7 posts tagged “africa”
We managed to see the dunes at Sossusvlei at sunset and sunrise – both were beautiful. At sunset, Ben and I were the only people walking up Dune 45 at sunset and we were able to appreciate the amazing nature of the sand – the patterns made by the wind, the depth of our footprints and the fact that it fell like water as Ben through handfuls down the smooth side. At 5am we climbed right to the top of Dune 45 (surprisingly hard work) and watched the sun rise, marvelling at the changing colours on the dunes and in the sky. We then did the 5km walk to Dead Vlei (or Sossusvlei, we not really sure), thankfully it was still cool and the walk was interesting because when we got to the end of the path, we weren’t really sure what we were meant to be seeing. It was good, more dunes, but a bit of an anticlimax.
This was another of those strange Namibian landscapes – layer upon layer of mountain, looking rather like the moon might! The route that the NWR recommend is a 3 hour route, spotting various little sights along the way including some army tracks left lying around after the First World War and a 1,500 year old Welwitschia. The road was all dirt track, badly corrugated, but it made the driving engaging and challenging. I did the whole thing and enjoyed the concentration required.
How cool is this toilet? No roof , no floor, just a toilet sitting in the sand. And not just a toilet – a whole bathroom! We thought it might just be a pit toilet, but it flushed and everything.
We’ve seen lots of amusing signs in Namibia. It’s not often that you have to watch out for warthogs in the UK. We also loved this direction sign in the middle of the sand dunes.
Driving is also quite a different experience as well. For a start, and I think we’ve mentioned this before, the roads are very straight and very long. It is quite common, even on the main rods not to see another car for about 10 minutes. This doesn’t seem like very long, until you think about driving in the UK along a motorway at 75mph and imagine how many cars you’d pass! The other odd thing is the need for side lights during the day. A lot of people have their side lights on because it’s easier to identify them as a car in the mirages. When all you can see in the distance is a mirage and a vague blob, you’re very unsure if it’s a car, a person, an animal – or if it’s just your eyes deceiving you!
As well as the really bad unplanned hiccups we have also had some amazing strokes of good luck. The last few days was one such instance. When we were in Nairobi our host said we should meet up with her brother in Malawi: And so we came to be staying in a three bedroom house near Blantyre that belongs to a Dutch doctor and his family currently back in Holland for Christmas. We were also given the use of a car for the duration of our stay, not the doctor’s Land Rover, but a perfectly adequate car nonetheless. The family’s three staff were all still employed on full salaries so we had a night watchman, a gardener who also washed the car and a maid who washed the dished and washed and ironed our clothes. And yes, ironing our scruffy backpacker clothes is necessary because as they hang out to dry a small parasite sometimes hides in the folds of the clothes then when they sense the warmth of your body they bury into your skin and lay their eggs which hatch leaving you with little grubs squirming away in a little blister. We were also persuaded that we’d be doing the doc a favour by eating the meat from his freezer (long power cuts are common) and drinking the beer from his fridge (didn’t understand that one as much, but didn’t want to argue).
We realised a while ago that we weren’t going to manage our original Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa plan in the time we had available. Or if we did life would consist of long bus journeys followed by a day booking the next bus leaving us fed up, tired and cursing our plan to ever leave home. So we took things a bit “poley poley” (slowly slowly) which the Africans are very good at! Enjoyed the places we did visit all the more for it and flew to catch up the distance.
Oh, and one other thing; on the journey to Blantyre the police had closed the road for the president’s cavalcade to drive by! He had his window down and was waving to everyone as he passed. How cool was that?
We had a lovely time in Nkhata Bay. Everything there is very chilled. The book talks about it having a Caribbeanesque atmosphere and I know why it says it. During the day, locals (men) spend a lot of time just sitting, looking at the lake. As you can see from the picture the women work a bit harder - these women were using sand and water to scrub down their pots.
We had a really lovely little chalet by the lake. We could hear the water lapping on the rocks just beneath us. From there we could see the lightning flashes very clearly. In rainy season, there seems to be a thunder storm every night on the lake. It's amazing. Normally it's just sheet lightning, but occassionally you can see the fork.
At night, the horizon is filled with a row of lights. This is the fishermen who go far out into the lake on their dugout canoes and use parafin lanterns to attract fish to catch.
One evening, we went for dinner at a hostel on the other side of the bay. It got too dark to walk back safely (just the bit where we were, everywhere else was really safe), so Ben arranged for a lake taxi. Going over the lake in the dark with no light on the boat was so romantic. You may have heard that the stars here are quite breathtaking!
One of our biggest surprises is how varied the countryside is here. This is just one small example from Malawi - mountainous regions, not just flat, dry land. And there are many more examples - lush greenery, beautiful beaches, clear waters and snowy, mountain-tops.
Food here is a bit crazy – but not in the ways that I expected. I guess cos we’re in fairly touristy places the food isn’t just limited to the traditional stuff. The traditional food in the countries that we’ve been to has been ugali (Kenya and Tanzania) and **** (Malawi), which is just maize flour mixed with hot water until it reaches the consistency of mashed potato. I’m ashamed to say that we haven’t tried that yet. If the main bit of the meal isn’t served with ugali, the options are rice or chips. In face, there are a lot of chips. We discovered that a “full” or “English” breakfast consists of fried egg (almost an omlette), chips, bread and a couple of slices of tomato.
When you’re on the buses people come up to the windows offering food and drink in various guises. Mostly it’s packets of biscuits or sweets, but we’ve seen guys carrying wood and glass cabinets containing cooked banana and some other food stuff that Ben says looks like it belongs in an insect farm. One of the grooviest street foods is boiled eggs. Guys carry them in trays, when you buy one, you can peel it there and then, and they give you a bit of salt to eat it with. Genious. I might try and introduce to it the UK.
In Zanzibar, there was loads of seafood – and I ate a lot of octopus. Here by Lake Malawi there are little stalls by the road selling fish. Medium, small and diddy. The smaller ones are all dried – I had some for lunch today and they’re quite yummy – I chickened out of eating the heads though.
