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Downed in Douala

January 27th, 2008

I am glad that I could not have predicted the last forty-eight hours.  It seemed simple enough, but this is Africa and anything can happen here and you should be guaranteed that anything will happen especially when you’re thinking everything is going well.  Let’s see the plan was to fly out of CAR to Yaounde Friday, do some sightseeing or rest in Yaounde, meet Pamela at the airport Saturday night and then head to a beach on Sunday to relax before starting the Cameroon adventure.  So, it is now Sunday evening and I am in Douala and Pamela is in Kenya and I don’t think this will change before Wednesday!

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Out of One Jungle and In To Another

January 26th, 2008

This is a just brief update to let you know that I have safely returned from Central African Republic and I am now in Douala, Cameroon.  Shocking to go from the Congo Jungle to this Concrete Jungle of 3.5 million.  I am not ready to tell you about the experiences of the past two weeks, but I can tell you that they are probably the best and most rewarding of this whole trip.  I need a little time, rest and distance before I can possibly explain it and I just hope that I can find the words.  Right now I am eating a breakfast of fresh juice, French pastries and real coffee surrounded by beautiful Cameroonian women with a beautiful Kenyan woman arriving this evening and it is all a bit strange.  Three of us spent Thursday, my birthday, with the gorillas for over two hours and that was just a minor highlight of the adventure compared to the week spent with the Ba’Aka people in their rainforest.  I have seen who we all were thousands of years ago and it was better than getting in any time machine.  I brought back a little creature in my belly and I need some R&R with Pamela to get back to normal.  The team I accompanied was absolutely fantastic and new and lasting friendships have been made sharing one amazing experience.

In a nutshell, I can only say that I am very happy that I totally burned myself out doing this trip.  It meant enough to me as soon as Rod invited me to go through the continental ping-pong after a long month in Ethiopia and I am not disappointed by my decisions.  Just very tired.  The next month will be at a slower pace with some good beach time and quality time with Pam while we check out the interesting peoples of yet another complicated country, Cameroon.  It should be quite interesting and it will be FUN.  Stay tuned…

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Leg Four – Start

January 9th, 2008

I am looking at the most difficult travel so far. I have an overnight trip from SFO to London, followed by a six hour layover and then another overnight flight to Nairobi. After twelve hours in Nairobi, I fly west to Yaounde, Cameroon. The following day we start a three-day drive east to Central African Republic. After a day off to organize ourselves, we head into the Congo forest with the Ba’Aka (pygmy) people. Since I already know they are giants in the forest, this will be the last reference to “pygmy”. Below, I have attached the itinerary for this interesting non-profit, first-time-attempted tourist adventure into the deep forest with the Ba’Aka.

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The Tribes

January 9th, 2008

I haven’t discussed Kenya yet for a couple of reasons. Namely, we had a bad experience there that colored my whole experience a bit. I need to press forward with all the good stuff about Kenya. When I went to Kenya I thought it would be fun to have a combination of tribes along. I thought it would be interesting to see Meru, Kikuyu, Masai and other peoples interacting. From last year’s visit, I knew tribalism is a major issue in Kenya. Pamela is Meru, our guide, Solomon, is Masai and our driver, Jessie, is Kikuyu. I also invited two friends, Albert and Ayanna, from Tanzania and from a completely different tribe as well as country. We saw a lot of Kenya in three weeks and the travel put us in contact with a number of other tribes. Since this was October and November and a national election was coming up in late December, a lot of political discussions took place and it was obvious that a person’s favorite for president was based on their tribal affiliation and the relationship that tribe has with the current president’s Kikuyu tribe. During our trip around Kenya, the more tribalism I witnessed, the more concerned for Kenya I became. It was a major reason that I found it difficult to picture myself living in Kenya. At no time, though, did I understand what we have since seen after the election. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ethiopia – The Roads

December 18th, 2007

I traveled over 5000 kilometers of roads in Ethiopia on this trip. Other than the trails I was on last year in the Congo, these are the worst roads I have seen. Aside from the minority of well-paved roads, the roads are either pothole-covered asphalt, poor gravel roads or extremely poor tracks full of ditches and rocks. Many bridges do not exist and you have to traverse through the water. Given how poor is Ethiopia, the amount of mountains and other difficult terrain that must be traversed and the rains that wash away the land, it is not much of a surprise. The big surprise to me was finding more roadway projects being worked on than I have ever seen in my life. The projects far exceed what could possible for a country with limited means. My first day out of Addis Ababa gave me a taste for the difficult roads and the construction projects going on. I met a British couple that night who are living in Ethiopia and were just finishing their loop by road of the northern sites. She complained about how Ethiopia needs to spend money on education and not roads. I said that the roads are so bad that they need to upgrade their infrastructure as well as education if they are going to joing the 21st Century. I did not understand what I was talking about!

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Ethiopia – The Hotels and Food

December 18th, 2007

In a brief description I can only say that the hotels in Ethiopia SUCK. The worst places I have ever seen overall and one in particular in Konso was the worst place I have ever slept (see another story for this one’s details and the one with rats). Most of the hotels I stayed in are owned the government and they take government services and properties to a new low in my mind. None of the employees are competent and it shows in every respect. From the poor food and poor services to the rooms that are filthy and falling apart. Ethiopians know nothing about maintaining anything. The only two things that I saw well-maintained in the country were the vehicles I drove in (thankfully). Every government room I was in was falling apart. Many of them had plumbing problems including drains that did not drain. They often turn off the water during the day, but they provide each bathroom with a bucket of water to make this OK! All of the hotels look like they are straight out of the 1970s. The Ghion in Addis Ababa is the best of the lot yet I was amazed to hear that it was refurbished recently given that it, too, looks like it was from the 1970s and it has maintenance issues.

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Ethiopia – The Children

December 18th, 2007

The children are everywhere in Ethiopia even moreso than in other African countries. Each time we would pull over on a road, kids would appear as if they were coming out of the rocks rather than the woodwork. Each picnic we had except one (we were on top of a mountain well off a road in Simien NP) involved up to thirty kids (and sometimes adults) staring at me while I ate. I was definitely their freak show. It bothered my guide more than it bothered me. In fact, I don’t think I was ever bothered by it. As I have said, I like being the freak. Go ahead and gawk at me. Look! I use a fork to eat my salad rather than the Ethiopian method of fingers! The leftovers of each meal were given to the kids. I especially enjoyed giving them cheese, watching them put it in their mouths and seeing their eyes bug out in disgust right before they spit it out. Funny stuff! I’d take photos of the groups and then show them what they look like and they would all push each other to get a look before laughing hard. The kids of Ethiopia are almost always entertaining although they can wear on you a bit.

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Leg Three Coming to a Close – Tired But Fully Confident

December 17th, 2007

I will fly home to Vermont in two days.  This has been one crazy trip with all of the ups and downs that I expected coming into it.  Brazil to Morocco, Egypt to Madagascar… insane combinations.  But the biggest rollercoaster of them all is coming when I go from Ethiopia to America.  At least I know what to expect!  I do feel confident now that I can pretty much ride out anything our whacky world can throw at me.  I know when I like something.  More importantly, I know when things are not right and I am confident enough to end them and to report to you how much I disliked it.  My opinion is all that matters because this is my life! 

I need a break.  I knew coming into Ethiopia that burnout was a possibility.  If I wasn’t going home for the holidays then I would be headed for a beach.  I won’t be swimming or warm in Vermont, but I know it will be good.  I will post some more about Ethiopia and Kenya plus photos, but otherwise I will be off until I crawl out of the Congo forest in late January.  I received a Cameroon visa today and I plan to find a beach in that country for a week or two after running around with pygmies.  During that time, I will try to decide what to do for 2008.  I know it will be hard to escape Africa, but I want to go to the Middle East and then push on to Asia.  I also want to kayak in Chile and go to Antarctica early 2009 and I know I have issues with too much on my plate with too little time.  This damn planet only gets bigger on me everytime I see more of it and Africa alone could consume the rest of my life… easily!  I believe you will see an update to my trip length in my header at the end of January because there is no way this thing is ending by three years after the start!  Of course, I still reserve the right to end it tomorrow!  I am fully confident that 2008 is going to be FANTASTIC!!!!!

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ethiopia – the farms

December 17th, 2007

The farms are everywhere in Ethiopia. The mountainsides are steep and rocky, but Ethiopians have built amazing terraces with those rocks and they are planting everywhere. The main crops are grains including barley, wheat, maize and sorghum, but the biggest crop of all is tef. Tef is an endemic grain that looks like short wheat although each grain is about the size of a pinhead. I do not believe tef is grown anywhere else and I understand most of the other grains have been modified over time to especially work in the difficult conditions of Ethiopia where only about two months of rain falls starting in July and the altitudes are very high. Ethiopian farming is truly a wonder of human survival.

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Ethiopia – The Churches and Monasteries

December 17th, 2007

As I wrote earlier, this is a land of 37,000+ Ethiopian Orthodox churches. It also has a lot of mosques and other Christian sect churches, but I was not hear to look at them. Of the 37,000, three hundred are ancient rock-hewn churches. A rock-hewn church is one that is literally carved out of rock. There are three types – 1) monolithic which are free-standing cut completely out of a solid rock, 2) three-quarter monolithic which have one side still attached to the surrounding rock and 3) those carved into cliff faces usually in natural caves. All of the rock-hewn churches and monasteries that I visited are quite mind-boggling and I also visited many other non-rock churches and monasteries that are quite interesting, too.

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