BootsnAll Travel Network
Add this blog to: MyYahoo, Google, Bloglines, RSS


Articles Tagged ‘Zambia’

More articles about ‘Zambia’
« Previous Entries
Next Page »
« Home

Tales From the Chicken Bus Comes Alive!

Monday, January 5th, 2009

Many of you have recently sent me emails asking about photos from the trip.  Well I’m pleased to say the photo update is finally here.  If you follow this link you will be led to a whack of photos from our travels.  Mostly the albums contain photos from Africa and a few from Central America.  Photos include our recently completed safari in Africa.

I should soon be updated on the blog as well as we are out of internet depreived Africa.  Stay tuned and thanks so much to all of you who actually read this.

p.s. Don’t be afraid to leave a comment once and awhile….I know you are reading, the internet stats don’t lie.

Michael

Tales From the Chicken Bus Photos

Posted in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia | 4 Comments »

Looks Like a White Christmas

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

Day 267

We left Florida Guesthouse at 8am for the hour or so trip to the east coast beach village of Bwejuu. We plan to spend the next few days here. Christmas in Zanzibar? It promises to be a strange Christmas.

The mini van arrived in the very small and spread out village near 10am. We had read about a backpackers called Mustapha’s and sent them an email to book a room. The one huge issue with coming to Zanzibar over the holidays is that its busy and accommodation prices soar. We are paying $50/night for a room that would normally be $25. Mustapha’s is a laid back typical backpackers place. Its run by very laid back rastas and while our room is large and would be decent value for $25 it sure isn’t worth $50. Then again it was the cheapest we found. The only real drawback is that its across the road from the beach. I say road but its actually a sand track.

We settled in, dumped our bags and headed off to checkout the beach. Walking to the beach the sand on the “road” was even blinding white. Up ahead the incredible blue and green colours of the water looked unnatural. “Oh, what’s with all the seaweed?” We walked out onto the beach to discover a beach covered with seaweed. Apparently seaweed can be a problem in December. The water still looked amazing but as we walked towards Bwejuu town the beach had quite a bit of garbage scattered around. We were discouraged, we’d heard so much of the perfect beaches of Zanzibar. I can’t tell you how many people in Mozambique told us, “well if you are going to Zanzibar then these beaches don’t compare”. Jordana and I are a bit confused about those statements at the moment.

Eventually we figured that if we walked the other direction, toward Paje beach, the beach was cleaner and the water had less seaweed. We found a quiet spot with nobody around and laid out our stuff. With the air temperature well into the thirties we were both dying to get in the clear waters. I walked in, “Wow this is hot! Bathtub water!” I’m not sure I’ve ever felt seas as warm as this. It was beautiful, although not refreshing at all. we felt a bit better about finding a good spot to swim, although it was a good 20 minute walk from our place.

Back at Mustapha’s we showered and ordered dinner. In keeping with the laidback theme dinner took about an hour to receive but was OK. Grilled squid and chips, although the beer could be cooler. I think the issue is the power goes out pretty much daily here for varying lengths of time so the beer gets warm. Actually a huge problem when you are on a sweltering hot beach. Warm beer, another challenge for Africa to solve. I thought about forming an NGO to combat the issue. Any volunteers? Of course I’m just joking, but judging by the sheer number of volunteers here in Africa I wouldn’t be surprised in the Cold Beer NGO exists.

Of all the foreigners staying here at Mustapha’s, about 11, all are volunteers, and the ones that aren’t are here for Christmas visiting a sibling, friend or boyfriend who is a volunteer. We’ve met more volunteers in the last few weeks than tourists. At first I felt like maybe I should be doing something, but the more I see and learn about what some of these people are doing I’m not so sure who is benefitting. Take for example the girl we met who isn’t even volunteering, she is actually getting paid, a local wage, in Uganda to do PR work for an NGO. Could this NGO not find a Ugandan to do the same job? Or how about the girl who was teaching physical education to kids. You don’t exactly need a foreigner to teach that do you? It seems to add to the problem of dependency on the rich white foreigner to provide. I don’t have the answers and no doubt there are some fabulous programs out there. However it seems there are far too many cases like the two I just described. Who is truly benefitting in the end?

Right, rant over. Our room is hot, damn hot. It seems we don’t get much of a breeze through our windows and the ceiling fan is pretty weak. We decide its best to sleep on separate beds, we have 2 doubles and a single in this long room. Its just way to warm to be near each other. I take a cold shower and barely dry off before I hit my bed, trying to keep cool. Its a good thing I’m wiped out from all the sunshine as I fall asleep quickly trying not to think that its actually Christmas eve in a few hours and we are on a beach in Africa.

Posted in Tanzania | No Comments »

High on Stone Town

Monday, December 22nd, 2008
Day 266 Breakfast at the Florida Guesthouse is huge, like an all you can eat in the U.S. A Spanish omelette, toast and the largest plate of fruit you can imagine. Enough papaya, mango, watermelon and orange on a ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Tanzania | 1 Comment »

Exotic Zanzibar

Saturday, December 20th, 2008
Day 264 "This isn't much of a breakfast is it?" I said to Jordana as we sat in the somewhat depressing Safari Inn restaurant. Actually I don't think you could call this a restaurant, it was a concrete room ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Tanzania | No Comments »

A True Budget Safari

Friday, December 19th, 2008
Day 263 Up at 6am for the 7am bus to Dar es Salaam it felt like all we've done in the last while is full day bus trips. I think its starting to wear on us, travel all day to ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Tanzania | No Comments »

Has the Heart Grown Cold?

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
Day 261 We slept well and felt secure with our mosquito net tucked into our bed. Mzuzu is over 1000 meters so its pleasantly cool at night. We were up at 7am ready for our breakfast which was included ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Malawi, Tanzania | No Comments »

Ridin Wit Da G-Unit

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
Day 260 One day in Lilongwe was enough, it was time to move north. We got an earlier start today and were looking for a bus to Lake Malawi or at least a good distance north of Lilongwe. After a short ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Malawi | No Comments »

Foiled Escape

Monday, December 15th, 2008
Day 259 I'm trying to think of a nice thing to say about Lilongwe, but its tough to come up with one. I like cities and can usually come up with at least one thing that I enjoy about a ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Malawi | No Comments »

A Long Way to Lilongwe

Sunday, December 14th, 2008
Day 258 Up again at the break of dawn, this time to catch a bus to Lilongwe, Malawi. It seems like we've been up before 6am everyday for the last 10 days. There were always taxi drivers waiting for ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Malawi, Zambia | No Comments »

Bond in Lusaka

Saturday, December 13th, 2008
Day 257 The heavy rain that fell overnight helped both of us have restful sleeps, unfortunately it turned the much of the city into a muddy mess. Lusaka has a population of over 1 million but it looked more like ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Zambia | No Comments »

« Previous Entries
Next Page »