Harvey's African Adventures

Allison Harvey

2013-03-06T17:05:00.001+02:00

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The Final Sprint for Home....Back to the Land of Kangaroos and Vegemite!

2011-03-25T14:25:00.000+02:00

Well I thought I'd better finish this off, lest any readers thought that I was born in Namibia where the blog started and died in Turkey!

After another cold night we pack up and head out towards Istanbul. The back of the truck was freezing, I had packed up my sleeping bag and was huddled in one of the blankets that Lara had left on the truck, loaned to me by AK as there was no way I was fighting to fit my sleeping bag back into my well packed bag again! (thank god we had been robbed of everything otherwise we would have had no hope in packing our bags!) We drove through snow and the temperature dropped, and dropped and dropped, so much so that a few were able to engage in a few snowballs during one stop. Spencer, ever the scientist, brought a snowball into the truck and sit it on the floor, it didn't melt a bit!

We drove into Istanbul with heavy hearts and frozen fingers, I was sad to be saying goodbye to a great group of people (and one tightassed wanker) and wondered how some of the 'west coasters' were feeling after 43 weeks together.

Spencer and I headed off with all our gear in tow. This was the first time in three months we had to carry everything and our gear had tripled! We track down our hotel, we had managed to get a great deal on it and it was very flash, we got inside, turned the TV, heater and every other appliance on and rested for the afternoon. That evening we caught up with everyone for some beers, for me those beers hold a great memory, the last beer to be taken into my body (been almost three months now since I drank). After tea and beers and sheesha and beers and more sheesha Spencer and I headed back to our hotel and all the luxuries it contained.

The next day I was suffering a sheesha hangover, and realised that I had sucked way too much sheesha into my non smoking system, I downed a red bull in the hope of feeling marginally better but a super size redbull downed fast on top of a hangover and too much sheesha was not good. After Spencer warning me about drinking after my New Years Eve effort I wasn't in a spot to complain and just had to 'suck it up', much like I had the sheesha the previous night.

That day we wandered around all the main sights in Istanbul then met up with all the remaining others in Istanbul for a last feed at a local place. The following day we were out to the Airport headed for the warmer climate of Doha.

We arrive in Doha to rejoice in warm temperatures and being one step closer to being home, we see the main sights and clock up a fair few kilometers of walking. For one of the last times we miss our lonely planet guide and our GPS that were stolen when we 'misplace' our self. The wonders of technology have us sitting on a footpath in the dark with the laptop tuned into google earth for directions back to the hotel (we couldn't remember the name to get a taxi!)

Doha immigrant transport, in stark comparison to the luxury transport of the locals

The last day we spend the last of our dollars on a new pair of shorts for me, Spencer looks for a new pair of footy boots, much to my disgust, I get a feed of sweet and sour fish, some face cream and a small north face duffel bag and we head back to the hotel to pick our gear up before heading to the airport.

Now I have seem some airports in recent years, the good, the dirty, the ugly and then Doha...it's a hole. Limited food outlets, one which had a line close to 100m long for hours upon hours! And all I want to do is get on that plane and get myself out of there! and home! I head the boarding call, Spencer is at the duty free trying in earnest to do a deal to get rid of some ridiculous amount of change on a magazine, then we head down to the bus out to the plane and wait, wait, wait.

Qatar Airways are good to fly with but don't live up to their 5 star advertisements, their food was good, service OK, but they had me a little nervous when they started asking for their blanket back! And we hadn't seen their blanket! honest! (may be similar to one we have at home...errr, I only said similar!)

Arriving back in Australia close to midnight we have the federal police board the plane as something has been stolen mid flight (I said that the blanket is similar! not the same!) then we realise that Rafael Nadal is seated in the row in front of us and the dickhead behind is hassling him then we are finally allowed off the plane and manage to get through customs and immigration (one positive thing of our robbery was Spencer getting a new micro chipped passport, so we were through in minutes, instead of me having to wait for him). Customs didn't even want to look at my wooden crocodile or ask about the multitude of internal parasites I brought back into the country, just welcomed us back and let us through whilst yelling at the man behind us for ducking under the same barrier that we had minutes before! You just gotta love returning to Australia!

"errr, where you been Red?" Red m&m man returns with a tale to tell...

We return to Victoria as most of the place is flooding, including the creek and dam in my parents bottom paddock, the paddock across the road had 1m of water flowing through, The next day we hear that my folks static display at the Lake Goldsmith Steam Rally site has had 6ft of water through it causing irrepairable damage to most of the old engines and home wares.

The creek near my folks house

Caledonian Creek

The paddock turns into a river

The following morning we were up and about and into town to check out our new car, yes, we had managed to purchase a new Nissan Navara from Turkey (well we were in Turkey, the car was not!) Of course that didn't go smoothly (nothing has for us lately) and several days later we are driving the car out of town towards Darwin when they ring us to tell us that the finance had been approved, they had stuffed up after someone had got the story that I had been on maternity leave (oh dear, I must have left someone in Africa!) and the finance was stalled. The dealers were too worried to tell us we couldn't get the car on that day as they knew we had to get back to Darwin so they let us take it without the finance being finalised (gee we must be trustworthy!, although it may have something to do with my mother having a reputation for accountability and her working only 50m away!) 50km from home we are diverted around floodwaters and end up taking the long way around...we are starting to think if we will reach Darwin at all!

So we get the big, black Nissan Navara with tinted windows, (looks a bit like a mafia vehicle), but we have no rego plates on it as be purchased it in Victoria and had a permit to drive to Northern Territory. So all good, until they tell us that we can only drive the car between the hours of 7am and 7pm and we have 4000km to do in 3 1/2 days! arghh! And my driving is struggling from lack of practice, so badly that I hesitantly admit to Dad (with massive embarrassment and a loss of respect on his behalf) that when I took his patrol into town the car salesman had to back it out of the park for me as I had a couple of issues (hey it's got a big canopy on the back and I couldn't see!, besides the first issue was with the immobiliser!)

Navara through the fisheye

Somewhere in Central Australia

"Navarus" gets his Territory Plates

We spend the first night with friends in the Adelaide Hills and get an early start the following morning, managing to pull the swag out on the side of the Stuart Highway 40kms south of Alice Springs that night....not bad for 12 hours of driving! And great to be back in the Northern Territory, we did have to have a stop at the border, wee and photo and a discussion of how anyone could steal the territory emblem off the border sign! (all in about one minute!) Around this time in the dark (hmmm, maybe it was dark just before we stopped driving at 7pm because of our permit he he or maybe we made a mistake with our clock when we added on the extra hour when arriving in the NT...) a bird was the first victim to the Navara and the Navara was the first victim to the bird. Spencer and I were just glad that it was something else that put the first scratch in the new car! We didn't have to argue about who was responsible for it! The following morning we wake up, me half out of the swag, to the sounds of dingos howling nearby, we are in the car and waiting at the pumps in the Alice Springs service station by 6am ready to fill the beast up with diesel, and comment about how cheap the Navara is to run! Excellent.

I indulge in a 'territorys own' iced coffee, oh dear, how I had dreamed of that moment for over six months...don't usually drink coffee, but there is nothing better that a Paul's Iced Coffee when in the Territory. We are now driving at 130km/h up the Stuart Highway loving the green outback and the flooded rivers and claiming our love for the NT and looking forward to seeing our friends and not looking forward to work the following morning!

We are amazed to see Tennant Creek flowing... and glad at the superb handling of the Navara when I drive into a mirage that turns out to be floodwater over the road! "what the f&*k! we are in the outback!" "Oh yeah, mirages don't usually have a warning sign besides them!"

That afternoon we really test out how far a Navara can run on empty, turns out a long way as we coast into Katherine in the rain with the fuel needle well below empty and the alarm buzzing! Fill it up again and we are off, three hours out of Darwin, the final leg in an epic adventure.

We arrive into Darwin at about 9pm that evening, breath a sigh or relief and congratulating ourselves on managing to survive-

- 13 1/2 months travel together
- 21 countries visited
- 15,000 kms in New Zealand
- three months of living in a van
- six months of living in a tent
- 30,000 kms in Africa
- one robbery
- one hospital visit
- one wild animal incident
- about $20 000 lost in rental income
- about 500gb of photos taken
- countless shitty toilet visits
And the last 4000km sprint to home.

As I said in a previous blog post that I have had good luck in my life...well with good luck comes bad luck too and we were to have more of it.

Our tenants were evicted from our unit and destroyed it in the process, ink poured on the couch, TV stolen, mattress destroyed, crockery smashed, linen ruined, damage over $15,000.

Our gear in storage damaged, much of it went straight in the bin, even things like our esky were victims to the humidity, cracking and crumbling.

After a couple of weeks we are hit by Cyclone Carlos.

I spend weeks upon weeks tracking down a copy of our South African police report, thank goodness for contacts at school, turns out a lady that I work with has a brother who knows the head of Tourism Safety in South Africa, whallah! One police report!

My health declines and they find that I have contracted a rare strain of Dysentery not heard of in Australia, the doctors still haven't given up their search for Bilharzia, nine negative tests and they are still certain that the worms are in there somewhere! They have found and killed three other types of parasites already.

Spencer smashes his shoulder whilst losing his football grand final, his doctor is amazed that he is still well when I seem to be a Noah's ark for parasites

Our travel insurance laid the final blow, bastards! Who dares to tell me that my brand new Middle East Lonely planet is worth $12 less!

2010 really was the year of liquidation!

But....my red crocs and red zebra t-shirt followed me home...true survivors!

See the photos on www.untamedoutbackimages.com

Tree across the road down, Cyclone Carlos

Two days of no electricity, Cyclone Carlos

Rain, Cyclone Carlos

Damage, cyclone Carlos

The gypsy wagon is begining to run out of steam....Turkey; Gallipoli, Selcuk

2011-01-04T18:51:00.001+02:00

We left Gorome after indulging in one last breakfast at the Rock Valley inn. The back of the truck was cold and only got colder as we drove. It didn’t take long for most people (including myself) to be huddled up in sleeping bags, I had mine zipped all the way up and the hood on, exposing only my eyes and mouth to the world. After a few toilet stops and checkpoints we pulled up for our last bush camp of the trip at an abandoned service station. Son and AK were on dinner that night and whipped out a huge batch of minestrone soup with pancakes and hot chocolate for desert, perfect for when the weather is so cold. I indulged in too much hot chocolate and had an upset stomach so went to bed early.

"Bush Camp"....

Breakfast on the truck

We woke early to the sound of rain, not a good sign when our tents are to be packed up for the final time. We had breakfast as we rolled along in the truck, including the left overs of last nights hot chocolate.

We had a few toilet stops along the way, (due to a combination of cold weather and hot drinks on the truck), arriving at Pamukkale for lunchtime. There were a few upset people onboard the truck when we pulled up in a camping ground, some people have summer sleeping bags and have suffered from the cold in the past couple of weeks. The truck was only parked in the campground until Mark found us some accommodation, warm rooms; hot showers at a nice little place right off the main street. Myself, Ronald, AK, Ish, Son and Yoich wandered into the world heritage site of thermal pools and old ruins up the hill. There was an initial hesitation at the 20TL entry fee (more than the pyramids) but it was well worth the coin and the barefooted walk over the calcium soak to get to the top of the hill. The ruins were not all that impressive (yeah usually I would be a little more inspired about it, but I have just seen way too many tourist sites lately) the most impressive sight was the huge amphitheatre which is still in quite good condition. We had dinner and a few beers before heading off to bed; Spencer and I were in a room with Burbs and Daniel. The room had about two beds too many in it, there were three single beds all against each other, another against a wall and no floor space to think of, but it was very warm with a shower and toilet next door, so it felt like luxury. Burbs didn’t even snore that night, the last time we had shared a room with him I kept thinking that he was dying in his sleep and taking his last breaths....at one stage I though it was Spencer snoring and smashed him over the head with my pillow only to see that Spencer was actually awake and not very happy with me!

Gee, no one else quite has the ten of an overlander...

Ish cools (warms) his toes in a thermal pool

AK wakes up the local dog

Pamukkale, World Heritage site

We had a good breakfast for New Years eve and loaded into the truck bound for Selcuk, once we arrived we had the task of cleaning and drying our tents ready for them to be packed up for over two months until the truck arrives in West Africa ready for another adventure. We set our tents up in the street, a couple of the boys even set them up on the roof of the truck (I think they just wanted to see if it could be done!) after scrubbing and brushing and re packing the tents we headed inside for a sleep and then out to dinner. Mark very generously shouted the group dinner for New Years Eve at a local Turkish restaurant which dished up a really tasty vegetarian dish. We all piled in there and took full advantage of BYO alcohol. I ended up suffering through a bad bottle of Turkish red wine that had so much sludge in the bottom that you couldn’t see through the stuff, and then started on a raspberry wine which tasted far too like lollies for my liking. The boys handed around a few too many shots of red wine (the wine that was purchased for Christmas day to be mulled) and before we knew it the time was nearing on 12.00, we legged it our of the restaurant and down to a local park where someone decided that hedge surfing was the thing to be done, hedge surfing is just that, throwing yourself into a hedge, I have to say that it looked like good fun.

From there my memory of the event fades, but the evening went something like this (as editor I uphold my right to leave out some details.....errr, well maybe MOST of the details...) We went up to the rooftop of the pension where we were staying, someone started us on shots of whiskey, we were too loud and asked to leave, we went to a pub, I somehow fell and hit my head on a table, just how this happened I am not sure about, there have been reports that I was getting thrown around by Gab, I left that place and went home (Thanks to Ish and Son for aiding me on the journey) Everyone else continued onto another pub and arrived home later. There were very few of us who ate breakfast the next morning, most people stayed in bed until about 5pm....err, Spencer and I are included in that. We eventually drag ourselves out for dinner, Turkish pizza and Coca-Cola, just what is needed.

The following morning we wake up feeling much better in health, after breakfast we walk out to Ephesus, old Roman Ruins. Usually I would be a little more impressed by such sights, but unfortunately I have grown a little travel weary and am just not that excited about things that I would usually be quite impressed with, at this stage I am just excited about the number of days until arriving back in Australia shrinking. The most impressive sight again was the amphitheatre which held 24,000 people back when it was used, it is currently getting restored.

Front of Library, Ephesus

Amphetheatre, Ephesus

Library, Ephesus

After returning from Ephesus I started on my washing, Spencer has decided to stick with his dirty clothes until he gets home; I haven’t washed since Damascus over 2 weeks ago and had really run out of clean clothes. After scrubbing clothes in one of the truck hand wash tubs whilst kneeling on the floor of the shower I then had the task of finding hanging places for all my items in a small room, turning the split system onto 30 degrees and the fan right up, for an hour or so I almost felt like I was back at home in Darwin!

The next day was pretty uneventful, life on the truck was cold, so I climbed into my sleeping bag from the word 'go' and was asleep most of the day! We arrived in Canakkale to take the ‘ferrybot’ or what we call a 'ferry' across to the Europe side of Turkey. As we arrived in Europe the temperature dropped further, very close to 0 degrees, we quickly gathered our gear for the night and clambered out of the truck for the warmth of The Crowded House Hotel, which is clean, neat, and new and has hot water, towels and pillows that are actually pillows and not sandbags in pillowcases! After a hot shower Spencer, myself, Burbs (now our roommate for a third town), Ronald and Mark headed off in search of dinner. We didn’t loiter long, it was way too cold for that, first place we saw got our custom! There was not a great deal of vegetarian food on the menu, so I made do with soup, asking for some beans and potatoes on the side, a little later I asked for salad on the side, only to be greeted with one bowl of soup, bread, one bowl of beans, one bowl of rice and a plate of salad! No worries though, finished it all off easily! (I guess the last five months of overindulging have been put to good use!

After a later start the next morning we headed off to explore Gallipoli, in freezing temperatures! It could not have been any warmer than one degree and with a slight icy breeze was almost unbearable. Standing at the place where so many Australians battled and died was almost surreal, although not as moving as standing at the Sandakan memorial in Borneo or on Brigade Hill on the Kokoda Track (or maybe it was the effort to lug myself and pack up Brigade Hill?) We had a guide on the truck and stopped at all the main sights; I was quite surprised to see that there is a lot of vegetation covering the ground now, and that the climb up to the sphinx is a lot steeper than old photos that you see. Past the Australian memorial at Lone Pine you can walk through many trenches which are still evident in the ground, the temperature up here was even colder and all I could think about was how lucky we are to not have had to fight in any war in these conditions with the poor equipment and clothing that the diggers would have had.

Only another 6 days until we land back in Australia, I sure am looking forward to it. I think most people on the truck have their minds in other places the past few days, most people are starting the homeward shift from here and everyone has been trying to fit the contents of their locker into their bags, similar to a game of Tetris or that sum in year 8 maths that you could just never figure out.....

ANZAC Cove

The Sphynx, ANZAC Cove

Headstones, Lone Pine, Australian Memorial

Turkish Memorial, Gallipoli

Christmas in Turkey, Paintball, Cappadocia and the infamous "Dead Sea Desert"

2010-12-28T23:07:00.002+02:00

We spent the day after my birthday (the day that I have always classed as the WORST day of any year, which turned out to be a pretty good day) wandering almost aimlessly around Aleppo, which has lived up to the description of beings a ‘pretty cool town’. First stop was the citadel, yep another citadel! This one was set on a small hill and boasted great views of the city; most of the citadel was pretty ordinary, except the views and the impressive entry gates which contained underground passages. From there we headed through the souk (local market) in an attempt to find some grub for lunch, grub there was a plenty, but for a vegetarian and a ‘try hard vegetarian’ (Spencers attempt at humour) there was little. I wasn’t even taken by the camel carcass that had been butchered and was hanging in the narrow alley of the souk, “now there’s some spare ribs!” the poor animals head and neck were hanging from a meat hook which just did not seem strong enough for such a huge chunk of meat!

Aleppo Citadel, Syria

Spencer looks professional, Aleppo

Myself, Aleppo

Donkey in the Souk, Aleppo

We found a little bakery which served some great pastries, the standard of bakery food has improved the further north we have travelled. After the ‘try hard vegetarian’ has picked the chicken off her pastry we continue on in the search of an internet cafe. We didn’t get very far before we were stopped by a couple of university students who needed some help with an English exercise in a workbook, we sat in a park whilst Spencer did his best with what appeared to be a pretty ordinarily written book before being offered ice cream to thank us for our efforts. Always a little wary of accepting food from strange men in foreign countries we decline but ask for directions to an internet cafe instead. They did better than just give directions, they actually walked us there, although we did wonder if they actually knew where one was or did just walk around until they found one!

After a couple of hours of sorting out issues from home and sorting out money and uploading photos and blogs and trawling through the ridiculous amount of emails which seem to accumulate between countries we headed back to our accommodation at the Spring Flower Hostel, upon which I could possibly fill a whole blog entry....but here is the condensed version...

The place was the inspiration for the television show ‘Fawlty Towers’, but Basil Fawlty at the Spring Flower Hostel is the most anal person to have ever walked the planet, and someone who is actually more security conscious than me, like even to the point where the dodgy home made soap was even locked up! And the fridge! And the only person to have the key was the manager, who doesn’t arrive at work until lunchtime! In all the random places I have stayed this year I have not seen another place with their bookshelf locked up! And not only is the book shelf locked up, they charge a fee to borrow a book! AK tried to trade an Africa lonely planet guide for a Turkey one, the bloke wanted 15 euro for the trade and the book! and the bloke put on white gloves to handle second hand backpacker books? Basils two employees both spoke little English and between them didn’t have enough brain cells to rub together,, one had been the inspiration for ‘Where’s Wally’ and the other was just a waste of space, oxygen and food! Oops! I forgot this was supposed to be the condensed version, I’ll cut to the chase...The useless bastards held my Birthday Cake remnants for hostage...well not really...but it sounded like a good story. The left over’s of my cake ended up in the fridge, which is kept locked and the manager keeps the key, and only works half days, ‘no key’ says Where’s Wally, ‘Can you get key?’ says me, ‘No manager’ says Where’s Wally....hmmm... over three hours of hostage release negotiations the cake is freed! My advice....never stay at a place where you have to ask for toilet paper each time you go to the toilet or a place where you buy internet hours and the dic^&*ads keep changing the password every hour to kick you off the net!

The following day we had a relaxed start as the agent who was to take us across the border was not available until about 1pm to take us across (By using an agent we get a cheaper rate and supposedly an easier passage through the border) The Syria-Egypt border would be better suited to Africa, no processes or systems. You take your passport to the desk, they take it and give you a recept for it, but take so long about this and serve anyone who has pushed in, that you walk off and have to be called back for the receipt, you then carry this receipt about 400m away, through he duty free shops, past the toilets, money changers and ATM to pay for your visa, then walk the 400m back through the shops, etc etc with the visa sticker to get it stuck in your passport, then have your passport returned to you and walk the 400m back through to the shops etc etc! I needed to go to the toilet, I figured it was far too easy to spot a WC sign and be able to use it free! Hmm, well I did see the price sign on the way in $1USD, crazy, even with the strength of the Aussie Dollar currently! With no one at the desk I took my chances, the man caught me on the way out, I acted as though he was a money changer...."No, I don't need money changing", "No, no, money, thank-you", "No my husband has the money". From there we loaded back into the truck, the sun had gone down and so had the temperature, drastically! I huddled up in two jumpers, thermals, beanie, and scarf around my face and my Maasai blanket and we waited, waited and waited to get out of the border gates, another wonderful legacy of the border designer is the five lanes of traffic that must merge into one lane to exit the gates, it took us about 40 minutes. During this time, unbeknown to us, kids have tried climbing up on the cab, they swiftly had their fingers bent back, so they reverted to throwing stones at the cab, in retaliation to this Gab got out and chased them down.

After a couple of hours in the truck we make camp at a truck parking bay, Pat and Kim were on food group that night and did extremely well to get dinner on laps before an hour had passed. I look into the distance and see the burn off of a local refinery, the flame must have been 20m in the air, I wish to camp under that flame! Mark tells us how he camped in the same place last year and it was too hot for people to put their tents on the bitumen, I went to bed in my thermals and a beanie!

We have a 5.30 get-up for a 6am departure on Christmas Eve, after a few hours in the truck we stop at a town for Christmas dinner shopping and a grog roundup. We arrive in the town of Goreme in the Cappadocia region, which is an old ancient city, consisting of rock chimneys and towers which have dug out caves and houses which used to be inhabited. The landscape looks a little eerie, sort of like the outline of ghosts. We check into the nicest accommodation that Spencer and I have seen in many, many months, it’s warm and dry and has clean toilets and showers and a great lounge area with fire and free wi-fi, uh, oh! We make a ban on the overuse of Internet and start hitting the grog. (Yep the Rock Valley Pansion (Turkish word for Pension which is like a backpackers, but better) is so cool, that they even let the overland trucks drink their own grog in the bar!) I get stuck into my $1.50 for 750ml Syrian Vodka, which seems to have even less taste than normal vodka, I am worried that it is watered down, but still take my time lest it comes back and kicks me in the ass later that night. Spencer falls asleep on the couch, others wander off one by one, I head up to bed but the sound of Spencer and Burbs snoring scares me back out of the room with computer in hand for some internet time. Internet wasn’t very successful, not due to any technical error, more so the dic^&ead man who though he was super fantastic and started bagging the s*$t out of Australians, despite himself holding an Australian passport! He is a Turkish man who has lived in Australia for 7 years but who claims that ‘all Australians are racists’, ‘all Australian men are as&*%les’ ‘Australians are idiots’ and ‘anyone can get an Australian passport, they give them to everyone’ I cracked at the stage that he called me a racist and said I was scared of people from other countries moving to Australia! I yelled at the dic%#@ad and said something like “well send your Australian passport back’ etc etc (I went on for a good 3-4 minutes) loser! I have no problems with anyone from outside Australia immigrating so long as they are proud to live there! And for those of you who know me, know that I have a lot of friends who were not born in Australia. So the next morning when I wake up with the worst hangover ever (I totally blame the cheap Syrian vodka) I am still filthy cranky that some asshole would hate Australians so much, that in between vomits I attempt to tell everyone about it, later it turns out that this loser is actually the brother of the owner of this place. (I finish vomiting at 1pm....Just in time for lunch!)

Cappadocia

On account of being close to death from my affair with cheap Syrian vodka I miss breakfast and wait for Christmas lunch, Italian style. Gabs, an Italian and our driver Mark who has an Italian Nonna cook up a fantastic lunch of lasagna and ravioli. Many others (not me) help out with salad, potato salad and trifle.

Later that night we assemble for the opening of our Secret Santa gifts, the previous day I have a sneaky feel of my gift and announced that it was a pair of donkey slippers, I was close and super impressed to see a pair of fluffy, stuffed lion slippers and a donkey fridge magnet! Thanks Kyle! Great choice, they have hardly left my feet since receiving them!

Spencer and I headed out on Boxing Day for a stroll around town and through the valleys of chimneys and rock carvings, Spencer tells me that on Christmas Eve he received an email about our unit, more issues, two of our new tenants have been into the office and told the agent that the third person has done a runner with the rent money, the agents have given then until the 6^th to pay up or the eviction process starts. I start crying, after loosing close to $4000 in rent and paying a $600 re-letting fee and $500 of advertising costs I really hoped that the tenants would stay longer than a month. Shall have to wait and see what happens, I can assure LJ Hooker that when we get back we will be closely looking into what has happened and both rental checks, background checks etc.

Myself, Goreme

Feeling pretty down in the mouth we wander almost aimlessly through the hills and meet up with Pat, Tanja and Ish and decide to walk to the next town to go wine tasting with them at the Turasan tasting centre, turned out to be a good day, with ordinary wine. I didn't particularly like any of the tastings that I had, so took a punt on the merlot, which was quite good and well enjoyed over dinner that night.

Pat, Tanja, Ish, Spencer and myself 'cheers' during wine tasting

The next day most of the group decided to go paint-balling, as a virgin paint-baller I was a little apprehensive (I have seen way too many bruises on others in the aftermath). As we had 15 people playing and only gear for 10 at once we had to play in two groups. I sat out the first game to check out exactly how it is played, after watching for half an hour I had decided that the aim of the game was to run around, crawl a bit, add in a couple of commando rolls and shoot as many people as possible. Soon enough I was kitted up and running around, crawling a bit, no commando rolls for me though...way too old for that rot....and trying to shoot as many people as possible (not so easy as the only things I have ever fired in my life have been a water pistol and a cap gun! I get hit first in the knee; it didn't hurt as much as I had expected, then instantly I am hit in the head, the culprit? Spencer! So I spend my 30 seconds out before restarting and getting hit in the head again! Another 30 seconds out and then bam, hit in the chest! More time out and I see AK running towards our flag, I hunt him down, gun in one arm firing, and maybe hit him, but at the same time he hits me a little more convincingly (it’s amazing what two hands on your gun can do) I am out again and sometime around this we win the game and start again. This time though Mark changes teams (he has his own paint-ball gun which is much more powerful and a whole lot more accurate than our dodgy guns), this makes a big difference and Son, Kim, Gabs and I are soon in dire straights. A hit on my upper chest is luckily exploded by the tyre I was hiding behind first so no pain, sometime around here I am out (again) and restart the game and shortly after realise that I am crouching behind a pile of sandbags beside Ronald (who is on the other team), he is shooting at Kim, I look at him and figure that there is a mutual truce here....hmmm. Yeah until he shoots me in the thigh at point blank range, now that hurt! After we lose the second game Spencer and I have a shoot out to use the last of our balls, I hide behind a tyre and move to a barrel before my gun runs out of gas, Mark tells me to use his gun, which is a whole lot better, after a shoot out with both of us hiding behind tyres, Spencers gun runs out of gas, if not egged on by everyone else, I may have found the compassionate side of my heart, but still seething from my head and knee shot I was out for revenge so ran behind his pile of tiles and pelted him with paint at close range. From there we headed back to the Rock Valley Pansion, Son had offered to cook tea and Ish had offered to help so I figured I would join them, it turned out to be a very interesting few hours of my day. Veggie tarts, roast veggies and salad followed by a sticky date pudding. Sounds easy? Hmm, all went according to plan, the tarts were topped with pastry leaves, salad was dressed and veggies soft when the desert sauce failed to thicken, we start a search for the corn flour, no luck, turn the truck inside out no corn flour, turn the heat up, no thicker? Hmm, I cannot understand what the issue is, I have used the same ingredients as last time, ‘maybe it’s the shape of the saucepan?’ I say...After 40 minutes of boiling I am back out at the truck searching for something else to save the situation when Ish comes running out saying “it was salt, it didn’t set because it was salt!” Instead of using 1kg of sugar I have added in 1kg of salt! It had been inadvertently purchased as sugar (it was labeled in Turkish and was the biggest grained salt I have ever seen, with the exception of rock salt!) Ish heads down the street and I head back into the kitchen laughing my ass off, he buys nutella and we try to resurrect the pudding, luck has it that it turns out a treat! I start thinking scientifically and start sprouting words such as saturated salt solution (where you cannot dissolve any more solid into water), and start saying that it is 3X more salty than the Dead Sea! The nutella desert is fantastic and I learn the lesson of taste testing as you cook! I also take moment to check out my leg, I already have a round ring of bruising from my thigh shot!

Gab under fire during paintball

Before the war began

Myself, paint ball

I won!

The following day Son, AK, Burbs, Ish, Pat, Tanja, Spencer and I hired scooters and headed out for Derinkunu Underground City which was a good 30 odd kilometer away from Goreme. I was a little nervous that I was not going to like scooters as it has been a long time since I have been on a motorbike. The first couple of kilometers were a little wonky, but once I realized that speed equaled steadiness I was away. I even hit 90km/h at one stage! We had a few stops and had to wait for a couple of people who were still getting used to their scooters. Some of the little towns that we went through were very cool, it was also very cool where we stopped to play in some snow on the side of the road (I mean cool as in cold, but not as cold as we had expected!). Eventually we arrived at the underground city and were not disappointed, it was 50 odd meters underground and contained a wine cellar, food cellar and even a school room (although i would never want to teach in this room!) Possibly the best part of the day was realizing that I got to ride my scooter home again! It was getting late and the sin sets at about 4.30pm so there was little dilly-dallying on the way home, although we did find the time to hit some gravel roads and Spencer did take some time to get airborne over a median strip (he claims that it was the accelerator that stuck on!). We stopped at Rose Valley to watch the sunset, yep, we had actually missed sunset, but the colors in the sky just got better and better the longer we waited. From there we headed back into Goreme, not an easy ride as it was pretty dark by then. Upon returning to the shop we had our good day shattered, Ish had had a 'mishap' on his bike, caused byt eh fuel gauge not working, the man at the shop wanted 250 TL (about $170AUD) for the damage, and this is despite no condition report being completed and them having absolutely no proof that he had done the damage. i was standing around a little nervously at this stage as I had a 'little spill' on my bike, embarrassingly so it was in the main street of a town and i hadn't had an issue all day, I was hardly moving when the back tyre spun out on gravel and I couldn't hold the weight of the bike, i sort of jumped clear but got a foot stuck underneath and two very sore kneecaps where they slammed into the cobblestone roadway (oh, and a little bit of a bruised ego after several men came to help and told me to drive slowly!) The bike had started leaking fuel and the mirror was bent and there were a few scratches...hmmm, maybe i will put off buying a Harley for a little longer yet!

Myself on my scooter

Scootering! Whoo hoo!

Fisheye in the mirror

Burbs, Ish, AK, Spencer, Myself, Son, Tanja and Pat

Myself, underground city

Underground city

Sunset at Rose Valley

Scooter view sunset

Petra, Damascus, Dead Sea and some 'Untamed Donkeys'

2010-12-22T14:54:00.001+02:00

Our first morning at Petra was freezing cold, walking through the Siq (a tunnel almost 2km through the rocks) was like a freezer. The first sight of the treasury was pretty amazing; I may have missed my first glimpse had it not been for a bus load of close to incapacitated tourists having it pointed out for a photo opportunity as it peeked through the rocks. The treasury is cut straight out of stone and is (apparently) the most famous attraction in Petra, I preferred the Monastery as it was surrounded by less people and had the sun on it for a good deal of the day, I daresay that the Treasury is the most popular as most people can just walk the couple of kilometres in!

We climbed up to the High place of Sacrifice to look over the ancient city, in all directions carvings of buildings and ruins of buildings can be seen. From there we decided to take a ‘shortcut’ down to some other sights. A man offered to guide us, we figured we were not on the right track but defiantly didn’t want a guide, not even at a ‘cheap price for you’. It took us an hour to get down the hill; we were a long way from the usual track, but kept discovering old remains and caves on the way.

The climb up tot he monastery was defiantly worth the effort of 700 steps, we saw Ronald at the top who had only counted 686 steps. On the way up we were offered many donkeys and mules to ride, the going rate for a donkey up the hill was about 4JD, about 6 Aussie dollars.

From there we wandered back down, I had my fisheye lens on and spotted a lone donkey with no apparent owner. Here started a whole new business idea...Untamed Pet Images, to be launched in 2011. I also discovered that I have a ‘donkey mode’ on my camera....errr..., well maybe just a setting that works really well for photographing donkeys with a fisheye lens! A few more sights and several donkeys later (more donkeys than sights) we arrive back at the gate exhausted, the sun has dropped and the air is bloody freezing!

The next day Spencer stays behind at camp as he does not want another day at Petra, I had paid the extra for a two day ticket (it was only 10% extra for another day) so I head off with a few others. I decide to take my fourth horse ride of my life, hoping that it is not going to turn out as bad as the first three, I was not off to a good start when I have the horse man yelling to a manager that I had told him he could not demand a tip (this is before I had even got on the horse) the horse ride is included in your ticket, and the ticket at 70 US dollars is pretty steep, I was sticking with my right to ‘consider tipping your horse handler’ as the sign said. Eventually with the managers help I convinced the man that if he did a good job I would tip him, if he continued to demand a tip I would not, the manager was right on my side and said “you are right” (love being right) so off we go, the horse handler did a great job so he got a handy tip, and hopefully learned a lesson!

From there I accosted another donkey and camel and dog and maybe even a cat and took a few pictures of Petra itself. I took a donkey ride back up the hill, after looking for the nicest looking donkey I ended up with what turned out to be a mule, but you would never know, it was so much more like a donkey, only that ‘Michael’ was strong enough to carry two people, according to the owner, who then wanted to sit on the mule behind me, ‘no thanks I have my bag’, ‘I’ll take your bag’, ‘no thanks, my husband would be very, very upset with this situation’....situation sorted, man back in his place and I’m not sharing my mule with anyone!

After another day of wandering around (this day had far more rest stops than yesterday, on account of it being my third day of walking what I estimate to be over 20km in a day and I’m stuffed). I get back to camp, lay down for a couple of hours then we headed off to ‘Petra by Night’, which was very cool, literally cool, but not as cold as I was expecting, three jumpers, two thermals was a little bit of overkill. Petra by Night is a candle show accompanied by live traditional music, the road down into the treasury is lit by candles in paper bags, there must have been thousands of candles to light up the over 2km path.

The following day we set out earlier than expected, Kyle and Gab got the breakfast time confused and started cooking an hour earlier than needed, I was in the shower before I looked at my watch properly to see I was up an hour earlier than needed, I had just heard the movement in the kitchen and started proceedings for getting sorted. After a short drive day and I have to say a warm drive day (Kim and I jumped in the cab with the heater instead of sitting in temperatures colder than the Arctic Circle in the back). We arrived at our bush camp on the Dead Sea to be greeted with every blow fly in the world and their cousins from other planets, we were not sure if it was the rubbish left laying about on the ground or the salt that they were after. Our camp at the dead sea was 380m below sea level, a very weird feeling to know that you are that low. Over 6km lower than the top of Mt Kilimanjaro! Swimming in the dead sea was awesome, but you cannot open your eyes, the dead sea is 10 times more salty than the red sea and is over 1/3 salt. I got one tiny drop up my nostril and it stung for hours, a couple of the guys jumped in head first and suffered the effects of the salt. After a while in the salt starts to burn your skin, so we probably only spent half and hour in. Because of the salt concentration you are so buoyant that it is impossible to swim underwater, you just bob around the surface, standing upright in deep water, you whole torso floats out of the water, very cool. Scientist estimate that the Dead sea will only exist for another 50 years as it is drying out, just imagine how buoyant you would be in the dead sea in another 20 years! After getting out came the wash off procedure, washing salt water off out of a jerry can filled up that morning in icy temperatures equals not so fun. I missed washing my neck and it was stinking for a couple of hours until I realised that the salt must have got stuck in the string of my necklace. That night we were all so salty that we stuck in our sleeping bags, every time you rubbed your hair or ear salt would fall out. This was only after we actually dried, the water was that salty that it took several hours for even our hair to dry. As clothing dried it set rock hard from the salt, then when it came into contact with damp air it got wet again, the salt must have dragged the moisture back out of the air, weird!

The next morning Kay and I decide that we need to gather up some dead sea mud, apparently it fetches over 20 euro per 100g, I say that if she gets some containers I will fill them, the situation ended up with me in my knickers and t-shirt standing in water up to my butt and with my arm into the water up to my shoulder, but it was worth it, the mud is awesome! (The people responsible for cleaning the camping grounds showers possibly had a different opinion on this a couple of days later). I didn’t bother washing off as I was looking forward to my shower in Damascus, this was not to be, time ran out (days are certainly getting shorter) so we pulled up at a service station to camp on dusk. This completed my weird camping sites for 2010, ski field car park, Auckland Sailing Club car park, Old Wharf, Wellington Swimming Pool, Christchurch Airport Long Term Car Park, Long Street, and the forecourt of a service station on the outskirts of Damascus. There was a half finished building there so we put up our tents on the tiles.

The following day we arrived at the campsite early enough for most people to dig out a weeks worth of dirty washing, (A low power line may have been harmed in the process, I say may...innocent until proven guilty) Ish and I set off in search of supplies for dinner, it turned out to be a great cook group shopping experience. Syrian people are really nice (Yeah we crossed the border into Syria the day before, just realised that I forgot to mention it) whilst searching the streets for meat we were given all sorts of food to try, in the butchery we were given free tea. Shopping for food in a new country is pretty hard when you are coping with yet another currency and not knowing the price of anything. We got the butcher to cut up 2.5kg of something that we assumed to be beef and it was going to cost almost all of the food budget, the man wouldn’t budge on the price, so we ended up with chicken. As we were walking the streets we had many people wanting their photo taken and not asking for money afterwards, we got some very cool photos with the fisheye lens.

Eventually we settle on mushroom soup, crispy chicken wraps with roasted veggies, warm egg potato and curry salad and veggie burgers. To follow this was date syrup dumplings with real cream...now these were a hit.

The following morning we headed into the old city of Damascus, and just spent the day wandering and shopping for random items, my birthday present, secret Santa gifts, jeans for Spencer, a scarf for me and some random food items, including 25 pancakes that a man absolutely refused to let us pay for! Syrian people are really very nice, right behind Sudanese people in the ranks for the nicest people in the world. After a visit to the central mosque, where I had to dress up in a robe that made me look like I was in the movie ‘Scream’ we headed towards the new city, nowhere near as interesting as the tiny alleyways of the old city.

That night most of us went for dinner at the Biggest Restaurant in the World in Damascus, at 6014 seats the Guinness Book of World Records says that it was the biggest in 2008, so not sure if it still is. It was pretty quiet on this night and we were certainly glad, there seemed to be very few processes in place, you could order off the menu or order a variety of other food not on the menu, I ordered the sweet and sour fish which was the same price as the lobster, go figure!...? It was really good food and we all received it, with the exception of Spencers entree which he didn’t need anyhow.

The following day we headed towards Palmyra, another ancient city. We wandered around there for a few hours that afternoon before setting up camp in a Bedouin tent, with a pot belly stove in the centre of the tent it was very warm, however the chimney system needed a bit of renovation as we were smoked out several times. During that day Gabs had looked at my pyramids memory card, (somewhere in the past couple of days I had lost another card of photos..., not happy jan) the one that corrupted and noted that it was doing ‘some strange stuff’, he tested the card reader and found he had issues with it too, Burbs was still adamant that it could not be the card reader and said he was so sure that he would even swap card readers, by that night Gabs had managed to recover my pyramid photos, what a great early birthday present!

The next day was my birthday, 31 already....crickey where have the last 10 years gone? We wandered up to the castle on the hill, a decent mornings climb, I took ‘donk-donk’ up (Donk-Donk is the newest addition to the gypsy wagon, he is the donkey of Shrek, what a great 31^st birthday gift.....I am certain that I am the only 31 year old female to receive a donkey as a birthday present!). First song on the truck was ‘Happy Birthday to you’ then I started the process of forgetting that it was my birthday for most of the day. We arrived in Aleppo and booked into our ‘hotel’ we are all sleeping in a partitioned area just behind the bar. We went out for dinner for my birthday a traditional Syrian restaurant where we got to sit in a private room, most people went for the set menu where you choose your mains but receive soup, salad, flat bread and dips, there was way too much food left over, only downside to the night was that as a traditional restaurant there was no alcohol! So I ask where have the last ten years gone? Still not sure, but I know that in ten years I must have changed as ten years ago would have ran screaming out of any establishment which did not sell alcohol! Upon arriving back in the bar area of the hotel I figured something was a little strange as I see about 5 people huddling around and AK came over to take a photo of me standing on the steps and blocking my way up...hmm, I point out that it would be a bad photo as I am standing with straight arms, then I see a shoot of flames and sparkles coming from the group, a huge chocolate birthday cake with the best candles in the world, they should actually be classified as fireworks, shooting fire 2ft into the air!

Jordan... Aqaba, Wadi Rum and a few Rolling Tents

2010-12-22T14:19:00.000+02:00

What not to say....

“I have had some really good luck in my life”......hmmm, followed by;

“Our luggage would be worth quite a bit” – two days later we are robbed leaving us with just the clothes we were wearing, my camera bag, a red m&m man and a towel.

“At least our house is going well” – two weeks later out tenants move out and we loose close to $4000 in lost rent and re-letting fees

“It would be scary to come across a lion on foot” - a week or so later I spot a lioness in the beam of my head torch whilst making my way (on foot) to the toilet

“At least out new tenants have moved in and nothing seems to need fixing” – the next day we hear about all the things needing fixing, and then the air conditioner blows up in a storm!

“At least neither of us is sick”,- a week later I am in a Kenyan ambulance screaming through traffic en route to Nairobi Hospital.

“I have never had a memory card corrupt” - one and a half weeks later I lose all of my pyramid photos.

From this stage on I am being really, really careful about what I say....

We were on the main promenade of Dahab when I was valued at 5 camels, I found the experience similar to how a second hand car may feel. After being hassled from one end of the boardwalk to the other to buy towels, shots, shisha, souvenirs, dinner, drinks and anything else they could sell, I was starting to block out all form of attempted conversation heading my way when I head “You, lucky man! I give you five camels for her” hmpf! I think, ONLY FIVE CAMELS! , Spencer (being the wonderful husband that he is) turns around and says, “No, that’s too much!” thank god the man does not quite understand, lest the price go below FIVE camels....then he says “OK, ten camels” again hmpff...from me, I wouldn’t even get to see any of these ten darned camels and I cannot say that I would be excited to marry an Egyptian man, they are just downright dodgy! Although has someone offered me one camel in exchange for Spencer I may have had to think about it following his attempted sale of me for less than five camels!

We left Dahab at 7am prepared for a reasonably painful day of ‘officidom’ (nope, not an actual word...err, well until I just invented it now....the Harvey dictionary states that the word means ‘a large number of people trying to look official and efficient whilst actually doing very little’ and a complete lack of any systems in the border crossing. We arrived at the border just after 8am, and spied a ‘public Bath Room’ hmm, well is that a bathroom, like as in a bath in a room, or a toilet in a room? We were never to find out, the door was locked and due to this some misfortunate, caught short people had left their calling card right at the door step, yep, just left their cables laying right there for the world to see! This was an indication that the day was not going to go so well! We sat in the truck on the side of the road for roughly an hour before moving to the ferry terminal. Upon entering the ferry terminal we encountered our first dose of ‘officidom’ for the day, but by no means the first ‘officidom’ witnessed around xray machines in Africa. Out your bags on the conveyor belt, empty your pockets of anything that may be considered a weapon, walk through the metal detectors, pick up your bag off the conveyor belt as the alarm is sounding, alerting anyone who may care to the fact that you may be carrying a hidden bomb under your t-shirt......err, no, just go straight through, seems in these parts you are pulled up if you don’t have a concealed weapon of some description!

From there we enter passport control, a large hall with seemingly every male citizen of the Middle East standing with their passport in hand, there is no movement in the lines. We are summoned through to the front (well I think someone may have been, I was just the sheep, tagging along with the pack and asking no questions) we push our way past close to a hundred men to the front, feeling quite pleased about our foreign status which has allowed us to push to the front and quite glad that we don’t have to line up like everyone else and try to be oblivious to the stares directed our way. We get to the front to be turned around and push our way back past the stares and men, men, men....looking through the hall we discover that there is not one woman apart from the ones in our group...another scan...nope not one! I announce that it’s because they are all locked in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, but I guess that it’s just because women are not allowed to travel unaccompanied by men and they have to stay at home to care for the kids...phew, at this stage I am yet again thanking my lucky stars to be born an Aussie with the right to do well what I please! Son times our movement along the line, 2m in 15 minutes, hmm not bad! But we hadn’t actually noticed anyone pass through, we decide that the 2m of movement was due to the compacting of the line and not through any form of work from the officials.

Eventually I reach the front of the line, in his height of ‘officidom’, the official starts flicking through my passport for my Egyptian visa....It’s on page 34, in the heat of his ‘officidom’ the official had skipped over 22 blank pages! From there we enter a waiting lounge, the word ‘lounge’ being used quite loosely however, more appropriate would have been ‘sitting upright on wooden plank seats to save yourself from a back injury’. We waited here for five hours, I had the misfortune of falling asleep on my left hand side, impossibly wedged between to planks of wood, my shoulder still bears stiffness from such a silly move! Groups of locals line up to catch the busses the 200m to the ferry, being foreigners we are lucky to wait until last and then be loaded onto buses, the group spread about three buses. We are able to sit down, although he seats are set out so as to fit as many in as possibly and even with my back against the backrest of the seat my knees are uncomfortably pressed against he back of the seat in front!

In the next few minutes I realised just how accustomed to this area I have become, we are all sitting down, the military man then attempts to load as many locals as can stand in the aisle, one of the locals is not at all happy that he is not allowed to sit beside one of the foreign men, even though there is a seat empty. Military man not at all happy, he starts shouting, other man starts grumbling (will add that the military bloke had a machine gun hanging from his shoulder about three meters away) He keeps yelling, eventually enough locals are standing in the aisle for the official to decide that he has displayed enough ‘officialdom’ and gets off the bus, we don’t even break in conversation....it’s an ordinary type of day in these parts!

We arrive at the ferry, and at another queue! Again our passports are checked, again I have to instruct the man to flip past my 20 odd empty pages to my Egyptian visa, then we are on the ferry and in yet another queue! A man tries to get Spencer to ‘check’ his daypack in....no way hosay! Never see that sucker again if it’s left in that pile!” He keeps his bag, they look at my cranky pants face and don’t even ask about my camera bag (honesty a hippo has more chance of flying into parliament house after winning a federal election than someone prying my camera bag from my side!) We line up to have our passports checked yet again and then we are onto the ferry, and a very nice ferry at that! We take up the conformable lounges, leaving everyone else to the less luxurious areas and before we know it there are laptops coming out of every bag whilst people start editing photos, watching movies, TV series and just general time wasting. We were told that if we lined up at the little window with the Arabic writing above it we could get our Jordanian visa for nicks, (yup, I’ll believe that when it happens!) eventually we are told that we must sit down and one person must line up with all 16 passports....all good, we don’t see the passports again, but a man comes out and asks Spencer to come to the window, there he receives a piece of paper, in Arabic, but with ‘16’ written on it. Hmmmm.... I am still incredibly paranoid about passports so am not feeling all that comfortable to hear that they are sitting in a pile on the counter and that we can collect them from the immigration office when we dock in Jordan. I am contemplating a life in limbo between the borders of Egypt and Jordan when Ronald goes to see what he can find out....same story. We also hear that Mark and the truck are on the next ferry, the truck has to be searched and go through an x-ray machine before it can cross borders, there was also a problem with the height of the truck, it wouldn’t fit on the earlier ferry, so had to come over later. We arrive in Jordan at 6pm, pass through immigration and the mandatory x-ray machine and metal detectors complete with their mandatory buzzing alarm and mandatory complacent guards displaying excellent ‘officidom’ and we are outside, to wait for Mark and the truck. We place bets on what time we will be at camp, me being an optimist goes for 9.40pm, it was the earliest bet....one of the pessimists (not sure who this was) bet was closer to midnight. We passed the time with a game of tag, to the amusement of the locals. The game petered out as a group of travellers more used to sitting on a truck got tired of actually moving! The truck appeared around the corner at 10.36pm “four minutes to get on the truck and to camp.....umm, not going to happen!” It was really not going to happen as there was still paperwork to be done and our passports needed to be checked again, this time for the Jordanian stamp, mine landed on lucky page 20 something, only bypassing 10 empty pages. Now I don’t think I’m alone In feeling that a passport should be a chronological record of the bearers international movements. Governments make it pretty straight forward by actually showing a faint divider on each page, so that 4 stamps can be placed on the page, from top to bottom, left to right (well right to left for those Arabic officials..Arabic is written from right to left a weird sight to view after a lifetime of watching people write from left to right!) If passport stampers all over the world had abided by this guideline we all may have been in bed ten minutes earlier that night! After pulling out of the port we hear someone shouting near the back of the truck, wondering what the problem is a couple of people stick their heads out the side door, truck starts reversing...ha ha, we were heading down the wrong side of the road, or well, the right side of the road in Australia... of the left side of the road in Jordan....It had obviously been a long day for Mark. I figure an easy mistake to make at night, when signs are in Arabic and in Australia it would be the right side of the road....or the left!

Shortly after we arrive at camp, time to pitch the tents, ours smells pretty bad after being packed up damp from My Sinai and left to fester for six days. I head off in search of the toilet, now I have never been good with directions and I am defiantly getting worse. “Down the hill and around.......”blah, blah, blah, blah is all I hear....just like Bart Simpsons dog, or the attention of a goldfish. I just figure I would find my way, how hard can it be....well it only takes about ten minutes to find the toilet, then on the way out I struggle to find my way back out of the place, but it’s all good, there is a local man there to help me and of course he has to lead me by the arm and of course he has to stroke my arm from shoulder to wrist in the dark! I shake him off in a similar fashion that I shook off a monkey that decided to sit on me along with four of it’s friends years ago, (I will add that this man didn’t hit the ground with as much momentum as the monkey did) (Evil little bastard monkey...I haven’t forgotten you or what you did to my favourite red zebra t-shirt...I’m coming back to even the scores soon!) The next afternoon I discover that I have inadvertently made my way into the hotel next door, twice, to use their toilet; no wonder the man was escorting me off the premises!

Early the next morning the wind picked up, breakfast was a bit of a windy affair, my jumper still bears some weet-bix to prove this. We headed into town, Aqaba. As we drove it just got more and more windy. I started to get worried about our tent, we had added pegs (only the second time we have used pegs in Africa, with the exception of Mt Kilimanjaro) I had also put four rocks in the tent, to weight it down, Spencer had added a huge block of concrete along the side taking the full brunt of the wind. I wished I had put our sleeping bags back in the truck, usually when leaving camp unattended we will put them away, just that they are expensive and the pain still lingers over having to replace our last stolen ones. Spencer and I have a walk around town and the dust storm just gets worse and worse. The Red sea is kicking up waves I would think impossible had I not witnessed them myself and we are plagued by the constant stream of sand in our eyes, even wearing sunglasses! After failing in our initial attempt of trying to find an ATM we are wandering the backstreets with all manner of flying objects coming for us. The scarf that I have tied around my head flies off and blows back up the street, I may be getting older, but the wind was no match for me, I smash a merrel walking shoe onto it and lock it safely in my bag! We head for the shelter of McDonalds with the promise of a caramel sundae and free wi-fi, McDonalds does not disappoint! Eventually we are joined by some of our fellow travellers seeking similar luxuries. I voice my concern over our tents and say that we should have placed bets on whose tent would be standing, someone says that Spencer and my tent would be the first down as it was taking the full force of the wind...not a good thought, I mentally prepare myself to collect my tent from the main street of town after it has blown the five kilometres from camp! We drag ourselves out of McDonalds and get blown down the street, luckily to an ATM, then to a mini-mart with real conditioner and phone credit....now I just have to add one of life’s absurdities here, I just spent 6 days in the seaside town of Dahab, which is a tourist destination which generally caters well for tourists and was unable to find hair conditioner...seriously, they had every different type of shampoo ever manufactured but they were missing their partners in crime! No conditioner!

We get back on the truck and before we reach the camp we see the bottle green of an Af Trails tent rain cover lying in the hills, oh dear....Several of us are pointing out the side and wondering “who is the unfortunate person who has to collect that? And more importantly, where is their tent?” We park in camp to see the damage, Our tent is still half standing, but the cover has blown off, but thankfully still attached so no walking required of us!, Pat and Tanja’s tent has broken a pole, yep the metal pole had just snapped. Son’t tent cover was found under Ak’s tent which had wedged against a fence, Burbs and Gabs had a hard time dragging theirs back against the wind, Ish’s tent was not to be found. He and a few others set out across the hills in the direction where we had sighted the rain cover, after a while it was found and took five people to carry the thing back against the wind. Burbs did a bit of ‘windsurfing’ on the top of a hill, the wind was strong enough to hold him up on an impossible angle! Mark moved the truck and we placed our tents between our truck and an old Oasis overland truck parked nearby, the sand in tents was amazing, almost a full dustpan came out of ours!

I had yet another crappy nights sleep, the wind kept pushing the tent into my head and filling the tent with sand. I had my Maasai blanket along the side of the tent; by the morning there was so much sand on it that I couldn’t even see the stripes! We headed back into town, Spencer and I went straight for the Turkish baths that a few others had visited the day before. I was in it only for the sauna, can never beat a sauna! So a Turkish Bath goes like this;

Get undressed and into whatever costume you wish to wear while you get handled by big Jordanian blokes (called Hairy knuckles by AK) I went for the bikini and wished it was a little bigger, the same can be said about the piece of cloth that was to cover me...not modest enough in a Muslim country I’m afraid.
Head for the sauna, through a variety of tiled chambers, and not just any tiles, tiles with lovely patterns on them, the place even included a tiles fish pond complete with goldfish! The sauna is another tiled room, but hot, very hot, the hottest sauna I have ever been in and thats out of a whole lot of saunas! I start to feel like I’m standing on grass in Darwin during the build up and have to say feel a little homesick, then the heat takes over. The sauna is not ran by a heater type contraption like most others, it is heated by a hot water tap running into a pool so the humidity is right up. Sitting on the tiles is a bit of a manky affair, I choose the best spot, but decline to sitt here after I notice some stray hairs ont he wall that look suspiciously like pubic hair, ewwww! The tiles are slippery, I assume from years and years of overweight men sweating the asses off on them, I don’t think that there is a regular cleaning routine.
After a good half hour in the sauna a big (yep, hairy knuckled) man comes and summoned me out, into the next chamber where I have to lay on the tiles. Here he pours water over me and starts scrubbing my skin off with a black mit, at this stage I realise that I am probably accumulating more dead skin cells from my travelling companions Turkish baths yesterday than is being removed from me! After scrubbing head to toe I am asked to roll over for the other side to be scrubbed. More water is poured over then a very soapy loofah is put to business, I can feel layer after layer of skin which has seen too much sun, dirt and not near enough showers being scrubbed away. One side is done and I am asked to turn over, HA! Soap, skin and wet tiles are a bad mix, I flop over trying to keep my material covering and modesty intact when I morph into a seal on ice and are propelled by some invisible force over the tiles and towards hairy knuckles! He stops me from falling off the tiles and continues to scrub the other side.
The next step is a shower, I managed this without incident, surprisingly ad showers have been few and far between for me in 2010.
Up next is the massage, again this went without incident. Although I still do get very nervous having massages in strange countries after my horrendous ordeal in Thailand years ago, my advice is “avoid oil massages at night from women in Thailand” and thats all I’m going to say on that matter. But back to the turkist bath massage, not bad, too much oil and maybe a bit too long spent on the inner thighs but overall a good massage.
Last stop is to sit in material and towel and have a cup of tea consisting of half sugar, a touch of ginger a hint of tea and hot water

Feeling revitalised and having only half the skin cells we entered the baths with we headed off to Wadi Rum. The drive didn’t take very long, thankfully as it was bloody cold in the back of the truck, we heard that it has been snowing in Petra already, not good, we were hoping to get to Turkey before we had to deal with snow. That night we camped at possibly the best bush camp ever, about five kilometres before the gates of the Wadi Rum National Park. After a climb up the cliffs near the truck we huddled around the coals trying to keep warm and tracking the temperature on the new thermometer Spencer and I had bought that day (seemed a bargain at 5 JD).Kyle and Burbs found a front end loader tyre and rolled it down the hill then proceeded to attempt to roll Burbs across the desert floor whilst he was inside the tyre, only problem with the situation was that it was full of sand, he made about ¼ of a turn! Around this time unbeknown to us, some tents were on the move. Ish’s tent is now ‘munted’ (as said by Ish) so was one of the first to roll, AK’s tent was found upside down, stopped by another tent, his laptop was inside and is now not working that well.

Our Japanese co traveller had been seen wandering off into the desert not long after pulling up for camp, which was around 4pm. He had literally walked and walked and walked until he was a spot on the horizon (we estimated him to be 5km away at this stage) then kept walking until he disappeared. By the time it got dark everyone was getting a bit concerned (well some were). The background on the story is that he has dome the west coast on the truck, he only started with about $5000, of which he had to pay visas, national park entry fees, all tourist attractions, lunch everyday, meals when the truck is in a town and we are in accommodation and any other needs. Basically, $5000 is not enough by some way and he has been surviving on other peoples leftovers and dry noodles, he is emancipated and not in good health. In most peoples opinion he should have flown home from Nairobi as he only had a couple of hundred left then. The only tourist attraction that he has been into since Kenya was the pyramids and this was only due to the kindness of others buying his ticket, he had taken the truck there not intending on even going in! Really what is the use of even being here if you are not going to see anything? Whilst in Dahab he told mark that “I am a paying customer so if I run out of money you have to look after me” I initially didn’t believe this, until it was verified as true....but what cheek! Everyone else on the truck has saved and sacrificed things to be here, obviously they have saved and sacrificed more than this person, how can he expect any special treatment? He has done nothing to help himself, he has been trying to sell his camera, some people onto he truck have offered money (not good, but a fair amount) he has refused, someone else offered him money for an iPod, he refused, I tried to buy his card reader, again refused, he has sold his clothes and camera battery. Mark offered him 20pond to wash his overalls, he refused, preferring to starve and miss out on seeing what he came here for....needless to say there is little sympathy floating around the truck for him at this stage.

So he has wandered off, no water, not telling anyone where he was going or when he would be back, no torch, no warm clothes and not in good health. The general consensus in camp at that time was that he was a dickhead and selfish (there were other comments that I won’t repeat here). The desert was foggy with the occasional sand storm blowing in, so it wasn’t just going to be an easy process of walking towards the truck lights, they are just not that strong and they were facing the other way.

He returned just before dinner (of course he would, he hasn’t eaten lunch so needs to take the biggest portion of food of anyone on the truck) There was tension in the camp, he was unable to see the problem with him walking off for hours alone. I didn’t hear the ‘conversation’ between Mark and him clearly but it was heated to say the least, someone turned the music off for an eavesdrop, a few expletives could be heard the other side of the truck, the outcome.....he didn’t see the problem with walking off!

The following morning we drive into Wadi Rum, some of the most spectacular rock formations I have seem, we walked over loose sand for a good distance to see a canyon which was not as impressive as I had hoped. Spencer and I took a long detour through another gorge on the way back, we were fair stepping it out to get back to the truck, we must have walked over 20km and made it back right on 1pm. The gorge was lovely, and reminded me of Koolpin Gorge in Kakadu. We had come across a stray dog in the canyon, I had the fisheye lens on and went to take a photo of him, he lunged towards the camera and I took the photo right at the moment when he left a nose print on the lens! We were surprised to find him flowing us through the gorge and most of the way back to the truck.

After we left Wadi Rum for Petra we noticed the temperature steadily dropping, we had a quick stop after the first snow was sighted on the side of the road. I got my sleeping bag out and got in it, the back of the truck gets bloody cold, life got a whole lot better once I was in it! I was attempting to gain numbers for a mutiny, turn the truck back around and head for Sudan! Mark wasn’t that against the idea, just saying that he wasn’t paying for both ferries!

We arrive in Wadi Musa, near Petra, to our accommodation. No tents just a big concrete floored room for us all to bunk down in, but at least we have showers and toilets inside. Tanja and Alyssa cooked up a ripper three course meal, complete with roasted bananas filled with melted Mars Bars for desert, and to think I was worried about how we were going to eat up here! (local payment just seemed to cheap for 12 weeks of food and accommodation) After dinner the temperature was five degrees (not including wind chill).

"Camel?", "Caamel?", Camelll for you?" Alexandria, Mt Sinai and Dahab on the Red Sea

2010-12-09T07:36:00.054+02:00

Coke sign flashing between English and Arabic, Cairo

Cairo traffic

Spencer, Ish and myself set out early for Alexandria, we were uncertain if Ish would be able to get a ticket with us on the 8am train, but we were hopeful, after taking the subway to the train station we found that our train was booked out but Ish purchased tickets for the 8.15 train, which was a slower train than ours and would arrive 45minutes later in Alexandria. Trying to find a seat on a train when most of your ticket, platform signage and carriage snumbers are in Arabic is a little tricky...we managed alright and it only cost us a one pound tip for the station assistant. Egyptian trains are very good, for 35 pound (6 Aussie dollars) you can get a second class ticket, which entitles you to a large airline style seat in a well insulated carriage on a train which leaves on time (yep, like to the second!)

2nd class train seats

After 2 ½ hours we arrive in Alexandria, after the man in front of us has almost killed himself by not placing his bag in the luggage racks properly and it falls on his head mid journey and the foreign lady in front of us has pretended to be asleep when the food and beverage people came back through the carriage to collect the money!

We arrive at a large, colonial style train station and book tickets for our return to Cairo the following day, sit down and have the most overpriced cake and drink to be found anywhere in Egypt and wait for Ish. I stand at the end of the platform as each train arrives, with only one way off the platform we figure we cannot miss him, however we manage to, so by 11.30 we decide that we have to revert back to our original plan to meet at the Hotel Excelledor. Sounds easy doesn’t it?.....hmmm, after one and a half hours of walking, asking for directions, trying to flag a taxi, trying to get a taxi to understand us, finding the tourist information centre and getting the directions written down in Arabic, then asking about another 20 people and back tracking our steps and trying to flag more taxis we get to the hotel only for the manager to tell us that Ish had been there and left. Spencer sets off to the other hotel we had talked about and McDonalds to see if he is there, no luck. He returns to where I am waiting with our gear and we try to book a room, now the lady at the tourist information centre had said we should pay about 100 pounds for a double room, lonely planet had said about 80 pounds, this man tried to charge us 200 pounds! There is something about Egyptians that won’t let them back down on their prices, this man wouldn’t budge from his 200 pounds for his old run down hotel room in the back streets, so we headed towards the waterfront and got a sea view, lovely room for 160 pounds, and we found out later that night that of all the hotels in Alexandria we had booked into the one right next door to where Ish was staying. We caught up with him later that night and compared stories of just how difficult it was to find the hotel and the exorbitant prices the man felt he needed to request for dodgy rooms!

Alexandria train station

From there we strolled along the foreshore, Alexandria is a lovely city on the Mediterranean, we had a look around the library, some sculptures the many mosaics artworks that line the streets and some of the backstreets. We found a supermarket for some supplies for dinner, thinking that a dinner in our hotel room overlooking the Mediterranean and feasting on feta, sundried tomatoes, gherkins etc would be a great evening, not so, the supermarket was incredibly understocked and all we came out with was 24 hoho roll impersonations, some soft drink and dodgy, bodgy cheese. We then (quite ashamed of this) resorted to a three course fast food feast (hey, we hadn’t had fast food since Australia before hitting Egypt!), first course was salad in KFC (believe it or not, after waiting 10 minutes to actually order my coleslaw I had to wait five minutes for someone to pick it up and put it on a tray and hand it to me!) then second and third courses at McDonalds, where both Spencer and I had our first Big Mac’s, I have just never felt the urge to eat one, he had given up meat before the McDonalds appeared in Hamilton. I will add that we got the Big Macs without the meat patties and there were not great, shall stick to my cheeseburgers without the meat in the future! Third course of a caramel sundae was forced in around the edges of the hoho, cheese, coleslaw, fries, burger, coke! Gee we certainly are looking forward to getting home and eating normally again, I have sworn that’s the last of the fast food for awhile, back to falafel....(yeah we were served up falafel for breakfast the following morning!)

After a browse through the shops, I announce that one street alone has more shoes than the whole of Malawi and Zambia combined, I purchase a pair of jeans and decide that my figure is just not the same as it was when I was in my twenties, Spencer agrees with this a little too enthusiastically, so I assure him that it’s still pretty good for someone in their thirties. We head back to our hotel, to our sea views, fridge and cable TV (after travelling rough for so long it doesn’t take much to excite us!)

The following morning we walk along the esplanade to the Citadel of Qaitbay which is an incredibly impressive building. Apart from the obnoxious school kids running riot through he place, taking photos of us without permission and generally harassing me; it was a really good visit. Seeing the school kids on excursion made me understand exactly why Egyptian men are so sleazy, they learn it at school. Spencer and I were standing in one of the turrets and about 20 odd kids stood there taking photos on their phones and asking stupid questions and trying to use the only words of English that they know (always the f word), I crack when I turn around and see their teacher standing amongst the kids gawking up at the foreigner! After relentless badgering and sly, smarmy comments that they have obviously heard their fathers use, I tell them they are an embarrassment to their country and to go away, I then tell their teacher to keep them in line and that I am a teacher in my country and would be ashamed to have my kids acting like his were! Unbelievably so, the little bastards are still following me, they very quickly learn exactly how loud my voice will go when required, the added bonus was that I was in a huge stone building which produced amazing echos! About 15 kids scattered on my fist word, the other ten scattered on my second word, a few peeped back around the corner on my third word. From there I went to tell the guards that there were very bad kids in there that needed sorting out, now if I though I had a loud voice, it was nothing on his, we went shouting into the building and we didn’t hear from the kids again! We stroll back along the foreshore, stopping at the coolest little juice shop in the world, thanks to Ish for the tip off on this place! And have ourselves a mixed juice, the best juice I have had since Ethiopia, then continue onto our hotel room, have a quick shower and head off to the train station.

Qaitbay Citadel, Alexandria

Taxi, Alexandria

For 50 pound (about 10 Aussie dollars) we had purchased our first class train tickets and quickly decided it was worth the extra $4, large seats, footrests and very few seats per carriage, before we know it we are back in Cairo! After a quick subway trip we are standing in the foyer of the Sun Hotel discussing what everyone has been up to and what everyone had purchased in the previous days...the significant items purchased were 2 dinky-di real canon batteries for a 5D Mk11 at and incredibly low price (like 40 bucks a battery!) by Kyle, Gab got a tripod for 350 pounds and Mark purchased a new apple laptop and managed to score about $2500 of free software with it, including the newest version of Photoshop. Ish and I decide to do our cook group shopping for the following night at City Stars shopping centre which is a 20 odd pound cab ride away, other people decide they wouldn’t mind the trip, then there is a whole gang of us flagging down a couple of taxis. I remember being in Sudan and being amazed to actually find ice cream, but this shopping centre was something else, it has ever shop you could ever imagine! And a great supermarket (called a hypermart) to go food group shopping! So we decide upon veggie lasagne and cheesecake for desert, surely a sure bet on the lasagne, I had already had two successful lasagne missions in Africa, but I was a little worried about the cheesecake, it needed to be chilled to set, hmm, just need a cold night at Mt Sinai!

1st class train seats

The following morning we are up and out of the Sun Hotel early, I notice that the bed in the truck cab is free and jump in quick, the morning is cool, so the back will be freezing! , it is a Friday and the streets are deserted as Fridays are like a weekend at home, lucky as we manage to miss a turn and end up in a few streets that were really not designed for trucks. Eventually we find our way out Cairo and stop for lunch in the city of Suez, on the Suez Canal. The Suez area just smells like oil, there must be so much oil floating in the air from the refinery, it’s hard to imagine that local residents don’t suffer some health conditions from breathing in such polluted air. Spencer and I set off with the aim of catching a glimpse of a super tanker ploughing it’s way through the canal, with over 20,000 vessels passing through each year we think we may be lucky. After snapping off a few photos we notice the many no photography signs that have rusted almost beyond recognition, we wander along the banks seeing only tug boats but no super tankers (we could sight some ships of a more substantial size further out in the water). After leaving Suez, we pass under the Suez canal in a tunnel, the tunnel seems much longer than the canal is wide, I try to take a photo, but have the fish eye on and really need a flash!.

Tunnel under the Suez Canal

This sign actually reads "No Photography"

Suez Canal

We pass through many police checkpoints on the way to St Katherine (the town at the base of Mt Sinai), at one they check all our passports, this hasn’t happened since Sudan, at the next checkpoint everyone who is sitting in the back has their passport checked, but not any of the three of us in the cab...we figure it’s been a boring night and the police are looking for something to do!

We arrive at the base of Mt Sinai in the dark, it’s a rush to get everything out and get the lasagne cooking, we want to eat and get to bed as we are getting up at three the next morning to climb! The handy thing about being on cook group when you are late into camp is that everyone is hungry and wants to eat so they help with the preparation. Jen and Jules peel and slice 5kg of potatoes, Kenji sorts out the Cheesecake with Ish, Ronald gets the fire on, Mark stirs the Lasagne, Son comes to the rescue in helping make a white sauce after I realise that I have purchased a tin of tomato paste not whole tomatos! Bugger! AK is the can opener and washing up tub filler and everyone else helps with the odds and ends (hope I didn’t miss anyone!) The cheesecake sets, but the pistachio topping doesn’t, ho hum....oh well we will just call it a pistachio sauce and it looks like we have put extra effort in! Lucky that the cheesecake worked, the lasagne was close to a flop, way too rich! Being on cook group means that it’s your responsibility to wash up, clean up and pack up after dinner, again through most people pitch in and it’s an earlier knock-off time than last food group. I warm my hands up by the fire for a bit as it’s way too cold here to be washing many dishes in cold water!

I was in bed for five hours that night, I possibly slept for about five minutes (nah, that’s a little exaggeration, maybe I got an hour!) We were camped in the car park right near a police check point, I think they changed shift at 11pm and made noise, then there were people arriving in busses all night, by three AM the place was a hive of activity with people strolling through our camp and tooting their horns and yelling at each other. We are out of bed and dressed in warn clothes ready to leave at 3.10am, after a thorough search...yeah, to climb a mountain they have to fully search your bags...the man asks me “do you have a bomb?”, I reply “if I had a bomb I wouldn’t bother to carry it up a mountain!” We are then told that we must have a guide and that it will cost us 85 pound as a group, not a big deal of money, only a little over a dollar each, but the injustice creeps in from some people, local people seem to be going up without a guide, there is an argument and we cannot escape the guide. Our guide is useless, I didn’t even know who he was, we all walked individually, and he told us nothing, not even his name and he didn’t even walk up the last 700 steps to the top! The climb is just a walk for the first hour or so, a wide path meanders it’s way up the mountain, the hardest thing is turning down all the offers for camel rides.Honestly, if I wanted a camel to ride I would have accepted one of the first 200 camels offered to me, BEFORE I had climbed half way up the mountain! The last 700 steps are known as the steps of repentance and were slow going...not because of the steps, but because of the pilgrims making their way up slowly. I have never before seen a bunch of people so unworthy of climbing a mountain, and they wouldn’t bother if it wasn’t a holy place, I am used to seeing people climb mountains who like to climb mountains and who wear gear fit for climbing mountains, not dress shoes, handbags and my favourite was the white pants, white sports jacket and white kitten heels! I did also spy a pair of leather pants. We were well and truly ahead of schedule so stopped off for a drink before the stairs; believe it or not there were coffee places all the way along the track! (ours was called Star Buks!) We made it to the top about 20minutes before sunrise and it wasn’t as cold as expected. Time for some happy snaps then AK finds his hip flask in his pocket with a little soul warming liquor contained within! The walk down was simple enough, apart from the issue of not being able to find our guide and not knowing who he is in daylight. We pass by other groups without guides and some with guides who are actually pointing out things of interest to their clients, we get back to camp and see that our guide finds us there; it’s honestly the only thing he managed to do, ask for money! We are all pissed off and make him wait, then offer to pay him 50 as he did nothing and doesn’t deserve any money. He refuses so the problem ends up at the police station where we have to pay the 85 pound. Worst to this is knowing that this dodgy bloke who admitted to not speaking any English will continue to take money from tourists for doing nothing day after day with the help of the local police!

Spencer, summit of Mt Sinai

Me, summit of Mt Sinai

Ish, summit of Mt Sinai

We load up the truck and cruise towards Dahab with Kenji still saying “I f&8king hate Egyptians” After two nights of little sleep I am starting to feel pretty ordinary and wrap myself up in a blanket and fall asleep, by the time we reach Dahab, I am feeling less than ordinary and then manage to miss dinner that night as I have a roaring headache, backache and feel feverish. Spencer arrives home from the restaurant (called AlCapones, on the ocean, lovely setting and place!) and tells me how good the food was! The next morning I am still feeling a little poo, but by that afternoon I am back to normal, it’s amazing what 20 hour sleep can do for a person!

The following morning we take a huge walk into Dahab City, errr...not really a city! We walk way too many miles in our thongs, jandals, slops, pluggers or flip-flops and both have very sore feet before we reach our hotel Seven Heaven again. That afternoon we head out for a swim and are very pleased to see a school of Moorish idol fish cruising by, ( I now think these may have actually been banner fish which look similar to the Moorish idol) and this was without even having my head underwater or wearing goggles. The next morning we head out in search of mask, goggles and flippers to buy. Although you can rent hire gear which is crappy for about a dollar a day, we are sick of constantly hiring substandard gear which doesn’t fit and leaks and decide to take advantage of having been robbed in South Africa and not having much gear to lug home! After quite a few shops we find some good stuff and beat the crap out of the original prices, our flippers started at 200 pounds, we got them for 130...good deal! We then head to Eel garden to test them out, only problem is that the wind has picked right up and the current is so strong that it is close to impossible to actually move too far off the beach. Gear goes well and my rash vest kept me nice and warm, whereas I’m usually freezing my ass off. I really should have got one years ago!

Dahab

No Camels! Dahab

Fisheye view

Later that day we wander down to the lighthouse area, a hundred meter walk from Seven Heaven, we are still not sure why it is called lighthouse, there isn’t one to be found! (I’m assuming there must have been once!) The snorkelling off lighthouse was amazing, a huge drop-off about 3m from the beach with amazing array of untouched and undamaged coral and every great fish you ever aspire to see, se saw clownfish (nemos), parrotfish, puffer fish, triggerfish and three lion fish within the first 10 minutes. It’s the first time I have seen lionfish apart from photos, they are very pretty, but I was trying to remember just how venomous they actually are (not great trying to do that whilst close to the fish and bobbing around in rough water!) I later asked Mark our driver who is a keen diver, he says that they just give a nasty sting...hmm that only leaves the sharks of Sharm el Sheik to worry about! (There has been a few people attacked by sharks in the red sea in recent days, down at Sharm el Sheik which is about 100km south of us here, it has caused a lot of people who are staying there to move up to Dahab for their diving and snorkelling)

That night we set out to book a snorkelling trip to the Blue Hole, rated as the fourth best diving site (hope I’m right saying this, I just overheard someone say it!) It has also claimed a heap of lives of divers, both inexperienced and very experienced. We are at the point of booking one when we see Son, who has been doing her advanced diving course, her and Ish are heading out to Blue Hole diving and Jen and Jules are going out there snorkelling, excellent! We use the conversation with Son as a good escape hatch from the man trying to sell us the trip and head back for a good nights sleep.

Our first stop was The Canyon, about 30m deep. We were the only people snorkelling there but there were hundreds of divers. Luckily we went one way and the divers went the other so we actually didn’t see them until the end. Son and Ish said that it was very overcrowded inside the canyon. Jen, Jules, Spencer and I were super impressed with the range of fish that we saw and also the coral formations. We were lucky that Jen and Jules had their underwater camera for a few happy snaps. The fish in the Red Sea seem more relaxed with snorkelers than in other places, they are happy to swim right in and around you and even let you swim in their school. After we finished at The Canyon we drove a little further up the coast to the Blue Hole.

The Blue Hole is a sink hole about 10 meters off the shore north of Dahab and is 120m deep! It just looks like the end of the earth! There is a tunnel in it that connects the blue hole to the outside ocean, it’s at about 60m depth. Many people die in this tunnel that is about 20odd meters in length. We waited for Son and Ish to get in the water before we did, we were a little nervous for them as they were descending down ‘the bell’ (we had listened into their dive briefing) first part was feet first, second part was head first, little light and sections where it was so narrow only one diver at a time could descend. Bloody hell it’s got it all, underwater, confined places and darkness! Son looked pretty nervous just before she submerged and I don’t blame her! We’d had to walk past the wall of memorials of divers who had died there, one of whom was a dive master...apparently for the 40 odd reported deaths, the Egyptian Government has covered up twice that amount (again, this is hearsay!) We were thinking that it was an enclosed tunnel as that’s how it looked from the surface; it was in fact a gorge, with a small opening. We snorkelled along the ocean wall, the coral formations sit under a meter from the surface of the water, then you look down the ledge and can just see a straight drop as far as the visibility allows, it’s amazing (yeah, I know, I know I say that EVERYTHING is amazing! He he) We sighted many different varieties of triggerfish,bannerfish, groupers, parrotfish, surgeonfish, clownfish, wrasse and lots of others at any one time you could see al least 200 fish, usually many more than this. With the bubbles from the divers below bursting around you it truly felt as though you were in an aquarium. If you were to snorkel only once in your life, it must be here at Blue Hole!

Me, snorkelling at Blue Hole

The bubbles around me are from the divers beneath

Divers bubbles rise from the depths of the Blue Hole

Coral reef, Blue Hole

Myeslf infront of divers, Blue Hole

That night we went to Chillax for tea, very pricey and overrated burgers! We ran into Jen, Jules and ish there and so sat with them. There were only two vegetarian burgers on the menu Jules told us that the tree hugger burger was not very nice, we asked the waitress about the Fungi burger, she said it wasn’t very nice! Hmmm, which of the bad burgers to choose....the tree hugger it was, the outside bits were OK, but way too many red kidney beans died in the production of that burger!

The following morning we have a bit of a sleep in (after the 4.50am call to prayer has almost blasted us out of our beds (yes beds...all hotel rooms in Muslim countries appear to have twin beds) We take a stroll along the waterfront for some photos, the wind is picking up, we decide to leave a little earlier for The Island diving site where we intend to snorkel. The couple of kilometres walk up there was defiantly worth it, the fish that we saw were comparable to other sites, but the coral formations and the seascape were very impressive, whilst making my way back to shore I floated over a snake spotted eel, which scared the poo out of me as I initially thought it was a sea snake, as the water was very shallow I was only about 40cm above it’s body with the waves pushing me along. Once I saw that it had a pronounced spine I breathed a little sigh of relief into my snorkel! That afternoon we snorkelled again at the Lighthouse, again it was great. This time we were lucky enough to see two clownfish families in their anemones with juveniles, the juveniles are black and white and remind me of our oscellaris’ at home (well at Dean and Katies home)

From here we head towards Jordan, we take the ferry into the country and I believe that it’s just not a simple process! We are starting to count down the days to returning home and have also been trying to get a few things organised for our return to Australia on the tenth of January and work on twentieth of January....

And just for a laugh for those Aussie readers....In Alexandria I noticed a big poster in the front of a bank, in Arabic, something to do with interest rates by the look of it, it had a photos of coins on it....”strange that they would use cold edged coins on a poster here, the coins don’t even look Egyptian” I think, on close inspection I see they are in fact a stack of Aussie $1 coins!, some silly person must have purchased the photo from a stock photography agency without looking very closely! My other amusing sighting has been the Fighting Kangaroo restaurant, which shows two vary large photos of what someone thought was a kangaroo.....uh um...no they are in fact wallabies!

Reef life, Blue Hole

Western Desert Egypt, land of camels, oases and the occasional donkey...

2010-11-30T16:06:00.001+02:00

Sunset, Western Desert, Egypt

Woke up to the alarm buzzing for the first morning for quite a while, I had slept straight through the call to prayer, although with the campground surrounded my mosques I am still unsure how I managed this!. We headed out of camp on foot bound for Karnak Temple for the 6.30am opening time. As we walked we saw the moon getting ready to set on the opposite bank of the Nile, it was the biggest and yellowiest moon I have seen. Karnak Temple is larger than the other temples we have seen, but does not contain the impressive detail as most of the others. We spent a couple of hours wandering around and taking photos of the 134 huge towering columns and stone sheep carvings then headed back to camp for a breakfast of French toast, nutella and banana and our last shower before Giza, six days away.

Karnak Temple, Luxor

After a quick food shop we headed out into the Western Desert. We were stopped at a lot of police checkpoints on the way out of Luxor, after a few nights of less than desired sleep, I curled up in a ball on the side seat and was out cold under my Maasai blanket quickly, I only woke as I started to get cold...errr, yes I meant to type that, cold. With the canvas sides up and the truck moving at 80km/h things can get pretty chilly in the back sometimes. Shortly after we stopped for lunch on the side of the road, I climbed tot he top of the nearby hill and was surprised at the strange collection of rocks, it was like someone had tipped their rock collection out on the ground. We continued down on of the most scenic roads I have ever experienced, towering limestone (or sandstone) escarpments, cliffs and canyons for about 50km. At the end of the canyon the road flattened out amazingly quickly.

Road weaves through the desert terrain

Little did anyone in the back know at the time, but we were heading in the wrong direction, north, instead of south west, we were actually on one of the main roads to Cairo and wondering why it was so busy! At one of the intersections we had taken the wrong turn, quite understandable as there are very few signs and most of the signs are in Arabic. After a few more police checkpoints we pulled up on the side of the road for a bush camp, not surprisingly we quickly had a visit from a local, “no English?”, “no Arabic?”, “no English?” we assumed that he wanted either money or didn’t want us to camp there and money... ha ha, no grass, no toilets, no showers, no trees, no water, no money! As Mark had reversed the truck back to pull off the road the mud guard got caught on the tyre and ripped off, the sand was soft so we camped quite close to the road, the traffic went all night! A full moon rose (the real moon variety) and very soon the cameras were out getting photographs, myself cursing the bastard who stole my tripod, yet again! The temperature in the desert dropped away incredibly quickly and very soon we were viewing our travelling companions wearing clothes not yet sighted, I was very excited to pull my striped beanie out of my locker to keep my ears warm. Spencer and I were the only ones to not put the rain cover on the tent; we woke up with damp sleeping bags from dew. With the smell of Spencers ass I wanted as much ventilation as possible!

Sunrise, Western Desert

A 6am start the following morning, it turns out that there are places in Egypt where you can avoid the call to prayer, you just need to get out into the desert! We left camp at 7am heading in the right direction. Ronald had been tracking our direction the day before and had announced that our campsite was the same distance away from the oasis we were heading to as out campsite in Luxor had been!, all part of the adventure and another story for blog readers I say. After driving a few hours we somehow accumulated a police escort, there were four guys with machine guns following behind us in a police vehicle, occasionally using their siren to remind us that they were there. We stopped on the outskirts of a town called El Kharga. Not quite sure what the problem was, Mark went into the tourist information office to sort it out, our police escort then followed us into the centre of town, we did a 540 degree turn through a roundabout, I assume to piss the escort off. Upon parking the truck we realised that our police friends are guarding it for us, a man standing right at the back of the truck with an AK-47. I am getting much more used to seeing guns the further that I travel through Africa, but seeing a machine gun so close to me still has an effect on me. After witnessing the power of an AK-47 in Cambodia when Spencer fired 50 rounds in about 10 seconds it is scary to think that so many young police officers, security guards hold them so complacently on the streets. Spencer and I went for a stroll to find a toilet, he claimed that he was desperate, but kept turning down every available toileting spot, to finally walk a huge lap and end up in the same street. After he returned from his hiding spot in the trees, I ducked around the corner for a wee, it’s all good until I realise that there is a camera aimed at me, then realise it’s my own camera with Spencer holding it! I manage to zip my pants up just as a car drove past, the man behind the wheel looked left, looked right, then swung his head so quick as to give himself a neck injury!, now that’s the meaning of rubbernecking! I have never seen someone move their block so quickly! From there we got two bags of chips and two cornetto ice creams for 5 pound (less than one Aussie dollar), we found a place to sit in the shade to devour our ice cream and were annoyed when we realised that the man who had tried to sell us something (we think) earlier was loitering around us. After looking up to see him staring at me on three separate occasions I flung my arms up in the air in a “what the f&*k” type of expression, not a good idea, then he was over trying to talk to us with a big smile on his face. He didn’t speak any English so had no idea what I was talking about when I told him to stop staring at me and to go away (not in those exact words), we walk back down the street only for him to follow. Spencer had the next go at him, again lost in translation. We were confused as he had nothing apparent to sell and hadn’t asked for money, we had no idea of his purpose. I decided he was a bit loco, but Spencer claimed that he was too well dressed, I decided he was a loco with a very caring mother (he was about 30). On our way back to the truck we stopped at a sweet stall where Mark and Kyle were buying something, we got a huge candy/toffee like Frisbee thing, walking away from the stall we see the man who had been following us again! Spencer waved him on his way and we continue on our merry way back tot he truck which is now guarded by about 10 men with guns. We figure a game of scrabble is in order and set up the board on the footpath, much to the amusement of passing traffic. After pomegranate, chocolate and cheese for lunch Jen, Jules and I were leading thanks to some great words like ferment and quin the local police arrive in even greater numbers and we are ushered to the police station, with about 20 tiles left to play we were sitting out the front of the police station whilst Mark was inside registering our details, the scrabble board had been carefully picked up and the game continued on the top of the esky in the back of the truck. The police escort followed us out of town, still sounding the occasional siren. We stopped on the outskirts of town so some people could have a swim in an irrigation channel with suspect floaters which looked remarkably like poo on the top. I declined a swim, immersing myself in poo water surrounded by armed Arab men and men armed with mobile phones with cameras didn’t really seem inviting! Spencer went in and smelt suspiciously like poo afterwards! Whilst sitting in the truck I realise that the man who was following us was sitting just outside the truck, with the police. Turns out he is an undercover tourist police, following us around to make sure we were safe and sound, and he was armed. Now I can say that I have sworn at an armed Arabic man in Africa and lived to blog the tale. My suggestion to the tourist police is to get ID cards made up to show the tourists that they are protecting exactly who they are. The only time I have felt uncomfortable in Egypt was because of the people who are there to protect me! We drove for a couple of hours still being followed by five armed police officers behind us, we made a bush camp behind a mobile phone tower and our police friends parked up behind us. They then left to head back into town for food and gear to sleep the night. After a ‘what would you do if you heard gunshots coming towards the truck and you were in the desert?’ type conversation over dinner (most people put down to run for the hills, despite the raging full moon that was leaving shadows across the land). I took some night shots of the truck and phone tower.

Camp by the mobile phone tower, you can see our police escort vehicle behind the truck

We woke up in the middle of the night to hear a car slow down on the highway and then pull off the road, I looked out of the tent to see lights pulling up two meters behind the truck. The occupants of the car got out and were standing around the truck holding a very loud conversation in Arabic. By this stage I am starting to plan what I am going to take for my evacuation into the desert if the situation declines. Eventually the second car leaves and the following day we discover that the original police escort abandoned us sometime during the night, ‘what the?...’ The next morning we stopped at a town called Mut, which had an old abandoned section of town.

Old Town, Mut

We went for a stroll through the ramshackle assortment of mud brick and straw houses that had been abandoned. We climbed to the top of one of the houses with a local man in tow who insisted that we come to his house for tea, with no time for tea before the truck left we declined the offer, he instead walked us back through the maze of alleyways to the truck. I used the toilet near the truck, only to be surprised by a local boy bathing in a green wheelie bin in the female toilets! Hilarious! Burbs was on cook group by himself that night, to speed the sightseeing process up so he had time for shopping, we had seen him sprinting through the old town with his camera out in front taking photos as he sped through. We continued on our way, stopping at Mut Well 3 for a swim in a hot spring at a hotel. The water was very brown and all our togs were filthy afterwards, but the water was warm and the closest thing any of us will get to a shower for six days. A man from the hotel was trying to sell us beers for 25 pound, they are usually about 8! You can buy 25 falafel burgers for 25 pound! After drying off we clambered back into the truck and continued down the road, passing some magnificent but barren mountains with not a scrap of foliage on them. We also passed some irrigated areas which were oddly green in the dry desert. We stopped at El Mozawaka tombs which is a small hill with tombs dug into it. You could look in and see bodies in the tombs, some had several in each and others were so close to the entrance that you could reach in and touch them if so inclined.

Spencer tries to pose as a photographer....he didn't fool anybody!

Untamed Outback...appropriate!

The following morning we stopped in a town called Farafar to buy lunch and for food group shopping. We continued onto some calcium carbonate formations in the desert, some photos and a game of Frisbee, we followed the backtrack for a while longer, seeing more stone formations and lots of alabaster laying on the side of the road.

Calcium carbonate formations, Western Desert

Burbs with his best Arab pose on!

Spencer and myself, Western Desert

Lunch time

The sand on the road was pretty soft in spots and eventually we came across a permanent tented camp with a swimming pool (there was not a drop of water or tree anywhere for miles). The man at the camp told us we would not be able to continue on the road in the truck, so we turned and made our way back tot he highway. We stopped in an area which was a petrified forest, we found many strange rocks and some petrified wood, some of which looks like petrified mangrove roots. With the calcium carbonate in the soil it was almost impossible to take your sunglasses off; to do so would be inviting snow blindness. That night we made camp in the White Desert Natural Preserve, which is full of white domes, which remind me of a smaller, white version of the bungle bungles in Western Australia, as we had driven past a police patrol and were not sure if camping was allowed we waited until after dark to put our tents up or fully unload the truck. A few of us went for a walk whilst waiting for the sun to set, we headed east and were surprised to find lots of other people camping nearby, complete with camels!

Corrogated road, White Desert Natural Preserve

Fisheye view of the White Desert

Myself, White Desert Natural Preserve

Other campers, White Desert

White Desert Natural Preserve

The Saffa brothers, White Desert

While packing up the following morning I almost fell over in the dish water that had been discarded, it had turned the ground more slippery than Teflon! Again I blamed my crocs and relived my ‘almost toilet disaster’ where my right foot slipped out from beneath me and the only thing that saved me from remaining, to this day, in splits position on the toilet floor was the fact that my pants were around my knees and therefore saved my legs from adopting the full splits position! We made a stop for lunch and cook group, chocolate pudding with last nights leftovers, awesome! I had been looking forward to Son’s chocolate pudding since Ethiopia! We stopped at a cultural museum which turned out to be a very weird place, no entry price signs, no person there a head of clay statues that people wanted to buy but the man kept saying they were not for sale, there were lots of rooms set up in a traditional manner and all made from clay. We were not sure if the man was trying to charge us money as we left, he seemed unable to produce a price for our five minute wander through the gallery. When we were climbing onto the truck he was hurriedly shouting Arabic into his phone, we assume trying to get the owner o the place there to sort things out, we were long gone....We continued down the road, upsetting more locals; after stopping and walking over to some old roman ruins, three opportunists followed us over trying to extract money from us by saying that the ruins were on property owned by them...yeah right! And besides, you would have more luck in squeezing blood out of a stone than money out of a group of people who have not worked for at least six months! They were persistent, following us right over to the truck and still asking for money as we were driving off! Sitting in the truck with people asking for money is common practice over here anyway! (I will point out that there was no ticket booth, fences, signs or anything at this site, the information that we had also said it was free).

Old Roman Ruins

That night we set up camp near another mobile phone tower, again, right on cue, a local man arrived to check out proceedings, but strangely, he didn’t want money and was happy for us to camp there! After dinner, before the long awaited chocolate pudding Kyle, Kenji, Gab and I wandered over to the train line. Ronald had used his blackberry earlier to look up the train timetable, but found that there were only freight trains on no set timetable that day (Ronald has become the truck librarian, finding out cricket scores, locations, train timetables and scrabble dictionary contents!) Armed with Canon cameras and me with a camp stool as a tripod (again cursing the bastard who has my tripod, hope they have poked out an eye with it) We take a couple of shots down the lines, talk some camera talk, all interesting stuff like f-stops, aperture, ISO’s etc etc, then we see a light up the track and think that ‘just maybe’ its a train, I look and announce it’s just a truck on the road, nope the ‘chuf, chuf, chuf, chuf’ sound does it, it’s a train, “cripes, I have a fish eye lens on and I’m in the desert, at night with a train coming!”, after contemplating allowing huge amounts of sand onto my sensor by changing lenses, I decide that without a proper tripod my photos are probably going to be pretty ordinary anyhow, so I leave the fisheye on. (a fisheye lens is a very wide angle view, meaning that it can capture a photo of almost 180 degree view, making everything look much smaller than it is in real life, still don’t understand...imaging the complete opposite of a telephoto zoom lens) A quick 30 second discussion about settings and who is going to do what and we are set up, staggered along the tracks about 2m from the expected train. I have always believed that trains create a sucking effect as they pass and tell everyone to secure their lens caps, as the train approaches we hear a man on the train yelling something to us, then we get blasted with sand...remember we are in the Western Desert of Egypt. I still wonder what the crew on the train must have thought when they saw us there, possibly assumed we were bandits! We had a variety of shots, all at different settings, but none compared to seeing the train barrelling through the desert in the middle of the night unexpectedly! After all 80 odd carriages pass it’s then time to compare our shots and then head back to the truck to clean off our beloved Canon cameras...gee I keep good company, only thing that would have made it better would have been Dranspaddock there with her Canon camera (and if I had a proper tripod!).

Kenji takes a long exposure photo of a passing freight train, Western Desert

What better place to lay on train tracks for a photo (this was after the train had passed!)

Downloading photos with the electricity from the phone tower, Western Desert....true Untamed Outback Images style!

After the sand has been eliminated from our pride and joys it’s time for chocolate pudding, complete with fresh strawberries and cream, awesome! Pudding was even better than last time and completed a great day in style! After dinner it was announced that when we arrive in Giza we will be having a full truck clean, everything, absolutely everything, out of the truck and clean. Following that announcement was another, that the following day would also be ‘no swear day’ to raise money for movember, Jen’s response “what? On truck cleaning day?” ‘No swear day?’ hmmm, now that’s a problem for me at the moment, it’s been far too long since I spent a day in a work place or with my mother (Hi Mum, love you!) that my swearing is out of control. I get out of the tent and my first word is a swear word!, at five pounds a word and no income, I announce a vow of silence for the day! (Yeah, those of you who know me, know that I have even less chance of achieving that as I do of not swearing or summiting Mt Everest without oxygen wearing a bikini). Mark paid a 200 pound “all you can swear pass” and was throwing words about, the rest of us couldn’t afford 200 pounds for the luxury of unlimited profanities so had to keep them in check. I did notice a wider use of the English language that day! We drove through fog into Giza, the fog cleared to show smog! We stopped at a service station to get the chassis of the truck pressure sprayed then headed into our campsite, seeing a decapitated horse floating in the drain. 20 million people (only two million less than the whole of Australia) live in Cairo and traffic is crazy!, every road appears to be a one way street so we ended up doing a few laps to get to the campsite. On the way we got our first glance at the pyramids, ‘crickey, they are big!’ After aspiring to see the pyramids since I was about 12, I was prepared to be disappointed, but I was able to announce that I was impressed already! We had a bit of time for lunch before truck cleaning started...errr, or should I say the bitch and whinge fest! From where I was scrubbing and cleaning everyone looked to be getting right in and doing a good job, but there are some people who will find fault at anything that some people do...emphasis on the ‘some’. I put my head down and scrubbed and seemed to avoid any shrapnel. It was a bloody big job, when it was said that ‘everything’ came out oft he truck, it was no kidding. Even the seats were removed and scrubbed, all the food items were washed, sugar, tea and spice containers emptied and washed then refilled, cutlery, plates etc, pots were scrubbed back to silver. It is good to use clean gear again, I am glad that there are no dusty roads between Cairo and Istanbul! Afterwards most people indulged in a beer, ‘no swear day’ appeared to be over so we all indulged in a tad of swearing and I had a soft drink! Yay! After the drinks it was time for a shower, the first in six days, heaven!

Truck cleaning day

The following morning we headed to the pyramids, upon arrival the truck was thoroughly searched and we had to walk in through security and meet the truck on the inside. The saffa brothers decided to get on their Arab get-up and before we could say ‘Arabs’ the whole truck were reinvented as Arabs, I have to say that it just completed my pyramid experience to see all of us dressed up! We wandered around the great pyramid (Cheops) which is the largest at 146m, followed by the pyramid of Khafre (Chephren) which is the one you see with part of the limestone veneer still intact. It is smaller than Chephren, but is sits on higher ground so looks taller. The inside of a pyramid is hot and stuffy and incredibly narrow. After entering the passage way drops away sharply and is enough to invite claustrophobia. There were no paintings like inside the tombs and all the artefacts have since been moved to the Cairo museum or to other museums around the world. It’s impressiveness is in the mass of small tunnels designed to trick any tomb robbers and the awareness of millions of tonnes of bricks over your head! We got back on the truck and drove up to the viewing point, now I thought that the truck attracted a lot of attention before... but that’s nothing compared to the attention an overland truck full of Arab impersonators at the Great Pyramids of Giza attracts! At the viewing point we were aware of some people taking photos of us instead of the pyramids! We then made our way down to the sphinx; only half of it is open for viewing so it was a push and shove fest to bustle your way into a position to get a photo. Tour guides really need to sort their s&*t out and not decide to talk to a group of 50 people in a doorway, blocking the other 100 people a minute wanting to get through that doorway!. The Sphinx was not as impressive as I had imagined it to be, maybe I should have viewed it before the pyramids, at 20 odd meters high, it’s a short ass compared to a 146m pyramid! The sphinx really needs his nose back, Napoleons army shot it off and now its in the British museum...send it back! Selleys should sponsor the glue to stick the honker back on!

AK (Adam Kennedy) and Spencer at Giza

Myself and Spencer, Arab style

Spencer and myself infront of the second pyramid

Getting back on the truck

Hendrick, Spencer, Myself, AK, Burbs, Son, Kenji and Ronald at the pyramids lookout

Ronald, Burbs and Spencer, Giza

Spencer was on cook group that night; he whipped up veggie burgers that most of the carnivores preferred over the beef variety. The following morning we had an early start for the short drive into Cairo, mainly to avoid the traffic and also to ensure there was a parking spot (or three consecutive ones) in the car park where the truck will be parked up for the four days we will be in Cairo. Even early in the morning the traffic was ridiculous, the truck did some pruning of the trees down a couple of side streets. Our hotel is good, on the ninth floor above KFC, opposite the train station and over the road from the museum. Spencer and I headed off to get some supplies, after checking the museum opening times and turning down many, many taxis we cross the Nile on foot, about the 30^th time we have crossed the Nile in the past three months. We took the train down to the main train station to book tickets to Alexandria in a few days time, what an experience!, the station is undergoing renovations and the ticket counted has been moved, we had to find the tourist police to ask where it was as most of the signs were in Arabic, we find the ticket office (we had previously walked into it but not realised we were in the right place) We line up at one counter and wait, then are surprised and pleased to find that the man behind the glass speaks English, he directs us to the next counter, we wait at the next counter until he man who pushed in front of us is served and then are redirected back tot he original counted, again we wait till the rude bastard who has pushed in (honestly there is nothing bar physical violence, that you can do against a huge Egyptian man wearing a suit who pushes in front of you) So we are then redirected back to the other counter, ‘what the?’ No, we are directed two counters up! With the interpretive help of a local man we buy our tickets, all written in Arabic! It shall be interesting trying to find the right platform! We get the train back to our stop but decide to ride the trains for a bit, what the hell, our ticket cost all of 20 Aussie cents, lets get full value out of it! Depending where the train was on the line would depend on the amount of people on it. Riding Egyptian trains when they are empty is great, when they are full is not so great, 90% of the inhabitants are males and 100% of them are sleazy, even the kids! Damage done; one old man knocked for six by both myself and then Spencer, hey I was going out the exit door, he was attempting to barge in before I had left the train, he deserved everything he got! 3 boys got ‘the bird’ from both Spencer and I and five young boys were ignored for their stupidity and massacring of the English language. One helpful man shunned as we had had enough by that stage! We then go searching for a card reader, after over 50 shops (Spencer sitting beside me claims it was 200!) I find one, and a tripod! Spencer had not been at all in favour of me buying another tripod that was anything less than perfect or anything cheaper than super-expensive as he claims that he is sick of hearing me bitch and whinge about substandard tripods....well I was going to wait till I got home for a great one, but I feel like I have a brand new BMW in my tripod (compared to resting a ridiculously expensive camera on a camp stool) and will make sure never to whinge about it’s short comings (at least in Spencers earshot!) we then attempt to find the truck, not as easy as we thought, round and round in circles, my feet aching from carrying my camera bag and tripod miles and miles, we arrive back at the hotel after way too may km’s and way too many people trying to extract coin out of us and after one man telling us to ‘walk like an Egyptian’, I mean what the? No one in Egypt walks like that!

Today we spent the morning at the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, when lonely planet described it as having too many artefacts, I didn’t take too much notice, but there simply are too many artefacts! Over 100,000! It put me more in mind of a storage shed than a museum. We paid the extra to go into the royal mummies room, looking upon a 3000+ year old mummy is a weird experience. From there we checked out Tutankhamen’s treasures, another weird time, I vaguely remember seeing the Tutankhamen exhibition at the Melbourne museum when I was a kid, I don’t think I understood much about him at the time, but remember being amazed at the funary mask. Seeing it again on the other side of the world so many years on seemed surreal. Spencer feels that they possibly would have used a copy for the exhibition in Melbourne, shall have to research that one! Seeing so many artefacts has me in a mixed mind about the Cairo museum, way too much Egyptian history in one place, just imagine if the museum was destroyed? The reason it is all there was originally to protect if from tomb robbers, however so many of the statues and stone work could be returned to the temples, especially Karnak, which I said earlier appeared to me missing the finer details, well it is, they are all in the museum in Cairo!

Toilet break, Western Desert

Truck waits for us as Crystal Mountain, Western Desert

Egypt; Aswan and Luxor, Tombs, Temples and Taxis... and "No, I don't want a horse ride, a felucca trip, or anything else you are trying to sell me!"

2010-11-21T16:28:00.001+02:00

View across the Nile from Aswan McDonalds

We checked out of the ‘luxury’ of our Aswan hotel (hey, if I have a toilet and shower that I can use without protective gear or walking outside, it’s luxury!) 14 of us headed down towards the river to find our felucca, a traditional Egyptian sail boat. We were all pleased to see that there was no seats onboard, just a big, bed, sort of like a giant version of ‘the beach’ on the truck, but room enough for everyone and it doubled as our dining room. After zig-zagging up the Nile for a short time we had to stop at a police checkpoint, seems they are even on the river! We have a super-close viewing of the hull of one of the large cruise ships which sail up and down the Nile with hundreds of scantily clad European tourists in swim wear which should be banned, sunning themselves on the deck of their top level pool. Luckily we turned just in time, and continued our zig-zag course, which I believe is called ‘tacking’ up the river. We stopped by the side for lunch; flatbread with all the trimmings. After a conversation centred around ‘just how far Allison walks to go to the toilet’ (honestly, I think I have done more squatting in my lifetime than 99% of people!, but obviously still have hung onto my prudish ways! Unbeknown to me, my toileting walks have been the talk of the truck) We continue on our merry way, most people sucking down Stella beers and me being a grumpy ass about NOT sucking down stella beer! We ‘park’ our felucca on the side of the river near a sandy bank, with a toilet which has seen way too many s&*ts and far too few cleans in it’s very long life span. A couple of people jump off the felucca for a swim, a few head off to the river bank for some photos and a ‘nature walk’ whilst others remain in laying luxury of the felucca, watching the waters of the Nile pass by.

Mosque, Aswan

Aswan, taken from the roof of Hathor Hotel

Abu Simbel

Artwork, Abu Smbel

Abu Simbel

Felucca as through the fisheye

Felucca passes under a bridge

Me, relaxing on the felucca

Spencer drinking his Stella

Jules, Jen and Ish stike a pose

Felucca on the Nile

Our 'Campsite'

That night we headed into the local village for dinner, We sat on the floor of a villagers house and devoured more flat bread, this time with different trimmings, and removed ourselves outside. We started getting smashed by sandflies and the conversation turned again to photography, much to the disappointment of those amongst us who are not into photography (they number about three). Kyle points out that my red crocs are surrounded by black sandals in the doorway so I attempt to take a photo, which turns out to be many photos due to my attempt to use my flash unit with a fish eye lens...hmm, the flash only illuminates a part of the almost 180 degree view of the fisheye! A couple of men sitting inside beckon me in and ask me to take their photographs, now this is quite amusing as I have the fisheye lens on, which turns out some wicked distortions at times, these guys have possible seen as many cameras on as many occasions as I have been wrong, so they were quite amused with their partially distorted images on the LCD screen. From there I attempted to get their address so that I can mail them some photos when I get home, not an easy task with little English on their side and no Arabic on my behalf, I hope that I got the address right.

Dinner on the floor in the village

Love the red crocs

Two men who were very amused to see themselves through the fisheye

We were then invited into the adjoining house to take photographs, initially we thought that the ladies were shy as they scurried off when we appeared looking like the paparazzi, they had their head coverings off and quickly went to affix them and put on some make-up! One lady was more than happy to sit on the bed whilst her young child was sleeping whilst I took a photo, even the flash firing didn’t make the child stir, much less the noise of 5 or 6 ‘photographers’ or the excitement of the women.

Mother and child, local village

Myself with local lady

m&m man tries his hands at sailing

We slept on the felucca, the waves from the passing luxury liners rocking us to sleep nicely. Our alarm clock sounded at 4.50am to the tune of ‘allah, allah, allah....arrr, arrrggg, ahhhh, allah’. , like seriously is there nowhere in this country where you can escape the speaker range of a mosque? Honestly, we could see no infrastructure from our Nile camp, so how the hell could allah dial a direct line into our felucca at 4.50am? We had a leisurely breakfast and then floated across the river, following the direction of the current until it was swimming time (we were about 100m away from camp!). The water was fantastic, after three laps around the felucca came the hard task of climbing back into it; well no one told me that! Once back in we drift another short distance before lunch is served, the staple flatbread with a slightly varied set of trimmings this time around. That afternoon we set up camp in the felucca on the shore of the Nile, seemingly a mile away from anywhere, still not far enough to escape the clutches of allah, though... Sleeping on the felucca was a very comfortable affair, for anyone wanting to try it my advice is to gain a front row pew, feluccas are widest at the front, meaning that you will not be kicking (or being kicked) by the person on the other side of the felucca. The down shot of the front row is that the food will need to be passed over your bed so you need to sit up at least three times a day!

Lunch onboard the felucca

Spencer looking like he is working

Lunchtime!

After departing from the felucca we boarded a mini van, (well, lose use of the word boarded, more likely we breathed in and slammed the door before someone spilled back out!) Honestly, can 14 people, one esky, 44 beers, 6 boxes of water and all gear for three days really fit into ONE Toyota hiace? Of course! There was even room for one more, and possibly a chicken or two if required!

We stopped at Ombo to see the Temple of Haroeis, then continued on to Edfu where we visited the Temple of Horus, one of the best preserved temples in Egypt. Walking around Horus, it became apparent that Horus wasn’t the main tourist attraction, the tourists themselves were, and they were all entered into a competition to find the worst dressed tourist of 2010. Honestly, some of these people really need a good amount of time in front of a mirror to sort out their image. There is a huge difference between the attire of a tourist on a one country trip to Egypt and Africa overland travellers; one is functional, the other is not.!

Temple of Horus

For those of you that know me, you know that I do not pretend to be into fashion in any way, by either wearing it or taking an interest in it. Regardless of this fact, I still think that I have something to offer the general Egypt traveller in the way of fashion advice and here it is...

There is absolutely no need for stilettos of any colour, size, shape or design whilst walking in the Valley of the Kings. The Kings are not going to care whether your shoes match our outfit (which is possibly on it’s own level of ridiculousness) and Tutankhamen’s eyes were dried up too moons ago to notice your footwear

If you are fair skinned and live in a country where you get five minutes of sunshine a year then it’s just poor fashion sense to wear a green singlet when you are going to be in the sun all day long. It’s an old one but it’s still good “red and green should never be seen” needs to be adhered to, especially when in such royal company, AND when that royal company does not care much for Christmas decorations!

If you are over the age of 40 and you are NOT in the 0.10% of the population who’s butt is genetically (or surgically) not prone to drooping, then wear respectable length shorts. No one except sleazy Egyptian men want to see sagging middle aged ass cheeks hanging beneath the hem of your shorts. This crime is heightened by a high waistband, anything above the belly button went out in the early nineties, and that’s the way it should stay!

White, frilly and lacy dresses have two uses; 1. On your dolls, when you are like 8 years old. 2. on your wedding day. A day of sightseeing should not be confused with either of the above situations, for most people who are not mentally challenged, it should be apparent that they are not getting married at that ancient temple or that they are not a doll living in a huge stone dolls house. Leave the frills at home girls! For the good of the universe and just to help out our fellow human beings, it’s a great idea to help these poor, lost souls out by informing them that it’s NOT their wedding day, for best effect, ensure a large crowd is nearby.

There is no need to wear matching shirt and pants (unless you are being paid for your presence at a workplace)There is also no need for team uniforms in any marriage, AND THERE IS DEFINATLY NO NEED FOR HUSBAND AND WIFE, TOP AND BOTTOM MATCHING UNIFORMS! (well, maybe there is a need; entertainment value, the initial sighting, the photo shoot and laughing with fellow travellers and posting the photo online for the world to see (well maybe just the 150 odd people who view this each week! He he he

You can never have enough red zebra t-shirts for travel (or home or work for that matter), they are a functional, sensible addition to any wardrobe, especially when teamed up with a pair of red crocs. Safety note on the crocs, many African toilets have large amounts of a liquid that I hope to be water on the floors, wearing crocs with a worn down sole is an extreme sport in this setting

See? no need for matching uniforms!

We finally arrive in Luxor, clamber out of the minivan, some of us with luggage permanently embedded into our ribs, to appreciate the new sign writing on the truck and appreciate the new lights fitted tot he passenger cab (the truck now doubles as a disco hall) Our taxi driver stands around hoping that one of us is going to pay him a tip, nope, way too many Aussies and Kiwis in this minivan! The driver eventually tries to extract money from Mark, another Aussie, still no luck!

The following day Spencer is on cook group so heads out with Hendrick in search of food for that night and the following morning. We then set out to purchase a ‘teacher card’ which enables us half price entry into most sites in Egypt, after an hour on this task, and one McDonalds session later we head back to camp without the cards so that I can go fishing that afternoon. Now maybe I am used to decent fishing gear, or maybe I am a fishing snob, along with being a fish snob, but I must sat that I was not at all impressed when handed an eggbeater reel that had to be hand fed out and hand fed in on a crappy rod with a hook hanging of the end of a monofilament line, no leader, no sinker, no floater, no worm....yep, worm, it wasn’t on the hook then, but it sure was in a minute. Apparently the Egyptians put their worms on a little different than us (Nah, f&*k off, who fishes with worms, apart from those afflicted with the intestinal type), the second mate openly laughed at how I had impaled my worm, and finished the little bastard off by impaling it from head to (almost tail) on the hook, then ripping the poor thing in half and throwing the rest overboard....burly anyone? After trolling my worm carcass for 20m I give up in disgust and decide to take up drinking again. Burbs caught two tiny fish, like 3cm, but with a little creative photography and a whole lot of Photoshop may look promising!, Kenji also pulled in a whale sized catch...well maybe in 40-60 years!

We drift back across the Nile (seriously we haven’t even moved out of sight from where we departed from!) and take a swim, after washing my bikini that morning and rushing to organise myself for fishing, mine is hanging off the tent, so I decide to do the underwear swim. After four cans of Stellar beer we pull back into the wharf and I announce that I need to go tot he toilet, and what a great decision! I used the most fantastic toilet, it was clean, sparkly, had soap, toilet paper, marble floors AND handtowels, but not the paper hand towels, it had REAL handtowels, YES the real ones that you use and put in the little basket to be washed...well not mine....I acquired that to aid with my hygiene routine whilst in the western desert! (No I am usually not so wound up in bathrooms, and I have used many great bathrooms in my years, just not THIS year!, this one was like sight to a blind man!)

From there six of us headed into a bar for more beers and some sheesha. We started to walk the couple of kilometres home but after being offered a horse ride, (about the 100,000th for that day) and getting all six of us in the carriage for 10 Egyptian pounds, ($1.60AUD) we took up the offer. Arriving back at camp we find dinner on the table, fish and chips, or ‘fush ‘n chups’ for the kiwis, have another beer, talk some s&%t then clamber into our tents.

The following day Spencer and I managed to purchase our teacher cards, for 95 Egyptian pounds; the first people to buy there’s paid 85, the next paid 90, then we were charged 95?.....reason, recouping of lost profits, they had overcharged Jen the previous day by 10 pounds, when he asked us where we were staying he added the 10 pounds onto our price! AND THEN...asked us to get Jen to bring the extra change back...hmmm, now that was an instruction which was lost in translation!

Avenue of Sphinxes

From there we headed to the Luxor Temple an amazing place. The avenue of the sphinxes once had 730 human headed lion stone carvings; it was amazing enough to see the 50 odd that remain! We dodged and weaved our way through the busloads of tourists clad in matching uniforms, short shorts, short tops and everything else which constitutes as a fashion crime.

Luxor Temple

Later that afternoon saffa (South African) Robert and I headed off on our food mission for cook group, armed with a cooks.com curry recipe and a recipes.com.au golden syrup dumplings recipe we head in the direction of the market, turning down the countless offers of “taxi”, and “horse ride”. Arriving at the market we realise at once that it is a Friday afternoon, (Friday is the day of rest here) and that few shops are left open. After walking away from a produce seller after he continued to charge us too much for some potatoes, we added up the price of the 2kg of spuds which had caused the issue, 60cents! We find another produce seller and get some fruit and vegies and a tip off of where to find some meat, we are advised to take a taxi to find the wonderful market where there is a meat counter ‘this long’ (like 5m long), Robert gets the taxi driver to take us for 5 pounds, down from the initial asking price of 20 pounds, he assures us that he knows where we want to go, Robert has memorised the name and keeps saying it, after two left hand turns it’s apparent that he does not know of the meat counter ‘this long’ and we pull over for an interpreter. Ahh, it’s not ‘hafallll it’s hafalll’ he says... hmmm, sounds the same to me! We turn left, again, and again and I think maybe another 20 times and I am bamboozled, I announce that I have no idea which direction I’m facing and that I would have no way of finding my way back to the camp. Then we pull up out the front of the same supermarket where Spencer and I had got food for lunch, it’s a long way to walk home with food for 20 people! We purchase all required gear for the feast, only substitution was a date syrup instead of golden syrup, which turns out to be an excellent substitute if you can source any date syrup at home! And get the bloke from the supermarket to drive us back to camp for 3 pounds, bargain!

The Muslim lady on the check out gives me a funny look (or maybe I’m just paranoid), but I think she was wondering how in the space of three hours I had shopped with one bloke, then returned to do another shop with another, this one about 5 years younger than the first! Tea was good, dumplings seemed a hit and the mess was all cleaned up pretty early. This was only the second time I have had to cook since Nairobi, I will possibly not have to cook for another two weeks, luxury!

After a breakfast of pomegranate, banana, pineapple, oranges, yoghurt, flatbread and cereal Spencer, Kaye and I head to the West Bank of the Nile in search of the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. We manage a private boat across the Nile for one pound each, although this took a bit of negotiating and a couple of walk-offs. Once at the other side, we set out on foot for the ticket office and then to Valley of the Kings. On the way we come across a taxi driver and hire him to take us to the ticket office for 2 pounds, he turns lemons into lemonade and manages to sign us up for a full day of private taxiing for 80 pounds, he also tells us to go first to the Valley of the Queens as the tour buses start off at the Valley of the Kings. Valley of the Queens has three tombs open currently, there is absolutely no photography at any of these sites, but I can tell you that there is some amazing artwork adorning the walls of the tombs. I am still not sure why the Bangles had a hit song called ‘Walk like an Egyptian” I am still to notice anyone walking in the manner of the film clip, and the only strange thing I could say is that in all the artwork, every Egyptian is shown standing with their legs straight and feet both facing the one direction; a very uncomfortable looking sideways!

Valley of the Queens

Temple of Hatshepsut,

Myself at Temple of Hatshepsut,

We then head to the Valley of the Kings, a much more impressive version of the Valley of the Queens. What amazed me the most was the mountain range in which you could not find one blade of grass, or bush or tree, it’s just nothing...expected when it hasn’t rained here for over 2 years!

I coughed up the extra money to pay a visit to the mummified body of Tutankhamen and his tomb, Spencer couched up the money to see the Ramses IX tomb, then we viewed Thutmosis, Siptah and Ramses III. Which were all very impressive in their own way, We arrived back at the taxi late to find the taxi driver was not at all happy about being kept waiting, or paying the 5 pound to re-enter the car park in search of us! Last historical stop for that day was the funary Temple of Hatshepsut, which is a huge building carved out and built in sandstone into the limestone hills. This is the place where 60 odd people were murdered by Islam extremists in the 90’s, although you wouldn’t know it today, there is no memorial or signs, just the part of the temple where the atrocities occurred (people were tortured and disembowelled) remains closed.

We manage to find a boat to take us back for one pound, this time we managed to find a boat with three crew who were all stoned off their faces and offering us joints, err, no thinks, just sail! Now had I any hesitations about how stoned they were, I had confirmed the fact when the man said we had paid ‘too much’....hello, we are in Egypt, nothing is ever too much!

The following morning we were up at 5am, this wasn't an issue as the calls of Allah roused us at about 4.40am! Into a taxi, onto a boat to cross tot he west bank, another taxi and then we piled into our balloon. Spencer and I managed to secure a corner spot, the basket contained smaller pens, each for 3 'bigger' or 4 normals...we were in the normal category! We drifted slowly over some amazing sites, and many that we had seen the previous day, sighted Valley of the Queens, and lifted up to 1000m to see the Valley of the Kings. The view over the Nile was amazing, it is like a great big green snake, weaving it's way through a barron desert. Even the desert was better from the air, you could see all the areas where water would run off with rain, not that it occurs often! It had been quite cool overnight, but the gas burners kept us warm, too warm! I had to turn my face away when we were rising as it felt like my skin was melting! We had a smooth landing, in our brace positions, I ended up behind Spencer as there was not enough room in our basket to go side by side, so I was glad that the basket didn't tip as I would have been squashed beneath him and my camera bag was in the mix somewhere too!

Getting ready for lift off

Nearing the Valley of the Queens

The gas burner is unbelievably hot

Temple of Ramses

Jen and Jules were in the rainbow balloon on the right of this photo

Pasture land

Nile river makes an interesting contrast against the desert

Packing up

From here we head out to the Western Desert tomorrow to check out some more desert and the oasis's, then onto Cairo and Giza!

“Walk like an Egyptian”.....errr, more like "Push and Shove like an Egyptian"!

2010-11-15T00:10:00.002+02:00

After a ‘mission’ to buy a hat and some dinner from the supermarket which went less smoothly than expected, I am possibly not in the best mood to be typing this....however it may make for more amusing reading for you lot!

So I find myself, after four days in the country amazed by the amount of pushing and shoving that occurs every moment of the day, both on the roads, on the foot paths and in the shops. Unbelievable, it’s worse than a public school canteen line when the teacher ‘forgets’ their yard duty!

So how is it that you handle yourself in a country where ‘pushing in’ is not just culture, not just a pastime, not a national obsession, not even a way of life, it’s just NORMAL? Honestly, lining up is as foreign to Egypt as 10mm of rainfall! I even witnessed our driver pushing his bus in to get in front of the bus ahead of us whilst we were in an armed convoy! Like we were going to get anywhere faster! Tonight at the supermarket I ended up with two boxes of biscuits being thrust almost up my nose and imbedded into my brain by a lady wanting to be served before us, and our groceries were half way scanned! She did manage to push well in front of the 20 other people with outstretched goods, a respectable effort some would say!
Walking down the footpath is a slower version of what occurs on the roads, there is no noticeable side to drive or walk on, just the side that looks the best at any given moment. Foot traffic has a habit of stopping still, halting traffic flow or veering wildly without indication, just like on the roads. Kids are a law onto themselves (well that’s true in every country!) But I cannot resist telling you of the kid who couldn’t see me in my bright yellow t-shirt with bright green zebras on it, like six of the stripy animals, wearing my bright red crocs and carrying my bloody huge yellow and black bumblebee looking camera bag and crashed right into my hip, yeah collected straight onto the hip bone with his skull bone making a thud, now it hurt me, but he must have concussion! I just dread the day when he starts driving...possibly in two years!

So for anyone travelling to Egypt soon, here is the benefit of my experience of pushing with the best of them (I have accumulated three bruises in learning the following)-

1. Sharpen your elbows, seriously, if you are spending more than one month here, you may want to consider a surgical procedure to make the point of your elbow sharper
2. Get a big bag, preferably with sharp edges, and a handle which allows maximum control for swinging wildly at people
3. Aim for the parts that hurt; kidneys, ribs and the neither regions on males are the only areas to bother landing an elbow, suitcases are ideal for shins and thighs and work remarkably on ribs and heads; although be wary of taking out anyone who has their head at a height where you can easily smash it with a suitcase, either they are a midget and you will be accused of discrimination, or someone else has hit them before you and you may get accused of laying injuries that you just didn’t dish out
4. “Cant beat them join them”... this is the pure reason why Egypt has adopted a national sport of pushing and shoving. No one person will ever change how things are, not even you! You can stand back and be civilised, but you will die of starvation or old age right there! Get your elbows out and get ready if you want to see anything in this country!

After you have pushed and shoved your way into the country (yep, customs at the border was still the worst ‘shove-fest’ that I have been a part of, I’m still cleaning the man sweat from my arms!) you then need to contend with the millions of sleazy men in this country. I am not sure if the sleaze is due to the excitement over a white female who is showing more than her eyes to the world, or if it is the erotically shaped coke bottles in these parts (I know that coke bottles are designed to look like a woman’s torso, but these are just unbelievable, closer to Barbies proportions than a normal coke bottle! AND only hold 191ml, now what use is 191ml when it’s 40 degrees?) It is common practice for men to hit on females, I wonder if they are surprised when foreigners actually say ‘no’! Just be careful not to stand in the back of a shop as most shop keeps are males and the shops always seem to have a small entry and exit area where the shop keeper tends to stand in, blocking you in!

I am missing the relative peace and quiet of Sudan, Egypt being a tourist country has perfected all the tourist trap tricks like over inflated prices and the old “where are you from?” Like you really give a s&*t where I am from? You didn’t even listen when I said I was from China and you just told me you were from China too! You just want to get my money out of me quickly! So far today we have been asked if we were from Slovakia, Ireland, South Africa, China, Australia, Ireland again, and Slovakia again, People didn’t flinch when I said I was from Slovakia and New Zealand, but I’m not sure what the bloke who asked if I was from Ireland was on, way to tanned for that!

Yesterday Morning we were up at 2.30am to board a bus at 3am for Abu Simbel The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside during the 13th century, the complex was relocated in its entirety in the 1960s it was cut into blocks and removed and placed back together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. The relocation of the temples was necessary to avoid their being submerged during the creation of Lake Nasser, which is the lake we took the overnight ferry from Sudan to Egypt on. It is a massive artificial water reservoir formed after the building of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River. Still amazed that you have to take a ferry from Sudan to Egypt, I did hear the conspiracy theory that the ferry company was paying off the roads authority to NOT build a road connecting the two countries to protect their earnings!

So we get on the bus to be told “sometimes I drive left, I drive right, I drive left, but don’t worry” by our driver….way too early in the morning for such statements! Besides after four months in Africa, I don’t really need to be told that we are going to be careening from one side of the road to the other, it’s a given! We follow seemingly hundreds of buses of every colour more suited to an haawain shirt than a bus, into a parking lot. Before we are able to enter the underside of our bus is checked with the torch and mirror set-up, we are then allowed in and start to form up our convoy for the three hour drive to Abu Simbel. The buses travel in convoy through the desert for protection from hijackers or terrorists. Sitting in one of over one hundred buses, I figure the odds of something happening to our bus were less than 1%, with 24 people on our bus, odds of us getting hurt approximately .02%, with this peace of mind I fell asleep in my basic “fly catcher position” for most of the journey, waking up just to watch the sunrise over the desert. An African sunrise still fails to disappoint me, just how do they make the sun look so bloody big in the sky? Surely it’s the same sun that we watch in Australia at, like half the size! Yeah, Yeah, I know it’s something to do with the dust in the atmosphere, the best sunrise that I have ever seen was the one at Johannesburg and I recon that had something to do with the pollution!

So we arrive at Abu Simbel to check out the temples and stand in awe that these giant structures could have ever been relocated! I was also very amused at some graffiti on the walls, dated 1879! That’s a hundred years older than I am, but still recent history in these parts! After tripping over camera wielding tourists in some of the worst attire ever sewn (seriously there must have been a convention of bad fashion and unfortunate looking people on in Abu Simbel that night; whoever was waving ‘the ugly stick’ had been really busy!) we make our way inside the temples, disappointed that I couldn’t take any photos, but super impressed with the hieroglyphics and the good lighting illuminating the insides. The day just got hotter and hotter, and inside the temples was surprisingly hot, but that may have had something to do with the ridiculous amount of people dressed in terrible fashion crammed into a small space! (and you all know that I am not one to speak of fashion, or care about it much, or know much about it, lets face it I have survived in the same three t-shirts for the past 4 months…..but, these people were dressed sooo badly, that even I noticed!) After trying to get photos outside whilst dodging tourists we headed up to have a cool drink on the grass before getting back on the bus and leaving with the convoy. If you ever get to Abu Simbel, stay at Abu Simbel and check the place out in the afternoon, all the tourists who come from Aswan all spend the same hours there and leave in the same convoy, it’s deserted for the rest of the day!

That night was Sonya’s 30th birthday, we adjourned to the roof top pool dressed as Arabs to celebrate over beer and pizza. Well just Pizza and one beer for me as I am still off the booze. Even Spencer dressed up, which I calculate to be the second time in the almost 9 years I have know him to dress up. He wore the traditional Arab white flowing gown, I wore a dark blue with red embroidery frock with an aqua and silver scarf covering up any hint that I was a female. Now these head coverings are darn hot, and I still had my face out! Not to mention dangerous, they are held together with pins, and not of the safety variety! Whilst in the shop, where the man said I could have the scarf cheaper if I gave him a kiss, sleaze! He tied and pinned it to my head, over my other head covering (it’s way too taboo for a man to take off a woman’s head cover!) and then got me to look into the mirror, as though it was a dress, not a scarf that was taking away my identity! He then got me to try my sunglasses on with it! I guess looks are important!

The Arab night went really well, we have decided to have an Arab day out in the western desert on one of our ‘driving days’, although I will leave the headwear in the locker and just wear my frock which resembles a grannies bed wear!, but useful in the heat. I was even considering that it would make a good Darwin dress, sweat could just roll down to your ankles without hitting a hint of material!

Tomorrow morning we board a felucca (boat) to cruise up the Nile for three days, stopping to check out temples etc arriving in Luxor, after five days in Luxor we are off into the Western Desert, more sand!
(Don't get too used to regular blogs, just taking advantage of great internet connections lately!)

Swinging Elbows, Out of Control Luggage and the "Dodgy Red Shirted Creepy bloke" on the Overnight Ferry

2010-11-11T21:26:00.004+02:00

So I’m going on a different tangent with this blog, it’s the ‘how to’ approach from Wadi Halifa in Sudan to Aswan in Egypt, hopefully someone follows in my footsteps and finds this useful!

How to S&*t in a Sudanese Toilet

Yeah, we all think we know exactly how to s#%t in a toilet, but we all have to admit that we could improve our toileting routine, especially whilst in Sudan. Here are the steps I found most effective for disaster prevention in this area-

Before leaving your hotel room, tent or entering the toilet roll the legs of your pants up and gather toilet paper, ensure that you have eaten before this stage as the following steps will kill any appetite that you may develop in the next five to eight years
Start a seek and find mission for the water tank or water tub (sometimes in the form of a 44 gallon drum), and full your ‘poo pourer’, which is basically a little watering can which most likely has poo on the handle, take this poo pourer into the ‘toilet’ with you
Upon entering the ‘toilet’ you will see my use of the ‘, calling some of these concrete enclosures a ‘toilet’ is abuse of the word ‘toilet’, in my book a ‘toilet’ has certain qualities, like ventilation
Don’t ever, ever, ever close the door fully, you put yourself at risk of two things; 1. Suffocation from the fumes laying in that concrete enclosure. 2. Being forever entombed in the concrete enclosure as it’s a rare door latch that works in this part of the world! Basically, the best thing that can happen is that someone sees your ass mid squat! Worst, death by poo fume suffocation....leave the door open!
Enter carefully, checking the walls for smears, the floor for coils of poo and puddles of urine waiting to cling onto your clothes that will possibly not be washed for weeks and possibly trip you over in the worst place to fall, the poo pile!
The next step is the solving of a dilemma; to face forwards or backwards. Many people feel better about being sighted whilst over the hole facing away from their sighter, where no eye contact is made, whilst others prefer to face the door, and their possible sighter! With the door open, I believe that facing the said door offers more air flow than facing the back will, which is usually covered in shit splatters anyhow
Spread your feet wide, and then wider still, something about Sudanese ‘toilets’ (or just a hole in the floor) causes way too much splashback for feet to be too close to the hole
I am not going to go into exactly how to shit, if you can read this, hopefully you have worked it out by now, what I will say is that scientific research has found that squat toilets are much better on the human insides than the pedestal (otherwise known as European toilets). And that you need to make sure you ass hole is over the hole, and this is vital for everyone else who uses the hole after you!
After you finish your ‘business’ ensure you drop your paper in the right place, this could be one of two options. If the toilet smells really, really bad, then the plumbing is shit (pardon the pun) and toilet paper is not to go down the hole, there will be a basket for the used toilet paper, it will look like a brown and white smashed up cat in a poo covered basket!, if the plumbing is OK, drop the paper right near the hole, this will minimise the amount of water needed to flush away your ‘job’ and reduce the time spent in the concrete enclosure and so reduce the amount of poo particles that you inhale into your lungs
After leaving, roll your pants legs down and check your feet for telling ‘splatters’ and find some form of water to wash your hands as well as possible, but always follow up with an antibacterial hand wash or savlon type rinse; honestly our bodies were just not designed to take in the germs that you will find in some of these s^*t houses
Return to travelling companions and talk about the details of your poo house visit, compare with their recent poo house visits and look forward to the next instalment of the poo house story.

How to ‘shower’

Regardless of how many showers you may have undergone in developed countries and underdeveloped countries, you will find that you need to adopt a different method of showering in Sudan. A lack of water and shonky pipes means that you will find yourself in a concrete enclosure with a decrepit shower head that hasn’t worked for the best part of a century and a few buckets, what to do-

Prepare yourself as much as possible before leaving your room, if the distance to the shower is not great and if there are few people around you may wish to ‘towel it’ to the shower, this will depend on the size of your ass and the size of your towel, me, being a prude, does not ‘towel it’ to the shower. Watches, hair bands, hair coverings all need to be left in the room, along with moisturisers, deodorants etc; there is time for these later!
Choose your concrete enclosure carefully, if they are in a line with the toilets, choose the one furthest from the toilet to hopefully minimise the poo fumes coming up from the drain, in choosing your enclosure, you want to make sure that there is a door lock of some description, a clean floor and adequate drainage.
Hunt down the water tank, use a smaller jug to bucket water to fill the buckets up, carry into your enclosure. Ensure you have a smaller jug to use to rinse yourself.
Take off your clothes and hang them strategically ie; in order of what you will put back on first, make sure your towel is easy to access.
Think very, very carefully about your order of events from here. What is not acceptable is to wash the poo from the toilet from your feet into the water that you are about to wash your hair, you need to be smart about this. I usually wash my hands first, ensuring that I do not spill any water back in with the clean water, then I wash my face, then dunking my head into the bucket, shampoo and condition my hair, then lather the grime of the rest of the body, rinse off with small jug, then wash the feet last.
Before dressing, roll up the legs of your pants so as not to drag them in the water, get dressed and complete the finer details of moisturizer and deodorant in your room.
Enjoy the clean feeling until you have to touch anything, walk anywhere or get covered in dust by a rogue wisp of wind! (this is about 5 minutes at most!)

How to come to attention of the Authorities by photography

Most of you would have read my previous blog posts about photography in Sudan, it’s a touchy subject. To ensure that you draw maximum attention to your photography, try the following-

Make sure you are carrying your photo permit at all times in Sudan
Climb up a small knoll (hill) in the middle of a small town on dusk
Set up a 100-400mm lens on a full frame camera body on a seriously sturdy Manfrotto tripod (not mine, but I sure wish it was!), for the full effect, put a hood on the 100-400mm lens so that it really looks like a bazooka!
Aim the said lens in the direction of the military base, but don’t take photos, they are prohibited, instead snap a few photos of a kid playing soccer in the street in front of the military base
Ensure you aim the lens at many local people in the street and take their picture, just so they feel the lens ‘drilling’ through them
Make sure you stay on the hill for sunset, so that you are silhouetted with the bazooka set-up (it helps if you have another photographer with their own bazooka set-up for the full effect
After the sun has gone down, turn on your torch and climb down the knoll without an injury
Look surprised the next day when word filters back to you that your driver was told to pass on the message of ‘no photos in town’ to the people on the hill the night before taking photos of the military base!

Once you have the above ‘mission’ completed successfully you are qualified to travel on the ferry between Sudan and Egypt, instead of a step by step guide to this I will let you benefit from my experiences whilst on the ferry...

The bus came and picked us up from our ‘hotel’, use of the ‘, due to a place of rope beds, stray cats and concrete floors really not being a ‘hotel’. After attempting to fit about 30 people in a mini van, with all our luggage, someone eventually decides (but not before we had all crammed in and were sitting on laps, the floor, bags) that the bus would make two trips to the ferry terminal. Mark had employed a ‘fixer’ a local man that sorts out odds and ends, like buying cheap water, ferry tickets, buses and getting us through customs. We make our way into the ferry terminal; it looks like a bloody huge train station with 90% of the worlds biggest suitcases jammed into it! We fight our way to a seat, arrange our luggage near us to be told to move down the end, we move down the end, arrange our luggage and then ourselves onto the floor, to be told to move away from our luggage “no f&*king way!” I keep my camera bag on me, leave my sleeping gear and sit in a seat reading the Da Vinci code and trying to block out the conversations around me that had to be at yelling volume instead of talking volume and the endless announcements in Arabic. There is not a bin In the place so I am forced to litter intentionally for the first time in my life. Eventually Mark arrives with our passports and tickets and three other sheets of documentation which we filled in that morning. The ‘fixer’ heads over to the customs desks, and sorts our way through easily..or so I thought. Airports are relatively easy to manage if there is no English, let’s face it, a check in counter looks like a check in counter wherever you are in the world; from there you go through the scanner, which always looks the same, etc etc. Now this ferry terminal was something else, a dead end row of desks with officials on one side and people elbowing their way with passports held out waving to get them stamped, after you got through the different desks, there was no order, and no set combination of events and everyone did the process differently...you had to fight your way back through all the happy elbowers.

Egyptian men are very different from the Sudanese in looks and behaviour, they have a much sharper face, but you will only notice that after you have seen their suitcase, because their suitcase will have smashed into a part of your body as they pass. Being an Egyptian male they are much more important than any female, especially a white female, and especially a white female who has any skin showing! After the first elbow struggle, I am permitted some more quite time with Da Vinci and the Arabic announcements distracting me from the storyline! Eventually we have all fought our way up the dead end passage way and back through the throng of elbowing, sharp faced, suitcase wielding arrogant men and are ready to go through to the baggage search. Now the inside of the baggage search area is the closest thing to a human washing machine without water or soap as you can get. You can be polite and let people pass, but you will stand there until after the ferry has left, unfortunately, there is not a civilised bone in some of these bodies, and if you don’t join then they will beat you (well lets face it, you will be beaten, literally in the process, but get a few elbows back at the bastards in the process!) Thank god (or Allah) that I was blessed with sharp ass elbows that are just the right height for an arrogant mans ribs, after collecting the corner of a suitcase in the left ribs and two suitcases in the right shin, I get my elbows out and a man yells something at me in Arabic....too bad, I don’t speak it so it has no effect on the manner in which I am wielding my elbows. The next day Spencer looks at my legs and asks what the bruises were from; having to cover my body so I don’t resemble a female means that I haven’t seen the bruises myself! So we push our way through the bag check, without even getting our bags checked, what chance have the officials got against hundreds of unruly people surging at them?, so they just stick a ‘safety’ sticker on the bag as we pass, without checking the contents and send us on our way....but not Spencer, the official neglected to stick the sticker on his bag, and the next checkpoint made him go back and get the sticker, Spencer walked off swearing his ass off, got the sticker and came back through the gates still without having his bag checked! Thank (allah) that Islamic extremists are not going to blow up one of their own ferries I say! As anyone could have has a tonne of explosives, undetected in their jocks! So we figure that walking down the wharf to the ferry is the better option that waiting for a bus and having a repeat of the earlier performance (or another elbow fracas!), I get to the ferry and realise that my ‘safety’ sticker has fallen off my bag, ho hum...not an issue! The ‘safety’ sticker system seems to be in meltdown, no one at the boat even cares if you have the sticker, as lets face it, it’s a rort anyway, no bags are checked, a fantastic waste of stickers and a cash cow client for the sticker factories!

We finally board the ferry, two and a half hours after arriving at the terminal and about two and a half hours before the ferry left. We got there early as it is usually standing room only, African Style, so we laid our thermarests out on the deck to reserve our place. We had the heads up as to which side to stake out, it was in the sun waiting for the ferry to leave, but once we departed and turned around we were in the shade. We had soon gathered a curious crowd near us. At one stage I was sitting next to Kerry and this man came over and asked to take our photo, hmm, Ok we guessed, next minute he was in between us with his arms around us as his friend was taking the photo, then they swap spots and ‘creepy red shirt man’ is between us and his friend is taking the photo, he decides that I am no good in the photo (well no s*@t Sherlock, that why I usually take the photos!) and waves his finger at me to get out of the photo and gets me to take the photo of just him and Kerry, Kerry is a New Zealander who just the previous day I had told that I thought she attracted strange men! Now ‘red shirt creepy man’ starts a love affair with Kerry from 10meters that lasted the whole night and even to the train station platform in Aswan. By 6pm we was professing his love fore Kerry to another of our travelling companions, this is despite the fact that Kerry and Matt told this man they were married! By 8pm Kerry and Matt had gone for tea and had left their gear with us, the top deck of the boat had not a single scrap of light on it at this stage, Spencer notices that ‘strange creepy red shirt man’ has sat really close to Matts bag and says to me to keep an eye on it. I sit up and aim my head torch right at the ‘freaky creepy red shirted pervert’ to see him sitting with his arm innocently on the railing behind the bag, I keep a close eye on him until he moves off 20 seconds later. When Kerry and Matt return I tell them to check the contents of their bags to make sure everything is still in there, well yes it is, and more....the ‘red shirt pervert’ has left his phone number in the bag!

We are all summoned down to ‘immigration’, females in the dining area and males outside the window of the dining hall, to have our passports stamped. Mark had purchased out Egyptian visas for us, at the grand price of $15 USD, much cheaper than we anticipated, we just had to take the sticker and the forms over to the man to stick them in our passports and stamp it. He opened my passport, flicked past 23 empty pages, to land the sticker, slap bang, in the middle of page 34! Whallah!

A little while on we are all laying in our sleeping bags, the wind on the lake is pretty cool, and I become aware of 8 or so men standing looking in our direction, starting to get a bit pis&%d off, I start telling Spencer about there freaky people around, he points out that just out of my line of vision some of our fellow travellers are watching their photos on the computer, these men were joining in! After ‘safety Sam’ has tied my camera bag to the railing three times and tied Spencers bag to my bag, and my other bag to both of these bags and tied this all to my sleeping bag AND after hiding my passport in my sleeping bag pocket (I am exhausted!) I settle down on solid steel on my thermarest between Spencer and Ish for a good nights sleep, my only real complaint was fly away hair being ruffled by the wind and tickling my face so much that I wore my head torch as a head band. Spencer wakes up the following morning, looks at me and says “you wore your headtorch to bed last night, you looser!” Loving husband that he is!

Actually, that was not my only complaint; call to prayer belts out of every speaker in the boat at 4.40am! “allah, allah, allah....” crickey, then we have a prayer session of white robed men facing mecca happening on the deck around us!

Opening my eyes that morning was an image I doubt I’ll ever forget, many, many robed man staring at us, all sleeping in a line on the deck. Granted they have possibly not seen sleeping bags before, or white people sleep, or women with their heads uncovered sleeping. I then looked around to see the ‘red shirted freaky man’ standing a couple of meters away from Kerry, who was still asleep watching her and then checking his phone and shaking his head (obviously waiting for her to call him!), I just roll over put my sunglasses on and try to get a little more shut eye!

Kaye tells me the next morning about her experience whilst she was in a cabin, (you could pay a little extra for a cabin with two bunk beds in it, only Jules and Jen, Kaye and Mark chose to do this). None of the cabin doors had locks on them, so you could not lock your gear in, or lock others out. Kaye is a 50 year old Aussie who has done the entire west coast and is going to Istanbul on the truck, was in the cabin by herself that morning, lying on the bottom bunk, when this 30 year old Egyptian man rolls into the cabin without knocking, kisses her on her recently shaved head (she has shaved her head for Movember and in memory of her late mother who passed away from cancer) and then proceeded to attempt a kiss her on the lips! She said that he respected her decline of the offer and sent him on his way!

Now I know that Mohammed is the most common name in the world, but there was either a Mohammed on the boat that didn’t farking listen or a whole bunch of Mohammad’s who didn’t listen as there were announcements every five minutes, always preceded by a blowing sound in the microphone!

Once we arrive we sit on the boat for about two hours and witness African organisation at it’s finest! I was certain that I could have organised the same amount of teenagers to clean their cabins, do a cabin inspection, get them off the boat and assembled in lines AND call the roll in half the time as it took to even get the gear off the boat! The porters were pushing and shoving to get on the boat before anyone could get off, and barging into cabins to acquire portering jobs! We eventually think that the throng of people must have subsided enough to risk the corridor, wrong! After several more run in’s with suitcases and some fat, pushy bastard plows past me and up the stairs, inadvertently catching my tripod holder on my camera bag on his bag and attempting to pull me up the stairs! I elbow my way off! Relief!, but not for long, we arrive at the ‘arrival hole’, no s&*t, that’s what two signs called it the ‘arrival hole’ (the translator for that deserves a kick up the butt) but they weren’t wrong, it is a hole, more elbowing and pushing and after accumulating way too much Egyptian man sweat on my elbows and forearms we get through into the hall, get our bags x-rayed and are waved straight through the baggage search! I was so glad to see that the pushy little s&*t who had released half a gallon of his sweat onto my arms was thoroughly searched whilst we went straight through!

From there we are loaded into dodgy old Peugeot station wagons for our trip to the Hathor Hotel...I know, I know, Hat Hore? What the? The station wagons are not in great shape, at one stage we think that we have conked out, no, the driver was just stopping to close the back door, it had flipped open, and lucky we didn’t drop any gear out on the road! The hotel seems more wondrous than the Hilton or Empire, we have been so long in the dust and crap that a clean floor and our own toilet and working shower are almost too much to bear, along with WiFi internet, a window and McDonalds three minutes down the road, we are in heaven! Putting off a shower for a few hours we wander down to McDonalds, on the way finding an ATM machine that does money conversions, yep, chuck your $20USD note in and it will spit back the equivalent in Egyptian Pounds less a service fee! Brilliant! Only it was out on money! He he

So we arrive at the Golden Arches, wow, not usually a huge McDonalds fan, it has been a long time between drinks and I want some of it! I get in the door and order a cheeseburger without the meat (don’t knock it until you try it!), large fries with sweet and sour sauce, large coke, apple pie and caramel sundae. The big killer on this feed was the sizing’s, they are American sizes here, so my coke was 779ml, my fries were 262g!, the burger had a diameter much larger than a normal one! After a discussion of the additives and preservatives I decide that McDonalds could be like a medicine, if you had eaten dodgy food, you could smash a feed of McDonalds into your gut and the preservatives would kill off any dodgy’s that me be lurking in your digestive system!

From there Spencer followed the boys on a ‘beer mission’ (Everything is called a ‘mission’, even a ‘toilet mission’) And I walk back, stopping at a convenience store to announce “Oh look they have ice cream freezers, with ice cream!” before realising what a looser I sounded like! I had a similar moment in McDonalds when I asked what the toilets were like and rushed to use them after being told that they had soap AND toilet paper AND were free!

Have done a stock take on my camera gear, it’s all terribly dirty, but no amount of cleaning will get rid of the dust, not sure if it’s static electricity but it seems to be attracting dirt like a magnet attracts metal! My 24-105mm lens is suffering the worst, it’s been the workhorse and is making all sorts of gritty, scratching sounds when it’s zoomed or manually focused, The lens on the little camera is making sounds similar to nails on a blackboard when it is turned on or off. The 100-400mm is starting to show that the push- pull zoom does bring in dust, but honestly, no more than the standard one. The LCD screen on the other camera has almost given up the ghost and the 5D one seems a little funky too. Just hoping that it holds out another 2 months (yep, that’s all that’s left!) and once I get home it can all head off to Canon for some TLC!

And I am missing school, I am constantly looking for a bloody pen!

Sudan, Pyramids, Sand, Sand and more Donkeys!

2010-11-09T11:05:00.002+02:00

We were up reasonably early as it was far too hot to stay long in a tent, after chocolate and banana buns for breakfast we headed off for a walking tour of Khartoum’s streets. Took a couple of sneaky photos off bridges, but there were always security guards in close proximity. After drinks in a local falafel house we headed back to the sailing club. I wandered down the street to buy a head covering of some description and noticed a very different reaction from people to a single, white woman, with no wedding band and no head covering. Whilst in the back of the only shawl shop that I could find, which had no lighting and was incredibly dark, the shop assistant (male) asked me ‘where is your friend” dodgy!

Cut up some watermelon for everyone for lunch then attempted to have a shower before leaving Khartoum at 3pm. I was very keen for a good shower as we have six nights of bush camping, so seven days without a shower. The shower was usually a dribble of six drops, but this day it was like two drops, then, just after I had lathered up, the water stopped completely! I waited and turned tap off, then on, then off, then on, to no avail. I eventually got a small amount of water out of the basin tap to get a little of the soap off, but just had to towel off. An hour later the water was back on, but by that stage I had become one with the soap and couldn’t be bothered to hassle with attempting another shower.

We were glad to be in the moving truck, as the breeze was slightly cooling, the day was well over 40 degrees and I was fully understanding why African Trails still make their trucks with the canvas sides, we would have died behind glass windows! We were stopped at many military checkpoints, our photos permit documentation is also out registration to travel north documentation was collected back from us at one checkpoint, from there onwards copies of these were kept with out passports in the cab, making the process quicker. I still find it funny that all this documentation is checked closely, but the numbers of people on the truck is not actually counted! Some checkpoints are very quick and some are very slow, the one constant thing is that there will be ladies selling nuts of chick peas at the checkpoints!

We watched the sun set from the truck with the hot wind still blowing in our faces; the sun looked like a huge orange fireball hanging over the horizon. We passed a military convoy heading south, with many tanks of varying size and shape, not long afterward we were overtaken by two trucks with machine guns mounted on the tray, they were the largest machine guns that I have ever sighted, the first sight of these vehicles beside us put my heart into my mouth as you read quite a bit about bandits in these parts. And in many countries the military and police are worse than the bandits!

We pulled off the road in darkness, but could just make out the outline of the pyramids in the skyline. We camped in the car park and sat around the charcoal burners still discussing the heat, there was a slightly warm breeze, but is was still bloody hot and many people from cooler climates were suffering a lot more than us. After we had set up tents and eaten dinner the police arrived, due to the language barrier we were unable to fully understand the problem, at one stage we though we were going to have to pack up and leave, however we settled the problem by turning the side light off.

Slept OK, but the sand was so hot that I kept waking up with every part of me that was in contact with the ground lathered in sweat. We were up at 6am to catch sunrise on the pyramids, after waiting until 6.30 for someone to show up and take our money we just entered. The pyramids were really good, no one else there bar us, and I don’t think this will happen at Giza! We arrived back at the truck to find lots of curio stalls set up right around out tents and in our dining room.

On the way into town we were stopped at a checkpoint near the river and saffa (south African) Robert, not to be confused with the other Robert, took a photo of a MTN sign (mobile phone company) as it had a world cup picture on it, one of the officials saw him and shouted some word up at him, then a sting of instructions that no one knew what the words were, but we all understood his massage! Then he took his camera and walked off, still holding his conversation to the person on the other end of his mobile phone. At this stage I thought that the camera was gone for good, but Robert managed to jump out of the truck and convince the man that he was no threat to security and got his camera back, complete with big greasy thumbprint on the lens. I think there is still a hangover effect from the civil war in Sudan, and possibly in preparation for the upcoming referendum in January 2011, there is a lot of secrecy surrounding bridges, fuel depots and military and police people and equipment. Our photo permits very clearly state not to photograph any of these things or anything defamatory of slums....the only problem, is a cow dung hut considered as a slum? Or does it have to have some corrugated iron on it?

We stopped for four hours in a town called Atbara, long enough for falafel, drinks and a chocolate, so I thought. At 11am when I wasn’t hungry there were falafel sellers on every corner, at 12, when I was hungry, not a falafel in sight! the call for prayer is at 1pm on a Friday so all the men pack up early in preparation. Sonya, Adam, saffa Robert and I went on a mission for spiced tea. I know that your thinking ‘who wants hot spicy tea in 40 degree heat?’, but it’s seriously refreshing!, We sat on a street corner with about 15 bemused local men drinking our tea out of glasses (you see very few females on the street and even less females actually eating or drinking). It was amusing to sit on a plastic stool with a donkey right behind me having a Pidgin English conversation about eating donkeys and weather the meat was chewy. He defiantly said that they eat donkey, not so sure if it was chewy...not willing to try it myself!

After lunch we had to drop back to the checkpoint to give them copies of our documentation, out photo permits/ registration to travel north, not sure why they thought that it was essential to have this information on us, when they could get it all from the Aliens registration centre, it’s not like they have a great number of tourist through every day! After a few hours of driving through harsh, unforgiving country, scattered with square mud huts and blown truck tyres (yep, I counted 7 in 100m today!) we pulled up a bush camp just off the highway. I went on a photo mission after putting up ‘territory’s own’ (our tent), Falafel for tea, glad that I had missed out on it for lunch! Some of the west coasters pulled the sheesha (possibly spelt wrong, like a bong) out and smoked some fruit tobacco.

My feet are getting hammered, three stubbed toes, all from the same campsite, different rocks! I think I have another jigger happening, but have been unable to wash my feet properly to confirm it, and my little toenail is starting to fall off again, looking forward to getting back to civilisation and away from acacia thorns that constantly jab through my thongs and into my feet!

The following day we were up to take some photos of the sun rising across the desert, stopped at the Merewa pyramids. Some enterprising locals tried to get 25 pounds each out of us to visit the pyramids, one man pointed out “he is my manager, see he has a briefcase!” needless to say, and they didn’t receive their 25 pound from anyone! We walked the 500odd meters over to the 7 pyramids than climbed up the hill to overlook the Nile, pyramids and ruins. It is amazing to see the Nile snaking across the desert, lined with green trees and grass and then see how the land turns to desert about 1km from the river. From there we walked down and around the other ruins and cemetery before loading ourselves back onto the truck. From there we drove into town for lunch, the Sudanese people just get more and more friendly the further north we come. Kerry and I went to find a toilet, initially we were not understood, but were soon taken to a man who spoke very good English who took us to his house to use his toilet, just a hole in the floor in a shed out the back, he told us he was a dentist from Khartoum and even gave us instructions of how to ‘flush’ the toilet with a jug of water and ‘lock’ the door with an old piece of fencing wire! After a couple of hours driving we made a bus camp in the middle of nowhere, literally, nowhere, the only things visible was a mobile phone tower and a radio tower! The conversation that night revolved around food, ice cream, icy poles, zooper dopers seem to be the most sought after items..hmm, may have something to do with the 40 degree temperatures! After rechecking the guide book, Kyle announces that there is ice cream available in Gondola the next day. When we went to bed it was still darn hot, however by about 3am I had to wake Spencer up to get his sleeping bag from underneath him to sleep in as my Maasai blanket just wasn’t keeping me warm, he was happy with the blanket, the following night I made sure that I didn’t leave my sleeping bag in the truck, it had been so long since I had used it!

The following day I sat in the cab with Mark and Burbs, the ant bites on my butt have been rubbed raw from sitting on my undies elastic (darn, cheap Mr Price undies!) Lying in the sleeper compartment in the cab reading the Da Vinci Code and sitting up occasionally to check if there were any trees, animals or oncoming traffic....nope, none, lay back down! We stopped at Gondola for four hours, Ish, Jen, Jules, Son and I went on our ‘ice cream’ mission whilst Spencer battled out a game of travel scrabble with Pat, Hendrick, Robert (saffa) and Kaye, discussion over rules almost descended to squabbling at times whilst debate rages over wether words like ‘fag’ and ‘ya’ should be allowed! Our ice cream mission took us to many shops and had us lifting the lids on all freezers, to find a random array of items, after a few shops we found a tub of vanilla ice cream for 10 pounds, we also found a bakery with cakes and pastries and at another shop a tube of nutella! (Well the local brand which was just as good!) We went back to the ice cream shop, made the purchase, and back to the bakery to combine all ingredients for the feast of a lifetime! I was dealing with the mystery of my lost five pounds (2 bucks!), couldn’t find it anywhere, searched high and low and high and emptied all my pockets out and assumed someone had pick pocketed it, to find it later that night whilst washing my shorts!, I am losing everything at the moment!

Still on our sugar high we left Gondola, driving for another few hours before making camp on the banks of the Nile, we could see a few Nile crocodiles over the other side of the river so were not really compelled to collect water for washing (all kitchen water is on the truck, but if you want to wash clothes or yourself, you have to source your own water). Kim had me in stitches by saying that she wasn’t going to go to the waters edge to collect water, but that she would make one of the locals do it) I nearly wet myself, what she meant was that the locals knew the river and knew how to collect water without getting a crocodile wrapped around their ears! She ended up finding an irrigation channel that was too small and shallow for any croc, so I got some water from there to wash my clothes as I had run out of clean underwear, unable to find my one decent pair of bonds undies! And then walked back over to collect another ten litres to wash myself in as I was stinking! Turns out that the large washing tubs are a great bath. But I did almost fall out at one stage! For the first time since Nairobi I actually felt clean (and it only took a plastic tub behind a bush and 10 litres of water to do it! (Now that’s saying something about every shower that I have encountered between that bush and Nairobi!)

Have put in an order with Pat, an Aussie, for his girlfriend to please bring the biggest jar of vegemite possible to Cairo where she is joining the truck to Istanbul, Pat tells us that he has never had vegemite, but that he know he doesn’t like it! All I can think about is my Nan, who said the same thing! Eventually after telling Pat that he is no Aussie without it and that he should have his Aussie passport confiscated (he is actually travelling on a Swiss one!) he agrees to try the vegemite when it arrives.

Travel and the desert does strange things to people, one morning we were talking about having a ‘flap off’ a contest to see who can flap their plates dry the quickest, a glance around the group showed many styles of ‘flap’ whole body swinging, freestyle swimming, mechanical flapping (that was Spencer) full range of motion flapping (me) and someone twirling with plates in outstretched arms! What the locals must think!

This morning we had a sleep in then breakfast on the banks of the Nile at 7.30am; I wandered along and found my favourite donkey, which was still tied up in the same place as the previous evening. He is the best looking donkey I have even seen and I wanted to put him in my locker to bring him home! Instead I got a few photos. We did the 200km into Wadi Haifa in good time; the roads here are in fantastic condition (better that Australia!) Once here we learned that the barge taking the truck was loaded and would leave a day earlier than planned, we had to pack gear for 6 days and say goodbye to the truck, we will be following on the passenger ferry on Wednesday. We checked into our ‘hotel’ and there was not a single person who would not prefer to be bush camping, if I had my tent, I would put it up in the room! The roof has a hole in it, and not a small one, like 2ft by 3ft!, the walls were painted, once...about 50 years ago, the floor is bare concrete and the beds are made of rope wrapped around the frame, they are all in a line which looks like stables and have bars on the windows, like a jail! Toilets are another story! Spent a couple of hours in the afternoon and evening climbing a small hill at the back of town with Kyle and Kim to take some photos, got some good ones of the town, then the sunset and a few night pics before making the ascent in the dark.

From there we ran into everyone else for tea at a small eatery then I went for a sheesha session with Kenji, the saffas, Gab, Ronald and Kaye and the south African bloke that we keep bumping into who is riding a motorbike from Cape town to Cairo, who I have met but have never caught his name! Sheesha is a big contraption which you use to smoke fruit tobacco, apple and mint were on the card tonight, I wasn’t in it for the tobacco, just the whole social aspect of sitting around two very ornate burners and a coal scoop talking crap! Waiting for the onslaught of bedbugs tonight.....bring on bush camping!

(Added the following morning...so about 2am I wake us as my bed is shaking (we are on single beds, Spencer is on the other side of the room) I say to him “what has happened?” as I thought he was waking me up as something was wrong (like a fire due to the shit electrics!) he is across the other side of the room, still asleep saying “huh?” I put my head torch on and have a look around, just to make sure no one is stealing my camera bag which I hook the bed leg through the strap, no it’s still there. After a couple of hours of being certain that there was something in the room, turn the torch on again, yup, bloody ferral cat! My bed must have shook where it dive bombed me from the hole above the window!

Donkeys, Dust and Goat Chops with Spiced Tea in Sudan

2010-11-04T00:39:00.001+02:00

Drinking at the Dashen brewery, Gondar

Bush Camp, side of the road, Sudan

Spencer Shaving it off for 'Movember' See http://www.movember.com.au/ to sponsor hin in the Top End Tashe Team

Village, near Khartoum

Donkeys, Dust and Goat Chops with Spiced Tea in Sudan

2010-11-04T00:29:00.000+02:00

Trekking in the mountains outside Gondar

Outside Gondar

Ethiopian Countryside

We attracted quite a bit of attention!

Donkeys, Dust and Goat Chops with Spiced Tea in Sudan

2010-11-03T18:09:00.002+02:00

We were up and loaded into local minivans for the drive up to the mountains from Gondar, for our morning of trekking, after an hours drive on dusty roads we arrived and were quickly surrounded by local villagers. We hiked through some spectacular scenery, clinging to the sides of mountains with little foliage to stop us should we slip. We were lucky to see some Columbus monkeys, which reminded us of the black and white ruffled lemurs in Madagascar. These monkeys were jumping down from trees to the ground, about 20 meters! Then running to the next tree! The 10 of us were soon walking with about 50 local people, many of these young kids with the sole aim of earning a tip from helping the ‘white people’ over the terrain that they were just not designed to! Honestly I was getting a bit huffy at being dragged up slopes that I could easily managed by myself, I was thinking “I am white, but I know how to walk!” We sat and watched baboons running in the distance and strolled through young kid’s herding goats and cows. The scenery was spectacular; I am still amazed at the landscape of Ethiopia, mountainous, green and rocky in some areas with incredibly abrupt cliffs and escarpments. We returned back to the vans and were surrounded by our initial ‘friends’ and then some more! On the drive back our driver seemed intent on sitting right behind the other van making us breath dust for an hour, we had thought that he didn’t speak English, but after a couple of comments between ourselves about the dust he dropped off slightly.

Spencer and I headed back to our favourite cafe for lunch, today it was fruit punch; layers of mango, avocado, papaya and strawberry juice, so thick that the straw was useless and the spoon was the instrument of choice! Followed by a soft drink (it was hot walking) followed by chips and tomato salad, this seemed incredibly light on tomato and incredibly heavy on onion and chilli. After I had put all of this into my stomach I forced a tiramisu in for good measure and waddled out, not before watching a 1990’s episode of friends which has some weird ass stuff happening to the voices!

From there he hired tuk-tuks to the Dashen brewery for our free brewery tour, we were very excited, but this didn’t last long, brewery tours don’t run on Sundays! After talking kindly to the lady we were able to meet the manager, who organised for a staff member to come out from town to conduct the tour. As the staff member had to be summoned there was a delay and time to be filled, in the bar, in the form of two 3lt beer towers between the 8 of us. When the tour started we were told that our cameras would need to be ‘minded’ by the security. As I have a huge mistrust of security guards of any description in any country I offered to stay at the bar with all the cameras, (there was some serious camera gear, too serious to be left with any security guard, especially at a brewery!) I had two beers and had acquired three Ethiopian ‘friends’ by the time everyone else returned from the tour, I was also quite on my way to being drunk. We were intent on drinking our remaining Ethiopian Birr before crossing the border into Sudan the next day, this occurred easily! We had a great night with good conversation and company in a fantastic beer garden, which you just wouldn’t expect to find anywhere outside of a capital city of a developed country!

The following morning was a world of hurt and pain for me and a few others, bendy and bumpy roads in the heat and about three hours at the border are not fun on a hang-over!

About thirty kilometres short of the Ethiopia – Sudan border we were pushed forward by the truck slowing down, then felt two bumps as the back wheels went over something. A few of the blokes stuck their heads out to see a fully grown goat and a younger goat go under the wheels of the truck, two days later they were still talking about how the mother goat’s stomach split from the impact and a baby goat popped out. I was never so glad that I didn’t look out the side of the truck, I quite like goats, but they are not so smart...as these two proved, they just didn’t move off the road even though that had a 18t truck bearing down on them with the air horn screaming!

We didn’t think that would be the end of the goat issue, we stopped for lunch just before the border as Spencer and I came back to the truck we saw Mark sitting in the cab arguing with some police officers with the crowd of locals swelling by the minute. The farmer had gone straight to the cops and they had followed us down the road. Initially they wanted $300 USD as compensation for the goats; he eventually got this down to $50 USD per goat, we were not sure if the baby goat was counted as a third goat or not. As the police were not going to let us out of Ethiopia, the fine was paid. The cops get about half of the money for their troubles and the farmer gets the rest. Mark was unable to make the police officers understand that had he smashed on the brakes that we would have been seriously hurt in the back as there are no seatbelts, he asked the police officers if the farmer would have paid him had one of us been hurt in avoiding the goats! The ‘food group’ (people cooking that nights dinner) felt that for $100 USD we should have been able to keep the carcasses, they were well tenderised!

We have no problems at all exiting Ethiopia, no forms to fill out, just a ½ hour wait in the emigration office, (which was air conditioned, much to everyone’s delight!) then we walk over the border to the Sudan side. Again a very loose border, I believe that you would have little issue in strolling through without the official documentation, however I am sure I would not want to be caught trying it! First stop over the border is the money changer, not the official one, just one in a mud and dung hut, but he was offering such a rate that there was no bartering required! We were under the impression that we had to pay for our registration in Sudan at the border; however we later found out that we now pay in the capital Khartoum (equivalent of $50 USD, so the officials can look after us whilst in the country). Next stop was a ‘bunnings’ style garden shed to get out passports bio and visa page photocopied, after waiting for this we take on the immigration office, standing by the desk in some form of line, not knowing where we need to stand, if there is a line, or what the process is! There are about 30 odd locals waiting patiently in chairs, we were served ahead of them, not sure if it was just so the official could clear away the mass of foreigners from his desk! So after making some form of a line, out passports and photocopies are requested and looked at, then a form stapled to it, we fill out the form and line up again to hand it back, then they are shuffled left, shuffled right, then left again before being stamped three times, “bang, bang, bang” (must be the most enjoyable part of the day for a border official!) And we are told to go to customs. Finding customs was not as easy as we assumed it would be, it was a hundred meters up the road, in a wire mesh building with absolutely no signage, there were hotels and shops and I think a jail between the two buildings. I tried to walk into every building between the two! Once there we wait and answer our names etc etc then we are free to go. Back in the truck we realise that we are going nowhere fast, the truck’s engine number could not be found, despite a large crowd of officials, passengers and onlookers surrounding the upturned cab! Four hours after arriving at the border and after phone calls to Tanzania, we were off, but not before I had wandered into the streets behind the border in search of bananas, a friendly local shopkeeper assigned a guide to show me where to buy them (no payment required, he wouldn’t even accept a banana!) I looked at a table and wondered what all the black lumpy stuff on it was, and then a kid waved his arm over the black mass which was moving to show that the whole table was covered in offal and meat cuts which were swarmed with flies! (I was super glad that I don’t eat land animals at this time, and there was not a fish in sight!)

It was amazing to see that after the border crossing the land changed dramatically again, we bid farewell to the hills and green scenery of Ethiopia and hello to dusty and sandy plains. We bush camped very close to the highway, I was surprised at the amount of traffic all night, many fuel tankers, busses and other trucks rolling along for most of the night and the occasional traditionally dressed man on a motorbike with robes flowing behind!. Just before dinner a local farmer herded his cattle through camp, and again the next morning after breakfast.

We all slept with the rain covers off the tents as it was very warm, I didn’t even take my sleeping bag off the truck (it’s infested with something still anyway, but more about that later) About five in the morning it started getting light, I was dozing and heard someone walk through camp, just assuming that it was one of our fellow travellers, they almost walked into our tent and I heard a ‘ohh’ sort of sound, then I noticed that there was no zipper sound of someone crawling back into a tent and realised that it must have been a local quite surprised to find a bunch of campers in his grazing area. I was telling someone else this on the truck the next day; she confirmed a strange being near out tent as she was camped next to us.

This was also the site of some of the worst ‘tentering’ (a word Spencer made up when tongue tied, whilst trying to make out that he was more experienced at putting up tents and therefore better, than I, and we all know that’s just not true!) So that night I go to crawl into bed and there is something under the tent, it’s sitting up at least 20 cm on my side of the tent (yes we have his and hers sides of the tent (now called ‘territories own”) So I ask what it is, to hear “must be grass”..hmm, there is f&*k sweet all grass around here, just thorns and those ‘bindi’ type prickles that go straight through the soles of most footwear! So I punch the object, it hurts my hand, but feels spiky and I announce that it was a hedgehog...not cool, apparently (yes, I was joking! There are about as many hedgehogs in Sudan as there are tigers in Africa!). So I get my clothes back on and get out to lift the tent to find a rock that was the size of a football under my side of the tent! This gave everyone a bit of a giggle the next morning!

The next day just got hotter and hotter, peaking, officially at 39 degrees, a thermometer on the truck broke after hitting 50 degrees, at 8pm in Khartoum it was still 31 degrees, I log onto facebook to see that Megan is in Darwin wearing a ‘slopy joe’ and is freezing her ass off! The UK people are struggling and I was feeling like I was back in Darwin, the expected low was for 28 degrees!

To take photographs in Sudan you need a photography permit, if you are caught with a camera and don’t have this permit you are arrested. The only issue is that you can only get this permit in Khartoum, two days drive! There is nothing like seeing your first fully grown man in white flowing robes riding at full pace across the desert on a DONKEY! And not being able to snap a picture!

Drinking as also prohibited in Sudan (a few of the blokes on the truck are a bit happy about this after two weeks worth of 25 cent beer indulgence in Ethiopia!), if you are caught with alcohol you are arrested, the truck can be stopped anywhere are searched. We were stopped at a number of checkpoints during the day, the first one the official was standing beside the truck shouting ‘passports’ at us, he didn’t even appear to wear a uniform, after checking these closely we were away, our passports now in the cab to speed the process up for the following checkpoints, I think we passed about 10 for the day, although they are a pain in the ass and slow you down, they are used to make sure that trucks etc get to where they are supposed to, on the west coast the police went looking for the truck after it failed to make it through the next checkpoint as they had made a bush camp for the night!

Before lunch my brand new hat (I’d literally worn it for a few hours ,seems the story of my life of late!) blew off my head and out the side of the truck, before I’d realised that it was out of the truck we were well down the road. The hat cost about 10 birr per hour of use that I had out of the thing! So disappointing though, I have been looking to buy a new hat since Cape Town, and finally found one that I liked, I’d only had it a day!

The people of Sudan are incredibly friendly, and seem truly pleased to see foreigners visiting their country. My arm is close to worn out after returning waves at adults, elderly and kids all eager to see us! Driving into Khartoum was interesting, we were hoping not for an accident to occur by one of the drivers straining to look up into the truck and not watching the road! When we stopped for falafel and spiced tea for lunch the spiced tea lady didn’t have change of a 10 pound note, the tea was one pound. A man nearby offered to pay for me (he was an old man, not a sleazy one!) saying “I pay for your tea as you are my guest in this country” As one pound is quite a bit of coin for the average Sudanese (and about 40 cents to us), I went and got some change and took it back, thanking him and shaking his hand, he laughed saying “you are very intent on paying!’. Spiced tea is delicious, so good that most of us were drinking it hot even in 40 degree heat!, I was planning a business venture for ‘iced spiced tea’ distribution, surely there is a market for it here!

Sudan has more of a Middle East feel to it than African, you see men in white flowing robes wandering through desert like surroundings, or riding on camels or on the back of a donkey that is pulling a crudely made water cart. Ladies covered from head to toe in dark coloured robes. Tuk-tuks are in abundance, and are also very abundantly decorated, I even saw one with the wheel caps like of grease (you know the ones that cut into the bodywork of the other car!) I think Sudan is going to take over from Ethiopia as my second favourite African country (Madagascar still sitting high at number one!)

We arrive in Khartoum to find that the “National Camping Residence” (who would have thought they would have such a thing?) was full and overflowing, so we move closer into the city to the Blue Nile Sailing Club, which feels like we have just pitched our tents in the Darwin Trailer Boat Club! (Instead of the ocean we have the convergence of the Blue and White Nile’s as out waterfront view!) The added bonus was a free, drinkable and COLD water fountain! Heaven! And free wifi internet, soon all laptops were out and discussion lulled as people stuck their heads into news from home, facebook, emails and other random tasks.

Khartoum is a very modern city by African standards, the outskirts of it put me in mind of how I imagine Dubai to be, lush golf courses and some flashy apartment blocks rise from desert like surroundings, having a city on the Nile means lots of irrigation water for crops. As oil was discovered about 10 years ago, there is a lot of ‘new’ money in Sudan; it will be interesting to see if the crime rate increases as the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ increases. We have felt safer in Sudan than any other African country, it’s hard to believe that it is listed by smart traveller as a ‘do not travel’ destination, most of the problem is in the south of Sudan, which we are not going to and centres on the south of Sudan wanting to become independent of the rest of Sudan, but as the oil is in the south, it’s not really in Sudan’s best interest to let the south ‘take the oil and run’. There is a referendum planned for early 2011, and violence is expected in the lead up to that, we will be out of Sudan in nine days time, well before the referendum. You can easily walk in the city without being hassled for money, so far I have only had three people ask for money in three days in Sudan, you would have three a minute in some other countries! Everyone that we meet just seems so genuinely friendly!

We found out that our house is still empty...gurgle, gurgle, gurgle of money down the drain! Although we did hear that two different people have put in application forms, so here’s hoping someone moves in soon, we dropped the rent by $40 a week, just to get anyone in the place!

The next morning some people headed off to the ‘Alien registration office’, no s^&t, that’s it’s official name!, it’s the office where you have to register if you are a foreigner in the country, and pay $50USD! I went along with the food group to find the supermarket, a magical mystery tour in its own right. Khartoum is a city with quite obvious ‘new’ money, lots of electrical shops and mobile phone shops, but nothing that even resembled a supermarket. We asked lots and lots of people for directions, each one a contradiction of the other, until we found an American girl who was happy to walk us to a local market. Whilst the food people bartered for bread and vegetables myself and Jules sat down on mini stools with a man peeling onions, they put the vegetables on the sales stands pre-peeled, he told us that they sell better that way as they look better, it is also common practice to cut the bottoms off carrots, but not the tops. The man tells us that he has been to Australia to play football! Two white women sitting without our heads covered in the market in Khartoum attracted quite a bit of attention from the surrounding people! From there we went to source falafel, 144 pieces for 12 Sudanese pound, or around $5 AUD, after looking at the falafel through the barter process we decided to have lunch there, it was so delicious that we went back and ordered the same again! From there we took our bags of food and tried to find a taxi who knew where the Blue Nile sailing club was, we had read that the taxi drivers here didn’t know where anything was, it was spot on. With us directing him we push our way through intersections with 40 odd eggs loose on a tray balanced on Ish’s lap, with cars coming at us from all directions! Spencer and a couple of the blokes went for a swim in the ‘club’ next door to where we are staying, the man demanded to know how they knew there was a pool at the place, then charged 10 pounds and hour for swimming, so $4 each hour! Females are not allowed to swim, no even fully clothed! (Not happy Jan!) So I am sitting here in my long pants drinking copious amounts of water with all the other females.

And I’ll just finish with a Sudanese toilet story...(just for s&*ts and giggles) So I was squatting happily behind a nice small tree on the side of the road, feeling a million miles away from civilisation and about a hundred meters away from my travelling companions, just taking my time and enjoying the scenery, when I hear singing and hooves and before I can move anywhere a man rides past on his donkey, singing at the top of his lungs with his white robes flowing behind him! (Only in Sudan!)

Oops! Forgot about the bed bug infestation that has taken over the truck...the communal blankets that travel on the beach have been binned, the cushions etc were all taken out and sprayed, we have strict instructions from Mark to wash our sleeping gear and clothes whilst in Khartoum, people with down sleeping bags were just not keen for this and put them in a black plastic bag in the 40 degree sun to kill any unwanted visitors!, one casualty of the de-bugging was a sleeping bag was ‘accidentally’ thrown out by the staff here, quite ironic that is the US citizen who they were originally not going to let into Sudan! Searching high and low did not produce the sleeping bag!

2010-10-30T20:00:00.003+03:00

Monastry, Lake Tana, Bahir Dar

Monastry, Bahir Dar

Rock-Hewn Churches, Castles and "The Flea Bag"

2010-10-30T17:41:00.004+03:00

We were up early, packed our tents up (so that we would not have to pay a tent fee, apparently it costs money to leave an empty tent up!) and waited for our transfer to Lalibela. As we were not going to have a great deal of time at the rock hewn churches (which are a UNESCO world heritage site) we were getting pretty cranky when the driver had not turned up by 7.30am, half an hour later we were still standing outside the hotel waiting, waiting, waiting, the mood amongst the group was not very positive by this stage, the transport organiser at the hotel was saying ‘he is right here, he is just here’ pointing at the driveway, we told him to come back at 6.30am the following day and he would have a job. He was also told to make sure he fuelled up and sorted himself out before 6.30 tomorrow. Instead we spent the day visiting a couple of monasteries on Lake Tana, the first was on a small island, and was not as grand as we had all pictured, however did have some amazing artwork inside. From there we headed further onto the lake in our old and leaky boat, equipped with a 25 horsepower outboard and not a bilge pump in sight! I watched the water level beneath our feet gradually rise, but it didn’t get above the crude floor boards and I never thought that I was going to have to swim for it! The second monastery was very different from the first as it is still a working monastery, circular in shape with a centre atrium with more amazing paintings in it. Whilst everyone else was having a tour I wandered off to snap off 100 or so photos, from there we cruised slowly to the outlet of the Blue Nile from Lake Tana, where we saw a hippo frolicking in the water. We arrived back at the campground (grounds of a hotel) in time for a quick lunch and to book the bus to Blue Nile Falls, about 30km or an hours drive out of town. Lonely planet didn’t rate the falls, but some of the guys from the truck had been the day before and had some great photos, we were initially impressed by the sound of the falls, not quite Victoria falls, but looked quite similar, but like a ‘minime’ version of them. We took the option of the long walk around, involving a couple of hours walk, a river crossing on foot, and a boat crossing back to the start. Most of the way we were hassled by local kids asking for money, sweets, pen, exercise books and empty water bottles. If it was not the kids at us it was the kids mothers trying to sell us shawls, necklaces, tea. Flutes or just blatantly ask for money! One kid tried to make me pay to take a photo with a donkey in it, another girl asked me for money because I had taken a photo of a canola crop and a boy tried getting money out of me for patting a donkey in the street! (don’t think I have ever patted a donkey before, but they are really soft, or maybe this one just uses Pantene).

The following day we were up for porridge and pack our tents away AGAIN (after re-erecting our tents in the same place the previous day we were adamant that the tardy driver should have to put them up for us!), ready to get on the van to Lalibela. The driver had obviously received a fair ass kicking from the previous days aborted trip and was waiting for us at 5.30am, however when the clock ticked over to 6.30am he was nowhere to be found! Ten minutes later he arrived back and then started stuffing around, 20 minutes later we were one our way, but not before we all had to pay an extra 10birr as someone only put in 200birr instead of 300birr, now this put me in a shitty mood that lasted the best part of two days. Everyone in the van is in the same position, no income, so if you cannot afford to travel, don’t travel! Don’t just expect other people to subsidise your travel (we have fallen on the shit end of the stick quite a few times with travel, people not paying for meals, drinks etc! Making me cranky!) We head out of town and it does not take long to realise that our driver thinks he is a race car driver, not a Toyota van driver and also seems to have only a small part of his incredibly small 12 year old brain, in reality. He thinks it’s perfectly alright to swerve towards pedestrians, put his arm out the window and hit them on the head! And travel on mountain passes at 130km/h. I had realised that we were going far to fast, but the bloke beside me had a GPS and told me that we had hit over 130km/h, on some of the highest roads, possibly in the world, 3500mts asl, with considerable drop offs on each side. We somehow reach Lalibela alive, some of the pedestrians must have been surprised to survive the white van careening and screaming through their villages at 130km/h, one mother grabbed her kids off the road in the nick of time! We book into a hostel where the room costs $7AUD a night, no signs of bedbug marks on the walls and has a hot shower, then we head off to a local cafe for lunch, we find someone in Africa who will do something for nothing, a local guide walks us down to the site of the rock-hewn churches (we still have no lonely planet) We pay the increased price of 350 birr (up from 100 birr) to enter the site, to be disappointed by the huge covers which have been erected over the churches to protect them from the elements (I wondered if they were erected to increase the value of all the photos already taken of the site as now it is impossible to get a decent photo without them in it!) We declined having a guide as I just wanted to wander around and find my own way and take my own photos without having to look interested in what a guide was saying. The rock hewn churches of Lalibela have been carved out of solid rock, so they sit underground. It is amazing to think that 900 years ago they were dug out from underground so that each entire church is carved from one rock! All the churches are connected by a myriad of alleyways and tunnels and there are countless doorways which lead to other areas and into small abodes. We were climbing our way in the dark up a small passageway with crude carved steps when the bell above us sounded almost causing us to fall back down the rock steps, then a man poked his head out from behind a curtain and beckoned us to climb a stick ladder hanging over the stairs into the area behind the curtain where he was sitting. I was no easy feat with camera strapped around neck and backpack on back and looking down the steps to where you would fall should the ladder collapse! But a couple of minutes later we were sitting on goatskins in this mans living room area, the living room was no higher than a meter and was about 2 metres by 2 meters, decorated with religious paraphernalia. He showed us his sleeping quarters and area no larger than a single bed and about 1 meter high attached to his living area. Then we had a tour through his paraphernalia and he read something in Amharic from his bible, minutes later we were attempting the climb back down the ladder (even more difficult than the climb in) and wondering how this man of 60 plus years managed it! However he said he has lived in that cave for his whole life so he could probably do it in his sleep! That night we had diner at the hotel where some of our travelling companions were staying, they were paying $30USD and their showers were not working properly, so we were pretty happy with our 7 dollar room. The food was expensive but very good, Ethiopian food is really tasty and centred around a flat bread which is served with lots of different dippings sat on top of it, you tear the bread and eat the dips. I am suffering from the excess cabbage which seems to be served in everything and seems to seep out of Spencers bum at every available moment, infesting my air space! I was expecting another onslaught of fleas or bed bugs, but didn’t have to scratch all night, the bed however, was another centre-weighted special, and sat about 40cm lower in the middle than either side! We also only had one pillow to share and a toilet that would only flush by a broken water jug! We can’t say that we really cared as we were only there a few hours, but we did reminisce about our standard of accommodation when we travelled short term, Hilton, Empire and Pan Pacific all got a mention whilst sitting in our $7 room!

The following morning we were up early to walk to the other group of churches to view, we knew that the group was connected to the group we had visited the day before, but were under the impression that they were down the hill, after walking with the school traffic and being hounded for pens and money we find the structure that we thought was the second group of churches, not at all the second group of churches! We walk back uphill to the previous days viewing and find a guide who walks us to the second group, not far away at all and refuse payment! This group of churches contains more underground tunnels and take quite a bit of backtracking for us to view all of the churches. At one stage we were walking through a tunnel about 30mts long about 20 meters underground, carved out of solid stone. We wound our way through all of the churches and met a few interesting characters along the way. Then back to the hotel for our ride back to Bahir Dar. The driver, who was organised by the hotel, had tried to pull a swifty on us the night before and said that we would be leaving for Bahir Dar at 6am the following morning (and it wasn’t a stuff up of the crazy Ethiopian time system!) This would have meant that we would have spent 10 hours travelling (was supposed to take 14 hours, but we had Nigel mansell behind the wheel!) for three hours of churches!) After a phone call back to Bahir Dar our driver was told we would leave at 12 noon, of course he wasn’t on time! So we left at 12.30, I was nervous about him trying to make up time on the way back, Spencer told me later that we kit 140km/h on too many occasions! At one stage there was a man standing in the middle of the road as he had just climbed off a bus, the driver accelerated at him, blaring the horn. I doubt that we was expecting anything to be coming down that road at well over 100km/h, luckily he jumped out of the way at the last minute as our driver had not left enough time to stop, we would have hit him. Before I realised what I was doing I was blasting out a stream of expletives after we had passed a small child by about 30cm on the wrong side of the road...my abuse was something like ‘for f^&ks sake, do you have to drive so close to the kids, you have the whole road and you are on the wrong side, nearly running over kids’, he had little idea what had happened and what I was on about, so he turned around and asked, I was preparing for another string of expletives at the moron behind the wheel, but the Dutch bloke sitting next to Spencer explained my problem a whole lot more diplomatically! I then added ‘it could be your child on the road’ the Dutch bloke pointed out that he was too young to have kids as he is like 12 years old, I also pointed out that he was too young to have a drivers license! Maybe it was just luck, or maybe it was the accumulated 110 odd church visits made in the previous 24 hours period by the 10 occupants of the van, but we arrived back in Bahir Dar and incredible 5h 5minutes after leaving Belidala, and clambered out of the dusty vehicle, shaking the dust from our clothes and hair.

That evening the manager from the hotel asked me if I though our driver was ‘safe’, he must have had reservations about this bloke, by the end of the conversation the manager would have had the idea on the driving and the driver would have been close to unemployed! The manager was amazed that we had managed the trip in five hours (I was not, it was just crazy driving!)

The following day we were up early to pack up our tents again (three pack-ups and put-ups without actually moving tent site is a new record!) and made the trip to Gondar, to our new accommodation, in the garden of a pub! After putting up our tents I headed off to the shower, not great. A cold, single stream of water in a filthy bathroom, with a toilet that only flushes with a bucket (that you have to fill up from the shower!) I had to fill the bucket to flush a left-over poo down that had been kindly donated by the last occupant!

I started to think that this travel business was maybe harder than paid employment when I realised the following-

- I was camping in a pub garden

- My last clean pair of underwear was in fact dirty

- I was covered by bites from either bed bugs or fleas (most of the truck is infested)

- My new down sleeping bag is riddled with uninvited guests

- I haven’t had a decent shower since Nairobi, and even that was only just bordering on decent!

- I have the shits again

- The only place to do my washing was in a tub on the ground in the pub’s beer garden

- I am still off the grog

Only 70 odd days till we hit Aussie soil again!

The following day we had breakfast down the street, we went back tot he same coffee place where we had eaten lunch the day before, it was so good and huge servings that we hadn’t bothered with dinner! I ordered scrambled eggs, black forest cake (yeah, for breakfast, but who can refuse when it’s 50 cents!) and fresh pineapple juice, Spencer had the white forest, vegie sandwich and juice. My eggs turned into an egg mountain sandwich, lost in translation! Honestly, the roll was the size of a boston bun, like a whole loaf, I had no chance and had to admit defeat early! (after all I had eaten the black forest first!, got to love any country where they bring out desert before breakfast!)and they served up chips with my sandwich, and all this food for about $2 each. We then headed off to the castles which are in town and took our time wandering through the ruins, I was almost ready to leave, then I swapped lenses with another travelling companion (and fellow 5D Mk 11 user), my fisheye for his 20mm, so I ended up doing the lap of the castles again for more shots, and may have just decided that I need the 20mm more than the lens I was intending to buy! From there we headed back to guard our washing whilst it was drying, not happy when I found out that a bag of washing costs 40 birr, which is less than three dollars and I spent hours scrubbing and soaking and rinsing and guarding! But I will take consolation that I am experiencing the true African washing style and backache!

And on the bedbug or flea issue....most of the truck has them, my sleeping bag spent the day in the hot Ethiopian sun in a black plastic bag, hopefully not melting the shell, but melting any uninvited guests~! I cannot get any type of insecticide. Not sure weather I got them at the first sleazy hotel (which we found out later was set up mainly as a brothel) or at the second sleazy hotel where I didn’t use my sleeping bag, but did wear my thermals to bed and then again the following night in my sleeping bag. I am itching my ass off as I type, Spencer counted 40 off bites on my midriff alone this morning, he does not seem to be affected and is calling my sleeping bag “the flea bag”, I have coined the phrase, “life is more exciting with fleas”

Tomorrow we head up to the Simian Mountains for a day trip, followed by a free brewery tour, with free T-shirt included...think I may have to put my alcohol abstinence on hold for an afternoon!

See the photos to go with the story...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=324903&id=640508311&l=1afae81cf7

Insight into Ethiopia....

2010-10-25T17:15:00.001+03:00

After a day in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia we are convinced that ‘Addis’ is a very different African city in most respects, in terms of internet though...same old, same old! We dedicate our first day in town to our basic errands, this means the following ‘fun’ chores; 1. Get cranky at the bastard who stole our laptop in South Africa with all my photography programs on it whilst I download my photos using a substandard version of a program whilst listening to Spencer side with the computer and tell me ‘it’s not the computer it’s too many photos’ and that ‘I didn’t really like the other computer anyway’....2. Get a sore back whilst leaning over on an impossible angle to scrub ingrained dust from our clothing...3. Find an internet place where I can use my computer 4. Find an internet place where I can use my own computer and it won’t take me until the year 2020 to upload photos...4. Crack the craps with the slow internet connection whilst trying to upload photos, again blame the bastard who stole the computer with the program for reducing the resolution of photos! 5. Get cranky at the internet bloke as surely it is somehow his fault that African internet is as slow as glacial movement 6. Upload detailed account of our adventures onto my blog, not at all easy in Ethiopia as it appears that blog sites are blocked, yeah you can upload the blog, but you cannot check that it’s actually there, thanks Megs for being a ‘night owl’ and being the only person online to check it from Australia and message me to tell me it’s all OK! 7. Umm and arrr over purchasing a new pair of jeans or a hat...but buy nothing as they are not ‘like my old ones’ get cranky at the low life bastard that has my favourite hat and jeans!

So we set off on foot, the first walking we have done since Uganda and the first African city walking we have done since Cape Town. I have my money belt hidden inside my undies and pants and am keeping a close eye on Spencers backpack and make him tie up the waist strap, he usually calls me a ‘loser’ or ‘safety sam’ when I make these requests, but hearing more and more stories he is just accepting of my paranoia these days. Safety Sam’s safe tenting in Africa tips; 1. Purchase a sleeping bag with a valuables pocket built in, use this for passport, cash and external hard drive of photos, if all of these things don’t fit, put them in your money belt (no Safety Sam would be caught without one) and tie it to the inside of your sleeping bag near your feet, then sleep IN your sleeping bag! 2. Tie all daypacks together and clip them to a noisy plastic bag, have these located as close to you in the tent as possible, best to have them located in the middle of the tent 3. Ensure limited people see you actually put your pack in your tent before bed 4. Clip your conglomeration of day packs and noisy plastic bags to the zipper of your sleeping bag zipper so that if someone is to slash your tent they have to steal all the bags and sleeping bag with you in it to get at your things....err, I know this goes against my ‘newfound’ principals of spreading your gear out so that if someone is to steal it they just pick and choose the good stuff and leave you with all the worthless gear (to them, but all the mementos that you actually really wanted to keep!)

But anyways, back to the walking, so after the first internet cafe failed to deliver the goods, or actually download a page in 19 minutes we headed off through the wood sales area, along a new freeway and found a modern shopping centre, after spying a bakery we decided that we were in fact hungry, but after walking into the bakery we decided that a crusty bread roll was not for us! We headed upstairs and had a three course lunch of salad, fish and vegies (me), veggie burger (Spencer) and tiramisu (me) and Éclair with hot chocolate (Spencer) all under $8AUD, and good food! There has been a lot of talk on the truck of all the starving Ethiopian jokes of our childhood ‘have you ever tasted Ethiopian food?’, ‘no’, ‘neither have they’ and of course the old Ethiopian in a stack hat joke, well they are really far off the mark, Ethiopian food is really good and in the south it is in abundant supply at ridiculously cheap prices, you can buy four whole chooks for around $7AUD, and they throw in a free chook filleting knife (but wait there’s more!, you get a free plastic bag to keep the chooks in on the truck, until you get to camp, pluck, skin and chop the poor things)

In the shopping centre I had a small ‘language difficulty problem’ associated with the toilet (I know, I know, it’s always SOMETHING to do with a toilet...honestly when someone invents something to stop all bladder and bowel movements for the term of travel in Africa, African travel will become so much easier!) I had been desperate for the toilet as the ones in the campground are pretty close to unusable, and that’s saying a whole lot. There was something wrong with the plumbing so you had to bucket the water from outside, into the smallest cubicles (honestly you hit your knees on the rusted through, holey metal doors) and even with litres and litres of water a decent African style traveller’s liquid poo will not disappear! Hence all of the solid ones are still floating about...worst still, as the plumbing is so bad toilet paper is not to go in the bowl, it goes in a bin beside it, so you are sitting beside an open waste basket with everyone else’s poo streaked poo tickets staring at you, and the smell! Pheww! And that’s not starting on the mess that is the squat toilet! Men’s and women’s toilets are together and the smell can be experienced from quite a distance away...this was how it was that I ended up in the shopping centre in dire need of a loo. So I first go to walk into the men’s, then realise when I hear a lady say something to me in Arhabic... all good, me thinks, so I head to the females a short distance away, the kind lady is still saying something to me in Arhabic...I don’t speak one word of it, (hey I haven’t even been in the city 24 hours) so I assume she is just telling me that I am now in the right place, I start to open the door and realise that she is still talking...hmmm, have the door open by now she is standing up and walking fast towards me, wondering what she wants and figuring I have to pay for the toilet before I use it I stand there stupidly with the door open, then to my absolute astonishment I hear a voice from inside! A lady was in there washing her butt and I had the door opened for everyone passing by in the shopping centre to see in, the kind lady closed the door and I realised that she had actually been saying ‘there’s someone in there’ in English that accented that I hadn’t recognised it! My facial expressions and ‘mybad’ style of head hanging did bring a chuckle out of the lady, I scurried away and luckily found another toilet nearby...and just for your amusement, I started to walk into the men’s before I was quickly corrected!

As I’ve said Ethiopia is different, so is how they tell the time, when the sun rises it is 12 o’clock, one hour after sun rise it is 1 o’clock so on, the sun sets at 12 o’clock, (6 o’clock normal time), after it has been dark for one hour it is 1 o’clock. How do you tell 1 o’clock from 1 o’clock, from the other 1 o’clock (yeah there are three 1 o’clocks everyday in Ethiopia) you use ‘in the morning’, ‘evening’ or ‘night’ to distinguish between them! But if you thought that was confusing...the dates are also different, Ethiopia has 12 months of 30 days and a 13^th month of either five or six days, so the outcome of this is that Ethiopia is 7 ½ years behind normal calendars, making it 21/4/2003, making me 23 ½ years old...hmm shame my appearance didn’t change back 7 ½ years as I crossed the border!

We took a taxi into the city to check out St George cathedral, we walked in and I started taking photos, I got three or four off before a man came over and told me that I wasn’t allowed, glad that he didn’t insist on deleting the photos. We were then channelled into the St Georges museum, defiantly no photos allowed there either. There was some pretty old and amazing gear in there, an array of artefacts of the emperor era and the Christian church, old emperor clothing, paintings which needed a good clean and to be put behind glass, old crowns, umbrellas, the man who took us through the museum kept talking about ‘utopia’ and asking if I had seen ‘Utopia’ food places in Australia...it took me most of the tour until I realised that he was actually saying ‘Ethiopia!’, from there we were urged to climb the narrow and winding stairs to see the bell tower, thinking I would get a good view out, I took on the stairs with no handrails to be greeted at the top by four enclosed sides but the biggest bell I have ever seen, about 1m in diameter, my thoughts at that moment were dedicated to ‘just how well is the bell attached to the tower?’ We were then led into the St Georges cathedral, shoes off and seated amongst a procession of bell ringing and humming and drumming of a procession, not being great on religion facts, I am not sure of the name of this procession, but do know that it was a great experience to see. We headed into the centre of the cathedral to view some of the most amazing wall murals I have ever seen (sorry I do realise that I keep saying “the best I have ever seen!” all the way through Africa!, but so true!) even Spencer was impressed at these murals, I was surprised to be allowed to photograph the murals and the inside of the cathedral, although most photos were off the inconspicuous ‘little camera’ the attention drawing ‘big camera’ only came out for a couple of pics!

From there we started the walk to the Ethnological Museum; I completely blame Lonely Planets dodgy maps for my geographical embarrassment, after walking for about 5 minutes I realised that I was in trouble, after an hour I had to admit defeat! We did see some great sights during our walk and defiantly saw parts of Addis Ababa that very few tourists see, we stumbled across the Merkato market, and had a stroll through it, quite glad that Ethiopian touts are not as advanced as other places and will actually listen to ‘no’. After realising that we had walked in the complete opposite direction than we should have from St Georges I insisted that we jump in a taxi to get to the ethnological museum as an ‘easy way out’ ha ha, nothing is easy in Africa! The first taxi driver that we spoke to had no idea what we were talking about, I showed him lonely planet and said the name and address several times, (the chinese remade all the street signs in Addis and stuffed them all up, so maps don’t match the signs!) he still did not understand and by this time we have about 50 people standing around us watching the ‘foreigners’, we walk a little further up the road, followed by roughly 50% of the audience and find another taxi, this time there is a man nearby who is able to tell our driver the location we want to go....Our intended address was ‘lost in translation’ somewhere between our departure point and the National Museum of Ethiopia, no energy left for taxis or trying to communicate in Arhabic of ‘Arhabenglish’ we settled for the National Museum, which was really enjoyable. We viewed the bones of ‘Lucy’ a 3.2 million year old fossil of a hominoid discovered in 1974, which stood upright so is believed to be the oldest relative of mankind. There was a great array of exhibits, however little to no interpretation of what they were, we were able to take photos of all the exhibits, which again surprised me, Ethiopia appears to have a hot or cold approach to photography! After we finished there we headed across the road for lunch, I cracked the crankies at Spencer and blamed him for me ending up with a non-impressive pasta, it was his advice of ‘just pay the extra 5 birr (33 cents) and get the vegetable pasta’ I just wanted tomato and was just going to order the plain tomato, but assumed that the vegies would be in a tomato sauce...no, just dry looking pasta and vegies, but I didn’t admit to him that it actually tasted better than it looked, he however ate the last half and quite enjoyed it! Next cranky moment came when my long awaited strawberry juice arrived, in a shot glass! With a huge straw! I looked at it with disgust and immediately ordered a coke to go with it, then started about bitching and whinging about someone charging 18 birr (about 1.20 AUD) for a shot of juice when a glass bottle of soft drink was 5 birr (40 odd cents), Spencer tells me ‘well you had to know that it wasn’t going to be very big, have you seen strawberries growing anywhere, they must cost a lot, that’s why the drink is so little’, so I slowly sip my juice and get even crankier as it was absolutely delicious and I would have liked for than 20ml of the gear....then 15 minutes later I am brought a large glass of the said strawberry juice! The ‘shot’ turned out to be a ‘taste test!’ the lady waiter must have though me strange to sip the taste test so slowly!

Whilst we were eating local kids tried to sell us chewing gum, taxi and other unwanted items that we didn’t hear what they were, but knew we didn’t need. I was shocked at the amount of kids selling on the streets, and then realised that it was a Saturday, however after consulting the local school statistics I realised that there would probably be as many kids selling gum on a Monday. Only 52% of kids attend primary school and only 12% attend secondary school, hence only 38% of Ethiopians are literate (I do wonder just how many words you must be able to spell and read to be considered ‘literate’) If all kids attended school the workforce would be cut by about half, many families put their kids to work in the fields rather than school. Kids, women and donkeys work hard here, you see women walking miles and miles with huge loads of firewood on their backs, just tied up with rope and sat on their backs, they have to slouch and hunch to keep the wood in place, apparently most loads are around 35kg. It is far too common to see young kids herding cattle, goats, or ugly sheep (I have named ‘Shoats’ as they look like a goat got in with a sheep), sometimes the cows are higher than the kids leading them along the roads, you also see kids carrying impossible loads, if kids in Australia were seen doing such there would be quite a few questions the parents would have to answer! If I ever come back into this world again, I hope that it is not as a donkey in Ethiopia. They are worked and worked and worked and then worked some more, you see them with massive loads of firewood, some loads that would look ridiculously big on the back of a truck, and the donkeys just have to walk along getting belted with a stick because they are not going fast enough! In the rural areas much of the transport is using donkeys, or if you are ‘well off’ you may have a horse, the donkeys are used with wagons to carry families and gear and another stragglers...poor donkeys...and they are such nice looking donkeys too, grey with a white nose and white knees and a black stripe down their shoulder, if I could get an African donkey back into Australia I would save one and start the Bandy Donkey Sanctuary....

We left Addis and dropped into the Great Rift Valley again, at the top of the escarpment it was so cold that I was wearing thermals, polofleece and a maasai blanket (I had thought the Maasai blanket would get a run on the truck as some stage, but didn’t think it would have it’s maiden voyage in Ethiopia!, we were at about 3000m asl then we dropped about 1000m and the temperature increased by about 10 degrees, t-shirt weather. We then began the climb back up, blanket came back out! Everyone’s cameras were firing as we crossed the blue Nile gorge, it was such a great view down and up that it was worth the cold of having the canvas sides rolled up! But honestly the countryside of Ethiopia is nothing like what you expect, it is green, lush with terraced crops on every available plot...nothing like the image that comes to mind when one says Ethiopia!

We stopped for lunch after climbing back out of the great rift, the menu was all in arhabic and there was little to no English spoken. Nobody seemed to get the right order; I didn’t get mine at all, until I pointed at someone’s egg and bread and made a sign for ‘1’. Spencer ordered the traditional Ethiopian injera, which is a flat bread of a weird texture (like tripe) served with 6-8 dips on it. He asked for it with no meat, I was not confident that this was understood. It came out with one meat pile on it, best avoided. I liked the look of the goats cheese and tomato relish type concoction so I gave my egg coated with curry sauce a rest and dug into the tomato looking gear...and didn’t think at the time that it was all that bad....a couple of minutes later someone pointed out that the tomato concoction was actually raw meat! Urghh! Much to the amusement of everyone else! I completely blame one of our travelling companions who had said previously “maybe today is the day you stop being a vegetarian” ha ha, usually I can taste meat, but I think the whole raw factor disguised the whole situation, plus it was laced with chilli, even the meat eaters took a while to decide what it was, the waiter confirmed it. Now I fear that I will have a massive tapeworm as excess luggage when I arrive back in Australia!

We arrived at our ‘hotel’ at Debre Markos to hear that our tents were not required as we had rooms for the night (and the sign said ‘deluxe rooms’)!...not excited for too long, it’s two people to a bed or sleep on the truck....I was thinking the truck seemed like a better option, expecting single beds (Spencer and I have rouble sharing a queen sometimes!) The rooms are basic, basic, and dirty..I took the risk of infesting my sleeping bag with bed bugs instead of lying on the sheets; the power point was hanging from the wall. The shared toilets are horrendous, I never conclusively found out who the ‘poo smearer’ was but I have tracked them down to residing in Ethiopia! There is like 200 poo smears on the wall of each toilet! The rooms with ensuites had a hole in the floor for the toilet, which doubled as a shower drain....so to flush the toilet you have to turn on the shower....non slip footwear essential in the shower! We didn’t have an ensuite, which I was thankful for as others said that the rooms just smelt of s^&t, however at midnight when I had to get dressed and take on the poo smearers artwork again, I was thinking the smell may have not been that bad. Figuring that anyone smearing poo on the wall had to open the door to exit the toilet I took my chances and left the door of the unisex toilets open, figuring that a little embarrassment was better than touching a poo coated door handle! The following morning I was packing up my sleeping bag and has put my head torch on instead of turning on the light (and no, it wasn’t a fear of touching the power point which was hanging out of the wall) it was just that there were so few signs of ‘luxury’ in our ‘deluxe’ room that I though I was in the tent (and would have preferred to have been in the tent!)

We headed into town for a look and found a pub with a TV (big thing here) and showing the soccer, so we piled in, realizing quickly that I was the only female in the place...apparently only ‘loose females’ would be seen in a bar in Ethiopia, from the looks on a few of the blokes faces, I figured that this was true! I broke my beer ban, no true Australian can turn down a beer in a pub with hay on the floor when it is 3.50birr (20 cents Aussie!) I figured that on a day when I ate raw cow I deserved a couple of beers! The soft drink was 8 birr, so over twice the price of beer, love this country! (after a day of eating two lunches with beer and soft drink, about 10 beers between us and snacks and 4 rolls of toilet paper, Spencer added up that we had spent $9 AUD!) Really love this country! After a stint on ‘truck security’, sitting on the truck as it could not be driven over the dodgy bridge and into the yard, We headed inside for a meal, then off to bed. Not surprisingly the beds had either bed bugs or fleas, which were driving me mad by 11, it was a long night! The bed had once had a foam mattress, however it was so old that the middle of the bed just rested straight onto the bed base, the accommodation charge was 20 birr, so about $1.20 Aussie dollars, so we just figured that the bed bugs were complementary!

I had another Laruim fuelled dream that night, not any more weird than usual, but the larium makes the dreams feel like reality. Usually, when I dream I am aware that I am dreaming, but with the larium dreams, I am usually surprised to wake up alive! In this dream I was in Ethiopia (true) and I went to a pub (also true) and I drank a beer (true too), but in my dream women are not supposed to drink beer and I was arrested and charged and was going to be beheaded! The Australian embassy laughed at me and said they couldn’t help, I was begging saying “all I did was drink a beer, I don’t think death is a fair punishment!”, then I started banging my head on the wall and screaming it seemed so real that I coule even feel my head banging into the wall. Then they were making me kneel down so that they could behead me with an axe type thing on a 8ft pole and I (thankfully) woke up...to my reality of bedbugs and fleas biting! Love Africa! Every moment is an adventure! But on the serious side of life, I am getting off the Larium (used as a malaria medication) after next week, there is little to no malaria from here on in and I will get my fix of adventure from the movies not my own subconscious.

The following morning there was a crime committed on the truck, a very, very serious crime. My roll of toilet paper was stolen....not sure if the person responsible was the same individual responsible for the poo smears in the toilets...hmmm...possible...but honestly what type of low life steals a brand new roll of toilet paper? You would have to be an assole (pardon the pun!)...... But I am onto the ‘poo cloos’ again, there were only three people in and out of the truck in the time the poo tickets were nicked...one I discounted immediately, the other two will have their bog roll examined without their knowledge...it was a special roll, not found in many places, so very traceable! And after that comes revenge!

I spent that driving day sitting in the sleeper section of the cab, the drive is a lot smoother and quieter (you cannot hear the kids yelling ‘you, you, you, gie me money’) but you can see the traffic and that is a problem, I much prefer not to see trucks coming straight at me on my side of the road, we arrived in Bahir Dar on Lake Tana, we are back to camping, but as camping is no big pastime in Ethiopia there are no real campsites set up, we are camped in the grounds of a hotel, our bathroom is simply a room set aside that we have the key for that we use the bathroom. I have not had a proper shower since Nairobi, so am looking forward to a decent scrub! Tomorrow we head up to Lalibela, a seven or eight hour drive for 300km, the truck and many peole on it stay here, this is an additional trip off the truck, then we return and meet the truck again here.

And finally, sorry about the addition of advertisements to this blog site, hopefully it does not affect your viewing (I cannot actually view the blog from here as blog sites are blocked in Ethiopia) Anyways, the advertising may earn me a small pittance for my effort, so tell your friends and hit on the site often. With robberies, hospital visits and a distinct lack of a regular wage (or tenants in our house) we need all the money we can get, even if that comes from ‘selling out’ for the advertising dollar!

North of Nairobi....frontier land...

2010-10-22T16:03:00.001+03:00

We headed off to the Sudan Embassy with little hope of getting our Sudan visa easily. Other people on the truck had been told that they would not be issued with a Sudan visa until they had their Egypt visa, as a sort of insurance policy that they were not going to build a hut and live in Sudan forever! We filled out the form, twice and submitted it with two passport photos, two copies of our credit cards (no way we were handing over a bank statement!) two copies of our yellow fever certificate and two copies of our letter of introduction from the Australian Embassy. The lady behind the counter was one of the surliest creatures to roam the planet (with the exception of me aged 13) She said ‘so many tourists nowadays’ to us...(not really, looking at the forms at the gate of the embassy there had only been 20 visitors the day before, I don’t think that Sudan is quite the tourist destination yet!) I replied to her...trying to be nice ‘is that a good thing?’ Didn’t quite catch her answer, but it was less than positive. We left and headed back through security, which was non existent compared to that of the Australian Embassy and found our taxi again.

We had ordered the same taxi driver from the previous day and were surprised to find a different one waiting for us at the campsite, we pulled into a service station, it does not matter how far you have to go, or what type of taxi you are in but every time, andI mean EVERY time you get in a taxi, the driver pulls into a service station for like $3 of fuel! So in a week of visa hunting and embassy visits we have been into about 20 service stations, for a total of about $50 of fuel! Ha ha So when we pull into the service station I silently groan thinking that we would not be at the embassy at 9am as planned, instead of pulling into the bowsers we instead check the tyres for air! Then drive across the forecourt and are told that we change taxi’s here, well that’s new! So we change cars and are told that the driver from the previous day couldn’t make it so he hired his cousin, who couldn’t make the pick up hence the taxi relay... after 20mins of four fully grown adults (3 blokes) and me, squashed into the back of a Toyota corolla with four backpacks swerving through the streets of Nairobi we finally arrive, again thankfully to have survived as there are no seatbelts in any taxi over here!

We head to a shopping centre to search for a sleeping mat for Spencer, he was thinking that he could manage 12 weeks of no sleeping mat, he lasted one night...best we could find is an aerobics mat, seems Ok and he has refused offers of swapping the aerobics mat for the thermarest each night. We got lunch at the shopping centre, I ordered something on the menu that was called ‘lemonade’ hmmm I thought I knew exactly what to expect...no way! I was served up a contraption of potions and additives which needed mixing together, turns out it’s a fine art and I had to order another to work out that you don’t add all of the thick, sticky stuff that comes in the silver jug to your glass! That wasn’t the only surprise on the menu; the vegetarian samosas were laced with meat! I bit into the first one and hit animal whilst the waiter was standing next to me, with my mouth full of some type of beast I asked him ‘are these vegetarian?’ already tasting the answer...he looked and said ‘no’ at the same time that I was making a big scene in spitting out the offending moo cow or baa baa blacksheep and then wiping out my mouth with a serviette, whilst he apologised profusely. Turns out that saying vegetarian and actually pointing to the ‘vegetarian samosas’ on the menu was just not comprehensive enough!

The following day we head to the Elephant Orphanage and Giraffe sanctuary. But honestly the taxi ride was possibly more entertaining than the elephants of giraffes. Although a giraffe did try to head butt Spencer which I found a whole lot more hilarious than he did! Four of us breathe in deeply and manage to somehow get in and close the doors! We take off down the bumpy, dusty road in one of the outer suburbs of Nairobi, a couple of times I realise that we are rolling with out the engine running (this has happened in quite a few countries, Madagascar mainly, to save fuel) So I didn’t think much of it, apart from the fact that the Toyota corolla was pretty hesitant to start each time. Then the driver starts swerving down the road and the car sounds sicker and sicker, the swerving turns into a jerking of the steering wheel right and left and right and left, this is so not cool when you are jammed in between two blokes in the backseat! Then the car stops and flatly refuses to start and I am thinking ‘far out, we have broken down in Nairobi aka ‘Nairobbery’, we are carrying a decent amount of cameras between the four of us (four SLR’s and possibly about 10 lenses). The taxi driver gets out and starts pushing the car forward down the road, lucky he was aided with a slope as none of the ‘mzungus’ could get out without exploding forth out of the crammed vehicle! The car somehow starts again and splutters as we rock back and forwards for the last 100m to the service station....ah ha! There lay the problem; this was the first taxi driver to not take us directly to the service station as a first stop! $3 of petrol later and we are on our way, with a transformed Toyota corolla. The elephant orphanage was good fun, apart from the herd of tourists! The giraffe sanctuary was also enjoyable, we got to feed the giraffes ‘giraffe pellets’, their tongues are so rough! Whilst they were eating you were able to pat them and give their ears a scruff. Their heads are so big up close!

That afternoon we head back to the Sudan Embassy at 2pm, we got a head start as the traffic in Nairobi can make the difference between a 20 minute and a 3 hour journey. We arrive at 2.30pm, ready to pick up our visas at 3pm. The clock hits 3pm, we wait, the clock hits 3.05 we still wait, clock hits 3.09 the receptionist gets up and walks into the back office, clock hits 3.10, I get up and fill up our water bottle from the water fountain whilst the surly receptionist is absent, clock hits 3.15 we still wait, Clock hits 3.19 large African lady across the room answers her phone and speaks very loudly for 15 seconds, thirty seconds later this occurs again, and continues until we leave the embassy! Sometime after 3.30pm she stands up again and takes all our passports into the back office, after keeping our passports there for over 24 hours they were deciding to process them now? After another cup of water and ten phone calls to the woman across the room passports start being handed out, mine was handed to one of the South African blokes on our truck, I was surprised at the fact that they were able to pick up the drivers passport with out an authorisation letter, with all the hassle we had with DHL refusing to pick up Spencers passport from the Australian Embassy even with embassy approval!

From there we took another interesting taxi ride back to the local shopping centre to post my ‘insurance policy’ (a back up of my favourite photos back home) ( just on the small off-chance that sit hits the fan badly and I loose both external hard drives...err, not me lose them, more likely someone steals them!) and head to the super market to buy the worst cream cheese in the world...let me tell you, there was definitely no eating of the cream cheese with a spoon, it was an effort in commitment to even eat any of the crap on crackers. So disappointing as it was the nicest looking label on the shelves, painted up like a devondale cow! Now that’s why they say, ‘never judge a cream cheese by its cow print!’ We also manage to find a jar of vegemite, although the smallest jar in the history of vegemite, and I think it may be old enough to earn a place in an Australian museum, it was worth as much as a museum display! But totally worth every shilling the following morning on my toast!

Returned to camp to face my worst task of travel, the washing...dreaming of my fisher paykal 6kg, fully automatic, hot or cold wash, rinse and spin, wonderful machine, I find a plastic laundry tub, take the Omo and my new trial bar of Sunlight soap bar and head for the tap. Of course the tap is above a sink and the sink is too small to wash in and the tap is so close to the sink that one must balance the washing tub whilst filling it halfway then splash water down the front of ones self to lower the tub to the ground, where one must then scrub the African dust and dirt out of the clothes by hand. Turns out that the Sunlight soap bar is one of the best 15 shilling investment ever, we actually have white whites for a couple of days, not grey whites, or yellow whites or the favourite, red dust whites! So for any of you travelling to Africa, I will give you the washing information that has taken me 3 months and about 60 hours of scrubbing (and many layers of skin shed from my knuckles) to learn; the best way to wash is this; Step one. Fill washing tub with water. Step two. Use a bar of 15 shilling Sunlight soap and scrub all items thoroughly. Step 3. Rinse Sunlight soap out of clothes. Step 4. Refill tub and add liberal amounts of Omo washing powder (Anyone want to know why Omo is ridiculously expensive everywhere else in the world? Expensive prices are subsidising cheap African prices, no shit, it’s like $1.10AUD for 500g, if you get the 1Kg, it’s cheaper than $2!) So after adding the Omo, agitate the washing for a couple of minutes and let sit, and then agitate again (by this time the agitating becomes easier due to your agitation levels rising). Step 5. Balance the tub over the sink or dirt or bucket the water from the tap if needed (depending on your position) and refill enough to rinse the clothing out. Step 6. Piece by piece hand wring all items. Step 7. Erect a washing line to hang them on, if hanging on a tent, be wary of rusty tent poles or dusty canvas which will quickly undo your scrubbing efforts. Step 8. Position yourself in close range of the erected washing line to catch any items which look likely to fall onto the dirt or be eaten by stray goats and never, ever, leave washing on the line overnight, except in Johannesburg, it is apparently the only place safe to leave washing overnight! Ha ha ha (but true!) Step 9. Enjoy the fruits of your scrubbing efforts for the five minutes that you have clean clothes, as no matter how hard you try, you will never stay clean for longer than five minutes. Step 9. Repeat steps 1-8 every two to three days in varying weather conditions and surroundings with varying degrees of brown water!

Washing History: we have been in Africa for 3 months and one day, we had ‘machine washed clothes’ (MWC) once in South Africa and once in Namibia. We had our bigger items washed in Nairobi. Currently there are clothes that we own that have never been washed in a washing machine...yes these are the clothes that will not be making their way back to Australia and will instead be gracing the ‘vinnies’ bin or similar in Istanbul!

We left Karen campsite at 9.30am the following morning, half hour later than planned, this was due to the few last minute items being moved from the old truck ‘Ruby’ to the new truck ‘Roxy’, one part of this was the fuel tank, which I believe is currently ‘temporarily’ strapped into place until there is time for it to be fitted properly. As there is a holiday in the middle east around the time of our ferry to Egypt and two ferry services have been cancelled (they only run once a week) we are heading swiftly towards the ferry, otherwise we may get stuck waiting in Egypt for Roxy to get on the ferry! We headed out of Nairobi, with time for a quick stop at the supermarket to gather three days of supplies as we are told there is ‘f^&k all for three days’ in Northern Kenya. Lonly planet says something like ‘to travel in northern Kenya be prepared to tread where few have tread before you’ and it’s pretty accurate, after finding out I was on cooking duty the first night and gathering supplies we weaved our way out of Nairobi, stopping several times as one of the storage bin doors kept popping open, three stops later (and us breathing sighs of relief that amazingly no cars had been beside us at any stage it opened or they would have been badly dented) we say farewell to the outskirts and look towards Mt Kenya which ws, unfortunately, covered by fog. The truck rattles along very smoothly, I am told it is to do with the air suspension, whatever, it is far from back jarring on the rough roads. This truck is set up very differently from the trucks we have been on for the past 60 odd days, there is a ‘beach’ section at the back, the size of a queen size bed, for anyone wanting to sleep through the day, there are 12 forward facing seats at the front and 18 inwards facing seats in the middle of the truck. It has canvas roll up windows about 200 books (I don’t know what to read next, I am currently into Dian Fosseys gorillas in the mist, reliving just how amazing the gorillas are!) Our storage lockers are in compartments under the seats, which is handy, but I am missing the lock-up aspect of the acacia truck. On route “roxy’ had it’s first test, rain, there are plenty of leaks in the canvas and the trapdoor over the beach. After 20 minutes the rain eased and we continued down the road, to make camp at about 6.30pm just off the side of the road. We had only just pitched our tents when two of the locals appeared wearing their traditional cloths with sticks and tried to move us along, then offered us security for the night...at a price...security declined we cook tea, eat and get to bed ready for a 5.30am start the following day. The next morning we get away on time, suprising as breakfast was late as we spent about 15 minutes looking for the matches so we could cook the eggs! We had about 250km to travel that day, last year it took the truck 11 hours! It took us 9 ½ hours, in which I think we may have seen 6 other vehicles!. We were temporarily halted along the way by a 20cm piece of sharpened metal piercing a tyre, with the longest type lever in the world (About 8ft) one of our 12 spare tyres was fitted. (yup, when I saw that we needed 11spares I did wonder just what I had let myself in for!) North of Nairobi is completely different to anything else we have yet encountered in Africa, it is true ‘frontier’ land’, very few overland trucks come through here each year and you can tell form the excitement on the kids faces as they run after the truck waving and yelling, a couple of kids ran for kilometres this morning smiling and waving in their school uniforms! We camped in the empty lot beside an accommodation place, We were happy to have showers available, as we were coated in dust from the days drive. The ‘showers’ turned out to be a tub of hot water set in a stand with a jug, not bad though, I managed to even wash my hair with my 10lts of water! The worst was seeing the colour of the water run off you and the fact that above the tub was an actual proper shower, obviously not in working order anymore!

The following day was a long one in the truck, Spencer and I were lucky enough to get ‘the beach’ (bed at the back of the truck) however on some of the worst roads that we have encountered we did wonder if anyone else wanted to be at the back of the truck! It was a great day of laying on the truck watching km after km roll past (slowly, like 10km/h!) and seeing nothing bar empty barron desert with the odd twister in the distance, the occasional local with goats, cows, donkeys or camels to make you wonder just how anyone survives in such unforgiving land! We stopped for lunch, many people sat ont he truck as there was no shade, one tiny tree, not wide enough for my ass to hide behind for a pee, so I had to stroll off into the desert to hide behing a peice of plastic tank, hmmm, of course a truck full of locals chose that exact time and place to blow a tyre! Well they got a view of mzungu ass from a distance! We were planning to camp in a police station near the Ethiopian border, but our slow progress and some problem with the air brakes meant that we pulled the truck off the track about 60km short and set up camp, not all that for from Somalia and in an area known for bandits and truck hijackings. We discussed the use of rain sheets on the tents over a dinner of pasta, an decided ‘no we don’t need them, the locals said it hasn’t rained here for two years’, my answer ‘well the locals will be happy if we make it rain by not putting the rain covers on’ ha ha, murpheys law struck about midnight and had people scrambling for the covers in the desert! The smell of the first rain for so long was unbelievable! Teamed with the heat from the ground, like a natural electric blanket was a night that I won’t forget anytime soon! The next morning we were up and away at 6.30am to make the border, however a familiar ‘hiss’ alerted us to another blown tyre, as we climb out of the truck we notice hundreds and hundreds of nokia phone boxes, empty...hmmm, stolen goods, crashed truck of hijacked truck...my mind seemed to be the only one being paranoid about the fate of the truck and exactly what had blown our tyre in the exact same place! Another couple of locker door mishaps and we are finally at the border, it took almost 5 hours for 60 odd km’s. There was a problem with a couple of peoples Ethiopian visas at the border, the lady in the office mixed up the dates, after an hour and a half we were away and very grateful to the Ethiopian roads authority for sealing the roads! I was amazed at the change in the landscape as soon as we passed into Ethiopia, instead of being flat and baron, it is lush and hilly. We pulled off the road for another bush camp, before we were even off the truck we had a gathering of locals watching us with great interest, the kids were keen to play soccer and many had never seen a camera before, a coupe of the blokes got some great shots of the kids, much to everyone’s delight. I was having issues with my flash unit, worried for awhile that it had been a victim of hundreds of kilometres of jolting, changed the batteries even though the battery was showing full, sent a stream of sparks from the top of my camera, then worked fine....hmmm.....

We were up at 5am and away at 6am for the long haul to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, a little over 500km from the camp. Ethiopia feels like you really have arrived ‘somewhere else’ overland trucks are very rare here and the locals seem truly happy to see you, they yell ‘yu, yu, yu, yu’ as you drive past my arm has been waving all day! Unlike other countries, it’s the adults and kids that wave and smile, most waving with two hands! We stopped for a toilet break, however the truck attacted so much attention that there was no privacy after approx 150 people gathered around, two little girls spied my camera and sidled up to me to get a photo, then I had about 30! Then most of them wanted to shake my hand, the kids here are very good with the camera, I didn’t have to wipe fingerprints off or spend time readjusting the settings! Some people are very shy or nervous with cameras aimed at them, we saw one girl scream and duck like she had a gun aimed at her when one of the blokes on the truck tried to take a photo whilst driving past, another bloke took great offense to the 4 DSLRs hanging out of the truck (mine was safely in my locker!) and threw mud at the truck, he wasn’t a great aim and it missed the cameras by meters and lodged on the wall above ‘the beach’. Today was a 12 ½ hour day on the truck, I slept quite a lot of it, unlike me, but I had space to lie down! We came across some crazy drivers, donkeys and goats today, Spencer was sitting up the front with Mike the driver, he recons that sitting in the front you can see exactly how good a driver Mike is as the other drivers, animals and people take a bit of dodging. Because the truck is a ‘split level’ you cannot see the road in front from most of the seats, which makes it interesting when you have no seat belts and you are sitting in quick dry pants on canvas seats and the anchors are applied to avoid a crazy bus driver that seems bent on overtaking when our truck is going the other way! The first I knew of the problem was the esky sliding towards my feet, then my ass sliding along the seats, then the stairwell of the truck getting closer and me thinking my ass was going to land down there! Then we finally all stop sliding (the people on the beach remained on the beach, somehow!!) My arm was linked with the lady sitting on the next seat, I thank her for catching me, no I had grabbed here without realising it! We arrive into Addis ,at over 2400meters above sea level, to find a crappy, dodgy campground with no water, hot or otherwise and poo sitting in the toilet, but the beer is 40 cents for a pint, now this is testing my self inflicted ‘dry season’ (yup mum, you will be pleased to hear that I have given up the beer until I get home, with the exception of my birthday, Christmas day and new years eve!) We have not had showers since Nairobi, five days ago, and too many km’s of dusty roads gone by! The lack of showers was not well received by some! I have just decided to ‘go feral’ for once and all! (And for any of you smart asses who say I have always been feral, I’ll let you know that I have found all new depths of feralness! (ha ha, dictionary tells me there is no actual word as Feralness!) he he he he

The cook group had trouble getting food for tea tonight, they arrived back at the truck with four whole chooks, it was a bit of entertainment watching four blokes pluck, skin and gut the chooks for tea, I was glad that I have a vegetarian option!

I am starting to worry about my behaviour when I get home, please tell me gently if you notice me peeing behind a tree when there is a toilet nearby, going days without a shower, or if I start ‘flapping’ my dishes dry instead of using a tea towel or if I start driving down the road madly waving at anyone who will look my way! Also note that it will take about a month of scrubbing for me to rid myself of the ingrained dirt in ears, nose and skin....cleaning your ears is a whole different experience up here, urghh!

So anyway, first impressions on ‘North of Nairobi’ absolutely fantastic! We have arrived in the ‘real Africa!’

Survival in Nairobi, Visas and introducing African trails

2010-10-14T11:43:00.004+03:00

So after surviving the first 24 hours of digestive system mishaps, I arrived back at the hospital to collect my test results, of course this was never going to be as easy as the doctor had said it would be the previous evening! I arrived and had to move from counter to counter, noticing that locals have to use a fingerprint scanner to get medical treatment, we assumed this was so that no body else could access medical treatment on another’s health care. After waiting for an hour we hear the call for someone vaguely sounding like ‘Allison Harvey’, although it sounded more like ‘Alshun Arvy’ and through we go....quite funny really as when we had first walked in we didn’t know where to go and were shocked that we walked right through the Emergency Department, past the beds where I had been pumped full of fluids and through the doctors station! Once through we had to wait for longer, once the doctor arrived he tells me that the cultures that they had taken the previous day would not be ready for several more days and that I would need to come back again for the results...not happy Jan! So I hand over my poo in the smallest bottle in the world, still impressed with my accuracy in not spilling a drop (yup still liquid) down the sides. Spencer was quite impressed with both my poo texture and the accuracy of execution, he showed our travel companions the sample, although they claimed that they didn’t want to look, they couldn’t stop themselves from checking it out and commenting that it looked like curry paste....well I was just glad to see that it wasn’t straight water anymore! By the time we get back to the campground I am feeling very weak, the pizza that I had forced down earlier was pushing at the hatches to get some fresh air. I head off to bed, seriously contemplating skipping my trip to the Maasai Mara as I felt so bad, Spencer arrives just in time to climb into our spew and poo scented canvas abode for me to yell out ‘open the zip! I’m going to spew!’, The issue lies with the tent having four, not just one zip, he gets it open just in time for me to dive out of the tent to vomit on the ground, we use the tent bag as a doormat, I was just able to clear it before the reincarnation of my vegetarian pizza. (which looked amazingly like a mini-me version of the one I ate at lunch, the pineapple was even spread evenly!) Only real problem was that my undies got caught on the clip that you use to keep the door open and they pulled down, so I could not extend any further out of the tent less my undies fall down further, until I could stop vomiting enough to speak to ask Spencer to unhook me, allowing me to then clamber out only all fours to continue the process of reincarnation. With tents all round, I was severely hoping that nobody came to help and see me in this state! I get back to bed and start to think that I really needed some vegemite, a cheeseburger without the meat and some of my mums tuna mornay! Once I finally fall asleep I have a doozy of a larium and fever fuelled dream, involving myself, my camera bag, the back streets of East Albury, an ’84 toyota troopcarrier and a bunch of dodgy looking people, the outcome of my dream: Robbed again....hmmm...however when you wake up from the dream at least you still have your gear! Larium is the malaria medication that we are on which is renowned for sending people a little batty, strange but incredibly realistic dreams etc etc. I had been finding it OK, but mixed with the fever I was starting to understand what all the fuss was about! The following morning I climb out of the tent, feeling so incredibly weak, and our driver Patrick walks into the camp ground and comes over to see how I am feeling, and stands about 30cm away from my spew and tells me that I look better! Ha ha. I had been hoping that one of the camp dogs would clean up the mess before morning, but I guess even African dogs are fussy about their food! By this stage I am doubting if I can make it to the Mara and so is Marirtjie, Spencer is starting to loose patience with me and I am wanting to curl up in a corner somewhere and not move until I feel better. The trip out to the Mara was good to take my mind off the way I was feeling and did not instil any confidence in me of Kenyan drivers, we went in mini vans, ours was atrocious, suspension was making all sorts of noises that it shouldn’t be and very few of the seat belts worked...which I consider to be important when you are spending more time on the wrong side of the road staring trucks in the face until the last minute when the driver decides to pull back across. We thought that this bit was bad enough, but once the road deteriorated to about 20 potholes every 10 meters the driver started driving with two wheels on the gravel to the side of the road, a wonderful manoeuvre if the gravel to the side of the road is not 40cm lower than the road surface, with a sharp drop off! Depending on the amount of potholes off the road, we would sit either to the left or right of the road on about 80km/h. I was hanging onto the hand rail, and noticed from its loose condition that others had done the very same thing in the past! To our surprise, we make it there without collecting goat road kill for dinner or squashing any of the tiny Maasai boys who tend the cows. I head off for a sleep. An hour later Spencer wakes me up, game drive time, half asleep I grab my camera bag and wander very slowly out to the van, I still have little energy. We are not in the park long when we see a commotion going on a little ways from us, next minute we are flying along at top speed toward a mass of white vans; they were all sitting around a male lion. It was horrible, all the vans were off road and had the poor thing surrounded, when he got up to walk off we were shocked at the size of him, huge! The biggest lion we have seen by some ways in Africa! He started to wander off and I thought ‘well that’s the end of that freak show’ but all the vans started following him, about 20 vans. At one stage one got stuck in the mud as we had a tropical style downpour that afternoon, the driver started forward and backward and forward and backward, the Asian tourists on board didn’t seem to notice it’s plight...we were cracking all sorts of jokes about who would have to get out and push as they were only about 4m away from the biggest lion in the world! Eventually another car pushed the stuck vehicle from the back, with little success, then he drove around the front and managed to budge him out...the cameras hadn’t missed a beat on that van! The lion eventually got bored of this and started to wander off again, much to my amazement to freak show continued, our driver was circling him and we were so close, I was so sad for the lion who didn’t even appear to notice that this behaviour was not normal in game parks. I noted to our van companions ‘just who is the hunter and the hunted here?’ but the situation was best summed up by one of the Aussies “wow, look over there...it’s a huge heard of....white vans” in a great Steve Irwin style! After seeing another 7 or 8 lions about a million wildebeest (Yeah, yeah, I know you are thinking ‘I’ve told her a million times not to exaggerate...’ well with the migration being in the Maasai Mara at the moment there is actually 1.2million wildebeest there, and I think we saw every one of them, twice!) Lots of zebra, buffalo, elephants we head back to camp, have tea in our mess tent, sitting at an actual table! And head off to bed. The tents we were in were big permanent tents, with a double and a single bed inside them, I was pleased to note that the shower and toilet were 30cm from the back of the tent, facing the tent, our very own pedestal, flushing toilet in a tent! I am pretty happy that there will be no reoccurrences of the Lake Nakuru lion episode and head off to sleep. About 2am I need to get up (I think just to take advantage of having my own flushing, pedestal toilet so close and then head back to sleep. Once asleep, my friend Larium and fever play their tricks once more and I have one of the worst nightmares of my life...yup, robbed again in my sleep. This dream was so real that I thought the events were actually happening; I was shocked to wake up and find Spencer still alive beside me. I tell him about my crazy dream; he is just tired and wants to sleep. Shortly after that I see lights circling the tent, and someone walking between out tent and our toilet, looking into the shower and toilet, I tell him this and he just tells me that I am going mad! The following morning we find out that one of the Maasai had been chasing off a lion that was hanging around our tent and the tent containing Aussies Jess and Steve next door, crickey!, can’t get away from these bloody lions!, if I see a bed pan or chamber pot I’m investing! So the following night I am vowing that if I get robbed in my sleep again I am going ‘cold turkey’ on the larium, darn the consequences of malaria and also vowing to limit the liquid so there is no need for night time flushing (really, I never need to go to the toilet at night, only if there are lions about!) So I fall asleep easily, despite the saggiest bed in the world which causes Spencer and I to constantly roll into each other during the night. I wake up just before midnight, yup, you guessed it, toilet break!, So I lay there contemplating where my torch is etc etc when I hear the most bloodcurdling scream that I have ever heard coming from Steve and Jess’s tent, the scream went on and on and on and then died down...I couldn’t breath, I was terrified! I couldn’t imagine what was going on in the tent to make Jess, who is a ‘no nonsense’ Aussie girl from Karratha scream like someone was being murdered, I truly though that there was a lion in the tent! I am not sure if her screaming or my fingernails digging into Spencers leg woke him up. Then I hear the situation calm down without any sudden cut off scream and figure that the situation is under control and try to go back to sleep. Hard though when someone is walking around your tent in gumboots a rain jacket and a Maasai spear shining their torch in the window every 10 odd minutes! The next morning we discover that the screaming had been a ‘frightmare’ where someone had crept into the tent and stolen a wallet and camera bag...hmmm....someone else getting robbed in their dreams! Must be the African influence! The game drive the last morning in the Mara did not live up to expectations, or the previous days game viewing, after some landscape photos we headed back to the camp for breakfast and to mentally prepare ourselves for the drive back into Nairobi....

The drive back to Nairobi didn’t disappoint, we spent lots of time on the wrong side of the road, both overtaking and just casually, one of the other vans overheated so we stopped for 20 odd minutes in the sun (when there was shade that ‘old mate David’ could have parked under 10m away!) and waited, listening to Old Dave shouting ‘Simon, Simon, Simon’ into the radio to speak to the other driver who was going ‘too pole-pole’ (too slow in Swahili) and telling him to go ‘twendy twendy’ (Lets go! In Swahili) The people in the other van later told us that Simon was indeed ignoring Dave on the radio. After sitting in the sun we head back up the Great Rift Valley, overtaking anything and everything on the road regardless of oncoming traffic. I tried to stop watching the road and prepared myself to meet my maker after staring at the grill of an oncoming bright purple bus with about 40 cubic meters of luggage on the roof and ‘god is great’ plastered on the front, baring down on us, head to head, on the same side of the road, which was the wrong side of the road, as it was barrelling downhill and we were struggling to find any guts in the clapped out and overloaded van going uphill. Somehow we manage to pull back into the correct lane in time, with about a meter between the grills of the two vehicles to spare, but we have to squeeze in the 6-7 meter gap between two trucks! This continued all the way to Nairobi, needless to say ‘Dave’ didn’t get a tip of any description from us, (although we possibly owed him something for allowing us to survive the trip!)

We arrive back at the campsite and Spencer starts getting sick from the same thing that I had, about 10 other people in the group are starting to suffer by this stage. I am proud to report to them that I am back to 100%! (They are not happy to hear this!) Spencer gets worse and worse as the night rolls on, shitting and spewing and shitting some more. With him huffing and puffing beside me, the mozzies buzzing around my ears as we had the tent zip undone for easy evacuation (of both the tent and the bowels) and listening to every dog in the whole world barking (yup, there was a dog conference in Nairobi on Tuesday night and every dog in the world attended and barked it’s ass off all night!) I had very little sleep either. The next morning we were up for our last breakfast with Acacia, discuss everyone’s bowel movements throughout the night; count the people on the ‘sick list’ and wave goodbye. We jumped into a taxi and headed for the campground where our African trails truck is due to depart from, still not knowing what time, or even if the truck would leave that day. We arrived at about 7.30 and were glad to see a truck still there; upon wandering over to the campsite it was quite apparent that the truck was not going anywhere soon, empty bottles evidence of a big night previously! (Last year the truck on this journey left 6 days late as it was being repaired) We pull up a seat at the bar to wait for any signs of life from the tents surrounding the truck and are soon surrounded by our new travelling companions who tell us that we need to spend the day organising our Sudan and Egypt visa, that to get our Sudan visa we need to get a letter of introduction from the Australia Embassy. We arrive at the Australian embassy to be greeted with some of the toughest security we have ever encountered. First up was the four inch thick metal door, then the x-ray and subsequent temporary confiscation of my camera bag, the little camera, laptop and both phones, then came the metal detector and full body search, our passports were recorded and phone numbers taken before we could enter into the compound and walk another 20 odd meters into the actually embassy. The lady in the Australian Embassy asked if we had read the travel advice regarding Sudan, I said, yes we have, she responded with “well you need to read it again”. An hour or so later we have our letter, but we have ran out of time to get to the Sudan embassy before they stop issuing visas for the day. We had hoped to leave our passports in the Sudan embassy for 24 hours to process that day and then drop them into the Egypt embassy the following day for processing. We were pleased to hear that our Sudan visa is going to be about $120USD (each) cheaper than we had thought and that our letter of introduction had not cost us anything more than an hour of our time, another Australian who is travelling on a British passport had to pay about $100USD for his letter of introduction, then the visa price on top of that. We head to the bank, internet to print off Spencers yellow fever certificate scanned and emailed by the health clinic (his was stolen). Then back to the hospital to see if I could get my test results, this time I refuse to wait in line and wander right into the emergency department doctors station and pretend to be a stupid ‘mzungu’ not knowing that I need to wait inline outside. I am subsequently sent back to the lab where I am amazed at the lack of any type of system, computer or otherwise. To find my test results the lady needed to look through all the tests that were performed on Friday, search for a specific code number beside mine and this is not done on a computer, it is all scribbled in an exercise book, that code needs to be written down and carried by a young girl to the store room to manually search through the paper files. ½ an hour of being stared at and poked by kids amazed that my skin was white, later I am greeted with photocopies of my test results, I glance at them and cannot tell head from tail, then ask if I am supposed to understand them....no, I need to line up and then wait for over an hour to discuss these with a doctor...errr, no thanks. Luckily one of the blokes travelling on the truck is a pathologist so he checked them out, minus the blood test that they didn’t include in the photocopies and says that they seem fine, so I am still no wiser...but feel fine now (I guess that’s the main thing!) So back to the campground to meet the driver, who has managed to fight off his big night long enough to get out of bed and give us the low down on what’s happening; the trucks f%*ked, new one arriving tomorrow, thief on board and Interpol interviewed all passengers last night, Egypt visa should be right to get at the border, new driver arriving tomorrow with the new truck! We checked out the truck, which was filled with empty bottles cans etc, we have lockers (not locking ones) under each seat, there are charging points, but mainly for USB, the library onboard is huge! And we get to name our tents and write the name on the tent and tent bag....I am thinking along the lines of ‘territories own, or territory tough, or tiger territory’....Spencer is just not a fan of any...however he is in the shower right now so I may just write it on before he gets back!

There are quite a few people on board who are doing the 11 month trip down west Africa, then up the east coast then continuing on the route we are travelling for three months, Nairobi, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Turkey. They have had a rough time of it in West Africa, one night they had their tents slashed and whole bags stolen whilst they slept, one girl had her bag stolen from right beside her head! (my favourite place....hmmm...decided right at that moment to tie my bag to me or put it in my sleeping bag), they were also stuck in a riot and had rocks pelted in at the truck, as it is a canvas sided truck they were all laying on the floor in the back so as to not get hit by rocks, there were many truck breakdown stories and about 80% of the group contracted malaria, one bloke twice. We were told that there has never been any issue with tent slashings or riots on our route, just that we had to watch out for the thief on the truck. The driver thinks he knows who it is and is waiting for evidence, once found out; thief will be left to the devices of the African police (or Interpol). We make up 6 vegetarians in the group, and again there are a few Aussies, but also a liquorice allsorts from around the world. The crew seems to be pretty laid back; I still haven’t worked out if the nice girl that I met this morning is ‘Kimberly Clark – shit ticket thief’

Gorilla encounters and Kenyan Ambulances

2010-10-09T19:19:00.003+03:00

Gorilla Tracks

After a terrible night of very little sleep at ‘Red Chilli Campground’ in Kampala, the capital of Uganda highlighted by only my vegetable lasagne which was a hit again, (one bloke ate it and didn’t realise it was vegetarian!) we packed up camp and left at 6am making as much noise as possible in an attempt to wake the bastards off the Oasis overland truck who had kept us awake all night with singing and talking rubbish at the top of their lungs!

A couple of hours later we arrived at the equator (this time crossing back into the southern hemisphere) we were amazed that water does actually flow clockwise or anti-clockwise depending on if you are in the northern or southern hemisphere. We were also very amazed to see that the water will do this only meters to the north or south of the equator. On the equator, the water will just suck down the plughole without swirling either way.The following day we left lake Bunyoni at 1pm for the 3 ½ hour trip to the Nkuringo Gorilla Campsite, this trip was made in a clapped out old Toyota Hiace van with 11 people, tents, mattresses’ and gear for three days packed inside! Initially we were pleased with the quality of the roads, however they deteriorated very soon after someone voiced this!

By time we reached the campsite the road was little more than a goat track with a couple of people in the van feeling a little apprehensive about the lack of guard rails and the huge drop offs the rocky washed-away roads. We came quite close to the border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and some peoples phone started reading service from the DRC phone towers, there were a couple of people who thought that we must have inadvertently crossed into the DRC because our phones were on the DRC towers! That night we had dinner and roasted marshmallows on the fire while talking to people who had tracked the gorillas that day

We were woken up in the middle of the night by a huge roll of thunder, got up to put the rain sheet on the tent thinking that a huge storm was immanent, however it passed around and under us (we were camped at about 1900m) Woke up the next morning very excited, but nervous about NOT seeing any gorillas! After breakfast we were off to the National Park office for our gorilla briefing where our head guide told us that when we see men with guns they are ‘our people’, I was very glad he had told us this as I would have had heart failure when half an hour of driving within spitting distance of the DRC border we pull up on the road and there is two men in dark green uniforms with AK-47 machine guns and gumboots standing there! These were our guards for the tracking…not to protect us from the gorillas, but from poachers who are well armed and pretty dangerous ord from anyone who had wandered across the border from Congo…we found out later that night that a group of 8 acacia trackers had been kidnapped and killed in the same area in 1999 (Although I knew a few stories of happenings around the area I was glad I didn’t know that earlier!). Other people on our tour tracked the Nshongi family of gorillas and only had one armed guard. We walked through villages and past houses waving at all the kids shouting ‘ello’ and ‘mzungu’ to us, still amazes me at just how excited the kids get to see tourists!

Half an hour later the head guide listens to a message on his radio and tells us ‘good news, the early trackers have found the gorillas’. Trackers go out at 7am and trek straight to where they viewed the gorillas the day before, then follow their tracks to their nests from that night and hope to find them munching on foliage for breakfast not too far away! Our gorillas were still very close to their nests, meaning that we only had an hours trek down into the valley and two hours back, which was a little disappointing as we wanted to see a little more of the Bwindi Impenetrable forest. We sighted 13 of the 17 gorillas in the Nkuringu Gorilla Family, considering there are only 700 mountain gorillas left in the world we were very pleased to see so many. Only certain groups of gorillas have been habituated to be visited by people and only 8 people can visit each family for an hour a day, for the privelidge they currently pay $500US however there is talk that it will increase to $1000US.

The guidelines say that people have to stay 7 meters from the gorillas, however someone forgot to tell the gorillas this! they came closer and closer to us. Because the family which we visited has been habituated for 12 years they were very comfortable with us. At the start of our hour with the gorillas a huge black back called ‘Kirungi’ (black back is a gorilla that is ready to turn silverback ie; become sexually mature) decided that after posing for photos for five minutes that it wanted a snack, so just reached up grabbed the trunk of a tree close by, pulled the tree over and started breakfasting! Not long after this he decided that he wanted to be the other side of us, walking between myself and another bloke who were moving as fast as we could over steep and loose vegetation without disturbing the other gorillas, in the end he passed about 50cm from where I was clinging to the hillside and was every bit as tall as me, only about 8 times the diameter! I was fair crapping myself!

So many of the gorillas were actually too close to photograph by the end of hour with them, my minimum focusing distance is 1.8m and there was a lot of time I couldn’t focus they were so close. At one stage I was taking photos of a gorilla that was up the hill a little bit when I felt something tap on my hand, it was the guide pointing out the juvenile gorilla which had moved right in front of me! I ended up taking less photos than anyone else, but I guess it’s about quality not quantity! I was actually that awed by the mountain gorillas that I spent a lot of time just watching instead of taking photos…with my lens I was just too close to actually see a whole gorilla through the viewfinder!

Near the end of our hour the guide asked who wanted to see the silverback called ‘Safari’ to walk up the hill a couple of meters as he had been sitting mostly out of sight behind vegetation, almost on que he wandered down the hill tord us, stopping about 2-3m in front of us and settled down for some photos. I think that quite a few people stopped breathing at this stage, I certainly did! Our guide almost had to drag us away at the end of the hour, we just wanted to stay there forever! He was saying that we had ‘perfect viewing’ as the gorillas are often not that active, we had witnessed the juveniles playfighting and tumbling and evenually big momma gorilla swatting a couple of the younger ones over the head to sort it out! We started back up the hill, through the terraced villages stopping to have lunch and reached our clapped out old minivan after two hours, two hours spent talking non-stop about gorillas and photography….great topics!

Spencer and I return to camp to find our tent moved and decorated with lots of red balloons and flowers and containing a bottle of sparkling red wine, box of chocolates and card signed by everyone as it was our first wedding anniversary that day….and what a way to spend it!Back at camp we wait for the other group who had to leave earlier as they were tracking farther away, we had all compared photos, downed 500ml Nile special beers and talked non stop about just how amazing the gorillas are, when the other group came back in several hours after us and looking dusty and tired (we had all had hot showers by this time too!) They had all enjoyed their day, but had not been as lucky to get so close, as the Nshongi family has not had contact with humans for as long as the gorillas that we tracked.

After dinner we roasted some more marshmallows by the fire with the gorilla stories still running thick and fast!

The following day we took advantage of lying on our mattresses on the green grass watching the clouds pass over, Spencer and I took a stroll around the village, however I was pretty nervous of walking around by ourselves close to the border of one of the most unstable countries in the world at the moment. That night we sat in our thatched dining room and watched a great electrical storm brew and pass us over, dumping a lot of rain on the campsite.

The following morning we were back in the mini van, this time with 8 passengers, the driver, 16 sleeping mats, 8 tents, 8 rain covers and all of our gear, not the most comfortable trip in the world! We arrived back at Lake Bunyoni, had lunch then prepared for more rain…decided that the best course of action was to get to the bar, download our photos, watch the commonwealth games, talk about gorillas and drink some beer.

That night Spencer had to take a shovel to the toilet with him to ward off the camp dogs! They were crazy mutts! As he got out of the tent they rushed at him, he had to kick one to keep it from biting him, I looked out of the tent to see three eyeing him off, they had dragged our bin bag away and spread in everywhere and then tipped another bin over. Now I understood why the security guard had told me the night before that the dog as a ‘wolf’ as I was patting it thinking it was a nice dog, although close to a dingo!

We are still waiting to receive the magical email informing us that we have tenants in our house…loosing $600 a week when you are not working and haven’t worked for over five months is not a great feeling!

Our ‘jigger’ (still haven’t been able to find someone who knows how it’s actually spelt!) worm holes in our feet have cleared up, after seeing them everyone else is wearing shoes more often! I am keeping a close eye on my skin for any more parasites…

To truly experience Africa they say you need to be robbed….

I think to truly experience Africa you need to-

1. Be robbed

2. Get food poisoning

3. Have a parasite living somewhere within your body

4. Take local transport (once)

5. Listen to the wheels of your Kenyan ambulance squeal as you roar through the streets of Nairobi hospital bound

Kenyan Medical Adventures

(this one is rated P for Poo)

So we re-enter Kenya at a quick border crossing (1 hour) and head for Eldoret (previously known as Eldorado he he he) and the much awaited open fire in the bar. Eldoret is about 2200m above sea level, so things were cooling down pretty quickly as we pitched our tents and headed for the bar. We settle in under a thatched roof outside to drink some beer and are quickly surprised by a strange substance falling from the sky…..hail…in Kenya! We wait for a lull in the hail and drag ourselves and beers back up to the bar hoping that the fire is lit…some people adopt the ‘jandals off’ (the Kiwis) technique of moving through the path that is flowing like a river, others adopt ‘thongs on’ (the Aussies) or ‘flip-flops’ (Northern hemisphere) on, dependant upon nationality….then there are the Territorians, who like to throw around the term of ‘pluggers’. I went for ‘pluggers off’ and just about froze my tootsies off!

A few beers later and dinner is ready, we drag ourselves away from the bar and the open fire that has been stoked up nicely by this stage to eat our stuffed pancakes. We find out that we are camped beside the very same African Trails truck that we will be on from Nairobi to Istanbul (called Ruby), some of the people on the truck will be our travelling companions for the next three months. When they roll into the bar, it doesn’t take me long to work out that the African Trails trucks attract a very different clientele than the Acacia trucks. The power goes out and five of the crew start walking to the toilets off the light of one mans head torch, I hear him say “look, a couple of other people are going to have to get head torches of you are going to have to chip in for money for batteries, this is going to cost me a fortune!” ha ha ha. They had a dress up night as it was someone’s birthday, one of the girls who named herself only as ‘Kimberly Clark’ was obviously out for the cheapest dress up outfit available and stole every roll of toilet paper in the campground (except the bar) to dress herself in. I for one thought this was a great joke, until about 1am the next morning when I would have sold my sole for a roll! So after a couple of beers, feeling sober and 100% well, I prepare myself for bed with a 500ml bottle of the best ginger beer ever and head off to tent 649. I wake up in the middle of the night realizing that something was very, very wrong with me, I make my way as quickly as one can, out of tent 649 when you have four zippers to open in the rain and get my ‘pluggers’ on for a quick jog to the camp toilets…once there I realize exactly where ‘Kimberly Clark’ got her party dress from! Not in a position to be choosy, I head for the men’s bathrooms, to find that every roll of toilet paper has been stolen from there too! I make my way down a tunnel (yeah, bars in Eldoret come complete with 20m tunnel entrances!) and find that there is some toilet paper left, sort myself out, steal half of the remaining toilet paper and make my way to the bar and nicely ask the man to ‘sort the shitters out’. So I arrive back at the tent and tell Spencer the grizzly details when I realize that I am indeed sick and have to head back to the toilet again, with both ends well out of control. This continues all night, and I am freezing with the chills. Unfortunately for our travelling companions all of our tents were well packed that night, so when I don’t make it to the toilet and start vomiting near the tent at about 3am, I wake most of them up. By the morning I feel absolutely ordinary and not looking forward to an 8 hour truck trip into Nairobi, after three trips to the toilets in the hour before departure, a hug and cuddle from Maritjie, who arrived at the toilets with a fresh roll on my second trip and strict instructions to Patrick our driver that I would not care where he pulled the truck up, just so long as it was immediately after he saw arms waving out of the window we were off. I lasted in the seat about ½ an hour before crawling onto a mat on the floor at the back of the truck in my sleeping bag and enduring the several hundred speed bumps that Kenyan roads have put in to make sick people suffer! I do honestly believe that the person who decides to put five speed bumps in 5 meters must be a relative of any stupid bitch who would steal all the toilet paper in an African campground!

Somewhere along the way other sleeping mats fall on me, I am oblivious to this, only to the extra layer of comfort once we stop and I add these to my bedding! Eight hours, six million speed bumps, about 200ml of coke and two glucogel sachets later we arrive in Nairobi, I am certain that I need to vomit and get off the truck immediately with quick instructions on the location of the toilets and head in that direction. I manage to get around the first corner before realizing that I am going to faint, get off the concrete path and onto the grass, but continue my way towards the toilet (I still don’t understand how after 30 years of fainting, why I haven’t learnt to just sit down!) only to see the world spin and have a vague recollection of my shoulder smashing onto the hardest grass in the world. I re-enter the world looking at the washing line and about five Kenyan workers hanging over me asking if I’m OK… I manage to croak out a ‘please get my husband off the Acacia truck’ out and before I know it I am in the back of a Kenyan ambulance with the sirens blaring, swerving at top speed towards Nairobi hospital. I got so scared by this stage, I felt so sick and my back and legs were aching and my hands were tingling and I was certain that I had crapped myself as I fell, that I start crying. The driver wouldn’t let Spencer of Maritjie sit in the front, he said they would be driving fast and they may get scared. Apparently the trip to the hospital took 20 minutes, but without the siren would have taken 2 hours, traffic in Nairobi is hell! The ambulance was more of a meat wagon, very little equipment in there; they just take the vitals and get you to a hospital as quick as they can. I remember that the sheet on the stretcher was less clean than the one in our tent! The stretcher didn’t lock into place properly so it was moving from side to side when the ambulance attendant wasn’t holding it, they put a seatbelt around my knees, not sure what that was going to do had the anchors needed engaging quickly. Rounding the corner to the hospital I hear the wheels squealing and start thinking “shit am I dying? Why are they driving so fast?” We arrive at the hospital, much to my amazement; I thought the ambulance was going to kill me quicker than any illness. I get rolled into a room and Spencer gets dragged off to pay in advance, they wouldn’t do anything except ask my name, take my temperature and attempt to undress me until they saw the colour of our Kenya shillings! I had two men trying to get my red zebra t-shirt off me and I am asking for Spencer to help and them to go away and then start stressing about them taking my shorts off me as I had a heap of US dollars and our last remaining cash cards in the pocket, so I manage to remain in my thermals and shorts with my thongs and t-shirt confiscated! My clothing still bore the remains of a passionfruit malfunction from the day before and shit and spew from the previos night, had it not been my favourite item they would have been welcome to it! Spencer was using my credit card to pay, which he then had to bring in for me to sign (his got stolen), I told him to shield me from seeing the price, lest I have a heart attack at that! After payment was made they start punching holes in me to draw blood and pump three bottles of fluid into my arm, by this stage I am certain that I am dying, Spencer is still sorting the insurance and I am flaking it with the thought of needles (yup, still a sook). At some stage Spencer returns and assures me that all the needles are new and were in their wrappers. After the saline starts running into my veins I start to feel marginally better, Spencer gets out the camera and takes a couple of photos, I look like crap.

After a couple of litres of fluid, they walk me to the toilet, no dignity left by this stage, for a urine and stool sample. Urine no problems, they have been pumping fluid into my arm for over an hour, the stool is an issue, no food, lots of immodium and a whole night doing water poos (yup, no colour at all, just water….worst ever) meant that there was no stool to be had. So I get to then wander back, in my wonderful Nairobi Hospital gown gaping to show my thermal underwear (I had had the chills the night before and had not changed that morning) and shorts and bare feet back (still holding drip, gown and my urine sample…and man…they use the smallest bottles over here for such things!) back to another bed for yet another bottle of liquid. It was smaller than the other bottles, Spencer looked at the bottle and at the receipt and told me that the bottle was worth 500 shillings, then told me that we had paid for the stool sample so I would be ‘shitting in the bottle!’

With the fluids still pumping in, I start to feel better, and can even feel by skin plumping up again, the doctor arrives to tell me that I don’t have malaria (which everyone was certain that I did) and my blood was fine and that the results of the other tests would be ready the following day, upon which I could bring in a poo for them to test! Spencer goes off to the dispensary and comes back with drugs and less shillings than he left with and then we are right to leave. Maritjie is still certain that it is malaria, and knows three people that have been misdiagnosed, so we arrive back at the campsite ready to perform a self malaria test from the first aid kit on the truck. So at about 10pm the three of us are in the truck trying to puncture my finger to get a drop of blood big enough for the test, only problem is that I am so bloody (pardon the pun) traumatized by the events of the day, and probably still dehydrated that I don’t seem to be able to bleed. Spencer did the first hole, with a safety pin, I think he hit bone, after that I had to lie down or faint. Maritjie made the next hole, after massaging my finger, and kept exclaiming ‘f&*k’, ‘bleed Allison’ in a strong Afrikaans accent, she does not usually swear, I remember finding this funny at the time. Eventually I was laid on the table, with my feet on the headrests of the seat in front, with my hand lowered into warm water before my arm lowered and the third puncture was made and enough blood was gained for the test to come back negative. There was talk of more malaria tests the next morning…..no thanks, I feel enough like a pin cushion! By this stage I was feeling absolutely crap and just couldn’t stay upright for longer than a minute without feeling the world spin so I was put to bed. Maritjie gave us her room in the campground as she was worried about me sleeping in a tent so far away from the toilet; I declined so many times and then almost died of guilt the next morning when I found out that she had slept on the couch that night!

The next morning I was feeling much better, still far from 100% but have colour back in my cheeks (according to all our travelling companions, to whom I had to tell and re-tell the hospital and ambulance story), and managed to eat a bit of breakfast. I am just hoping that whatever made me so violently ill, managed to pass out in the initial hours and that now I am re-hydrated I will be fine…also very thankful that I was close to the best hospital in East Africa (or any hospital for that matter), as I can only imagine what some of the rural hospitals in Uganda would have been like…

Spencer tells me that we are on day 86 with a little under a hundred days to go….I figure we have had our fair share of luck!

And just for those of us who are superstitious; I was wearing the same t-shirt, bra, undies and shorts as I was the day we were robbed, only difference is that I was wearing my $1 zambian ‘pluggers’ instead of my red crocs….hmmm…is my lucky red t-shirt really so lucky? Or on a pure statistical point of view, is it just because I wear it so often that bad things are starting to happen when I wear it?....

Ugandan travels

2010-09-29T11:31:00.001+03:00

So after hearing that our truck “Rufunsa”, (named after a river in Tanzania) would return all well again with a new solenoid, we waited and waited to see it again, mostly because all of our warm clothes were contained within and at an altitude of 2600m it got chilly quickly! As soon as the truck returned to the campsite it was clear to all that all was not well and we looked at the layout of the camp and wondered just how we would roll start tomorrow....the following morning old ‘Rufunsa’ started Ok and we headed into Eldoret for a new solenoid switch. Whilst we were waiting for Patrick to sort the switch we had a tour of Ken-Knit a huge mill making wool, textiles and clothing, with more than 1300 workers, and definitely the hardest working works we have seen on this continent!

After touring through the mill and surprising many of the workers (I think we were the first tourists to go through there) we headed off for the Ugandan/Kenyan border. The border was chaotic, one of the worst we have seen, there was a line up of trucks at least 5km long waiting to cross the border, they must have been waiting all day, lucky we are able to push ahead of the trucks and the border crossing only took 2 hours! After waiting so long at the border we were then stuck in the rain and there was a lot of foot traffic on the road, slowing us down, then it got dark. What was supposed to take us 5 hours of travel took us 10 and a half! But the upshot was that the truck was all well again and we were on the Nile river where we are to stay for three nights.

The following day we had a sleep in, and breakfast at 9am....so used to early mornings, i was hungry by 7am! After that we headed into the township of Jinja, (pronounced Ginger) to withdraw some money, it took 7 atm’s until we found one to work! Then off to the internet...not much luck there either! Got back to camp to wash all of Spencers Kili clothes that were not done with the big passport stuff-up, and they were festering in the bag. We have not worn clothes washed in a washing machine since Namibia, 6 countries ago...I lost the skin on a couple of fingers handwashing so many dirty clothes.

That afternoon whilst reading I noticed that what I had felt to be a blister on my heel was something a little more ominous...similar to something Spencer had a few days ago. Upon consulting our driver Patrick it was decided that it was a ‘jigger’ (no one knows how to spell it!) and that it needed to be cut out. A Jigger is a worm that lives in sand and burrows in under the skin and then lays eggs and then the eggs hatch, if the worms spread you can be in trouble, lucky we caught ours early, Spencer cutting his own out and Patrick cutting mine out, releasing black, green vile stuff, followed by white eggs, urghh! But i was good and didn’t faint and I really didn’t feel a thing, only when the pin went in a little deep and hit the flesh that hadn’t lost it’s feeling yet....mot sure where we picked them up, could have been Zanzibar or Malawi, apparently it’s too cold on Kili and I was wearing shoes the whole time in the Serengeti....hmmm

2010-09-29T11:26:00.001+03:00

Africa Adventures...the full story

After leaving Swakopmund we ‘bush camped’ at a place called Spizkoppe, which had some pretty amazing rock formations, from old volcanos. We were also told that there was a leopard who lived in the area and not to look it in the eye! Gladly we didn’t see the leopard and left early the next morning (after the blokes had pushed the truck out of the bog of sand which it settled in the afternoon previous. From there we headed to Etosha National park, in the north west area of Namibia. We ‘game drove’ into the park, (slowly driing to see what we could see) and were pretty stoked to see lots of zebras an elephant, giraffes, warthogs. Nothing had quite prepared me for the size of an African Elephant, I thought that it was a huge rock formation! We camped in the National Park for two nights, it was good to have a rest from packing the tent every morning. We went on three game drives managing to see a leopard, lots of giraffes, a lioness, jackals, ostriches, elephants, wilderbeest. All of the ‘big five’ except the buffalo, they don’t live in Etosha as it is too dry. At the back of the campground there is a waterhole with a viewing area, behind a fence that looked a little too climbable for my liking! At night they use low floodlights to light up the waterhole and as the surrounding area is desert it’s a real show of animals. We sat up late both night watching a heard of elephants charging in and drinking, giraffes waiting off in the wings until everything else had left before making their way to the water. Giraffes are really nervous near water as they are so awkward in having a drink, they are very vulnerable, so they are quite frustrating to watch! At one stage there was about 5 rhino at the water hole, Oryx, Zebra and springboks. On the last night we watched a plethora of animals, it was amazing,. At one stage we counted over 40 elephants! Then they all charged off as they must of sensed the lionesses close. Many people left thinking it was all over, then we spotted the first lioness walking in the distance (at this stage I got out of my sleeping bag incase I needed to make a quick exit, it was freezing!) Another three lionesses stalked in and surrounded a springbok, this was all happening about 60 meters from us, the springbok had a lucky escape due to the inexperience of a couple of the cubs and the lions then came down to the water for a drink. We were sitting in dead silence (except the camera shutter) They hunted around at the edge of the light for a long time afterwards, then we headed off to bed, very thankful for the 12 foot fence that surrounded the campground. The public toilets in the national park are also surrounded by very high fences, no one offers to open the gate! One toilet fence that we saw had a huge hole in the south side, and another in the north side where an elephant had barged through! From Etosha we headed towards Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, a city of about 250,000 people, which is about 10% of the countries population, it’s pretty bare and baron. We spent a night in a dorn of a backpackers and had tea at a local beer house, most people went for the bushman’s skewer with zebra, oryx, kudu, crocodile and ostrich, we went with the vegetarian pasta, although it wasn’t as good as anything which we have eaten on the truck, the food is just getting better and better. Yesterday we had a very long day on the truck, leaving Windhoek at 8am and arriving at camp in Ghanzi, Botswana after 8pm, with only a short stop for lunch, a stop at the border, after which the truck wouldn’t go! But Patrick had it all sorted out pretty quick, lift the cab up and replace the fuel filter ready to continue. This morning we had a desert walk with some of the traditional Kalahari people, it was just like ‘the gods must be crazy’ (which was actually filmed in South Africa), we learned all the traditional medicines and thank god for western medicine. After a nother long day we arrived ln the morning we were up and packed and had all our gear to take to the delta loaded onto an open sided truck for the two hour trip to the Mokoros and polers, a mokoro is a traditional dug out canoe, poled along by a local village person. That day we poled to our camp in the delta, Our poler was one of the head polers so we though we were in safe hands, but he spent too long telling all the other polers what to do and started rocking the mokoro whist he was turning around and not paying attention, we started to get water in over the sides as there was literally 1cm of mokoro between the water and the top of the boat. We were still pretty relaxed when he said, keep your fingers inside, it’s deep here and a crocodile usually lives here. Thirty seconds later he was leaning off the back of the mokoro helping another poler move a pot and the mokoro lunged right and water flowed in over the side, and not just a little bit of water, I was laying in water until we were able to pole to the edge and bail out, the little camera took a drink, but was dried off quickly and is OK, I was very glad that the rest was in my waterproof camera bag! A little further on we came across a funny grunting noise, ‘hippos’ the poler announced, still soaking wet with very little faith left in the poler, I started to get a little nervous, three hippos wallowing in the water on the next bend, although in the time was sat liiking at them our poler was still too worried about what everyone else was doing and we continued taking on water over the side! Bloody glad to get to camp!

After arriving we set up camp and then had lunch, even though Mariki had to carry all the food on canoes and had almost nothing to cook with and no refrigeration, we still ate like kings! That afternoon we were allowed to take the Mokoros for a pole, easier than it looks. We watched two elephants cross the waterway just meters from our camp, there were even more impressive when viewed from ground level. We split up into groups for a game walk, tracking game on foot, we had one poler in the front and back of the group with sticks, we saw hundreds of zebra, pelicans, wilderbeest, The next morning we were up early for another game walk then the mokoro journey back, another water experience! Af ter arriving back in Maun (which took 2 hours in the back of a truck with some of the deepest and longest river crossings that I have ever seen), I went on a scenic flight over the delta, which swells to 1500 square km’s at some times of the year. Can’t say that I was a fan of the little 5 seater plane but the view was amazing, they fly at 140 meters so you can spot all the herds of animals, we saw a heard of probably over 50 elephants crossing the water, buffalo, giraffes, zebra, wilderbeest. I was certainly glad to land, it was a long 45 minutes!

We arrived at Victoria falls on Tuesday afternoon, Spencer and I didn’t go to the falls with the rest of the group as they only had two hours so we spent most of Wednesday out there, on the Zambian side, It is so amazing, photos just don’t do it justice. There is so much water and it is so huge. My chopper flight fizzled out as it was over priced and they couldn’t guarantee a window seat, so instead of paying $135 USD for 15 minutes, I spent more money than that on visas and went across the river to the Zimbabwe side, which is 2/3 of the falls, it was amazing! We leave Livingstone on Saturday, there are only 8 people on our tour to Nairobi at the moment, so we will not be short of room!

After leaving Livingstone we spent a night on the Kafue river, 50km out of Lusaka capital of Zambia). We arrived at the port, which was a crude pontoon made from 44 gallon drums to see our boat crash park into the pontoon! We cruised along the river for a couple of hours before making camp on the side of the river, not far from the water. The boat went back to drop off some locals and when it arrived back we were summoned onboard for our dinner. Some of the local village folk danced and sang for us after dinner. The following morning we were back on the boat and up to the local village for a visit into their very primitive living conditions; no electricity, no running water, very small mud huts with thatched roofs and big families, one man with 17 kids! The south Korean man travelling with us asked if the house was the toilet was it was so small (he is a rude man, I’m sure that he knew it wasn’t a toilet!) We were shown how to separate and grind the corn to use for cooking and had a tour of the orchard before back onto the boat and back to our truck which had been left under the guard of the local policeman. Usually Patrick or Marijtie pronounced as Mariki) usually stays with the truck, as they can be a bit of a target for thieves). We continued on 50km’s into Lusaka for a stop at a local shopping centre for lunch, internet and supplies. We stayed in a campground just outside of Lusaka which had zebra’s, giraffes, impalas and buffalos strolling through the grounds. Very pleased with the zebra, they were pretty tame and amusing, not too keen on the buffalos though, the locals seem more concerned about buffalo than any other animal, apparently they are unpredictable and if chased you need to climb a tree. The following day was a long driving day; we came across a truck accident, which must have happened only a minute before we came over the crest in the hill. I was glad that we had stopped for a toilet break back up the road as the truck may have crashed into us, its breaks had failed and it had hit the bus in front of it from behind, and then rolled over, spilling its load of peanuts all over the road. The driver was able to climb out, but the truck passenger was trapped inside the crushed, overturned cab. The locals were all crowding around, but achieving very little, eventually they managed to cut some of the rope from the load free, attach it to a four wheel drive and pull the cab open to free the passenger, who amazingly walked away. Spencer and another passenger and our driver Patrick cut down a tree to allow our truck to pass around the outside of the truck as it was lying right across the road. I asked Patrick that night how long he thought the truck would stay there for, he just laughed. Apparently it costs more to recover the goods and vehicle that to just leave it there, so we assume that the locals in that area will be eating peanuts for quite a while!

We spent three nights on Lake Malawi, which actually looks like an ocean it’s so big, 50 odd kilometres wide and three hundred or so kilometres long, it’s a surprise when you dive in and it’s not salty, it even has waves. We spent a morning in a day centre ran by a lady from Lexton in Victoria, they have about 20 sites and feed about 1000 orphan kids a day. Spencer and I went back later in the day and donated a jacket and t-shirt which had been given to us after we were robbed and some cash, whilst we were there a little boy got his foot stuck in a traditional wooden drum, there was a visiting paediatrician and his midwife wife from Geelong there so they had to cut the drum to get his foot out, his sister freaked out and was screaming louder than he was!

From there we spent another night further north on Lake Malawi and then crossed into Tanzania for two very long days of driving. Yesterday we were up before 5am which was 4am in Malawi timezone!) and had packed up tents, kitchen gear, eaten breakfast and were on the road by 5.30am, lucky that we were early leaving as we only got ½ hour down the road and the truck (Tana, named after the Tana river in Kenya) started sounding a little funny, a gut full of diesel watered down with water was the culprit. Patrick changed a couple of filters and we were back on the road quickly, however strange sounds continued and we had an unplanned stop in the Baobab valley when we met another Acacia truck, more filters changed and we were finally away. We were late to our lunch stop, 3pm makes a late lunch after breakfast at 5am! We made it to our camp site at Dar es Salam at 7.30pm. This morning we were woken by the call to prayer before 5am, belting out of the speakers, we had to get up early anyway as we took the 7am ferry the 40km’s to Zanzibar. Tonight we stay in Stone Town, which is a quite amazing and very old town which puts me more in mind of the middle east than Africa. Tomorrow we head up to a beach north of here for two nights. We spent today eating at the bakery, amazing amount of spices here in Zanzibar, went to see the site of the old slave market, checked out the house of wonders at the old palace and then meandered our way through the maze of little alleyways and roads.

After spending a couple of days discovering the World Heritage site of Stone Town we headed up to Kendra Beach in the North of Zanzibar Island. We had a lovely couple of days in a room with a bathroom, the first bathroom in a room we have had for about 6 weeks, it was also the first time in that many weeks that we spent two nights in the same bed! After sunning ourselves and managing to turn away the hoards of people selling snorkelling trips, necklaces, paintings, massages and weed, we made our way back to Stone Town in time to eat some great vegetarian samosas and board the ferry back to Dar es salam. The ferry took about 2 hours, in that time we had to sit through ½ of a crappy amarican movie, played witht he sound turned off, then half of a ridiculous movie of people eating lions stalking a safari truck, which was in Japanese! Back at Dar es salam we had a short taxi trip to another ferry, which amongst 500-600 people and about 20 cars we managed to squeeze on for the trip, which we had to make standing amongst the cars as there was literally no other room, the smell was potent at the end of a work day!

The following morning we were up at 4.30am to the sound of ‘allah’, ‘allah’ etc etc roaring out from the nearby mosque, after a couple of minutes the other two mosques started in a competition on who could be the loudest and before we knew it they were having a ‘mosque off’ the outcome for us was that we were packed up and in the truck ½ an hour early, Allowing us to leave at 5.30am! Our truck ‘Tana’ seems to still be suffering from the dodgy diesel from days ago (even after Patrick drained the tank and cleaned all the filters whilst we were on Zanzibar) we had two stops during the day to clean the filters which only gave a temporary solution. That night we ended up camping at Moshi as Patrick wasn’t confidant on taking the truck coughing and spluttering up into the hills where we had planned on camping, all in all the day was a 13 hour day spent on the truck. I have taken to not packing up my sleeping bag and using it to lean against the window and look out the opposite window, although today I lay completely flat along all the front row, it’s so much better having less people in the truck!

We are beginning to look forward to our week off in Nairobi after the gorillas, but we won’t hold our breath as Spencer still hasn’t been able to source an Ethiopian visa to replace his stolen one so he may have to fly into Addis Ababa to get a visa issued on arrival as they don’t issue then on the land border crossings anymore, he would then fly back to Nairobi. Currently the only way to get an Ethiopian visa is at the airport or in your home country before you leave, which is amusing, because if your home country does not have an Ethiopian consulate then you need to go to Harare! The visas in some of the countries are just hilarious, Sudan charge $150US for entry, they will not take local currency, or any other currency, only US dollars, the more amusing part is that they won’t let US citizens in!

Spencer is still travelling on an Emergency passport, which only has four pages, his new full one has been issued, but we just need to be in the one country long enough to courier his emergency one down to Pretoria and then the courier will return with his new one, we had never imagined losing a passport overseas, and it turns out that it’s a real pain in the ass! New emergency checklist 1. Camera 2. Passport!

‘Tana’ limped into Arusha at half of the maximum speed limit due to a continuing mechanical problem. Whilst we were hunting down wildlife in the Serengeti and Ngorogoro crater Patrick had the problem diagnosed and a new fuel pump had been installed by the time we returned.

The afternoon we arrived in Arusha we walked through a Maasai village and literally got mobbed by the kids, at one stage I had about 10 kids hanging off my camera another couple of kids hanging off my watch, another kid feeling my pocket to work out if I had a pen or sweets for him (bad luck, it turned out to be a polarising filter!) and whilst this was happening I was trying to reclaim my sunglasses from another boy! To this day I am still cleaning the grease off the camera; thank god it was the old one!

The following day we spent some time in town and then back out to the snake park, everyone else headed off to watch the chickens being fed to the snakes, I stayed back to begin preparations for my vegetable lasagne African style, which I had volunteered to cook for the group for tea to give Maritjie a night off. The local supermarket had only one variety of lasagne sheets and had only three packets left and one had been opened already! Well I guess that beggars can’t be choosers in Tanzania! I cooked the spinach lasagne on charcoal, feeling very guilty about the environmental damage of the charcoal trade in Africa! What we refer to as a ‘camp oven’ in Australia is called a ‘Portjie’, pronounced as ‘poiki’ in Africaans. Turns out that a Portjie cooks a mean lasagne and Maritjie immediately asked me to cook it again on the gorillas tour. 24 hours later as we were setting up tents in the wilds of the Serengeti she came over and said ‘what I wouldn’t give for a slice of that lasagne now!’ in a strong africaans accent.

The following day we headed out in land cruisers towards the Serengeti, we stopped on the rim of Ngorogoro crater for lunch, I was very impressed at sharing my lunch spot with some grazing zebras, but not so impressed with the crested kites that were out to relieve people of their chicken! Another couple of hours of bone shattering corrugations and coughing up dust, we were in the gates of the Serengeti, popped the roof open and started checking out the wildlife, by the time we had hit camp we had sighted, three lions, two cheetahs, heard of elephants, male bull elephant , ostriches, hyenas, jackals, zebra, buffalos and giraffes. It was quite amusing to see just how close everyone set their tents up that night, after the warnings of not getting out of your tent and if you do; ‘shine your torch out, if you see eyes and they are high, don’t get out!’ no one was going anywhere! After having seconds of entree and going back for seconds and thirds of the main meal I woke up realising that overeating in the Serengeti was best left to the lions! After an uncomfortable night of listening to some form of hoofed animal that turned out to be buffalo in the camp we were up to hear out driver telling about the lion that he had heard nearby at 4am, thank god I didn’t hear it, I may have died of fright as I was so jumpy that I had hit the roof of the tent when Spencer farted in his sleep!

That morning we were having breakfast when a giraffe wandered into camp, munching away on the thorns of acacia trees, after a few quick photos we were in the land cruisers and off to see hippos, many more lions, zebra, etc etc, on our way out of the park one of our travelling companions spotted a lion by a waterhole, as there were no other safari trucks around our driver took us down for a very close look, it was amazing feeling to be so close to such a big cat (I did kick my window almost closed whilst hanging out of the roof of the truck!) the male lion soon got jack of us interrupting his drink and headed up the hill, our driver Godfrey followed where he was heading and our lion led us straight back to it’s kill, a zebra which met it’s unfortunate end a little earlier that day. We think that Godfrey was out for good tips from us, so we were off the track and right in front of the lion before we knew what was happening, my big lens has a minimum focusing distance of 1.8m and when I couldn’t focus without flicking my focus distance switch I realised that I was pretty close to the lion! I was staring straight down the lens into his eyes and nose, every movement felt like he was inside the truck, my knees were shaking! Another lion had been near the kill and moved off into the grass about 10m, the colour of his mane and the grass meant that he almost disappeared, scary to think how hard they are to see! Days later we are still saying ‘just how good was that lion!’.

That night we camped on the rim of Ngorogoro crater a collapsed volcano which is home to more than 20 000 animals and has a diameter of 20km. As we were setting up tents a bull elephant appeared from the bushes nearby! After more warnings of staying in our tents we spent another night at close quarters to each other, trying to identify the snorers and farters in the group We spent the following morning in the crater and then came back to pack up camp and have lunch. Spencer was taking our tent down as I was taking photos of some random zebras hanging out by the toilets when another elephant appeared from the bushes, after snapping some photos of the ‘phant’ I went back to my mates the zebras and one of our travelling companions yelled out ‘there’s another elephant up the hill’ and sure enough, there was another male elephant on the other side of the camp, drinking from the tank! People are stupid and so many crowded around so close to the elephant, one bloke on our truck was standing about 1m away, crazy! I think that people were thinking that African elephants are all nice and friendly like Asian elephants....I was hiding near the building and loving the fact that I have a good lens which allows me to stand well back from cranky elephants!

Off to Moshi tomorrow and we start our Kilimanjaro climb on Saturday, managed to pick up the last few items today in town, including a pre loved Leki walking pole for 15 000 shillings (price started at 40 000 so I figure I did OK) Hoping that it is not too cold, we have managed to get good gloves, sleeping bags, wind proof jackets , beanies etc, so hopefully we will keep the cold out!

Africa Update – Standing on the roof of Africa- Mt Kilimanjaro - 5895 meters above sea level

Up early last Saturday to have breakfast and pack the last of our gear ready for our Mt Kilimanjaro attempt, I had been a little nervous about my lack of fitness, but sitting at the hotel and watching some of the other people getting ready to set out, put me at ease, it was apparent that many people had purchased all their gear for this trip and had very little experience. We watched one lady put on brand new gaiters wrong, and then tell her friend how to put them on, wrong! (surely one of them would have got tangled up in them and face planted by the end of the first day!) Our other concern was just why they needed their gaiters on in the hotel? Or on the hour long truck ride to the gates? Or even for the hour or so that we had to wait at the gates! Hilarious!

The first days walk took a little over four hours, and was pretty easy as you are walking so slowly, the guide would say ‘pole pole’ which is pronounced ‘poley-poley’ which means slow, so you walk at a snails pace to acclimatise. The first day we climbed 1300mts and camped at an altitude of 3000m. Years ago when we climbed my Kinabalu in Borneo we slept at 3000m and found that we had very little sleep and woke with headaches, so we were surprised to sleep very well and show no effects of the altitude. The whole pole-pole thing works well, the only time that Spencer and I ended up out of breath was when we walked off alone in camp to the toilet, only a little bit of exertion at that altitude has you breathless.

We were taking diamox which is a drug to limit the effects of altitude sickness, we noticed tingling in our fingers and toes whilst taking it and as it is a diuretic we needed to go to the toilet lots, and the toilets were just not great, I did honestly say to Spencer that ‘Mt Kilimanjaro has the worst toilets in the world’ just a hole in the floor, that was not big enough for people with the shits due to altitude sickness, and a bunch of dickheads who wouldn’t know their ass hole from their elbow and just left coils and poo-plops on the floor 30cm behind where the hole was! One morning I went to the toilet to be greeted with a river of piss running from the toilet from everyone who didn’t manage to find the hole!

We ate in a ‘mess tent’ which the porters slept in overnight. As we were the only ones on the trek we ate alone, by candlelight with our own waiter! The food was fantastic, although I was starting to look like porridge by the sixth day! We were amused to eat off china plates and bowls and drink from ceramic mugs at 4600m! It seemed that funny items showed up at random times and I would not like to think that they were carried up on someone’s head! On day three ‘fresh’ fish arrived from somewhere and I hadn’t seen a fishing rod, or a river for that matter. The night before summit day we sat down for a huge three course meal (they were all three course) with a whole watermelon carved with kiribu kili (welcome to Kilimanjaro in Swahili) and filled with fruit salad! Although it was cold each day, we had our chocolate melt from the heat of the porters head!

Each afternoon as we got to camp we had ‘tea’ hot drinks accompanied with freshly popped popcorn and roasted peanuts and bread, then an hour or two later we would be called for ‘dinner’ which was always three course!

On day two we hiked up and down and up to Shira Cave at 3800m, dropped our packs, settled in and then took an ‘acclimatisation walk’ to Shira Hut at 3900mts, the idea being ‘walk high, sleep low’, we were expecting some signs of altitude by this stage, but still none, great nights sleep which apparently is unusual at that altitude.

The following day we climbed and climbed and climbed up a ridge to reach 4600m, where it was freezing! We huddled near a rock until the mess tent was erected then huddled in for a three course lunch, we joked that drinking tea at 4600m was truly the definition of ‘high tea’! After lunch we waddled out of the tent and started downhill past the lava towers and down the Baranco valley to our camp at Baranco Hut 3950m. After arriving at camp I got a headache and started to worry that I was getting altitude sickness, I woke up at 3am to go to the toilet (thanks diamox!) struggled out of the iced over tent into the sub zero temperatures to have a wee and noticed the most magnificent scene I have ever seen, glaciers lit up by the moonlight, full cover of stars and the lights of Moshi township, amazing! Then I realised that i would freeze my ass off if I didn’t get back into the tent quick!

The following morning we were up and climbing the Baranco wall or breach wall which is an old lava flow, it looks like a 300m cliff face, it was amazing to see the porters clambering over the rocks with gas bottles, tables, tents etc balanced on their heads! After climbing the 300m we descended 300m into the Karanga Valley and then ascended another 300m to Karanga hut for lunch. I was glad that my headache from the previous day was gone and we were both feeling fit, we sat at the top of the track and took great amusement at the straggle of hikers huffing and puffing their way up! We were certain that some people had done little or no training as we didn’t even huff and puff like that on summit day and had done no training!

From Karanga hut we climbed up to 4600m to Barafu hut, arriving and having tea early so that we could rest ready for our summit attempt. We still felt really good at this stage, however I started to question myself a little after walking out of the toilet and noticing that a European bloke was staring at me, then I realised that he was looking at me very funny, then I realised that I had walked out of the toilet without zipping or buttoning my trousers and they were hanging down below my butt (lucky i had thermals on!) I wasn’t sure if it was the altitude or the smell of the toilets that caused my too-eager evacuation of the loo! He he

We were in bed by 6.30pm, our tent had frozen over, inside and out by this stage, we were woken up at 11.30pm ready for the summit, we had managed to sleep very well, most people didn’t. We were served tea and biscuits in our tent and we were off walking by 12.30am. It was freezing. I was wearing two layers of thermals my lucky red zebra tshirt, polarfleece, wind-proof jacket and down jacket, two pairs of gloves, bottom thermals, trousers and waterproof pants, gaiters, two pairs of socks and had instant heat packs in both of my gloves and both of my shoes (thanks Emma D!), I also had a beanie and my towel as a scarf! Up and up we climbed, you could just see the glaciers in the moonlight and the sting of climbers with their head torches snaking up the mountain, we walked up switchbacks for hours! We were huffing and puffing less than most but it was still bloody hard work, still feeling fine. Then of a sudden I felt everything spin and though I was going to pass out, my legs didn’t even feel attached anymore, called a drinks break had a drink, which was almost frozen by this stage, a glucogel and a sit down for a minute and felt fine, I must have just exerted myself a little too far in overtaking someone and ran out of oxygen, i don’t think having my towel wrapped around my face and breathing in my exhaled air was a good idea either! the air is very thin at this altitude, containing very little oxygen (we were at about 5500m by this stage). Got going again as it was too cold to stop (somewhere between -5 and -15) and chugged our way up to Stellar Point, I had heard from others that the track from Stellar to the summit was easy, so I just set my goal on Stellar, the last couple of hundred meters was a killer, soft volcanic scree, the horizon just visible, the air cold and thin, face freezing. We arrived at Stellar point and had a ginger tea, good to settle my stomach, then took off for the summit, about 45 minutes hike away, we watched the sun rise between Stellar and the summit and it was the most spectacular sunrise I have ever seen, No I didn’t take a photo, but I have the best photo ever in my memory! We reached the summit at 6.30am, awesome! Up there about 20 minutes, would have loved to stay longer but it was just too cold. The lens froze open in the little camera and I didn’t take too many photos with the big one as it was too cold to handle! Our guide took a bit of a liking to my camera and wanted to use it at every opportunity, hence many photos of Spencer and I together! So we got lots of photos on the summit and then we decided to get a group one with us and the two guides, I got the little camera out and gave it to a South American man, lined up at the sign to see some dodgy looking bloke firing off pictures with the 5D! Got both cameras back and took a few pictures with red m&m man, much to the amusement of others. One bloke laughed at us later that day as we headed back down the track, he said ‘I just keep expecting to look behind you two and see a little m&m man with walking sticks behind you!’.

We descended the 1300mts back to our camp, and by this stage we were feeling rotten, as though we were hung-over (unfortunately they don’t serve beers at 4600m), headache, huffing and puffing just to go to the toilet! Had a sleep for an hour or so, had some lunch and then descended another 1500m to 3000m (total descent of 2895m today) where it seemed so hot and the air felt so thick compared with 5895mts! Slept like logs that night!

Woke up the following morning shocked that I could still walk, and descended another 1300m to the gate to be picked up, back to the hotel and time to wash the dust out of EVERYTHING! We got back to Moshi at 11am, Spencer was straight off to DHL to try to sort out his passport which was still sitting at the Australian high Commission in South Africa, DHL South Africa had refused to pick it up for two weeks, despite many phone calls, and deliver it to Moshi, they claimed that they needed authorisation, which had already been given. We heard later that day that the passport had left the High Commission and would be in Moshi (in best case scenario) at 10.30am the following day. Worst case scenario, two days later, now great considering we were paid up to leave for Nairobi the next morning and off the Uganda the morning after that. Certain that ‘this is Africa’ and the passport would not arrive for days we decided for me to travel onto Nairobi and meet back up with the Acacia truck and Spencer to wait in Moshi for his passport. I had been on the bus to Kenya for four hours when I heard that Spencers passport had indeed arrived at 10.30am (still in shock!) and that he was on the following bus to Kenya, about 5 hours later than me. The Tanzania border official refused to stamp him out of Tanzania as he did not have an arrival stamp in his new passport, he just told him to ‘leave’, over the border the Kenyan officials were hesitant to allow him in due to not having a departure stamp from Tanzania! Traffic in Nairobi is hell, it took me 2 hours to travel the 20km from the airport to the hotel, I was the only ‘mazungu’ (stupid white ass in Swahili!) on the bus by this stage and at one stage the driver had to yell at some boys calling out ‘mazungu’ etc etc (can only imagine what they were saying in Swahili!) into the bus windows. Arrived at the hotel, to a fuss and bother over our booking...ho hum....finally after 10 hours to travel just over 200km’s I get into the hotel room!

Met up with our guide from Acacia again, she was supposed to have eight days off in Nairobi, but one of the other trucks had broken down and she had to take ‘Tana’ down to Arusha with the new crew of people on it, those people have stayed on ‘Tana’ and we now have the broken down truck! Thank god we left the keys for out lockers and the safe with Maritjie as we had stored our excess gear in the truck! Along with that she said that Patrick had contracted malaria again (I think this is his fourth time) and had been really sick, but was better now!

The following morning we headed out of Nairobi for Lake Nakuru, home to thousands of flamingo. I had always thought that Nakuru National Park was known just for the flamingo, but turns out that it has lots of other wildlife also. We fended off baboons whilst eating lunch at the main gates then headed into the park on a game drive, spotting zebra, flamingos, buffalo and rhino. After stopping at the rhino we found that our new truck wouldn’t start again, Patrick was out trting to sort out the battery, (a national park with lions is not a great place to break down!) in the end we ended up getting a tow by another truck and we were off, a short way down the road we spotted other cars looking at a pride of lionesses, camp was unfortunately not that far away from the lions and it was dark by this stage! As the truck’s illness had still not been diagnosed Patrick parked it facing downhill for the morning, I am sure that his parking manouvers were greatly amusing to the german tourists who were camped nearby!

A few of the people new to the tour were a little edgy as they put up their tents in the dark, but after cooking started and people began chatting everyone relaxed. Two of the new blokes wandered across to the drop toilets about 60m away and came back saying that they had seen a lion and asking for a torch to go back over! I for one did not believe that they had seen a lion, because who in their right mind would go and have a look on foot! We ate a fantastic meal of cashew nut, spinach, tomato pasta with cream and talked some rot, Patrick told his lion and baboon stories again and we prepared for bed.

Not usually being a night poo person, I am quite confused about just why everythime I am in a National park i suddenly need to poo at night, I never need to normally! So just before bed I figure that I have to make the 60m trek to the toilet, another girl says that she needs to go too and asks to walk with me, I have my headtorch on and am scanning, scanning, scanning before I step too far away from the truck. The two English blokes that had claimed to see the lion earlier said that they would walk over too. We got about 20 meters, stopping and scanning until we saw two small sets of eyes, close to the ground, the eyes close to each other, figured that they were small animals, possibly jackals and continued another couple of meters, I looked tot he left and saw what in the dark looked to be a lion about 30m away, said, theres something there, and remembering all the advice of how to escape different animals, remembered the ‘stand still’ for the lion advice. I was straight out of there, saying ‘I’m not going over there’ and walking off, hoping that I wasn’t making a fool out of myself being scared of a log or something!, in my most controlled walk, wanting to run like the wind, but walking slowly (Maritjie says that the only animal that a human can outrun is a tortoise, so you may as well stand still and hope that the lion gets bored before it eats you!) The others are somewhere not in my reality and they continue walking for a few more steps. I get back to our tent, right next to Patricks tent and tell him that ‘there is something out there’, he goes to investigate! I think after staring down a lion years ago he is less afraid of them. I get into the tent, zip it up tight and tell Spencer that i still need a poo and that now I cannot have one!, He asks if it was a female of male lion, my answer was something like “I don’t give a f%^k, I’m still not going back out there!” Patrick in the meantime has confirmed that it is indeed a lion, and I lay awake all night fighing to keep my poo in (not something that one usually has to do when in close proximity to a lion on foot!) and thanking my lucky stars for all sorts of things!

The following morning I get up, still too scared to walk over to the toilet in the daylight, dropping hints about leaving early and driving the 60m to the toilet before our morning game drive, Maritjie assures me that baboons hate lions and sense when they are around and scatter, so I walked through the throng of 60 odd mating baboons to the toilet, to be greeted with a poo that someone couldn’t quite get in the hole! Back over tot he truck, truck won’t start! All seeming a little comical at this stage. So we try roll starting the truck, three attempts later, we have ran out of slope and there is still no sign of life in the truck. The german people nearby refuse to jump start us, there is no one else around and no mobile phone service and we are contemplating asking the baboons to help us push, there sure was enough of them! Finally the german relented and offered to help tow us, ‘pffffpt! Now thats going to be a too big a job, even for a Nissan patrol’ were my words, but with 13 of us pushing at the back and the patrol pulling from the front and the baboons looking on and thinking were surely mad creatures the truck starts up and 30 minutes later we are off (an hour and a half late for the game drive).

The truck didn’t get turned off all day, for fear that it wouldn’t start again, once we were at camp in Eldoret (yup, in Kenya) Patrick took off int he truck to get is sorted out, word back from town now is that it’s the solenoid in the started motor, and all the Mercedes shops are shut! Lucky the bloke who owns this campground has tata trucks so has allowed a swap of the solanoid and payment to be made later. What a day! But poor Patrick, who is still not 100% after his malaria has been under the truck or driving all day!