Blogs from Africa - page 3355

So far South Africa was too western for our travelling tastes, especially after our time in Asia. We enjoyed doing stuff but it was also a little too expensive and the seperation between the whites and the blacks seemed large to us - naturally enough given the country's history I guess. As we would progress further north this seperation would decrease and we found ourselves enjoying things more. I guess I didn't come to Africa to hang out in isolated white settlements with Gap year students from the UK - not that there is anything wrong with that. In Stormsriver we did the largest bungee jump in the world - couldn't pass that without the jump. It was 216m high and the freefall was quite amazing. We also took a walk around an indigenous forest and ... read more

...had a 200kg Silverback Gorilla throw a tree at you? No?! Well, we have. You want more details?!?! Well, OK then... We spent an awesome hour watching a family of gorillas in Ugandas Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. There was the mighty silverback, blackbacks, females, juveniles and a three month old baby. They were wandering round the undergrowth feeding, and we were hacking our way through the undergrowth trying to watch them. There were three people in our group (a maximum of six are allowed to watch any one group per day), along with a guide, three trackers and three armed guards. The hike into the forest was not easy, but well worth it. We would have paid again the next day to see the gorillas a second time if we had the cash on us! Hopefully ... read more

We arrived in Capetown and got a ride to Long Street which is where most of the backpacker hostels are. We started to walk up the road to check out what was available when we met a young swedish girl who recognized our search and recommended Ashanti guesthouse and also took us there in her car. Ashanti was a little over our budget, so we walked back down to Long Street and got a room there. We stayed in Capetown for about 4 days and did a lot of touristy stuff of which neither I nor Kristen is usually that keen. It was fun though. We walked around the town, took a boat trip to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela and most other black political prisoners were incarcerated during Aparteid, we walked around the Victoria and ... read more

photos from Western Breach of Kilimanjaro, and safari to come...... read more

Leaving Waza, we flew along decent roads till we got to Kousseri, the last town on the road to Chad. We stopped here for food, partly as Cameroon is meant to be cheaper than Chad, but also that Chad is meant to have less food available. Which I guess are tied together - less food makes what is available more expensive. Not that we used many SIFCAS rations either, just a few tins. At least, not while we were on the truck, but more on that later. Crossing the border was easy enough, actually leaving the border was harder. Lunch time prayers had started and the road was full of worshipping men. Colin and I decided when we reached N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, to get off the truck for a couple of weeks and ... read more