The Adventures of Jim & Rhonda

For everyone who’s seen the movie blood diamond you’ll know that this means “This is Africa” and it is so true! Nothing is quite as you’d expect it to be.
Our flight was due to leave Cairo for Nairobi at 2am on 19April and instead left at 4:30am. Long 4 1/2 hrs waiting in the airport! We had about a 1hr connection in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and then on to Kenya. We weren’t quite sure what to expect since all the latest news reports were of the rioting but it is actually quite a nice city. There are certainly slumy areas but overall it was green & lush with lovely parks and was quite clean. The Hotel Boulevard was just ok but for 1 night no worries. At 6pm we met 11 of our group and had an early dinner and bed.
As we expected, everyone else on the trip is in their young to mid 20’s! We are definately the old farts in the group. Lots of Aussies, 2 Scots, 2 Brits, and an Irish guy make up the rest of the group. The next morning we 11 and our guides Renee and Justin headed out to the market for supplies and then drove a couple of hours to Lake Naivasha to meet up with the remaining group members. There were 21 of us the first couple of days and since 2 girls have finished their bit so we’re at 19 in the group plus guides and the driver until after Victoria Falls.
We do love camping….the only negative here is that it’s the end of rainy season in Kenya and Tanzania. ugh, not that much fun to wake up in the morning to have to get up and break down camp in the rain. The truck is HUGE, 24 seater but underneath has loads of compartments for bags, tents, food, camp supplies, etc. It’s quite a group effort and we’re broken into 4 teams, each day 1 team is responsible for helping Justin cook dinner, 1 team does clean up, 1 cleans up the truck and 1 does set up of the chairs, tables, etc.

For the last few days we spent the time driving out to the Masai Mara Reserve to meet the Masai people and do our first game viewing. The Masai still live quite traditionally in most cases and we took loads of photos. As for the game drives, it is amazing as we’d remembered from our time in South Africa a few years ago. We’ve seen thousands of zebra, wildebeests, impalas, etc. and dozens of warthogs, topi (a type of large antelope), elephants, giraffe, buffalo and also some lions and a cheetah.

After 2 nights back in Nairobi (where Jim & I splurged on a $22/night room with ensuite bath ) we had a long drive yesterday into Tanzania. The landscape and scenery here in Tanzania is absolutely stunning so even though we were on the truck for 7 hours it was enjoyable. We’re currently camped outside of Arusha, a rather bustling market town of a capital, and this afternoon head in 4X4 jeeps to the rim of Ngongorono Crater where we’ll do a half day game drive tomorrow morning.

So far we’ve been stuck in the mud, had a flat tire and had quite a lot of rain.  But, we’ve also had some great times around the campfire and everyone has a great attitude and hey, we’re all in it together! The sightseeing and people watching is as amazing as we’d hoped for and, even though the camping gets old occasionally, the trip so far is incredible.

Today we’re splurging on a french press because we can’t stand the crap nescafe at camp any longer and they have absolutely amazing coffee in this area we’re not willing to miss out. Plus, it will help our moods on days we DO have to get camp broken down in the rain! The good news is, in 5 days we’ll be on Zanzibar for 4 nights …dry in a hotel and hopefully having good beach weather, and as we drive further into Zambia, Malawi, etc. we start hitting dry season. That is really the only down side so far.

The food in camp is a bit monotonous. Breakfast everyday is toast, cereal, etc. Lunch is always leftovers from dinner and sandwich makings, and then dinner is a stew or something similiar. It’s all tasty enough, but I’m sure we’ll be buying some of our own snacks to supplement it with soon.

Well, time to head back to camp and back up to head to the crater. The animal viewing is meant to be fantastic there, it’s own mini version of Rift Valley (where we were at Masai Mara). Not sure when we’ll get back on line so hope everyone stays well until we are in touch again. Living the dream in unpredictable Africa. Love, Jim & Rhonda

We are so glad we decided to return to Luxor to spend some more time. When we were on the tour we saw all the “biggies” but there is so much more to see!

We’re still loving the St Joseph hotel and would gladly stay there again. The rooms aren’t fancy, but are very clean and spacious and the staff is fantastic.

It’s very hot, over 100 degrees everyday, so after breakfast we do our sightseeing for the day and then have been spending afternoons around the hotels rooftop pool. We visited the Luxor Museum and were thrilled with it. The museum in Cairo is completely overwhelming due to the sheer number of treasures but, it’s a well known fact, that nothing is arranged very well and almost nothing is even labeled. So, the gallery type setting of the Luxor museum and having everything clearly marked was great. We also visited the Mummification museum. Quite small but interesting all the same.

One morning we took the public ferry across to the west bank. This is the non-touristy side of the Nile and we met a young boy who walked with us, pointing out some things and just chatting and then spent a delightful hour or two at a sidewalk coffee shop drinking thick as mud turkish coffee and smoking a sheesha while chatting with some local taxi drivers and watching the world go by. There were almost no other tourists and almost no shops or anything so the time was extremely pleasant. If we ever come back and stay longer we found there are also some very nice flats for rent for a week or two (or longer) for only around $200/week!

We did pay for 1 tour to take us back to some monuments. In one morning we toured 2 tombs at the Tombs of the Nobles. These were fascinating because , being partially done, they really showed the process the artists took to draw and then paint the interior of the tombs. Next, on to the workers village at Gurna. The workers for tombs were not slaves, however, once they began working on the tombs they were forced to live on the West Bank and could not return to the East Bank. Some of the workers who were artists also worked on small tombs for themselves and they are amazingly well preserved with vibrant colorful scenes. Very interesting.

Lastly, we went to Medina Habu, the temple of Ramses III. This is second in size only to Karnak and was very impressive in itself. There are just so many treasures that it’s almost impossible to see them all without multiple trips. We still never even saw anything at the Valley of the Queens or the Temple of Menerptaph.

The rest of our time in Luxor was spent walking the streets and exploring. This heavy dry heat takes a lot out of you and we’re very glad we booked a hotel with a pool. We found a fantastic restaurant through Lonely Planet named Oasis Cafe. The owner is American and it’s a beautifully done small cafe with smoking and nonsmoking rooms (thank god!!!) , jazz playing and a wonderul menu. Their Oasis salad was actual lettuce (something we’ve seen very little of in months and months), slices of apple and mango, blue and gouda cheese, and walnuts with a mild blue cheese dressing. Absolute heaven! And their curried chicken salad is also great although Diane, if you’re reading this, you still win the prize there!

Tonight we take the sleeper train to Cairo for 2 nights (sort of) arriving at 5am tomorrow morning and leaving at 2am Saturday morning to Nairobi. We have ended up really enjoying Egypt. The people are wonderful, probably only second to India for being open and welcoming. If you could just eliminate the taxi drivers and the incessant smoking EVERYWHERE it would all be good! However, 1 month was certainly enough and we are so excited to be underway on the safari. Our trip to South Africa in 2003 made us realize that Africa will absolutely change you and we can’t wait to get back to , not only the animal sightseeing, but the culture and people and music that are so fascinating to us.

Only about 2 1/2 months left to go on our trip and it seems incredible that we are now thinking of the countdown to go home rather than the countdown to depart. We would not have missed this entire experience for the world and are certainly deeply changed by it all. We absolutly are going home more willing to accept other countries and cultures and much more patient for sure. We also realized that we don’t need that much. At home it is difficult to not get sucked into the desire to acquire more stuff but just living out of 1 bag per person for all this time showed us what we really require is not much at all! That being said, I do really miss my bed and my kitchen!

Next post I hope to report many animal sightings and not too much rain (it’s currently raining over most of southern Kenya. NOT good for our camping!) Miss you and love you all at home and we’ll talk to you soon. Living the Dream, love, Jim & Rhonda

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