paperwork: I WILL get Internet access this week, I am DETERMINED.* It’s been a rough week for Maggie; while she had been feeling reasonably confident of her schoolwork, she was also beginning to challenge the system, in some ways without even realizing it. Still, I think that the whole experience will be incredibly important in her growth, and she still amazes me with her insight and logic. She seems to be making friends; was invited out by some girls Friday night and ... read more