One Way Ticket to Africa

Bulgaria

2009-09-05T02:26:00.004-05:00

Andrej and I took an overnight train west out of Istanbul into Bulgaria. We decided to make our first stop Plovdiv. Plovdiv seemed like a nice place to start because it was said to have a very nice Old Town area and it is not nearly as big as the capital city, Sofia.

In Bulgaria, the cheapest sleeping option tends to be renting a room in someone's home. The guidebook said it was very common and safe, so we decided to give it a try. Right after we got off the train, we were met by an old lady named Dora who was very convincing- emphasizing how expensive the hotels in town were, etc. We were tired due to lack of sleep on the train with the middle of the night border crossings, and we decided to just take her up on her offer!

Her apartment was in a large communist style concrete complex. Her children were grown and out of the house and her husband had passed away a number of years ago, so it really did feel quite big and empty and we were happy to be her guests! She had a few cots set up in one of the rooms for her guests. She shared some fruit with us, told us how to get around town, and was in general quite welcoming. Her English was limited though, so we couldn't talk to her all that easily. But, it was a neat experience getting to stay in a local person's home, even if they are a complete stranger.

In Plovdiv, we visited the cute old town with narrow, winding cobblestone streets up on a hill. The old buildings and homes there were well preserved, often with colorfully decorated facades. There were many art galleries in the area as well. We also spent some time in the pedestrian area of the new part of town, and enjoyed people watching, window shopping at all the modern shops, and eating lots of ice cream being sold in stands all along the street!

The pedestrian street in the new town area of Plovdiv.

Andrej and me in Plovdiv.

Andrej in Plovdiv.

The next day we took a train to the capital, Sofia. While we were staying at Dora's apartment in Plovdiv, we came across a Greece guidebook that a fellow traveler had left behind. We looked through it a bit, and on a whim, we decided to go straight to Greece from Sofia! So, after booking our tickets to Athens, we only had a few hours in the capital to wander around, ride the trams, check out some cool old churches, and of course have some more ice cream. Then, it was off to Greece, which I will tell you all about in my next post!

Turkey

2009-09-03T19:46:00.001-05:00

Jill and I spent a large chunk of our time in Turkey in the Capadokia region. This region has truly amazing geological formations that we explored by scooter, foot and sometimes on all fours. Here are photos of some of the outdoor areas that we explored.

Early inhabitants of the region carved homes for themselves into the rock and this particular one also features homes for a few dozen pigeons outside.

In addition to the common family sized cave there were several places in the region where entire cities had been carved into the rock. Here is Jill several levels underground looking at one of the larger openings in an underground city that we visited.

After leaving the thoroughly exploring the Capadokia region Jill and I headed down to the Mediterranean Sea for a quick splash before making our way to the North of the country. Here are some of our photos in and around the town of Antalya.

Here is a completely outdoor escalator we found for crossing a busy road outside Antalya’s largest mall.

After several days on the ocean we took a bus to Istanbul which would be our last stop in Turkey. After several days on the ocean we took a bus to Istanbul which would be our last stop in Turkey. we settled down in Istanbul for a few days to see the myriad interesting around town. First of all is this obelisk in the central square which came from, of course, Egypt.

We spent the better part of two days just admiring the fantastic architecture around town. Here are several shots of the buildings that we visited.

One of our afternoons we took a train down to the river and watched fireman douse the roof of what looked like a large restaurant/hotel building.

Being a house repair person myself, I found this plumbing job quite interesting. Notice someone had to break the window to complete the installation.

These next two photos are from a mosque that we visited on our third day in the city.

On our last day in town we took a several hour ferry through the waterway that separates the middle east from Europe. Along the way we say several castles and at the end stop Jill and I got off the ferry to climb all up to and go inside on of the Castles.

After exploring the castle, Jill and I took the ferry back into Istanbul and then boarded an overnight train to Sofia, Bulgaria. Overall, the time that we spent in Turkey was very relaxing, enjoyable. In Capadokia it was mystical and in Istanbul is was awe inspiring. Jill and I were sad to leave but knew that the world beyond was beckoning us.

Georgia

2009-09-03T19:45:00.000-05:00

When we were leaving Israel, there were very few options. Many Middle Eastern countries will not let you in with an Israeli stamp in your passport, not to mention some closed borders. So, we could either go back to Jordan, which would have been pointless, or we could fly out. So, I contacted my good friend Laura who I knew was in Georgia for part of the summer studying for her PhD. The timing all seemed to work out, so Andrej and I flew to Tbilisi, Georgia and finally got to see the country I have heard so much about!

On a side note, on our way to Georgia, we had a long layover in Kiev, Ukraine. We managed to leave the airport and check out the city for a couple hours. We mostly just enjoyed taking the bus into town, marveling at the Soviet style buildings, taking the old subway around, and walking around town. It seemed like a neat city, and it would be fun to see more of it someday.

Laura was a former Peace Corps volunteer in Georgia and she had also done an internship in college. With all this Georgian experience, she was the perfect tour guide! When we made it to Tbilisi, she arranged for us all to stay with her friends in Tbilisi- Austin and Hannah. Austin and Hannah were also former Peace Corps folks and staying with them in their home was a lot of fun. They also have a third person living there- Marita. Marita is a Georgian law student and former host sister of Hannah. It was absolutely wonderful to be in a home and around fluent English speakers again.

In Tbilisi, Laura took us out to some pretty cool sights. There is an old castle up on a hill that looks over the town and is very scenic. We hiked around up there and had a great view of the city.

Looking at the castle from below.

The view of Tbilisi from the castle.

Andrej, me, and Laura at the castle.

We also got to see a new, very large, very beautiful church- the Sameba Cathedral. To go inside the orthodox churches, women are supposed to cover their hair and wear skirts. This church was fairly touristy, and we made it in with just hair coverings. The church displayed many beautiful religious icons, which the religious will often come up and light a candle in front of or even kiss. The main church was also surrounded by a number of smaller churches. There are no pews in the churches- apparently everybody stands during services.

Laura and me at Sameba Cathedral.

A view of one of the smaller churches surrounding the cathedral.

Also while in Tbilisi, Hannah had organized a girls night out. I hadn't done something like that in a LONG time, and it was really awesome. We all went to the Turkish baths downtown. We rented a private bath. It consisted of a lounge/changing room with bathroom, and a separate room with the actual bath. The bath was filled with natural super hot sulfur water. You would sit in there as long as you could tolerate. You could also go in a sauna. The bath is supposed to be therapeutic. It feels fantastic. Also, a lady comes in and scrubs you down with an exfoliating sponge and soaps you and gives you a little massage. You leave feeling so relaxed and clean, its amazing! Afterwards, we went out for dessert at a nearby restaurant with a nice live band and a great outdoor setting.

Another fun social outing we had was with Laura's friend Giorgi. Giorgi is about our age, yet he is a member of Parliament in the new Georgian government. He is quite smart and worldly and seemed to enjoy telling us about Georgia and Tbilisi. He took us all out to a nice restaurant in the old part of town where we also enjoyed some great live music and fun people watching. Giorgi seemed to know a lot of people. He was also paranoid that half of them were spies...

Giorgi and Andrej at dinner.

After a really great few days spent in the capital, it was time to see some of the countryside. We took a bus out west to Ozurgeti, the small town where Laura lived as a Peace Corps volunteer, and where she was staying this summer with her former host family. Andrej and I really enjoyed this part of our visit, as it gave us the opportunity to meet some local people and see how the live.

A little about their living situation- 6 people (plus Laura, Andrej, and me) lived in the house. One set of grandparents, the mom and dad, and two girls. The family was all around extremely kind and welcoming. The house itself seemed quite large and spacious, and like most houses, was up on a raised concrete platform. It had a large front porch, where we all liked to sit and chat. They also had a big garden in the backyard where they seemed to grow just about everything under the sun. It seemed like most of the things we ate at their house were home grown, which was wonderful. They also kept some chickens and a pig back there.

We spent most of our time in Ozurgeti with the girls- Nino and Salome. Nino is 12, Salome is 14. They had to be the sweetest teenagers I have ever met! If they were embarrassed to be seen with a bunch of older Americans, they hid it well. Some of the things we did we the girls included going for walks around town, hanging out in the park, doing an impromptu tour of the tea factory, playing Uno, having fabulous meals, and visiting the country house.

Salome, Salome's friend, Nino, Laura and me in the park in Ozurgeti.

The girls hanging out in the park.

The country house was in a smaller village about 20 minutes out of town. It is really picturesque, with a river and mountains and lots of greenery. It was quite peaceful. We strolled down along the river, then made the somewhat strenuous hike up to the top of the hill where there was an old 12th century church where their grandmother works. We got to meet the grandma and take a look inside the church. The inside was quite neat because it had never been renovated due to lack of funds. It was nice to finally see a place in its original state. The grounds and views outside the church were very nice. There was also a pet sheep living at the church.

The river in the village.

Another shot of the river.

Laura posing as a peasant girl outside the village church with their pet sheep.

After visiting the church, we visited their aunt at the country house. Its a nice, rustic looking place with streams on either side. It had been recently partially renovated and it looked really nice! The family always fed us fabulous homemade cheese, made straight from the cows at the country house. While here, we had a wonderful feast of all kinds of good Georgian foods. Our favorites were an eggplant dish and a cheese bread. Andrej still raves about the cheese bread. The host family in Ozurgeti also fed us equally as well and we loved every bit of it. The Georgians were so hospitable!

The whole family was really sweet, and we didn't want to leave their company. We also had such a great time being with Laura for the whole week, and we didn't want to leave her behind either! But, eventually it was time to press on. After 3 great days in the countryside, we left for Batumi.

We spent one night in Batumi, a town on the Black Sea. It was a lively place with nice rock beaches that attracted tons of people. It had good shopping and good food. We enjoyed a special boat shaped cheese bread there. The highlight of Batumi for me was riding there enormous ferris wheel right on the sea side :-)

A view of Batumi from the top of the ferris wheel.

Georgia was a great experience for us- being able to see an old friend, make new ones, and stay with a local family and eat a lot of wonderful local food. This really is what travelling is all about!

Coming Home!

2009-08-20T04:21:00.001-05:00

I realize that we are way behind on our blogging and I will do my best to catch up with it soon. However, I just wanted to let you all know the news- we bought tickets for our flight back to Minnesota! We will be returning home on September 30th. We are sad to see our adventures coming to an end, but we are really excited to come home and see all of you again!

Israel

2009-08-12T10:12:00.009-05:00

Israel is a place that I have wanted to see for quite some time. It was actually a big reason we ended up in the Middle East. I am so glad we visited- we had a great time, and I hope to tell you all about it!

We crossed the border into Israel from Jordan and went straight to the Sea of Galilee. This is the region where Jesus did a lot of his ministry. It also happens to be a very beautiful part of the country.

The Sea of Galilee.

We stayed in Tiberias, a very nice city right on the sea with many nice shops and restaurants, and a beautiful waterfront area. We rented bikes for a day, and I biked partway around the Sea of Galilee to a few historical Biblical sites. The town of Capernaum is partially preserved along with the remains of Peter's house where Jesus stayed. At Capernaum was also the sight of a synagogue where Jesus often went to teach. You could see ruins of churches built over the sight of Peter's house (including a funky but neat new church hovering over the ruins of the house). I spent some time enjoying the view of the sea. It seemed that Jesus picked a very pleasant place to do his ministry!

Peter's house under the new church in Capernaum.

Also on the sea, I stopped to see a couple churches commemorating miracles that Jesus performed, including the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, as well as the place where it is said that Jesus first appeared to Peter after the resurrection. I had a difficult but enjoyable bike ride back to town afterward, along with a stop for lunch and a chat with some friendly local people.

Also quite near to the Sea of Galilee is Nazareth, the hometown of Jesus. Andrej and I took a bus out there and spent a day checking out the town. Modern Nazareth isn't really anything special and just seems like a typical, modern Middle Eastern town. However, the sights were quite something.

One things we quickly learned about the Biblical sights is that one often can't be exactly sure where things took place. It all happened a long time ago, and at the time of its occurrence, the importance often wasn't recognized or didn't want to be recognized by the people who had the power to preserve the sights. Often they were preserved in their estimated spots a few centuries later after Christianity took off. Therefore, you often see more than one place claiming to be the sight of something or other, with each place being claimed by differing Christian sects.

Anyways, in Nazareth, we first checked out a couple sights where it was claimed that Mary was told she was going to give birth to Jesus. The first was an old well. The second sight was a Catholic church which was on the sight where they believe that to happen. The church was decorative in a really great way- in and around the church, there were mosaics of Mary and Jesus that were made from different Catholic communities around the world. They were really works of art, and I loved the fact that most of them reflected the ethnicity of their people. For example, the Thai mosaic makes Mary and Jesus look Thai and the mosaic is done in a traditional Thai style of artwork.

The Korean mosaic.

Right next to that church is a smaller church where it is believed Joseph had his carpentry shop where the young Jesus lived and worked with his family. There are more ruins beneath that church. We also saw another church nearby over the sight of the synagogue the young Jesus attended.

After and enjoyable time in a very modern part of Israel, we spent about 5 days in Jerusalem. I really can't say enough about Jerusalem. It is one of my favorite cities that we have visited, and there is just SO much history and culture there. Jerusalem itself is a very large and modern city, but it has the old walled city of Jerusalem inside the city. The old city has an incredible feel to it. It is all walled in with narrow stone streets. Over the centuries it has been built and rebuilt on top of itself, putting the current city much higher than it was 2000 years ago. The excavations are an archeologist's dream. The old city is divided into four quarters- the Christian quarter, the Armenian quarter, the Jewish quarter, and the Muslim quarter. The population and livability of each section has fluctuated over the years with political circumstances. However, at the moment, all four seem to get along fairly well. The Muslim quarter is the largest, the Armenian quarter the smallest.

We had a nice little hotel room with a balcony right outside the walls of the old city. It was a fantastic place for people watching. We were in a Palestinian part of the new city, outside the Muslim quarter of the old city. There was a bustling fruit and vegetable market right below our balcony. We arrived in Jerusalem on a Friday. Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, is from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Everything closes down during these times. Everything. But, from our balcony, we watched a procession of orthodox Jews on their way to synagogue inside the old city. The men with their curls on either side of their face, their big black hats and black cloaks with the tassels of their undergarments hanging down. It was quite the change from the typical Muslim dress we had been used to seeing for quite some time now, and it was so neat to see all these cultures coming together.

Andrej enjoying our balcony overlooking the gate to the Old City.

We went on a couple tours of the old city as well as spent a lot of time on our own wandering around. We walked through each quarter, each with a distinctive character to it. We got to see a number of the famous sights within the old city. We went to the Western (wailing) Wall. It is the western wall of the second temple which was destroyed in the first century. It is a very sacred sight for the Jews, and therefore they come to pray at the wall since the temple is no longer there (and there is now a couple mosques up on the temple mount). We also took a very interesting tour through the tunnels within the wall where you could see more of the original structure (since the current city is much higher nowadays). Women and men have different sides of the wall to pray at. When leaving the wall, people will walk backwards so as not to turn their back on such a holy sight. Besides the fact that it was the most important temple, the other thing that makes that sight so important for the Jews is that the temple once held the Holy of Hollies in a room where only one special priest was able to go into and only once a year. At one point, the Holy of Hollies was lost and no one no knows the exact location of where it used to be located. Religious Jews to this day will not go up on the temple mount because they feel they cannot physically be on the same sight as the Holy of Hollies, and since no one knows where it was, they just avoid it all together.

The Western 'Wailing' Wall.

This leads me into another sight we went to - The Temple Mount. On the temple mount is the Dome of the Rock. It is an iconic mosque built back in the 7th century on the sight where the Muslims claim the prophet Mohamed ascended into heaven in a dream to talk with God. There is also a smaller functioning mosque on the mount. Its a sight of a lot of contention between some Jews who feel since their temple was there, it is theirs, and the Muslims who feel that it is their property because their mosques are still there. Despite this clash in opinion, it still felt safe to visit (but there is a lot of security).

The Dome of the Rock.

Famous Christian sights we visited within the Old City include the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Inside, it holds the marble slab on which it is said Jesus' dead body was anointed, the rock within which it is said his cross was placed, and the tomb on which his body was laid. Numerous pilgrims come to this church, and it was pretty amazing to see. Once again, different sects of Christianity argue over where some of these things actually took place. We later visited a garden area outside the Old City where the Protestants believe Jesus' tomb is (frankly it looks much more like a tomb to me) as well as Skull Hill where they believed he was crucified.

The marble slab on which Jesus was anointed surrounded by pilgrims.
Underneath this altar is the hole in the rock in which the cross was said to have been placed.
The tomb of Jesus within the church.
Skull Hill.
What the Protestants believe to be the tomb of Jesus.

Another interesting thing in the Old City was the Via Dolorosa. It includes all of the stations of the cross and is supposed to be the path that the condemned Jesus walked. For example, along the path, it is marked with places where Jesus is said to have fallen, or have encountered someone, etc. It ends in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher of course. It was amazing to think that we may have been walking in the same steps as Jesus.

On one of our tours, we also got to see the room where they believe the last supper was held. Right near that area is a statue of King David. It had black paint poured all over it (which got quite the rise out of the teenage Jewish boys walking by). I think that was the only example of religious defamation we saw there.

The room of the last supper.
The statue of King David with all the black paint poured on it.

Another area we made sure to see of religious interest in Jerusalem was the Mount of Olives. Near to it is a gigantic Jewish Cemetery. On the Mount itself is the Garden of Gethsemane. It Is a very picturesque place with olive trees. It is said that these same trees heard the pleas of the soon to be condemned Jesus. Near the garden was also a grotto area where it is said there is the tomb of the Virgin Mary.

The Garden of Gethsemane.

The tomb of the Virgin Mary.

We had an amazing time seeing all these sights that are important to so many religions and people all over the world. It was especially neat to think that all those places and people in the Bible stories actually exist!

Jerusalem is not only religious structures and old historical sights. It is also a very modern city. We enjoyed doing a little shopping, eating at nice restaurants, and taking great public transportation.

One new-Jerusalem thing we did was go to the Holocaust Museum. It is rather new and very well done. The only unfortunate thing is that we seemed to be there on the same day that the entire Israeli military went on a field trip to the museum. It was absolutely overrun with them and you could barely see some of the exhibits. However, it was done very tastefully and really did a good job with telling you about the Jewish communities before they were torn apart and taken to the concentration camps. It was also interesting to learn about how more often than not, other countries tended to turn a blind eye to what was happening, and even after the war was over, many people no longer felt welcome in their communities, and other countries were often unwilling to take them. The victims of the Holocaust suffered terribly. Unfortunately, as we learned in Rwanda, the world has not learned from their mistakes and genocides still occur.

After leaving Jerusalem, we spent one night in Tel Aviv before flying out. If you have an Isreali stamp in your passport, the only bordering country that will let you in is Jordan. And we had already been there. So flying it was!

A few side notes about Israel...
Everyone, including us, wonders about the security situation in Israel. We went into the country quite cautiously. However, we did not encounter any worrying situations. We took public transport daily with no problem. Security was tight at the border, bus stations, religious sights, and the airport, but managed to not be much of a pain. The one curious thing I would like to comment on is their military presence. Israel has a mandatory draft for a 2 year military service for all young men and women (of course there are a number of exceptions). Therefore, at any given time, there is a large number of their population in the military. They wear their uniforms in public even when on leave. However, they also carry their giant guns around with them. This worried me at first when the very first bus we got on in Israel 3 other young men got on with their guns dangling over their shoulders. No one else batted an eye, and we learned not to either. They even seem to carry them when not on duty on occasion. At the Tiberias waterfront one night I saw a young man in trendy clothes looking like he was out for a night on the town, camera around his neck, giant gun on his shoulder. I just really hoped they were all mentally stable.

Also, Israel was a really tourist friendly country. Not only was the public transportation fantastic, but pretty much everyone spoke English! Not all signs were in English however, and I occasionally had to try and conjure up the little bit of Hebrew I learned in my Biblical Hebrew course in college. It wasn't very helpful. Israelis themselves do a lot of traveling, and they seem more than willing to help you out when you get stuck.

All in all, I loved Israel and I am so glad I got the chance to visit.

Jordan

2009-07-22T10:21:00.000-05:00

Hello again everyone! I am trying hard to catch up on our blog posts, so here's the scoop on Jordan!

We took the ferry from Nuweiba, Egypt to Aqaba, Jordan. Despite the chaos leading up to the departure, the ferry was really nice and Aqaba turned out to be an equally nice town right on the Red Sea. It was very easy to get around in, very clean, and many of the people spoke English. This is similar to what we found throughout the country, and it made for a very enjoyable leg of our trip.

In Aqaba, we rented a car. Jordan is a small country with a good road network, and it turned out to be an ideal and fun way to get around.

Our first stop was Wadi Musa, a desert National Park. Its known for its wide expanses of desert with beautiful rock formations and in general scenery that just invites contemplation. Its apparently where some of Lawrence of Arabia takes place, if you are familiar with the film or the story. We walked around in the desert for a couple hours and took in the scenery.

Andrej in the desert at Wadi Musa with the 7 Pillars of Wisdom.

Our next stop was Petra. On the way driving to Petra, we saw many Bedouin camps. The Bedouin are native nomads, and it was interesting to see their giant tents in the middle of nowhere, often with camels grazing nearby. There were some camel crossing signs along the road that I found quite amusing, but sadly did not get any pictures of.

Petra is a famous ancient city carved out of rock back in the early part of the first millennium. A lot of it is quite well preserved. The path into the city involves a street with is about a kilometer long that is very narrow and lined on both side by very tall canyon walls. Every once in a while a horse drawn cart goes by, and the echoing noise is something that really takes you back in time. Most of the buildings have intricately designed facades which are similar to Roman architecture. Often, the insides of the buildings are not decorated at all, but the rock is a beautiful, swirly pink color. The buildings included a famous treasury and monastery, a big temple, a theatre, a large number of tombs, a colonnaded street, and many more. They are often built up into the hillside. We spent two full days there walking the streets, going inside the buildings, and hiking up to the high places to get some great views.

The souq leading into Petra.

The treasury in Petra.

Petra.

An example of the beautiful, swirly pink rock of Petra.

A picture of Petra showing how only the facades are carved on most buildings.

Camels in Petra. You can hire one to ride around the city.

Jordan is also known for it's desert castles. We spent one day driving out to two castles- Shorouk and Karak castles. They were both old crusader castles. Andrej especially had a lot of fun exploring all the nooks and crannies. The Shorouk castle had an escape tunnel that was really cool. The castle itself is on a high hill (for better views of invading armies I suppose) and the escape tunnel comes out all the way at the bottom of the hill. We were feeling adventurous and tried going down in the tunnel, but I fell and dropped my flashlight, which is essential. So, I had to go back up, but Andrej made it all the way and said it was awesome!

One of the desert crusader castles.

Jordan isn't just desert and rock. We also spent a full day enjoying some water activities. First, we went to the Wadi Mujib national park. We did a hike/swim up a river canyon to a waterfall. The guidebook made it sound like a simple 2 hour hike where you might get your shoes wet. It turned out to be an adventure-sport sort of trek to the waterfall involving swimming against rapids, climbing over wet boulders, and trying not to get swept downstream. It was a LOT of work, but turned out to be really fun and we only came away with a few bruises and scrapes. It was also nice to see a lot of locals doing this well, including some girls.

Our other water adventure was a trip to the beach at the Dead Sea. This was not the smartest thing to do after getting all scraped up on the river adventure, but it was still really amazing. It is the lowest point in the world. When driving down the mountain to get there, you pass a sign that says sea level, but it still seems like you are way up in the mountains. Its pretty crazy. The salt content is so high, I guess because a long time ago it actually used to be part of the ocean. Anyways, we got in the water and bobbed around like beach balls for about an hour. It takes absolutely no effort to float- you can stick all for limbs out of the water and you still won't sink. You want to be careful though not to get any of it in your mouth- it tastes awful! Also, one other curious thing- the locals, particularly the women, tend to swim fully clothed, so that's what we did as well. Its quite a change from the beaches back home!

Andrej effortlessly floating in the Dead Sea.

We also spent a day doing a short tour of some Christian holy sights in Jordan. The first stop was Mount Nebo where Moses is said to have first sighted the Promised Land, then died. There is a very old church at the top of the mountain, and a lookout point where we saw some of the first green patches we had seen in a long time! It was the Jordan Valley and Israel. The second stop was Bethany-Beyond-the-Jordan on the banks of the Jordan River. This is the sight where it is currently agreed and thought to be where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. There are small, ancient baptism pools there. The water level does not currently reach them, but it does when it floods and apparently has been at that level in other points during history. Once again, there are many beautiful churches in the area, and we got to go down to the river and check it out.

The baptismal pools where Jesus was baptized on the Jordan River.

Our last adventure in Jordan was touring the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Jerash. We saw a giant hippodrome where chariot races used to be held, a couple of grand theaters- which they still use for performances today, temples, roads with giant columns lining the sides, as well as plazas enclosed by these great columns. It is very well preserved, and you can get a sense of what it used to be like in Roman times.

A view over one of the plazas.

Andrej in Jerash with some of the magnificent columns.

At the end of our road trip, we did spend a couple of days in the capital Amman. We had filled up our passports already and had to bring them in to get more pages and got to see the very heavily guarded US Embassy. We also enjoyed some tastes of home. I thought it was pretty amusing when we got directions to the car rental drop-off place, and they told us to go past the Lamborghini dealership on our right, go past the mall on your left, then go straight until you see Fudruckers and Applebees and we are across the street. With those directions we very well could have been back home!

To wrap things up, we really enjoyed Jordan. It turned out to be a very safe and friendly country, and a wonderful experience of the Middle Eastern culture. On a side note, while I was there, I read a book that I absolutely loved and became totally engrossed in. Its a book about the lives of young Saudi women. I found it very interesting because women's lives in the Middle East are very private, and this provided great insight. I recommend it to anyone who wants an interesting and fun read! Its called The Girls of Riyadh, by Rajaa Alsanea.

Andrej with a typical Jordanian meal of pita and 'salads.'

Until next time everyone- our next post will be all about our adventures in Israel!

For those of you who were worried, Andrej did manage to make a new friend after leaving the goat behind in Mali...

Up the Nile and Back Down

2009-07-21T10:00:00.001-05:00

The second half of our stay in Egypt took us to many different parts of the country. Where we left off on our previous post, we told you all that we took a night train to Aswan. Aswan is where I will start.

After a comfortable night on our sleeper train, we arrived in Aswan. Aswan is located in Upper Egypt (which is actually SOUTH of Cairo...a bit counter-intuitive). Its a city along the Nile River, and is yet another area of Egypt that was home to many ancient Egyptians who were sure to leave their mark, to the delight of today's tourists.

The southern part of Egypt where Aswan is located is extremely hot in the summer. Highs each day were around 110 F. But, Jill and I were determined to see what we had come to see:

A view of excavations on Elephantine Island with Aswan in the background

A ancient Nilometer (for measuring the height of the Nile river)

Jill and I exploring the excavations

The largest Mosque in Aswan

Our next adventure was finding a cruise boat to take us down the river to Luxor. After checking with about 10 of the 20 boats anchored in Aswan we struck an amazing bargain and set off the next day. The cruise boat took about two days and stopped at several excavation sites along the way. Here is the adventure in photos:

Late night search for a cruise boat. We settled on the third one in from the shore in this line up.

The view from the deck of our boat on arrival at the first excavation site

Hall of pillars

Examining a set of figures that were chiseled out by a later pharoh that wanted to rewrite history

Posing with the ruins

The most grand temple gate that we saw in all of Egypt--truly enormous.

Enjoying our cruise boat

Passing through the lock system on the Nile river

Once the cruise boat delivered us to Luxor we had several more archeological sites to visit. These included the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens where many rulers and their families were entombed in elaborate sets of tunnels hand chiseled deep into solid rock. Photos were not allowed inside the tombs so here are some of the nearby temples and monuments:

After visiting Luxor, Jill and I left the Nile and headed east for the Red Sea. Our stop was Suez where we spent the night watching enormous boats navigate the Suez Canal.

The next day we left for Mount Sinai where we spent a nice long day hiking all of the way to the top of the mountain where Moses received the Ten Commandments. On top we found a nice little chapel some fantastic views.

St. Catherine’s Monastery at the base of Mt. Sinai

Jill next what we think is what’s left of the burning bush from what we gathered by overhearing tour guides

Hiking our way up the mountain

Resting at the top of Mount Sinai

Enjoying the view at the top of Mount Sinai

Finally our wonderful visit to Egypt came to a quick end the next day as we took a ferry across the border into Jordan.

Cairo, Egypt

2009-07-04T05:24:00.001-05:00

Our decision to change things up and fly to Cairo turned out to be a wonderful decision! We are having such a great time here in Egypt, and I can't wait to tell you all about it.

First of all, the main thing that has made Egypt great for us so far was that we were hosted by a wonderful Minnesotan couple during our whole time in Cairo. They are Terry and Craig, and they moved to Cairo last year to work at an international school there. I had met Terry through work before they moved. They offered to host Andrej and me during our time there, and they have to be some of the most hospitable and generous people I have ever met. They had a beautiful, spacious flat in a nice neighborhood. It was a very welcome change to the cramped hotel rooms and life on the road that we had been used to. They were extremely helpful in showing us around and giving us advice on things to do. They opened their home and lives to us, and it was so nice and refreshing. Homesickness, cured!

So, now to tell you all a little about what we have done and seen over our past week or so in Egypt...

We arrived in Egypt after an overnight flight from Bamako, Mali with a layover in Algiers. The Algiers airport was very nice, and we felt like we had been transported to another world. This was a good sign that we were on our way to the change we had hoped for. We landed in Cairo, and were met by Terry's friend Khaled who is an English speaking driver. He took us to Terry and Craig's house in Heliopolis (a part of Cairo). We enjoyed a nice relaxing time catching up with Terry before we all went out to eat at a fabulous restaurant around the corner. We had great pizza, but more notably, this is where I got hooked on the fresh juices in Egypt. The fresh strawberry juice here is just heavenly and packed with strawberries. Yum! Also, we got our first experience of sheesha. Sheesha is the same thing as a hooka (as far as I know). People sit around smoking these nice smelling pipes in cafes all the time. It seems that they still have the bad effects of smoking regular tobacco, but in my opinion, this smells better. We didn't try it, but were fascinated watching other people do it!

That evening we took a walk around the neighborhood. Egyptians all seem to be night owls. Many stores don't even open until late afternoon. You can go shopping late into the night here. We got to see all the crowds and looked through some of the stores. We even saw some familiar sights like Starbucks, Pizza Hut, and McDonald's. For a minute there, I thought we had landed ourselves back home!

The next day, we did what everyone comes to Egypt for. We went to see the pyramids at Giza. They were every bit as fascinating as I had hoped. Surprisingly, they are pretty much right in Cairo. You can see them driving past on the highway, and basically it just suddenly goes from city to a desert landscape where the pyramids and sphinx are. So, we spent the day gazing at the sphinx and few different pyramids. The pyramids used to have a smooth granite surface on the outside, but over the years have either deteriorated or have had the stone stolen and now you see the layers beneath with show just how intricate the building must have been. There are huge stones upon stones forming perfect pyramid much taller than it would seem possible. Not only that, but there are passageways on the inside of them! We went into one of the pyramids, and you climb down a very long and steep tunnel where you have to be bent over the whole time, and then you find yourself in a big chamber. All of the things that used to adorn the pyramid or were inside had been removed and likely put in a museum. But it was still neat to see just how well designed these things were. Also, it was REALLY hot and humid inside. All in all, it was just really awe inspiring and fun to see. Its hard to appropriately describe, and I just have to say its best to see it for yourself someday!

Andrej and I enjoying the pyramids.

Giza- the sphinx with pyramids behind.

The Sphinx.

Pyramids and camels at Giza.

Andrej posing by the stones at the base of the pyramid to show their actual size.

The top of this pyramid shows how once the whole pyramid was smooth rock on the outside.

A restored boat found near the pyramids and reconstructed. It was used to carry the dead pharohs to their final resting place in the pyramids.

That evening, Terry and Craig met us downtown and took us to a get together with some of their coworkers at...TGIFridays! I know this doesn't excite many of you back home, but if you have been wandering Africa for 6 months, the thought of free refils, mozerella sticks, and french onion soup will make you drool. The restaurant was right on the Nile, and it was as good as I had hoped.

On our third day in Cairo, we saw another important Cairo tourist attraction- the Egyptian Museum. We took the subway downtown and enjoyed a few hours checking out all the displays. The museum is huge and you could spend days there. It really hit home how the ancient Egyptians were such an advanced society, and they really had some amazing acheivements. My favorite part was the King Tut exhibit. The items were so well preserved and fantastic works of art. And very shiny.

That evening, we had another fun outing with Terry, Craig, and some of their coworkers. This time, we went on a felucca (an old traditional sail boat) ride on the Nile. We sailed around for 2 hours, and we enjoyed watching the sunset on the Nile, lots of good conversation, and plenty of good food and drinks. It was a fun and relaxing experience.

A traditional felucca sailing the Nile.

Day number 4 entailed a tour around the city. Khaled picked us up and took us to a part of town called Garbage City. The people in this town collect much of the city's garbage and sort through it all, by hand, to recycle (and therefore earn a living). There is garbage and sorted piles everywhere. And, pretty much everyone here is Christian. The Coptic Christians (Egypts original version of Christianity) are a minority in Egypt, and apparently the Muslim majority doesn't always make things easy for them, especially in the job market. For example, the only pigs raised (for pork, which Muslims can't eat) in Cairo were raised by the Coptic Christians in Garbage City. When the swine flu scare started, the government came and killed every last pig. Even though there were no cases of swine flu originating in Egypt. Now those people are out of their jobs. Its not really fair. But, back to what we did there... Khaled took us to a couple lovely churches carved out of the rock of the hillside. There were many carvings and paintings on the rock, and it made it all very beautiful. We actually got the chance to meet the man who did all the art work, but he was pretty shy, so there is not much to say there.

The artwork inside one of the churches.

Afterwards, Khaled took us to a shop that uses left over cloth scraps from factories and recycled paper to make great textile products and paper products. It was neat to see a nice business based on recycled materials.

Continuing on our city tour, we stopped in the City of the Dead. This is an area of Cairo where there are tons of mosoleums. The thing is, people live in them! Basically, they are enclosed compounds with graves in them, and within the compounds, people who have been displaced from their regular home or have otherwise become homeless have moved into their family's graveyard. There are a large number of people who unofficially live there. Khaled took us to visit a family's home, and it was interesting to see.

A home in the City of the Dead.

Following the City of the Dead, Khaled took us to Islamic Cairo where we met up with Terry for some sightseeing and shopping. We saw two really grand mosques. I think these were the first mosques I have been inside of, and they were really works of art. One was built around 900 AD if I remember right, and the other in the 1800s. The artwork and Arabic inscriptions of the Koran were quite beautiful. In the second one (the newer one), we saw a number of graves inside as well. I had always wondered where the muezzin sings from and how he knows when to sing, and that day I found out. In the great hall of the mosque, I heard another mosque's call to prayer start up. Then I saw a man in ours stand up and go to a microphone in the hall and start his call to prayer. Now I know.

Inside the old mosque.

After visiting the mosques, we visited some of the shopping areas in Islamic Cairo including a tentmaker's area and a really neat papyrus art shop. From there, we had lunch at a nice cafe, where we had a delicious meal of dips and pita bread. I love hummus, so the Middle East is heaven for me! Afterwards, we went shopping for crafts. I had a lot of fun checking out the ebony and ivory, alabaster, jewellery, copper, lamps, glasswork, you name it! Terry really has an eye for these things, and she took us to all her favorite shops.

After a busy afternoon, we capped off the day by going to a free performance of whirling dervishes. They are a part of the Sufi religion. I honestly know very little about their religion besides it involves mysticism and this amazing dancing. Feel free to Google it if you need to know more! These men come out in beautiful costumes with giant skirts with bold prints that twirl around them as the spin. Along with the people who spin are a bunch of other men playing musical instruments- drums, a stringed instument, trumpet-like instruments, and a singer. It was really something else.

The whirling dervishes.

For our fifth day in Cairo, we decided to give ourselves a little break from the tourist scene. We spent the afternoon looking around the shops in Heliopolis near Terry and Craig's house. Most of the shops weren't even open in the early afternoon! That evening, we had a real treat. My good friend and former roommate, Emily, works as an international sales coordinator for a boat company in Minneapolis. Her company sells boats all over the world, including Egypt. She knows a boat dealer in Cairo who is really friendly, and she introduced us to him over email and we decided to meet up. So, that evening, we all met up with Walid (the boat dealer) and his wife Dalia. It was a great opportunity for us to meet and talk to Egyptian people and we enjoyed every minute of it. They took us to the Cairo Yacht Club, where we chatted about everything from education to religion over enormous amounts of tasty food. Walid was a very popular man there, and seemed to know every person who walked by! Pretty much all the boats parked out in the harbor were sold by him, so thats probably why. After getting completely stuffed, he took us for a fantastic sunset speed boat ride on the Nile. It was a really nice boat. It also had a great stereo system! Walid likes to drive fast, and we had a lot of fun speeding past all the faluccas. He even let Andrej and me drive! We drove all the way down to another yacht club where we had a great dessert, then headed back to Cairo for more drinks and conversation. It was a wonderful evening, and we were grateful to learn more about Egypt.

Andrej driving Walid's boat out on the Nile.

Our sixth day we spent back on the tourist track. We hired Khaled to drive us for the day, and we went out to Saqqara and Dashur, just outside of Cairo. There, we saw the first and second pyramids ever made. The first pyramid is called the step pyramid because instead of having smooth sides, it looks like it has giant steps. We also saw the bent pyramid (from a distance) that starts out looking like it was built like a traditional pyramid, but then it seems they decided to hurry and finish because the top curves inward instead of straight up continuing along the angle. There is also the Red Pyramid, which we went inside. I'm not sure why it is called the Red Pyramid- maybe the stone used to be red? Anyways, we walked quite a ways up the pyramid on stairs, where we came to an entrance about 1/3 of the way up the side. From there, we decended down a very steep and short tunnel, than up again through another steep tunnel! Then, we came upon the chambers, which were quite neat. Instead of being rectangular like others, these chambers looked like small, steep reverse pyramids on the inside! Pretty cool! At these sights, we also explored some temples where we saw a number of statues and were amazed by the heiroglyphs. That evening, we went back and had a very nice dinner and conversation with Terry and Craig. Again we were reminded of how nice it was to have their hospitality!

Me at the Step Pyramid in Saqqara.

Andrej in the temple ruins at Saqqara.

Some heiroglyphs in a temple. Its remarkable how well preserved they are.

The Bent Pyramid.

Our last full day in Cairo, I, unfortunately, was sick. So, we ended up having a bit of a slower day. Our camera wasn't working right and I was in need of some new clothes, so once I felt a bit better in the afternoon, we went to a really nice mall that would rival Mall of America in size. We were successful in finding a new camera, which made me very happy!

That evening, we had to say goodbye to our wonderful hosts, and Khaled took us to the train station where we boarded an overnight train the Aswan. We had a wonderful time in Cairo and we are very thankful to the wonderful people who made that possible!

Domo thought the pyramids were pretty scary.

Mali

2009-06-22T17:49:00.006-05:00

Greetings!

I know at the end of the last post I promised you all a blog from Andrej. I hope its not too disappointing, but it seems that you have another blog from me instead ;-) Andrej did, however, pick out all the photos for this blog. I hope you like them!

Right now it seems like forever ago, but at the beginning of June we spent a fun week and a half in Mali. Our experience there centered around a 6 day trek that we took through central Mali in a part of the country called 'Dogon Country.'

Andrej and I in Dogon Country.

Dogon Country is a very traditional part of Africa. Long, long ago (think over 900 years ago) pygmy people lived in this area. From what we could gather, they had some issues with vicious animals and invaders, because they chose to make their houses way up on an escarpment of a cliff. They made houses out of mud in the overhangs impossibly high up on the cliff. The houses are still there today because they were sheltered be the overhangs. The houses are tiny and often have multiple tiny rooms. About 900 years ago, the current people who live in the area, the Dogons, moved in and the pygmies left. They also built their houses way up on the cliff, and their villages are still visible today. This is the main tourist attraction. Some of them you are able to climb up to, others look impossible to ever get to. It seems that they hung ropes from their houses and repelled down. There were some more recent (100 years old) mausoleum type buildings on the cliffs that still had the ropes hanging from them that they would use to haul the bodies up with. Anyways, the Dogon people still live in this area today. Many have moved down off the escarpment. Some are still up it part way. Others are on top of it. So, we spent 6 days hiking between many of the Dogon Villages.

Me checking out the pygmy houses.

Me at an old Dogon Village.

A guide from the village showing me old Dogon grainaries up on the cliff.

A Dogon village that has moved down off the cliff. Look at all those mud buildings!

We hired a guide for the week, and his name was Suleiman. He is Dogon himself and had been working as a guide for 20 years. His English was pretty good, which is impressive for Mali (where they speak French), so that had us hooked. Suleiman had a slight disability which impaired his gait, but considering the heat, we were happy to walk and climb at a slightly slower pace.

Suleiman and I hiking up to the top of the escarpment.

Our days all pretty much followed the same pattern. We would get an early start, hike a couple hours to another village where we would rest, take a lunch, do a short walk around the village and up into the old village on the cliff, then do another hike around 3pm to the village where we would stay for the night. Our meals would always be one of three options- spaghetti, cous cous, or rice with sauce.

Andrej using a ladder during one of our more difficult hikes.

I would like to describe a bit about what we learned about Dogon life. First off, most of the villages do not have electricity or running water. Second, they use only local building materials, which means EVERYTHING is made out of mud. The houses- mud. The grainaries- mud. The encampments (hotels)- mud. The mosques- mud. That's what makes it so fascinating. Who knew you could make an entire town out of mud? At the time we were there, it was still the dry season and it looked pretty much like a desert. However, when the rainy season comes, its apparently quite green. So, this is what daily life is like: if you are a man, you farm. When you get married, you build a grainary for your wife to keep the millet in. When there is no farming to do, you sit and the shade and drink beer. Some men also harvest and weave cotton. If you are a woman, you pound the millet that your husband farms, and you cook it for every meal every day. Its about a 2 hour process each day, so that takes up most of your time. You usually serve the pounded millet with a sauce made from the leaves of a baobab tree and pounded dry fish. You also have to look after the kids. On market day, you put on your best outfit and go to market and have a good time buying and selling. If you are a kid, sadly, you probably won't go to school. You will probably be out fetching water or helping to pound the millet. Or, if you are really little, running around naked and chasing the tourists :-) Everyone gets up early and goes to bed early. No one has a car, but a few lucky guys have motorcycles that they ride between villages. Otherwise, you walk or take a donkey cart. We saw a kid who was 10 years old at the most who seemed to be serving as a school bus driver. By that I mean he was driving the donkey cart with a bunch of other kids on the back.

Me with a mud mosque in the background.

Grainaries. Up off the ground to avoid termites.

So, that's what we did for 6 days. We hiked. We occasionally took a horse cart if it was really far. We hid from the heat. We toured the villages and tried to talk to villagers. We ate food with lots of oily sauces. We slept on the rooftops of the mud encampments out under the stars. It was quite a memorable week, and it was really amazing to see and experience a way of life that I had never imagined existed.

Riding to our first village on a horse cart. I only fell off once!

A rooftop where we slept.

Andrej on a hike around and old village.

One village kept a pond full of crocodiles. I think they believed the crocs contained the souls of their ancestors.

By the time it was over, we were ready to get back to civilization as we know it. We relaxed for a few days in a town called Mopti right outside Dogon Country. We spent a couple days in Bamako, the capital, then we got on yet another airplane. A few weeks ago, we had decided that a change of pace was in order. Believe it or not, even with all this excitement, homesickness can set in. So we decided that we would do something completely new and different to us. That resulted in a plane ticket to Cairo, Egypt.

Until next time, from Egypt!

Andrej's new friend.

Togo, Benin, and Burkina Faso

2009-05-28T07:09:00.007-05:00

Hi Everyone!

Andrej and I have done a short and sweet tour through 3 countries since I wrote last about Ghana. We have gone through Togo, Benin, and Burkina Faso. I have to admit that I had never heard of Togo and Benin before coming to Africa, so this was a learning experience!

All three countries are French speaking countries. Andrej and I do not speak a drop of French, but have managed to pick up a few poorly pronounced phrases over the past few weeks.

We spent our first two days in Togo in Kpalime, right on the border of Ghana. There wasn't much to do in Kpalime, but the surrounding area was quite beautiful. We spent a day in a small village nearby called Kluoto, where we did a lot of hiking. We went to the top of the mountain and saw great views of Togo and Ghana, including a castle that a French guy built in the 40s. We had a nice guide, Apo, who took us on a walk through the forest, which is known for its butterflies. He would catch some in his net and we would get to check them out close up. The have lots of different and very beautiful species there. He also showed us many plants that produce dyes that they make paints with.

The view from the top of Mount Kluoto.

After being in the country side for a couple days, we went to the capital of Togo, Lome. Lome was pretty crazy. In Lome (and Cotonou in Benin) there were motorcylces EVERYWHERE. You think Sturgis has a lot of motorcyles? Think again. I have honestly never seen anything like it. Many of the motorcylce drivers are also taxis and are generally the easiest, albeit very dangerous way to get around. As far as danger is concerned, coming in at a close second is crossing the street on foot. The motorcylces weave through traffic at absurd speeds, sometimes going the wrong way and not obeying traffic signals. We would often stand at corners for quite some time before it was safe enough to dart across. One time, we were waiting so long and were very absorbed in watching for an opening in the traffic. A man in military clothing ran out into the middle of the street and frantically yelled at oncoming cars (and the regular policeman directing traffic) and cleared the road. Not thinking about anything but waiting for a chance to cross, Andrej and I thought this break in traffic was great and made to cross the street. But, that resulted in even more angry shouting from the military man, this time in our direction. So we backed away and went to stand with the street vendors. Little did we know that they were stopping traffic for the president. The president's motorcade drove past complete with the usual huge black SUVs with security personel, and the pickup with numerous armed guards and large automatic rifles mounted on top. Africa is not shy with their weapons. They very openly display them. We happened to see these same rifle-mounted vehicles later on where he was making a campaign stop.

Anyways, Lome was very hectic and we decided we needed a change of pace and headed out to Lake Togo. We spent some nice, relaxing days on the lake. One day was spent taking a tour of the small town of Togoville. To get there, we had to take a canoe across the lake. Apparently, there was a sighting of the Virgin Mary on this lake, and the Pope even came to visit about 20 years ago. They told us the Virgin Mary was spotted by two voodoo priests out over the lake. I think that sounds a little odd, so that may be something to google another day to get the full story on. But, despite this, the town is voodoo central. We learned a lot about voodoo and saw a number of fetishes spread around town. Don't steal something in this town. If you do and don't fess up, the voodoo priest can strike you dead with lightning. Apparently.

A voodoo fetish in Togoville.

After our 3 days on Lake Togo, we decided to go to Cotonou, the capital of Benin. Togo and Benin are both quite small countries, and the trip was pretty short. We took a bush taxi to get there. A bush taxi can be just about any kind of really ru-down vehicle used for public transport. Our bush taxi was a regular 5 passenger car, which in bush taxi world is a 7 passenger car (2 in the front passenger seat, 4 in back). We stayed in a nice hotel that was located in a surprisingly convenient area of town. Within walking distance, we had a mouth-watering Lebanese restaurant, an internet cafe, some book stores, grocery stores, etc. A couple of times we took our chances and hopped on a couple of motorbike taxis to go get our visas for Burkina Faso. It was a very hair raising experience, especially when they decided to go down the road on the wrong side of the street and ignored stoplights at major intersections. But, we are still alive.

We spent only 2 days in Cotonou, which was actually the end of our stay in Benin. From there, we took an overnight bus to Ouagadougou (say that 5 times fast). Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso. The bus ride itself was typical- music blaring all night long, random police checkpoints (which also served as bathroom breaks on the side of the road), and other inexplicable stops along the way. It was good to see the countryside of Burkina Faso however, since we were only going to be there briefly. Unfortunately, it seemed to be one of the more poor countries that we have visited. The livestock looked somewhat skeletal, the landscape was dry and seemed inhospitable, and life from the bus window just looked...hard.

The city itself was a typical African capital city. The main roads were paved. The side streets were dirt roads with potholes. We didn't do all that much in the city as we were planning to use it mainly as a stopover on our way to Mali. So, the next day, we hopped a bus and a couple of bush taxis and made our way to Mali! Look for a post by Andrej on our trek through Dogon Country soon!

Amedzofe, Ghana

2009-05-25T12:18:00.001-05:00

In my last post, I left you all hanging by telling you we were heading for a curious little town called Ho. Well, we ended up spending just one night there and not actually doing or seeing anything in town except the minibus station. It wasn't too exciting. We did, however, have our cheapest hotel room of the trip so far, coming in at around $6. Lets just say you get what you pay for.
The next day, we took probably the most run down minibus ever to a beautiful village in the mountains near the border of Togo named Amedzofe. The weather there was a bit cooler. The people there were used to tourists, so they were friendly, but didn't try to hassle you. It was peaceful. And, it had some great views with some nice, short hikes.
The afternoon of our arrival, Andrej and I decided to hike up Mt. Gemi, which was just up the path from our guesthouse. Mt. Gemi was the highest peak around, and at the very top was a big iron cross that you could see from quite a ways away. The hike up only took about half an hour, and from the top, we could see all of the surrounding villages and the valley below. After spending some time enjoying the breezes and the view, we hiked back down. At the start of the path, a retired government worker had made a prayer garden that he insisted we come and see. It was a nice place with a number of benches and very shady with nice views. He seemed to enjoy his little project.
Our second day in the village, we went into the center of town and walked around a bit. This village was different than a lot of African villages we have seen because there were no huts. Everyone seemed to have cement or brick houses with steel roofs. Many other places we have seen mud huts with thatch roofs. The village had a nice amount of fresh food which was sold in the center of town in a sort of farmer's market setting. During our stay there, we bought lots of veggies, honey, rice, pasta, and bread. One night, we got a little adventurous and bought some cassava dough from a lady in the market. She told me we would need to boil and stir it to prepare it. Sounded simple enough, but it turns out its fermented dough and quite pungent. Perhaps we didn't cook it quite right, but neither of us could stomach it. Anyways, we came there not to eat, but to relax and hike. So, the second afternoon we went on a walk around town with a guide from the local tourism office named Godwin. He took us up to a local teacher's college which used to be a German mission. The college looked pretty nice, and it was fun to see that Ghanaian college students act like college students everywhere- playing loud music, cramming around computers to watch DVDs, getting out some drums and jamming outside their dorms, etc. We also walked around outside of town and met some of Godwin's friends. One neat thing about the area is that it is mango season. Mangoes are constantly falling from the trees, and you actually have to be sort of careful because I imagine it would hurt to get hit by one. Also, as with many places in Africa, rural or not, there are goats and chickens roaming free.
Our third day in the village we enjoyed some cooler weather which allowed for more nice hikes. We spent the morning on the top of Mt. Gemi again, and in the afternoon joined some other people on a hike down to a waterfall. This was certainly the most challenging hike we did during our stay there. It involved using ropes to make your way up and down because it was very steep. The area looked like jungle. The waterfall itself was a bit low on water, but it was quite pretty none the less. The rest of our group seemed to be really intense hikers, and I am rather out of shape, which made especially trying to get back up the hill pretty grueling. There is one odd thing of note about that particular hike. Occasionally there are things we encounter on our travels that just seem really out there. This was one of them. We were walking down to the falls, and Godwin and another Ghanaian guy spotted a grass cutter, which is a very large, gross looking rodent. Apparently it tends to destroy local crops (hence the name grass cutter, I suppose). So, they seemed to really hate this particular animal. But, instead of just pointing it out to us, they proceeded to pick up mangoes that had fallen off the ground and stoned the poor little grass cutter. When it seemed to have succumbed, I saw Godwin pick up a giant stone to finish it off. That was all I could take of it. To make things even more bizarre, he picked it up and carried it home to cook for dinner. All of this made me quite confident that my decision to be a vegetarian as of a couple months ago was an excellent one.
On our last night there, we had a powerful thunderstorm that lasted pretty much the whole night. It is supposed to be the start of the rainy season here. Despite the power being out this morning, we got up at the crack of dawn, took another minibus that must be some sort of engineering wonder because I couldn't believe it could still run, and left the village. A couple taxis later, we crossed the border into Togo! Andrej really liked this particular crossing because the no-man's land between the two border posts was practically jungle. Its certainly not the busiest border crossing we had ever seen! But, here we are in Togo. Everyone here speaks French, and we are very confused. since most of the rest of the countries in West Africa are French speaking, we are hoping to learn a little so we can communicate better with people. Wish us luck!

South Africa (again!) and Ghana

2009-05-20T11:47:00.009-05:00

Hello Hello!
We are in West Africa now, can you believe it? I am starting to feel like we have really done a significant amount of traveling when I look at a map and see where we have gone. Check out my updated map of our travels if you want to see exactly where we have been.

View Africa in a larger map

After we left Namibia, we made a short jaunt back through South Africa. We found cheap flights to Accra from Johannesburg, and we liked South Africa, so we figured a few extra days back there wouldn't be too bad! We enjoyed some more wonderfully comfortable transportation the whole way as well. Our first stop was Upington, not far from the Namibian border. We stayed in a budget resort which was on some very pretty grounds with monkeys running all over the place! We got the chance to explore the town a little bit as well, and it was nice to see a smaller South African town. It really isn't all that different from an American town. We spent two nights in Johannesburg. There, we mostly spent time stocking up on supplies and taking care of business. But, we did make it out to the apartheid museum, which also had a nice exhibit on Nelson Mandela. It was very educational and well done. We were told that South Africa still has a long way to go with racial equality though.

After a very stressful afternoon and nearly missing our (non-refundable) flight, we eventually made it to Accra, Ghana about one week ago. We encountered a rather power hungry immigration official and had a bit of hassle with the visas, but after a while, they granted them to us and we were free to roam Ghana.

We spent 2 nights in Accra. Accra is a large, busy city, and full of life. It has fabulously cheap taxis, but it also has a not-so-fabulous traffic problem. It is very, very hot here, and quite humid. In fact, its probably the hottest place we have been since we were in Zanzibar in February! Basically, its a tropical climate. Our first full day in Accra was spent mostly running around to embassies to apply for onward visas as well as buying onward bus tickets. But, we did make sure to get a bit of Ghanian culture that first day! We went to the Makola Market. This market is in the center of town, and man is it crowded. Despite the crowds, it is really quite safe. You can buy a wild variety of products from vegetables to laundry soap to sunglasses. The only downside of it is that if you stop to look at things, you seem to hold up the flow and get pushed around a bit. Andrej and I both left with new Chinese knock-off sunglasses. You really get the feeling here that everything is very alive. There are people everywhere, constantly interacting. Its very different from the isolation people tend to keep back home. Even driving down the road, you frequently have people walking up to your car window. The will try to sell you everything from little bags of cold water (carried in a giant bowl on a woman's head) to electric massagers. There is of course people who will come to the window to beg for money as well. Sadly, many of them are children. I have seen the same young girl begging outside the cathedral near our hotel every day, in the same dirty and tattered clothes. Its quite sad.

After a couple nights in the big city, we took a surprisingly nice bus to a smaller city on the coast called Cape Coast. Many coastal towns in Ghana have old forts left over from colonial days. Cape Coast has a nice castle (fort) in particular. We went there our first day in town. We learned that it was not only used for defense, but very heavily used in the slave trade. During the slave trade, people who were sold into slavery or taken as slaves from the interior were brought to Cape Coast Castle (or one of a number of other places) and held there until a ship came to take them to the Americas or wherever they were being sold to. We were shown the dark, unsanitary dungeons where those poor people were kept. Many of them had memorial items like flowers left in them. They were led from their dungeon through tunnels and out the Door of No Return, where they boarded a ship, usually with worse conditions. It all sounded terrible. After touring the castle, we also looked at their museum in the castle on Ghanian culture. It was pretty neat. One thing we learned was that many Ghanians are named after the day of the week they were born on, and it holds a lot of significance and can tell some things about you (apparently). Andrej and I thought about it, and we have no clue what days we were born on...

Cape Coast Castle

That first evening in Cape Coast, we were wandering around and happened upon a nice little shop called Global Mamas. They support local women by selling locally made craft products and clothing and offering cooking and textile making classes. It was a great shop with a great mission. To our surprise, the lady working there told us that there is a former Peace Corp volunteer from Minneapolis involved. I didn't get the whole story, but as it turns out, they also have a shop in Minneapolis. If anyone knows where it is, I encourage you to check it out. You can get some fun, unique gifts for a great cause. They also have a website: www.globalmamas.org . We also signed up for a cooking course for the next day.

That next morning we were met by a young man named Matthew who took us to his sister's restaurant. We spent the next 5 hours going through a cooking course of various popular Ghanian dishes. They had creative names like fufu and red red. We cooked with things that we have never used in cooking before, including cassava, yams, pumpkin seeds, and plantains. Despite the stifling heat in the restaurant, we had a good time learning how to make it all, and Matthew was a good teacher and showed us how to properly prepare everything. In the end, we got a tasty feast. Technically, they closed down the restaurant while we had our class (it was a pretty small place and a Sunday afternoon). However, that didn't stop their regulars from coming in and demanding drinks. Matthew's niece, who couldn't have been more than 8 years old and could barely reach the counter, ended up serving some beligerent men shots while we proceeded with our lesson. That was certainly something you would never see back home!

Andrej and I preparing our Ghanian dishes

The next day, we went to the area's other main attraction- Kakum National Park. The park is famous for its canopy walk above the 'rainforest.' Its a very neat, lush looking forest, but not what I would think of when I think of rainforests, like the Amazon. The canopy walk turned out to be a series of rope bridges connected to platforms. There were seven in all. The bridges themselves were made out of ladders with boards nailed to them and ropes wrapped around them. It was surprisingly safe and stable. It was pretty neat being up above the trees and looking out over the forest. We also took a guided nature walk and learned all about the local trees and their uses in construction, medicine, etc.

Andrej walking along the canopy bridge.

The canopy walk.

Later that afternoon, we took a short hike up to one of the other forts in town. It was up on a hill looking out over the city and the ocean. It apparently functioned as a lighthouse for a while. Unfortunately, it seemed that there were some squatters living in the fort (or at least doing heaps of laundry and leaving them strewn all about the fort. There was also a mattress out, which made me think people were living there). Despite that, the views from the top were quite nice.

The view of Cape Coast from the top of the fort.

We made our way back to Accra after that and have been enjoying the city the past couple days. Today we will take a bus out to a curiously named town called Ho. We hope to be in Togo by next week. I will try to post again soon!

The hidden beauty of Namibia

2009-05-19T12:44:00.012-05:00

On arriving in Windhoek, Namibia Jill and I quickly realized that the best way to see the vast landscape was by driving ourselves, hiking through the national parks and camping at night. So, after a few days in the capital city, Jill and I drove out in a newly rented truck packed with 75 liters of drinking water, food, camping gear and an extra 20 liter can of spare gasoline--worthy provisions for and expedition into the Namib Desert.

Poring drinking water from a 25 liter jug.

Our first stop, Khorixas, a small outpost at the threshold where paved roads meet gravel. Here we camped for the night at a nicer lodge to ease our transition into the vast, desolate spaces to come. Unbeknownst to us, our lodge was home to the most persistent chickens and peacocks in all of Africa.

Day 2 started with an assortment of interesting wayside stops from dusty, desert craft shops staffed by life-sized voodoo-dolls to a petrified tree trunk spanning 30 meters across the ground.

Whats for sale? Rocks, of course.

Burnt Mountain

Frozen in time

After our first eerie sensations of desert life Jill and I aimed our truck for the Skeleton Cost--but first, the two dried up rivers between us and the ocean...

Wanting to cut a few kilometers off the trip I had the great idea of taking smaller roads around Khorixas instead of going back through the city. This route took us through the back yards of desert dwelling folk who I must say are very solitary people. Out the window of our air conditioned cab we would see a few dozen makeshift houses in any given settlement but would be lucky to see just one head poke out eying us cutting through their town.

My back road changed from gravel to dirt, from dirt to packed sand and eventually opened out onto a wide expanse of soft wavy sand shaped by a river that had long since dried up. Knowing that a heavily loaded 2 wheel drive truck wouldn't fare well on soft sand I pushed the vehicle into second gear and flew into the sand gliding to the other side with only a few big bumps and a small amount of sand over the windshield.

Deciding that a real road would suit us better I steered us back on the main drag and let Jill take the wheel resuming our drive to the Skeleton Cost.

The Skeleton Cost in a strip in Namibia where the hot sun of the Namib Desert meets the cool waves of the Atlantic Ocean. So named from the shipwrecks spotting the cost from whom shipwrecked sailors once emerged to see the ocean waves give way to waves of dry desert sand stretching all the way to the horizon.

The Skeleton coast seamed to play tricks on the eyes at times with such amazing features as a salt pan that looked like snow.

Salt, not snow or ice

Jill feeling the cubic crystals of the salt pan.

Jill and I spent two days and a night driving up and down the coast, camping on the wind blown beach, taking in shipwrecks, a seal beach and just admiring the bazaar landscape.

Moving on, we next drove through Swakopmund and Walvis Bay to Namib-Naukluft Park, which we were to make our home for the next four days.

Our first camp site

And our view that evening

Our favorite camp tucked under a granite cliff overlooking the vast plains.

Namib-Naukluft Park is extraordinarily large and varies in landscape from arid grass lands to granite outcroppings which eventually give way to dark red sand dunes. Some of the wildlife we found consisted of herds of zebra, kudus and ostrich—one of which raced our truck and we clocked it going 30 kilometers per hour.

When not chasing animals in Namib-Naukluft Park, Jill and I enjoyed some long walks around very interesting formations.

After 4 days in Namib-Naukluft Park Jill and I moved on to our final destination of the week, Sossusvlei. In this part of the Namibian park system the landscape is made up completely of semi stable and shifting sand dunes. Jill and I had allot of fun struggling to the top of these dunes which was an amazing amount of work. On the most difficult dune that I summated I was continually sliding down while climbing up much like being on a treadmill. The dune also swallowed up my feet in sand so to pull one foot out of the sand meant driving the other foot deeper into the sand creating a vicious cycle. The fun part, of course, was coming down and we could take huge leaps falling many feet down but would always be cushioned by the soft sand.

At this point all three of our water jugs were dry and it was time to head back into civilization. As the week came to a close we knew that Namibia would always hold a special place in our hearts. A place to explore and enjoy the natural beauty of the world around us.

Victoria Falls

2009-05-09T04:28:00.005-05:00

Ever since Andrej and I began planning our African adventure, I have had Victoria Falls on the top of my list of things I wanted to see in Africa. Victoria Falls is a huge waterfall area in the Zambezi River. It is located on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia. Due to the current state of affairs in Zimbabwe, we decided to only see it from the Zambian side.

On our way to the falls, we had a calm border crossing and went to a town on the Zambian side of the Malawian/Zambian border called Chipata. We were there on a Sunday, and it was essentially a ghost town. So, we didn’t do much there.

The next day we had a very long bus ride to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Lusaka was a surprisingly nice and modern city. We enjoyed some good food and went to see a Zambian movie at the theater. We only spent 2 nights in Lusaka before heading to Livingstone (the town near the falls).

Once again, we bussed it to Livingstone. Livingstone was a quaint little town. It had the token banks and grocery stores and hardware stores, but it also had a nice, old fashioned small town feel with an old fashioned movie theater, ice cream parlors, and little craft shops. We stayed at a fantastic backpackers called Jolly Boys. There, we enjoyed getting great assistance arranging our activities, cooking lots of meals in their big communal kitchen, and in general liked the friendly atmosphere of the place. They also ran a free daily shuttle to Victoria Falls, which we took advantage of the day after our arrival in town.

The falls were said to be at a record high water level. The Zambezi River was practically overflowing. In fact, many high end resorts around the banks of the river were said to be closed due to flooding. What this all meant is that there was a whole lot of water going over the falls. The spray was absolutely enormous. You could feel it walking on trails quite far away. I was told that the falls span about a mile wide. You can’t see it all from one point. In fact, about ¾ of the falls are located in Zimbabwe, and we couldn’t see them from the Zambian side. But we definitely saw a lot from where we were! We hiked out to some viewpoints, and then we walked down to the bottom of the falls to a place called the boiling pot. The boiling pot is where the falls and the lower river meet and combine to make a giant whirlpool. It was really neat to see, but getting down there was half the adventure! Because the water level was so high, just the little streams going down the hillside were not so little anymore, and much of the path was flooded. So, we were walking through mud and wading through small rivers to get down. But it was worth it, and we had a nice lunch on some rocks at the bottom. After lunch, we decided it was warm enough to get a close up look at the falls. You can walk out onto a bridge that juts out in front of the falls. We put on not one, but TWO heavy duty rain jackets and made our way to the bridge. The spray was so huge that even with two rain jackets, we both got completely drenched. Unfortunately, you could see very little because of the spray. It was like standing in torrential rain. But, when we looked away from the falls, out towards the lower river, we got a very beautiful rainbow. At the falls, we also took a walk down the river and saw where it turns into the falls from the top. Right now the river is very fast and dangerous looking, but I am told that when the water level is low, you can actually wade out on rocks and look over the falls.

Victoria Falls during a brief break from the spray.

Andrej and I in front of the falls.

Andrej hiking down to the boiling pot.

Me getting ready to wade through the water to get down to the boiling pot.

The boiling pot. Lots of people bungi jump off this bridge.

A beautiful rainbow looking away from the falls.

The view of the Zambezi at the top of the falls.

The other thing of note that we did near Livingstone was go and spend a night in a local village nearby. It was another cultural tourism activity similar to our other village visits. We were shown around the village by a nice young man named Chanda. He is the grandson of the village Head Lady. Many of the people who live in that village work at the local high-end resorts. The people who worked at the resorts seemed to be a little bit better off- their houses were a bit nicer, or they could afford a small luxury like a car battery to make electricity, or even a TV and satellite dish. But, they still lived in houses made of mud with dirt floors, and still had an outhouse instead of a bathroom. They also had to go pump there water, and often walk quite a ways with a jerry can on their head or shoulders just to get water for their home. It must seem like such a stark contrast from their workplace, and I wonder if they ever get bitter at the wealth disparity they are confronted with every day. Anyways, Chanda showed us around, introducing us to his friends, taking us to see the insides of houses, showing us what people were cooking, showing us the local bar (the center of social activity at all time of the day). We met the headmaster of the local school and went to see the school. We were educated on the different problems that face the village- teen pregnancy, failed marriages, drinking, etc. In addition to all we learned, we got local food for lunch and dinner (nshima and veggies). Nshima is maize meal mixed with water and heated up to a sticky consistency. It is very filling, and the people there really do eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We also stayed in a mud hut, but it was nicely done up inside and made for a pleasant night.

Andrej and Chanda outside his grandma's house.

The next day was our last morning in Livingstone, and a big morning it was! For Christmas last year, Andrej had told me that he would put me up on a flight over Victoria Falls. So, bright and early Sunday morning, I took my first micro light flight, right over Victoria Falls. It was absolutely amazing. You are totally out in the open, so you have to wear a big, puffy flight suit to keep warm. There are only 2 seats, and its basically a hang glider with a motor. It felt surprisingly stable, and it was really a lot of fun. I saw a lot more of the falls from the air than you could see from the ground. I could see the canyon that the river cuts out after the falls, and I could see what was on the Zimbabwean side. After the fantastic flight, we went back into town and arranged for our bus trip out of town. We decided to go all the way to Windhoek, Namibia, and we found an excellent bus that would take us all the way there. So, with that, we left on a bus at lunch, and were on our way to our next adventure!

Me taking off on my microlight flight.

We're still alive!

2009-04-29T03:27:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone! It has been brought to my attention that our avid readers have been disappointed in our lack of blog posts lately. Deepest apologies. We have just been having too much fun to spend very much time at the internet cafe! Or, the computers are hopelessly slow, but mostly the first reason. ;-) We are currently in Namibia, and we are leaving this morning on a week long camping trip throughout the country. When we get back, I will do my best to catch up on all the blogging. So, you have blogs from the islands in Lake Malawi, Victoria Falls, and Namibia to look forward to! Please check back in a week or two.
Until then!

Chizumulu Island and Likoma Island, Lake Malawi

2009-04-26T02:41:00.006-05:00

I realize that I have fallen quite far behind on my blog postings! We did not have internet access while on the islands and since then we have been on the move. My apologies.
We spent a glorious week and a half on two islands in Lake Malawi. They are both part of Malawi; however they are much closer to Mozambique. They are both rather remote, and very beautiful.

We took the Ilala Ferry out to Chizumulu Island from Nkhata Bay on the mainland. The ferry left port around 8pm. We rode on the top deck, which was 'first class' seating. Seating is the wrong word for it, however, as there were only about 5 plastic chairs spotted around the deck. So, like most people, we rented a couple mattresses and laid them out on the deck and attempted to sleep. There were a lot of other backpackers on the ferry, as well as the owner of the place we were heading to on Chizumulu Island. So, it made for a fun experience, and it was nice to have someone to tell us exactly where to go when the ferry pulled in to the island at around 1am. The ferry is not able to pull in to the port, so they lower a lifeboat down to take people in to shore. It was pretty chaotic. You have to go through second class, where people are crammed in with cargo, chickens, etc. It’s very crowded below deck. So after wading through all the mess downstairs, we made our way to a boat. Luckily, Nick (the owner), was able to have his little motor boat come meet us, and we all piled in.

We ended up staying on Chizumulu for about 4 days at a great place called Wakwenda Retreat. It was dirt cheap- about $12 a night for a hut right on the beach. It was also beautifully landscaped with a lot of natural stonework. We spent our days exploring the island and just relaxing. We swam, snorkeled, hiked, read books, and met some of the local people. It became an adventure, trying to find the one lady on the island who we heard sold bread. Or looking for a shop that sold snacks or candles. We also ate at a local restaurant a couple times run by a nice old lady named Agnes, where we had nsima and veggies. The island’s 2 generators were broken, so we were without electricity the whole time we were there. But, that meant we had dinner by candlelight every night, which was neat! One of my favorite parts about Wakwenda was the dinners- they were served communal style, so it gave you a chance to meet other guests and chat. We met a lot of interesting people and had a really nice time there.

Wakwenda Retreat on Chizumulu.

After our 4 days there, we decided to take a dhow (a traditional sail boat) over to Likoma Island. Likoma Island was a bit bigger, and we thought it would be fun to explore. The dhow ride was about an hour and a half and was an experience in itself. They let us off at a beach in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. We asked around and got pointed in the right direction to our hotel- Mango Drift. It turns out that Mango Drift was about 3 km away over hilly foot paths in the hot sun with heavy backpacks. I was VERY relieved when we finally made it. As it turns out, Mango Drift was another awesome, inexpensive place. Again, we were right on the beach. The managers and workers there were all helpful and friendly. We knew right away we would like it a lot.

The beach in front of Mango Drift around sunset.
Our hut on the beach at Mango Drift.

That first afternoon, we decided to try to walk into the main town on the island and check out the market. It turns out that it was another long walk, but we had a fun encounter which shortened it a little. After we got to a main road, we were walking along and heard a car (rare for either of the islands). The local ambulance pulled up next to us and told us to get in! The driver, Edward, was very nice and told us where things were in town. I peeked in the back, and luckily there were no ill passengers back there wondering why the driver had stopped to pick up hitchers. In fact, there was NOTHING back there- the ambulance didn't have any medical supplies in it, which is curious. But that’s the way things are around here.

The next day, we made the hike back into town to attend the Easter service at the famous cathedral on the island. It was an old Anglican church, and very beautiful. It was an amazing feat to build such a magnificent building on a remote island in the early 20th century. A Bishop (presumably English) presided over the service. The church was packed to overflowing. Curiously, men and women were segregated to different sides of the church, so Andrej and I were unable to sit together. The women's side also had most of the children, so it was really full and many women were sitting on the floor. They had made an attempt at decorating the church for Easter. The decorations included blue, white, and pink toilet paper strewn about from the ceiling, as well as red balloons that I can only assume were from Valentine's Day which said 'I Love You.' It seemed almost a bit disjointed when compared the grandness of the church. Anyways, the service itself was another long one- about 3.5 hours. There was no organ or any other musical instrument, but they had a nice choir. This service was also quite formal. After the service, we went out for a spaghetti lunch at a little place on the water called 'The Hunger Clinic.'

We spent the whole next week enjoying island life. I read a few books, we went for a few hikes, walked into town to stock up on food, enjoyed more great communal dinners, and swam in the lake. All in all, it was a very relaxing week. We had heard that the people living on Likoma Island are some of the friendliest people in Malawi. Unlike other places in Africa, they have also not taken to hassling tourists. This all makes for a very safe and pleasant environment. When we would walk around the island, many people would stop and chat with you, the most popular question being ‘Where are you going?’ I had some women tell me about the food they were cooking, and had some young girls show me how to get where I was going.

The view of Likoma Island while on a hike around the island.

The characteristic baobab trees that are all over the islands.

We had decided that we would rather fly than take the ferry off the island, and we heard you could get cheap stand-by flights back to Lilongwe. So we ended up playing the waiting game and staying a bit longer on Likoma than we intended (I’m not complaining!). Because we had a full week there, with not much to do but relax and enjoy the weather, Andrej decided to occupy himself by getting SCUBA certified. The cool, young managers at our hotel were both SCUBA instructors, and he got a one-on-one private SCUBA instruction over the course of 3 days. He seemed to really enjoy it.

Andrej on the boat ready to go on a dive.

Andrej and his instructor, Josh, about to dive in.

On Saturday, we heard that the president of Malawi was flying in for a campaign stop. This was our second encounter with him. What this meant was a lot of confusion over the ferry, and there was speculation that it wouldn’t run for the public because they would only allow government people on- essentially they were going to charter the ferry. So, Andrej and I decided to really make an effort to get on a flight, because we thought we might get stuck there for quite a while. As it turned out, due to the rally, there were many flights that day. Later that morning, our hotel manager got us confirmed on an afternoon flight. We were taking by a small boat over to the airport, found our plane, and waited under the wing until our pilot showed up. We had a nice little 8 seater plane, and enjoyed the flight over Lake Malawi back into Lilongwe.

Likoma Island from the sky. Andrej SCUBA dove out to that little island.

Andrej in front of our plane we took off the island.

All in all, we really enjoyed our time in Malawi. The people were friendly, and it had a very relaxing atmosphere. However, we decided that it would be time to move on the next morning to head towards Victoria Falls. You can read all about that in my next post!

Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve, Malawi

2009-04-06T04:26:00.009-05:00

After our week stint in Rwanda, Andrej and I hopped a 4am flight to Lilongwe, Malawi. We had a short layover in Nairobi, and the flights went well. Lilongwe is the capital of Malawi. We found a place to stay in town and spent the day resting and stocking up on supplies. We were hoping to head out to some national parks, so we bought a lot of food to take with us.

The next day, we took a bus to a town called Mzuzu, which is the nearest large town to two national parks- Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve and Nyika Plateau National Park. Without your own transport, getting to Nyika would have been very difficult and expensive. So, we opted to just go to Vwaza. We got to Mzuzu in the evening and spent just one night there before taking a minibus to a town called Rumphi. (I love the town names around here!). From Rumphi, the only we that we could find to get to the park was by matola, which is a pick-up truck. The road to the park was unpaved, and its the rainy season here. Which means, the road to the park is all mud, so you need a big, high clearance vehicle to get there. As usual, they packed as much people and luggage as possible into the bed of the truck, and off we went. It was a very uncomfortable and sometimes painful ride, but after about 2 hours, they dropped us at the park entrance.

Vwaza has some great nature and wildlife. As with most game parks in Africa, you are not allowed to go about the park unless you are with an armed guard or in a vehicle. So, we were ushered to our hut where we would spend the night, and were told to stay there unless we were going on a guided walk. Fine with us! The hut was grass thatched and clean with a small porch overlooking the lake where you would see hippos and sometimes elephants. One interesting thing though is that when we stayed in Kruger Park in South Africa, the camp was fenced off so the animals couldn't get in (except for some monkeys, impala, and warthogs). But, our hut area was NOT fenced in- this made for a little excitement later on...

Andrej outside our hut.

That afternoon, we decided to go for a guided walk through the park. A park ranger was our guide, and he had a rifle with, which would be used to scare the animals if need be (they do not go around shooting them unless absolutely necessary). It was a little rainy that afternoon, so we didn't see too much. Shortly after we left our camp, we saw some impala on the path and they started to run. They were followed by a group of about 10 elephants! That was fun to see a parade of elephants go past. Later on the walk, we also spotted some hippos lazily floating in the lake. That evening, we made a delicious Indian meal over a fire and went to bed early.

On our guided walk with the park ranger.

A 'sausage fruit' tree. The hippos like to eat these.

I had a little trouble falling asleep as I could hear some animal noises outside, but I did fall asleep eventually. However, at 11:30 I was awoken by more animal noises. I spent a while trying to figure out what was out there. Whatever it was was very close to the hut. I heard grass around the hut being ripped out and chomped on in very large quantities. It had to be elephants. Nothing else can rip out that much grass at a time. And it wasn't just one elephant, there were many elephants. I admit, I was scared. I woke up Andrej, who was not at all concerned that a hoard of elephants were surrounding our hut. He wanted to go back to sleep. But eventually, curiosity got the best of me, and I decided we should peek out the holes in the thatch and see if we could see any of them in the dark. After letting our eyes adjust, we definitely saw them. They were all around the outside of our hut, eating grass, tusks glinting in the moonlight. We tried to take pictures, but of course they didn't turn out in the pitch black darkness. After about a half hour, the elephants moved on.

The next morning, I went outside our hut to look at the grass. It was all trampled and half eaten in many parts. Later that morning, as I was getting ready for breakfast, I heard some screeching nearby, which sounded like some sort of massive cat fight. I looked over to the next hut, and saw a lot of very large baboons running around and having fun. They were pretty riled up, and luckily didn't come over to our hut. Later in the morning, we went over that way to watch some hippos in the lake, and to our delight, we got to see elephants going for a swim! We saw two different groups of elephants swim a short distance across the lake, trunks sticking out of the water for air. It was quite a sight! Who knew something that big and heavy could swim?

Elephants entering the water to swim across the marsh.

That afternoon, we walked a little outside the park and went on another guided walk in the park. It was a sunny day, and more of the animals were out and about. This is good and bad. It is one thing to see an elephant in National Geographic, or on TV, or even from a safari truck. Its a totally different thing to see a group of elephants very nearby when you are on foot. I have read and heard about how dangerous elephants can be if you irritate them. I didn't want to find out first hand. During our walk, we saw a large group of elephants at the lake, drinking and bathing. One of the larger ones stuck its trunk in the air and waved it around. Their eyesight is poor, but apparently their other senses are excellent. They use their trunk to sense things, and they sensed us. The elephant gave a low rumble (some sort of communication to the others) followed by a warning screech. That's when we took off. Our guide led us quickly through the brush and back to the main path. We had other similar close encounters with buffalo and more elephants on that walk, and it made me realize that I was grateful for their rule of no unguided walks in the park!

The group of elephants that we spotted at the lake during our walk.

We spent one more uneventful night in the park. If there were elephants eating outside our hut, they didn't wake me up this time! The next morning we took another uncomfortable pick-up ride back to Rumphi, and another minibus back to Mzuzu. When we got in to Mzuzu, we learned that the president was in town. Malawi is holding their elections in May, and he is running for reelection. This was his opening campaign stop, and people were coming from all over to hear him speak. Everybody was quite happy and excited- I didn't see any protesters. I was walking to the supermarket that afternoon, and I heard sirens. Everyone came running into the street, and we all watched and waved as the presidential convoy went by.

This morning, we took another minibus out to Nhkata Bay, which is a town on Lake Malawi. From here, we are planning to take a ferry out to visit a couple of the islands on the lake. It sounds very beautiful, and I will hopefully take a lot of pictures to show you all!

I will also be posting pictures from the park, but I am not on a fast connection now, so you may all have to wait a while for that. In the mean time, feel free to check my updated flickr site with some more photos from Tanzania and Uganda! www.flickr.com/photos/piratejill .

Rwanda

2009-03-31T06:24:00.005-05:00

Bonjour! Andrej and I are currently spending our last day in Rwanda. We have enjoyed one week here, and it has been a good experience.

Not too long ago, Rwanda wasn't a place anyone would want to visit. There was a lot of political and ethnic strife, which culminated in the 1994 genocide. However, the Rwanda of today seems to be moving forward and has turned out to be a nice place to visit. It also has a lot to teach.

I am intending to share what I have learned in this blog. Some of this might be unpleasant. If you would rather not hear about the atrocities of the genocide, please stop reading.

We arrived by bus from Uganda. The bus ride was about 10 hours, but was fairly uneventful for once. The border crossing was slow, but again, no problems. We arrived in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Rwanda is the 'land of 1,000 hills,' and like Minnesota being the land of 10,000 lakes, its very true to its name. The city of Kigali is sprawled across rolling hills. The city itself is one of the nicest African cities we have been to so far. Granted, we have not seen terribly much of the city, but what we have seen of downtown is very nice. First of all, its much easier being a pedestrian here. In other African cities, pedestrians do NOT have the right away. There are usually no crosswalks, and traffic lights where pedestrians can cross are few and far between. However, they have crosswalks here. And to our delight, they will sometimes even yield to pedestrians! They even have the occasional walk signal. Its been a relief after fearing for our lives crossing other streets in places like Kampala, Arusha, and Dar Es Salaam. They also have a number of well maintained sidewalks, which can be hard to find around here. Otherwise, the city has a number of nice buildings and stores, and well stocked supermarkets. Public transport between other cities in Rwanda also tends to be much nicer than elsewhere, and fairly inexpensive.

Anyways, our first priority in Rwanda was to learn. We wanted to learn more about the genocide and its effects. So, on our first full day in town, we went to the Kigali Memorial Center. We were greeted by a staff member who first took us through a walk in the gardens before going in to view the museum part of the center. The gardens were large and meticulously maintained with beautiful landscaping. There were all kinds of flowers, some fountains, and statues. Inside the gardens, there are over 250,000 people buried in about 15 mass graves. Each of the mass graves is rather deep, and contains a number of coffins filled with bones of victims. Many of the graves had wreathes and flowers laid on them. Near one of the fountains were elephant statues. The staff member told us they were chosen because elephants never forget, and the genocide should never be forgotten. This was a sobering experience. In a country as small as Rwanda, with a total population of about 10 million, its very hard to wrap your mind around the fact that 1 million Rwandan people were killed in the genocide.
A couple of the mass graves in the gardens.

After touring the gardens, we were taken to the museum building. Downstairs is all about the Rwandan genocide. You can find much of what I learned at their website here: http://www.kigalimemorialcentre.org/old/index-2.html. I will try to give a summary of some of what I learned about the background of it and what happened. I will try to be as accurate as my memory recalls.

The genocide was a result of a conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups. Back in the beginning of the 20th century, Rwanda was colonized by the Belgians. The Belgians decided in the 1930s that they needed to classify the people in Rwanda and form a ruling class of the native people. The native Rwandans had some of their own classifications, but they were socio-economic classifications, which could change in ones lifetime. The people spoke a common language and had a common culture. 2 categories in the socio-economic classifications included Hutu and Tutsi. The Belgians decided to use that in their classification system, and they said that anyone who owned more than 10 cows would be a Tutsi, and anyone with less than 10 cows was a Hutu. And you were that for life, as were your descendants. Seems a bit arbitrary, no? The Tutsis only comprised about 10 percent of the population, and they became the ruling class as dictated by the Belgians.

When you have an almost exclusive minority rule and privilege, that will lead to problems. When the Belgians pulled out in the 60s, the Tutsi minority was overthrown by the Hutu majority in terms of power. The Hutus has some resentment towards the previously favored Tutsis, and the Tutsis were likely none to happy to have their privilege revoked. Conflict was brewing.

Fast forward to 1994. The presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were shot down in a plane and died. From then, the planned genocide of the Tutsis occurred. The Hutu military had death lists of Tutsis. If you were on it, they went to your house and killed you. They set up road blocks in the city so no one could leave. If you were stopped, and you were Tutsi, they killed you. If you were Hutu, but known to be friends with or married to or otherwise associated with Tutsis, they killed you. Media propaganda for the extermination of the Tutsis was prominent and effective. There was no discrimination between killing men, women, or children, innocent or not. In the first days of the genocide, 10 Belgian UN peacekeepers were killed, and the small amount of international troops that were in Rwanda, left. The international community seemed to turn a blind eye to Rwanda and left them to work it out alone. A Belgian colonel had even asked for assistance from the UN months before. No action was ever taken, something which the UN leaders came to regret.

In the end, about 85% of the Tutsi population was killed.

Also downstairs, there were personal exhibits. One room housed family photos of the victims. It really put a personal feeling and a face to the genocide. Looking at those pictures, I realized that they reflected things in people that I know and their photos looked very similar to photos in my own family albums. There were pictures of children standing outside of their school with their buddies. A man on his new motorcycle, cigarette in mouth. A woman in her new dress. Multi-generational photos outside the grandpa's home. A young boy near a banana tree. A couple on their wedding day, cutting the cake. There were lots of photos like that. Of regular, everyday people, murdered because one of their ancestors had 10 cows 60 years ago. And these photos were mostly in color. Not black and white relics of something long ago, that could have only happened long ago.

Another exhibit was of clothing taken from some of the mass graves around the city. Not the mass graves in the garden. The mass graves where people were left after they were mass murdered. The clothes were like anything you might buy in the store around here today. Bright clothes for the wrap around skirts the women wear. Men's t-shirts and pants. A torn sweater of a young boy, with a Superman bed sheet next to it.

Another room was another grave site. Only this one was viewable- behind glass cases were piles and piles of bones. A number of the skulls had obvious fractures. The machete was a weapon of choice, and it seemed that many died by a machete to the head.

Upstairs were two exhibits. One was a children's exhibit. Here again, there were many small snapshots of children who were murdered. There were also large blown up photos of a number of kids, as well as some personal facts about each one. Age, favorite food, best friend, hobby, favorite toy. And, how they died. This had to be the worst part of the genocide. The exhibit had young kids, but also babies. One who was featured was 9 months old. Not old enough to have a favorite hobby or a best friend. Certainly not old enough to be a threat to anyone. I believe that particular child's cause of death was being thrown against a wall. The other frequent causes of death of the children were machetes and bludgeoning. I still can't imagine how so many people were committing these acts and thought it was OK. I thought of those kids, and how many of them would be about my brothers ages. Making their way through high school.

The last exhibit was on genocides throughout history. For example, in Germany, Namibia, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, and Armenia. It was another thing that made me wonder how in the world this can keep happening, over and over all throughout the world.

We left the museum having learned a lot about the past of Rwanda. I really don't know how the people who went through this and witnessed all of it can move on. But they do. Occasionally you see reminders of the past- people without limbs, people with large scars, etc. But otherwise, life has gone on here, and people seem to be looking toward the future and living quite peacefully. I guess when your past is that bad, there isn't anything else you can do.

The next day, we headed out to a smaller town called Butare. Its about 2 hours from the capital, and a nice college town. It was graduation weekend while we were there, and we saw many proud graduates in their robes celebrating with their friends and family. There is a national museum in Butare, and we spent an afternoon there looking at the exhibits on Rwandan culture. It was a beautiful, well done museum. This town seemed to have a rhythm of its own- opening late on the weekend, seemingly whenever they felt like opening. We found some nice restaurants in town and soaked up the culture.

One morning, Andrej went out to a genocide memorial in Gikongoro. During the genocide, many of the people sought refuge in churches, schools, and the rural hills. Usually the refuge was temporary, and they were mass murdered. This memorial, as like many all over the country, was the site of on the these places. It was a former technical college. They buried many people in a mass grave outside the college, but they also preserved many of the bodies with lime powder (for the sake of preservation for the memorial) and left them as they were in the classrooms. Andrej said many of them were children. He was shown around by a man who was a survivor. He had a big hole in his forehead where he had taken a bullet. That man was one of 4 who survived. Out of 50,000.

We spent one last day on a little lighter note. We attempted to go out to a national park where we could take some nice hikes and see a lot of monkeys. Unfortunately, our minibus we took out their broke down and we got there much later than we had hoped. When we arrived, the rangers told us the price had gone up considerably from what our guidebook had said. He also said that public transport home was sparse. So, we decided to just have a picnic, and turn around and try to get the 2 hours home. In Africa, you can stand at the side of any road and try to hail a bus or minibus. So this is what we tried to do. But we waited 15 minutes, and no cars came in our direction. We were about to give up hope when a full bus sped by, but stopped a bit down the road. Two passengers got off, and we were able to take their spots! We felt very lucky. Riding back, I noticed a lot of military personal along the road. That's when I realized that we were not far from the DRC, and that this was the road leading between the 2 countries. And a huge forest would be a great place for guerrillas to hide. I felt a little better when I thought back later to the military man who was standing outside the park entrance gate watching us try to hitch a ride, and how he smiled at us when we managed to get one. He didn't seem too concerned!
A view of the forest from our picnic table.

We made our way back to Kigali the next day. We have been doing a lot of planning for our future travels, and we decided it was once again time to get moving. Tomorrow, bright and early, we fly out to Malawi. Until next time from Malawi, take care everyone!

Jill

A map of our travels

2009-03-24T10:27:00.003-05:00

I have been working on putting together a map of where we have traveled. It has taken me a while, and I am sorry I haven't gotten it up sooner. So, for those of you who are wondering where exactly in the world we are, this should help. You may need to click on the link to see the whole thing. Also, I have once again added some photos to some old posts that didn't get them the first time around. Enjoy!

View Larger Map

Mityana, Uganda

2009-03-23T07:18:00.007-05:00

Andrej and I spent 5 days in Mityana, Uganda. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of our whole trip so far. I will do my best to tell you all about it, but I am afraid that my words won't do it justice.

A little background: As I mentioned before, I had met a man named Patrick at a Rotaract meeting last winter in Minneapolis. Patrick is a Ugandan Rotarian, Pastor, school director, and parent. He talked a little bit about the schools he runs in Uganda, and I thought that it would be fun to visit his schools if we went through his area. It turns out worked out for us, and that is what brought us to Mityana. We were strangers outside of our brief meeting in Minneapolis, but that didn't seem to matter much once we arrived.

I will do my best to describe the situation around the schools and the churches. I apologize if I get any information wrong, but I will do my best with the swell of information I received over the past week. At the center of everything is Patrick and his wife Eva. Patrick is a generous and friendly man with an easy smile. Eva is a confident, warm, and outgoing woman. They both have theological training and work as pastors (or other duties within the church) in Mityana. Soon after their marriage, they were called to be pastors in a new church in this small town. Their main church began quite small, but has grown considerably over the years. Somewhere around a decade ago, some of the church members began to die of AIDS. Unfortunately, this began to leave a number of children as orphans. Patrick and Eva were approached by these members of the congregation who were worried about the futures of their children, and they were charged with finding a way to take care of them. Between family members and the church, the children were looked after. However, education here is not free, and these children were often turned away from schools because they were unable to pay their own school fees. So, Eva decided they needed to start a school to help these children. The school started in the garage with Eva as the teacher. Word got out that these children were getting taken care of and we learning and succeeding. Soon, there were many more who wanted to be a part of it.

To make a long story shorter, they have, I believe, 4 schools now- 3 primary and 1 secondary school. And these schools are growing fast. They have around 1000 students total now. The students come from the local community. The students who have parents or relatives to stay with commute from home. However, they were recently able to build a dormitory, and now I think there are over 100 students who board at the school.

The mission of the school, outside of providing a quality Christian based education, also includes feeding the kids. They are fed porridge for lunch every day, which is made in a huge cauldron over an open fire.
The school cafeteria.

Once a week, they also get beans or eggs to supplement their diet with some protein. If need be, some students also take breakfast and dinner at the school. For those students, the school can become their home. Also, they seem to be involved in the health care of the students. Students with HIV/AIDS are taken once a month to a British hospital in the capital for treatment. So far, it has been quite beneficial.

Now that you have the background, I will tell you a little about the experience:

In our communication before our arrival, we tried to decide when it would be best to visit. Patrick told us that another group from the U.S. would be coming to help build a classroom block at one of his schools on March 18th. It seemed like a fun project, and we thought it would make things easier for him if we joined in with the group, so we decided to tag along. We ended up with some wonderful comrades for the week. Andy and Arik (father and son) are from Colorado. Their friend, Chris, from D.C., was with them. These 3 people are some of the most generous and genuinely kind people I have ever met. Just being around them was very uplifting and inspiring. Also joining us on occasion was Brian, a volunteer from California. He is interested in starting his own NGO for missionaries in war torn countries, such as Sudan. Right now, he is in Mityana helping Patrick out.

The first day we were in Mityana, Patrick took us to the schools at Mizigo- a primary school and secondary school. Their main church is also on that campus. Patrick seems to make a point to greet all the children in a way that makes them feel loved and special. It was after school, but we got to see some kids practicing drumming and dancing for a school competition- they were really good! We also got to take a tour of the new dorm, which looks great. The kids there have nice toilet and shower facilities as well. Afterwards, we were invited into Patrick and Eva's home for a wonderful dinner (or feast more like it) with lots of great local foods.

The next day, we wanted to get to work. Patrick took us out to the primary school in Kigalama, a small village. That school has exploded population wise, and desperately needed more buildings. Andy's family had raised the money for the building of a new classroom block (quite the feat if you ask me, but its not the first time they have done this), and we were hoping to get the chance to work on it. We found out the construction had already started, and they were moving really quickly! It is all brick, and the walls were almost done! After getting introduced to each of the classes, all of them with wonderful welcomes, often including songs, we put ourselves to work. We weren't sure how the 'real' workers felt about this, but they tolerated us at least. We mixed mortar and laid some bricks. I mostly did a little bit of brick laying. I was very slow at it, and probably didn't lay more than 15 bricks :-)
Jill the brick layer.

Afterwards, we got to visit the Nkonya primary school. This school is on a lake in a small fishing village. The school is smaller there, as the locals don't value education as much as they feel that they can just make their livings fishing. The children who do attend school however are very sweet and quite motivated. We met one child who is struggling with AIDS but desperately wants to become a doctor so he can help other people with AIDS. His father died of it, and his mother has it as well, so I would say he knows the tragedy of AIDS better than anyone. Patrick said this little guy comes to school whenever he can, even if they think it might be better for him to stay home and rest. He said that when he is in the hospital, he always somehow makes a recovery, and when he wakes up, the first thing he always says is that he can't die, because he needs to become a doctor someday. In my opinion, I think his dream might just come true.

That evening, we attended a staff meeting of the Mizigo primary school teachers. They did a short Bible study, then discussed the students. Each teacher reported if there were any students missing or sick. If they didn't know where they were, they were told to find out. These teachers really are like parents to these children!

The next day (still full from another great meal at their home the night before), we headed back to Kigalama. Andy, Arik, and Chris had all brought toys and gifts and candy for the children at the school. So, we spent much of the morning distributing pencils and candy. The kids were SO well behaved. They patiently and thankfully received their gifts.
The kids showing off their new pencils.
Andy and Arik handing out candy.

Later, during recess, they broke out the new toys, including balls, bubbles, and jump ropes. The kids just went crazy. When they started blowing bubbles, you would have thought they had never seen a bubble before, the way they laughed and squealed! Maybe they hadn't.
Chris blowing bubbles.

I was trying to stay out of the chaos and watch from a distance, but I soon found out that one wallflower attracts other wallflowers and I had about 20 kids surrounding me. Many of them just wanted to look at my hands and touch the skin on my arms and laugh at the freckles on my shoulders. It was pretty funny- I guess they must have thought something was wrong with me.
My funny, white hands got a lot of attention.
Yep, still white. You can't rub it off.

After a while, we got around to playing and I enjoyed having races around the school with them and swinging (and jumping!) the jump rope. The patient headmaster let them have an extra long recess, and we all got to play for a couple hours.
Playing in the school yard.

Once the kids went back to class, we tried to get another hour or two of work in. The workers had gotten so far with the brick laying that they were almost done. I scooped and delivered mortar that day.
Chris mixing mortar with the crew.
Andy and a crew member laying bricks.

The project nearly completed.
Posing for a group photo in front of our work.

After dinner as a group, Eva took us to a great little organic farm in town. We got to see all kinds of plants, mostly fruits growing here. I was really excited because they had strawberries! Those are hard to come by around here. I was so happy, and I left with enough strawberries for 3 days.
The next day was Saturday, and the work crew didn't come to work on the classroom block because they had finished the brick laying the day before. So, there was no work for us, either. Therefore, we took a slower day. We walked through town to Patrick's house in the morning. Once we got there, Eva and a friend drove us out to a plot of land outside of town in another village where they are hoping to build another school. They have a small church out there, and next to the church is a plot of land with a small tea plantation on it. The lady who owns the plantation is looking to sell her land. In this particular village, there is a lack of good primary schools. Apparently the villagers in this area see the value of a good education, and many children will run 5 miles in the morning just to go to a good school. This location would significantly cut down on the distance the kids have to run, which would be good, considering if its bad weather, they sometimes can't get to school when it is that far away. The plot of land for this school would cost about $3000, which they would have to raise.
Eva showing us the land for the (hopefully) future school.

The last day we spent with them was Sunday. Andrej and I decided that we would like to go to Patrick's church for the Sunday service, to see what it was like. The rest of our group had another commitment at an orphanage. We arrived with Patrick at the church a little after 10am. The service was already in full swing (apparently starting around 9:30). We walked in a door that led to the front of the church, and Andrej and I were seated up front with the pastors for the whole service. The service was quite the ordeal. First of all, it was the longest church service I have ever been to (including CinCC for all you Gustavus people). All in all, it was 4.5 hours long. It started with lots of very energetic music. No hymnals or programs here. They have a small band with a drum set, African drums, and a keyboard. They have a couple singers with microphones, and often a choir or dancers as well. Clapping and dancing was the norm, and there was no Lutheran shyness in their singing! Following the praise, there was a number of announcements and prayers. The sermon was long (probably because Patrick translated it the whole time), and after there were more prayers, a 'dedication' of children (like a baptism, but not), and then there was some business to take care of. Apparently a couple members were getting married, and the congregation puts in donations to go towards paying for the wedding. They played some elaborate auction-type game for this that lasted quite some time. Eventually they took the offering, and church was over around 2pm. Apparently no one has football games to go home and watch on Sunday afternoon around here.
Our group ready for church on Sunday. Andrej, me, Arik, Andy, and Chris.

We stuck around for another wonderful meal at their home. While there, I got to chat with their daughter Cathy who also translated for me during the service. She is 24 and recently married and teaches young children at the school. She is very motivated, and is working hard at further studies in fashion. Some interesting things of note that I learned from her are that primary school teachers here tend to make only $50/month. That is not enough to cover basic living expenses, and that is why she is studying for a different career. She also told me that about 15 out of her 50 students have HIV/AIDS. It really is just a huge problem here, and she told me she is worried about the future of her country considering how many children have AIDS and how many of their parents also have it as well.

All in all, this was a very rewarding experience. It is wonderful to see what Patrick and Eva and their friends are doing here in Uganda. It seems that there is always more to be done, however. For example, the school where we built the classroom block is in an area with no electricity or running water. They have to pay someone 25 cents (US) per jerry can to ride in jerry cans of water 2km on his bike everyday. That adds up when you need enough water for around 400 people for cooking, drinking, and washing hands and eating utensils 5 days a week. They are also hoping to get solar panels installed someday so they can have electricity. Other examples are buying the land and building a new school, building more dormitories, digging wells for easy access to clean water, buying text books and supplies, etc. If you would like to learn more about what Patrick and Eva do, or if you would like to help, please check out their website and contact them: www.maranathauganda.org .

Just for fun...Jill and Andrej eating sugarcane outside Patrick and Eva's house!

Kampala and Lake Bunyonyi, Uganda

2009-03-23T06:09:00.010-05:00

Hello everyone, and sorry for the long delay in posting!

Someday, I will get Andrej to post on this blog again. But right now, he has more important things to do when we find a decent internet connection (file his taxes), so once again, you get to hear from me.

So, once again we had quite the transportation adventure. It really was quite memorable, so I might go in to a bit of detail (how unusual, I know...)
To get from Arusha, Tanzania to Kampala, Uganda, you can take a bus. It seems that all the bus lines run their route through Nairobi, Kenya and were supposed to take about 17 hours. We were planning to use a company that we had used before which has on-board toilets (unheard of in these parts, but oh so important) and air conditioning. Of course, we come to find out that company stopped their route to Uganda 2 weeks before. So, we went with another company they recommended. The bus was nice by Tanzanian standards, but was lacking in a toilet or a/c. Anyways, since we bought the tickets the same day as we were travelling, we didn't get the greatest seats. They were in the back of the bus, and the ride was incredibly bumpy. Many, many, many times we flew at least a foot off the seat. The road out of Tanzania was pretty much all under construction. Which means sometimes you are driving on a road, sometimes not, but you are always on a dusty, bumpy, gravel, one lane track (for both directions...). At the border, our bus driver told us we had 5 minutes to go through the Tanzanian side of the border crossing, and 5 minutes to go through the Kenyan side of the border crossing, and we should be back on the bus in 10 minutes. Well, if you have a bus full of people, and other people are also at the border crossing, and the officials issuing your stamps and visas are in no particular hurry, 10 minutes is totally impossible. So, while we were in no-mans land (between borders), we saw our bus pulling away. Andrej sprinted after it, and I just kept walking, mouth open, trying not to cry. But, lucky for us, we were just confused and our bus was just going to park at the other side of the border. Seconds after we got back on the bus, it pulled away and we were in Kenya.

The rode in Kenya was much smoother, which was awesome. Nairobi seemed to be quite a nice city. The highway even was divided and wide enough for about 3 lanes on each side. However, they didn't seem to see the need for putting in actual lane markers, so it was just a really wide road with a hot mess of cars. We stopped at a small cafe in Nairobi to use the toilets and get food, and we were off towards Uganda.

This was an overnight bus, and we left Nairobi around 10:30pm. African countries seem to like having police checkpoints on all their rodes, but Kenya was especially fond of them. We were stopped about every half hour the entire way through Kenya. I was glad we were on a bus and not driving ourselves, because I would have been terrified being stopped by multiple guards with rifles every half hour all night long. We weren't sure what they were checking for- they only came on the bus a couple times and poked their flashlight around at the luggage, but didn't actually inspect anything. Anywways, it being a night bus, we had hoped that we would sleep on the bus. ha. HA! We soon realized how foolish we were. After leaving Nairobi, we were soon in the middle of never ending road construciton, much like in Tanzania. There were a number of times where I swore we were tipping over or that we had popped a tire. But we never did, and we kept plowing through, stopping every once in a while for the men with their big rifles. We also stopped once for a bathroom break. Which, in these parts, involves the men going out to the field at the side of the road, and the women going behind the bus, on the highway, hoping that no one comes along on the road. At one point, somewhere around 1 am, Andrej and I started laughing uncontrollably because we couldn't believe how bouncy the ride was. I have been on wooden roller coasters smoother than this bus ride.

We made it to the Ugandan border around 5am. We seemed to have a little extra time (either that or everyone was just too tired to care) and we made it through pretty smoothly. Once we were in Uganda, the road was actually quite nice, and we managed to get a couple hours sleep. About an hour or so outside Kampala, we went through Jinja and passed over the Nile River. The source of the Nile is apparently in Uganda. It was cool to see. Anyways, about 18 hours after leaving Arusha, we arrived, very tired in Kampala.
A monkey in the tree on the grounds of our hostel in Kampala.

We spent the rest of that day resting, and the next morning we decided to do a low key day trip to a nearby town on Lake Victoria called Entebbe (also home to the international airport). The goal of this trip was to go to the Wildlife Education Center, where the guidebook said they had a wildlife refuge for animals rescued from poachers and trafficing. It turned out to pretty much be a zoo, but it was still neat. We got to see a lion up close, as well as chimps, crocs, otters, snakes, rhinos, and others. There were also a number of monkeys and cool looking large birds (can't remember the name) that seemed to live in the park and roam free. There was a small playground that the monkeys took over later in the afternoon.
One of the neat cranes wandering around the park.
Another crane. This type is seen all over the city, especially at the garbage heaps.
Andrej at Lake Victoria.

The next day, we took off for a little rest and relaxation at a beautiful lake near the Rwandan border called Lake Bunyonyi. I think you have heard enough about our transportation adventures, so I will spare you that this time around, but I will just say that it wasn't what we expected or hoped for. Anyways, we decided to stay in a rustic cabin at a small budget resort on an island in the lake. To get there, we had to take a dugout canoe. So, we piled ourselves and our bags into a canoe made out of a hollowed out tree, and set out for the island (along with a 'driver' to show us the way and do a lot of the paddling).

About 45 minutes later, we arrived.

Our cabin had a nice view of the lake, and its own bathroom and shower. Although, it was rustic. The bathroom was a compost toilet outside, and the shower was also outside (but mostly enclosed, no one outside could see anything but a shower head) and lacking hot water. But, it was incredibly nice, peaceful, and simple.
Viewing our cabin from behind.

The island was small and very rural, so there were no stores on the island, so we always took our meals at the lodge restaurant, which was good and dirt cheap. The weather there was quite cool- probably in the 60s most of the time. We were apparently 6,000 some feet above sea level. We went for some walks around the island- enjoying the local birds and nice footpaths.
Andrej enjoying a walk around the island.
A school bus, island style! We came across this on a walk.
This is what a dugout canoe school bus looks like.

We also rented a dugout canoe a couple times and paddled around the island. One morning, we canoed to a neighboring island with the intent of attending a church service. We ended up going at the wrong time, but we had a pleasant walk on that island, and we enjoyed seeing the church.

Another highlight of our time there for me was learning to play backgammon. Andrej taught it to me, and it was so much fun! I wish we had a small travel board to take with us.

Other photos from our time on the island:

We also decided we wanted to spend a couple of days on the mainland side of the lake, because we heard you could rent bikes there. Unfortunately their bikes were broken, but we had an enjoyable time there still. We went to a small market on the lake one morning and bought fresh pineapple, sugar cane, and bread for lunch. We also hiked in the hills a bit around the lake. This was a little more grueling than I hoped for, so it didn't last all that long. We also got a little sunbathing in, although it was just a little too cold to go swimming.

We had arranged to visit the schools of the Rotarian I mentioned before and do a little volunteering starting on Wednesday, so we ended up leaving the lake after about 5 days and headed back to Kampala.

The International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda

2009-03-23T05:43:00.000-05:00

I thought I would just put in a short note on the criminal tribunal that we visited before we left Arusha for those who were curious...

We did make it in to the ICTR that Monday. We never did get 'pre-approved' to visit with the form we filled out, but they just took our passports and had us sign in. There was only one trial going on that day, and it was the first day of the trial. We were not allowed to take any photos, but it is all probably best described in words anyway.

The public is allowed to view from a soundproof room at the back of the courtroom. Everyone is given headsets, including the people in the courtroom (lawyers, judges, accused, etc). That way, you automatically get it translated into the appropriate language. The courtroom itself was really not what I expected for an international court. It was nothing fancy, more or less a large room inside a large building. The room was very narrow. There was really nothing remarkable about it. The judges and lawyers wore robes, and everyone else was in business clothes, sipping coffee, etc. It was all very low key.

Since it was the first day of the trial, the defense was supposed to give their opening statement. However, the lead defense attorney (from Canada) was really, for lack of a better word, annoying. She first refused to let the trial begin because she claimed 2 of their witnesses had been called last week by the Rwandan government. The witnesses are supposed to be protected, and therefore that should apparently not have happened. She claimed that it meant that all her witnesses were compromised. She argued (quite disrespectfully in my opinion) with the judges over this and would not let this point go. When they moved on, the judge pointed out that she had 19 witnesses, and was told previously that she could only have 10. Again, the lawyer through a fit saying she could not ably defend the accused man without all 19 witnesses. After much arguing and eye rolling, the judge adjourned for the next two days and said everyone should come back then, prepared. All in all, we were there for about an hour.

We were still glad that we saw the ICTR, even if it was for such a short time. However, we were not willing to wait around again until Wednesday to hear the Canadian lawyer stall some more. So, we decided it was time to press on.

Arusha, Tanzania

2009-03-08T07:44:00.003-05:00

Hello again friends and family!

We have spent almost a week in Arusha, and although we were still here, I thought I would write a blog post about it since I always seem to get a lot of positive response when I post :-)

Arusha is one of the largest and wealthiest cities in Tanzania. Its on the northern side of the country, near the Kenyan border. Its about an hour or two drive from Mount Kilimanjaro, and tends to be the starting point for many safaris to all of the famous national parks. Like Lushoto, it has a pretty high elevation, which means that it stays relatively cool here. Considering how close we are to the equator, I am still amazed that we don't need air conditioning or even a fan to stay comfortable in our room.

Besides the safaris and mountains, Lushoto has a political draw for this part of Africa. They seem to hold a number of international conferences and courts here- there is an East African Human Rights Court currently in session here. The International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda is also located in Arusha. That means that people charged with committing war crimes in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda are tried here. As we are planning to go to Rwanda next month, we thought it would be interesting to sit in on some proceedings. It seemed like a good educational experience. The Lonely Planet (guidebook) made it sound like you could just show up and watch. We found out that is not so, but with some help from a few very friendly U.N. staff members, we figured out what we have to do to get in, and we are going to try again this week. (It turned out that their computer system was down last week and everything was held off until further notice).

Anyways, since this is the safari capital of Tanzania, we thought we would look into going to the Ngorongoro Crater or the Serengeti. However, we were disappointed to find out that the government has made the entrance fees and vehicle permits astronomical, so we decided not to go. To go to either of those, it looked like it would cost a minimum of $300 per person per day with a tour company. That is much more than our backpackers budget can handle if we still want to see much more of Africa!

So, we decided to do some more cultural tourism like we did in Lushoto. This time, we took a trip to the small village of Ngirisi just outside of Arusha. Its up in the hills, and while there we got to take walks through the farms, learn about the different crops and trees, and learn about local life. We learned a little about their home life by going into a villagers home. Apparently they think that cows do so much for them, like provide milk, meat, and consequently money and well being, that they allow the cows to sleep inside. Not in a barn, but in their house. The traditional house is packed mud and bricks. No electricity or water. No beds. No walls, just partitions made of sticks. The cows sleep in one partition. The man of the house sleeps by the door (like a guard), the mother and girls sleep in another partitioned area, and the boys sleep where they can, most likely by the cooking fire in the center of the house.
The fire for cooking inside the house.
The woman of the house displaying her large gourd she uses as a container.
It was very interesting to learn about. We also saw the outside of their schools and went to their 'holy tree'- a great big tree in the shape of Africa. It was pretty cool.
The Africa tree.

Another little trip we did was a canoe trip on a lake nearby. It was an average sized lake, but seemed to be on a reserve. There was absolutely no one else on the lake, so it was quite peaceful, and we paddled around for a few hours.
Andrej enjoying the canoe.
Andrej was fascinated by the papyrus.

We saw lots or unique birds and some really large lizards on the banks.

After canoeing, a guide took us on a walk to the village market. On the way, we learned a lot about different types of medicinal plants and what they are used for, as well as everything you could ever want to know about bananas. The market we went to was huge and bustling. People were selling fresh fruits, vegetables, spices, etc. It was like a gigantic farmers market, and organic food lovers dream. There is certainly no shortage of food in this part of Africa. In fact, I don't think I have ever seen that many fruits in vegetables in my life.

One other little interesting note- our hotel in Arusha is in an area of town that seems to have all the mosques. There appears to be 2 on either side of our hotel, and you can hear them broadcasting their call to worship (often simultaneously) on their loudspeakers. I have no idea what they are singing, but I still think it is a really neat sound, and I actually like listening to it most of the time. In the quiet of the pre-dawn hours (5 am) they wake me up every morning. However, it seems that the one at 5am is always haunting and beautiful, and I find that I don't really mind that it wakes me up. I fall back asleep soon again anyways. Today was Sunday, and around 7am, the noise became mingled with church bells, and it was fun to listen to.

Other than that, we have been enjoying city life in Arusha- going to movies, eating good food, using the internet, and planning our further adventures. This week we are planning to press on to Uganda. Uganda sounds like a fun and beautiful place. We are also hoping to put ourselves to work- it looks like we will be volunteering and building a classroom block at a school for orphans and underprivileged children at a school run by a Rotarian from Uganda who came to speak at one of my Rotaract meetings last year. We are looking forward to a change of pace and to meeting a lot of new people!

Bye for now!

Lushoto, Tanzania

2009-03-05T06:06:00.004-06:00

Back on the mainland! After we left Zanzibar, we headed back to Dar es Salaam for a day, then took a bus up to the mountains in Northern Tanzania. We ended up in a small town called Lushoto, in the Usambara mountain range.

We had read that there was a lot of good hiking in the Lushoto area, and that's why we went there. Thanks to being in the mountains, Lushoto enjoys a quite cool climate despite it's proximity to the equator. That makes it much more pleasant to be outside all day, and with the mountains, there are numerous winding footpaths between the villages.

Our first day there, we signed up for a one day guided hike to a rainforest, farm, and lookout point for the next day. I requested a woman guide, as I felt like so many of the people we meet in the tourism industry here (and especially the street touts) seem to be men. So, I thought this would be a good opportunity to speak to a local woman and ask a lot of questions about life in the area. There was one woman guide available, and she turned out to be absolutely fantastic. She was very talkative, honest, and intelligent. The tourism office was sending her to university to get a degree in business so they could make their office locally sustainable (it had started with the help of a Dutch NGO). And the best part is, the tourism office is non-profit and donates all of their proceeds back to the community. So anyways, we were very happy with the whole situation. The hike started off very nice. It winded through green mountain hills and we encountered lots of locals going about their day and even the occasional monkey. The forest held a lot of dense vegetation and involved a somewhat more intense uphill hike.
Andrej in the forest.

We made it to the top around noon and we were both very tired. We rested there for a while and got the chance to enjoy a great view of all the surrounding mountains.
A view from the top.

Andrej and our guide, Mwisho going down the mountain.

We continued on to the farm (followed by school kids most of the way) where we had a wonderful organic lunch. However, we were very tired and ended up going back to our hotel after lunch.
The rest of the week in Lushoto was very low key. We enjoyed staying in a nice, lodge style hotel because it was the low season and we could get a very cheap room there. We even had our own fireplace! A lot of time was spent reading, wandering around the market in town, and exploring the mountain paths on our own.
One of the paths I found.
A view of the town.

We also enjoyed some very cheap local meals. My favorite was the pilau. A staple here is called ugali. Its a rather tasteless food, which I believe to be pounded and moist white rice in a giant ball. You eat it with a sauce or veggies. Andrej ordered it one night- it was alright, but not our favorite.
We went on one more tour while in town, this time by car. We went to a nearby waterfall and this time made it to the view point near the farm. The view point had magnificent views from the edge of the mountain range looking over cliffs and the plains below.
Us at the waterfall.
At the viewpoint looking over the cliffs and plains below.

After a week there, we got on the bus again and headed to Arusha, the largest city in Northern Tanzania. More to come soon on Arusha!

More pictures...

2009-02-22T09:56:00.002-06:00

I uploaded some pictures to my flickr site: www.flickr.com/photos/piratejill . Feel free to check them out if you would like to see a few more photos of our travels!

Zanzibar

2009-02-21T08:25:00.006-06:00

Note: Check our old posts for more new pictures!

After flying out of Mozambique, we made a fairly uneventful arrival in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Dar is about halfway up the east coast of Tanzania and is quite a large city. Swahili and English are spoken here (yay for English!). We spent a couple nights here, enjoying being in a city. We were able to buy a couple guidebooks for this part of Africa, use the internet, and do a little shopping. However, the best was yet to come.

I have always wanted to go to Zanzibar ever since I first heard about it a number of years ago. Not only does it have an awesome name that sounds like it should be an island on Mars, but it is known for its beaches and scenery. Oh yeah, and its cool history as well.

We took a ferry out to Zanzibar. It took about 2 hours and was rather nice as ferries go. We arrived in a bustling town in the rain to discover that there was a large music festival going on that week and all the hotels were booked. Bummer. After having our taxi driver drive us around in the rain for a while, we found a hotel with a room, where we stayed for 3 nights.

Zanzibar town is famous for its Stone Town. Right in the port area, is a town made mostly of a bunch of old, stone buildings. Its composed of tiny, winding roads with little side alleys. Its really enchanting. The population of the town is primarily Muslim, and you look down any little alley and you see women in their long, flowing black robes and black head scarves (and sometimes face covers so all you see is their eyes) and men in their long white robes and white, circular hats. It all feels very foreign and mysterious. Every once in a while you hear the Muslim call to prayer wafting from a mosque and see the men walking in, leaving a pile of sandals outside the mosque.

The interesting part of Zanzibar's history is that for centuries, it was ruled by Oman. With sultans and palaces and everything. It is independent now and a part of Tanzania. However, you can tour the museums and palaces and ruins of the bath houses, and gaze at the architecture, and really get a feel for the history of the place.

Anyways, on to what we actually did in Zanzibar...

We walked around the little winding roads. We went to the music festival where we saw groups from reggae artists from Ethiopia to classical artists to pop artists from Kenya. We ate tasty food. We toured the old palaces and museums. We rented a moped and cruised around outside of town to sites of old ruins. That leads me to our first story.

Stone Town is a busy place. Lots of cars, mopeds, pedestrians, bicycles, daladalas (the Zanzibar version of the death cab). Oh, and they drive on the left. After realizing how hectic it was, we decided that Andrej would do all the driving, as he has a little motorcycle experience and I have none. Anyways, we did pretty well and made it out of town. We were driving along on a beautiful, palm tree lined dirt road going to some caves. We hit a rock with our muffler and tipped over into a puddle (luckily we were already going very slow and we more or less stepped off the moped). Soon, some other people came by on mopeds or bikes or cars or even just strolling along. Within minutes we had about 10 people helping us. Everyone who stopped to help us helped us like we were their best friends, not complete strangers who can't speak Swahili. They helped us without even asking if we needed help. They stopped what they were doing and put off where they were going to help. The got out tools, removed the tire, hammered the exhaust pipe. As it turned out, the rock had jammed the pipe into our back tire. Anyways, with the help of all those nice men, we were back on the road in half an hour. After it was fixed, everyone dispersed as quickly as they came and all we could do was shout our thanks.

Another story to display the friendliness of the people of Zanzibar happened just a couple hours later. We were on another rural road and it started to rain pretty hard, so we pulled over under a large tree for some shelter. A girl in the house across the road saw us and insisted we come in her house to wait out the rain. So we did. We sat on their floor (they didn't have furniture) quietely (we need to learn more Swahili) and everyone smiled at each other as we waited a few minutes for the rain to let up. When it did, the kids walked us out to our moped and waved as we drove off.

This place is very refreshing. There are a lot of tourists around here, but everyone still smiles and makes a point to say jambo! (hello!) to you whenever they see you.

The day after we rented our moped, we took a daladala out to Bwejuu, a small village on the east coast of Zanzibar. The destination was the beach, and the beach we got. We stayed at a fabulous little place called The Twisted Palms. It was right on the beach, and run by an Italian couple. It had a restaurant, and as Italians are very picky about their food, we ate VERY well the whole time we were there. The breakfasts were large and free with fresh fruit and juice. We had a nice little basic bungalow up on the hill above the beach. We had a fabulous time out there. We rented bikes and road up and down the beach. We rented a car and drove out to the Jozani Forest, where we saw the apparently rare red colobus monkeys. We drove out to a butterfly garden, and we drove all along the coast. All that was great, but my absolute favorite thing was the catamaran. We rented the catamaran one sunny morning. I had never been on one before, and Andrej had only been on one once or twice. However, we quickly got the hang of it and had 3 very enjoyable hours sailing around in the ocean around Zanzibar. A catamaran is made of two small pontoons with a tarp between them, a mainsail, a foresail, and a couple rudders. It was quite simple, and it could really cruise. The water of the Indian Ocean is really warm and it made for a very pleasant ride. We also spent one more day just being lazy beach bums before coming back to Stone Town. I think I will always remember my time on Zanzibar as one of my favorites of this whole trip. Bwejuu was my favorite place we have been so far.

We are back in Stone Town now, and real life calls. We caved and bought a cell phone today. I have spent hours here at this internet cafe attempting to file my taxes. And tomorrow we head back to the mainland for more adventures in Tanzania. Until then....

Here are some photos from Zanzibar:
The catamaran we sailed around in.
Andrej in the Jozani Forest with some large cactus.
Andrej and me during a walk on the beach.
Andrej on his bike during our bike ride down the beach to the next town, Paje.
A boat we saw pass by from our breakfast table one morning.
Andrej and me riding our moped. Still alive and happy even after falling off!
Andrej on the moped on one of the rural roads in Zanzibar.
Andrej exploring the ruins outside of town.
The reggae group from Ethiopia at the music festival. The festival was held in an old fort.
Me on the terrace overlooking the ocean at one of the palace museums.

Pemba, Mozambique

2009-02-21T08:14:00.005-06:00

Wow, we are way behind on blog posts! A lot has happened since Ilha de Mocambique!
After the island, we spent one day in transit in Nacala, Mozambique, then hopped our 4 am bus to Pemba, Mozambique further up the coast. We spent 5 days here just outside of town on Wimbi Beach.

There is not a whole lot to tell about Pemba. It seemed to be the start of the rainy season, so it rained usually once a day. That was nice however, as it seemed to cool things off. A couple times we made the long trek into town to go to the bakery, supermarket, internet cafe, restaurants, or to buy a plane ticket. The rest of the time we spent around the beach area, just walking around or hanging out at the nice beach front restaurants. All in all, it was a more relaxing experience.

Travel in Mozambique was difficult, as I outlined in my last post, and not being able to communicate made things a little tough. So in the end, we decided to fly from Pemba all the way to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. The other way to cross the border into Tanzania appeared to involved multiple days (with pre-dawn starts no doubt) and a dug out canoe river crossing at the border, as well as many more death cabs. It seemed adventurous, yet... we were ready to move on.

Pemba is best described in pictures, so I will leave you with some pictures of our last Mozambique destination:

Andrej took this picture of what we think is the mail delivery bike outside the Pemba post office.

Andrej at Wimbi Beach.
Ocean view at Pemba.
Sunset over Wimbi Beach.
Jill and Andrej.
Andrej relaxing at our favorite beachside restaurant, the Pemba Dolphin.

Ilha de Moçambique

2009-02-05T05:25:00.007-06:00

After Kruger Park, we made our way to Mozambique. We took a bus across the border to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. We decided that since Mozambique is such a large country that we would try to fly across much of it to save a lot of time on buses. We had spent quite a lot of time the days beforehand trying to call the airline, but could not get through to anyone. So, we just showed up at the airport about 6:30am and they booked us on a flight to Nampula that left at 7:30am. Sweet! That worked out surprisngly well. The plane stopped at one other town on the way and we made it safely to Nampula, where we took a taxi to the mini-bus stand.

Unfortunetly, it seems that the only way to get to non-major cities in Mozambique is to take the death cabs. This one was actually a mini-bus, which seemed a little better than a big van, but no. They still packed in about 30 people to a bus that would comfortably seat about 15 or so. People were on each others laps, men were standing hanging out the side door or leaning over the seated people. And it was HOT. Its a very unpleasant way to get around, yet so many people use it as it is pretty much the only way to get around. When you stop somewhere, people swarm the car and try to sell you things. Anything from flashlights to eggs to live chickens. Who would buy a live chicken then put it in a packed van of people where there is barely room to breathe??? Apparently someone buys it, otherwise they wouldn´t sell it. Luckily no one in our van bought one...
On our chapa (death cab). Men standing in the aisles and leaning over people in the seats. You can't see the ones hanging out the door...

Our goal was to get to Ilha de Moçambique (Mozambique Island). To get there, you have to cross a small 3.5 km bridge. Due to weight restrictions, our van couldn´t go over. So they made us get in the back of a pick-up to go to the island itself from the town on the coast. Us and about 15 other people and luggage and cargo.
Not our pick-up, but this is like what we rode to get across the bridge.

Once there, we managed to find a hotel. The next day was a national holiday and most things were closed, so we layed low for a while.

Mozambique was colonized by the Portuguese. If I have my facts right, Mozambique Island was where Vasco de Gama first landed and the Portuguese set it up as a trading center back in the 1500s. The place has a lot of history- lots of old Portuguese style stone buildings that you would find in an important port and trading town. Lots of churches and mosques and forts. All surrounded by beautiful blue water. All this and judging by the way the guide books talk it up, it seems like a perfect tourist destination.

It is a neat place, but not quite what we were expecting. The main fort was closed, the beach was covered in trash, most of the buildings have not been kept up. On the holiday when everything was closed, it really looked like a ghost town. It really is too bad, because if they made it easier to get to, put some signposts up so you knew what things were, and kept up the buildings nicely, it would be a huge hit with tourists.
An old church on the edge of the island.
A pretty, but dirty beach.
Some interesting architecture.
A charming side street.

We did get some good exploring in. Checked out a museum of the governer´s mansion and some church artifacts. We walked around the island looking at the old buildings and checking out the market and the beaches. Kids followed us around the entire time. Sometimes they were helpful and even cute, but after a few hours, it would be nice to not have someone one step behind you for every move you make. But I have the feeling that this will be the rule rather than the exception for a lot of our time here. When we were having dinner at a restaurant, we were sitting at a streetside table. A group of young girls surrounded us. We smiled and acknowledged them, but that wasn´t enough. They also pounded on our table and poked at me. After telling them goodbye and waving multiple times, they still wouldn´t relent. When they stood inches away pointing and laughing at me while I ate, that was the last straw and we ended up going inside. I don´t think it is a good tourist thing to do to get irate with the kids, and I think its inevitable that they will be curious, but I have been having a hard time contemplating where I should draw the line to keep my own sanity and privacy.
The 3 boys who followed us around and were our unofficial tour guides for the day.

Other interesting things about Mozambique- they speak Portuguese. Which, of course, makes things much more difficult than they were in South Africa where most everyone spoke English. The simple things are difficult to communicate. Figuring out how to get from point A to B, asking for the bill at a restaurant, chatting with strangers, etc. I asked our hotel manager where I could find a Portuguese- English phrasebook or dictionary. He said his friend had one he could sell me. Turns out it was a used paperback (which would have been great). However he asked me for $18 for it, when the NEW list price was $5.99. I felt that wasn´t a fair price, so instead we just bumble around throwing out Spanish and English and the few words of Portuguese they have in the Lonely Planet.

Another thing, it is REALLY hot here. South Africa was quite temperate and we never had air conditioning and were usually fine. Here, the heat is suffocating. We even tried swimming in the ocean to cool off, but the water was just as warm as the air. It almost felt like a hot tub. Today we have the luxury of an air conditioned hotel room for the first time. Unforuntely you definitely pay for it, so I think we will just have to get used to the heat.

Lastly, the transportation is crazy. Not only do they pack so many people in that it hurts, but they seem to all depart at ungodly hours of the morning. Today, they picked us up from our hotel at 3:50am. As far as we could tell, unless we wanted to ride in the back of a pickup the whole way, that was when we had to go. The girl across from me fell asleep on my leg. Today, to get to Nacala, we had to switch death cabs halfway through. Or so we thought. We got off at the halfway point, looked rather confused, and luckily a man helped us figure out where to get the next death cab. However, instead of a death cab, a flat bed truck pulled up, someone hopped out of the cab and climbed on the back, and Andrej and me and our bags piled into the cab with the driver. So we inadvertantly hitch hiked. I have to say that the cab was extremely comfortable, no whatsoever crowded, and the driver drove slow in safe. It was fabulous. Then we got into town and he dropped us at a taxi queue. We wanted to go about 10 km out of town to a beach hotel we read about in the guidebook. The driver tried to take a back road made of sand and we got hopelessly stuck. It took3 men from passing trucks, the driver, Andrej, me, and a borrowed hoe from a farm lady half an hour to get ourselves out. We took the long way around, only to find out the place is no longer open and go straight back into town. Wow.

So anyways, we decided to go on to another beach town by what seems to be an actual bus tomorrow. What time does the bus leave? 4am of course! What time do you need to get there to get a ticket? 3am! JOY! We are really hoping this is a quirk of Mozambique transportation and that it won´t be like this elsewhere in Africa, but we shall see...

Once again, I am unable to post pictures, but I will get some nice Mozambique photos up as soon as I can. Take care everyone!

Kruger National Park, South Africa

2009-02-05T05:07:00.003-06:00

After our great horse trek through the mountains of Lesotho, we headed off on another great adventure- a safari! We made our way over to Nelspruit, South Africa (via Bloemfontein and Johannesburg) and arranged for a one day one night safari in the park through our hostel. Even the budget safaris like this are quite expensive, but the park itself and the facilities are quite nice and it seems worth the price.

Kruger Park is a very large park. It has multiple 'camps' within the park that are fenced off where there are hotels, camping, restaurants, stores, laundry, and toilet and shower facilities. You are not allowed to walk or bike outside the fenced in areas- don´t want the tourists to get eaten by lions! You have to be in a vehicle at all times. You can go in private vehicles, but you may not get to see as much as you do in the high up safari trucks with open sides. Also, its not always smart to go without a guide as the animals can wander onto the road and if you don´t know how they will react, your car might just get trampled by an elephant.

Anyways, a little about the safari itself- you take about 3 drives through the park each day. The best viewing is in the morning or late afternoon when its not so hot that all the animals hide in the shade. You ride around in an open truck and look for animals, and slow down when you find them and stay and watch them. Our tour group prepared all our meals for us (including a dinner of impala stew...) and the tents are there permanently with matresses and bedding so you don´t have to bring any of your own supplies. Its very easy.

A couple interesting things- there are fences around the camp, but monkeys, baboons, impalas, and warthogs managed to find their way in. I was a little nervous about going around in the dark, but it turned out fine.

Elephants can get a little testy. We were driving the the main gate to pick up some more people and an elephant was in the road and would NOT move. You don´t want to push your luck too much, as they WILL charge. We inched on it and made a lot of noise and such to try to get it to move, but it would just not budge. It chased after us a little bit, but our guide was very experienced and knew how to handle things. We were about 45 minutes late picking the other people up...

The safari story itself is best told in pictures, however the internet connection I am at is very slow and I don´t think I can get them up in a reasonable amount of time. I will post them as soon as I can!

Here are the photos! Enjoy!

A warthog in our camp.
A monkey from our camp relaxing in the tree.
This bug on a rope near our tent looked like a leaf!
One of the many elephants we saw.The giraffes were my favorite part!

We were very lucky to see this cheetah. They are quite rare in the park.
A rhino...

The monkeys were curious about Domo.

Trekking in Lesotho on Horseback

2009-01-28T10:15:00.008-06:00

The adventure that I’ve been talking about for almost a year is now complete. Last week Jill and I spent 5 days riding on horseback through the mountains of Lesotho. We rode 7 to 10 hours a day through treacherous mountains and beautiful countryside. Here are Jill and I with our brave horses that took us up and down mountains, through rivers and to small villages more than a day’s ride from any road.

The first village that Jill and I rode into to spend the night was home to about 50 shepherds and farmers. Everyone lived in one of these round Basotho huts with rock walls on the outside, red mud on the inside and grass on the roof.

Within minutes of our arrival all the children in the village converged on our hut to point and giggle. So, I went outside and played games with them like tossing twigs up and down until all but one person had dropped their twig.

The actual horse trails would take the form of small winding paths, piles of boulders or just a few scratch marks on solid rock from horses that had passed over them. Sometimes we would even get off our horses and walk when we saw the hoof scratch marks sliding down particularly steep rock towards a valley below.

I would also get off and walk my horse a couple times a day to give us both a break.

On about the third day in the countryside we descended into a valley where a river speared out into a meadow below creating a swampy area. Jill, our guide and our pack horse all made it through the swamp just fine but my horse sunk into the mud all the way to its belly and then started bucking because it had sunk in so far that it couldn’t get out. Since I was being thrown up and down I quickly jumped off the horse and without my weight the horse was able to stumble out of the mud. Here’s a photo of me and the horse covered in mud.

For the next several days when my horse came to a muddy crossing I had to hold on tight because it would do a flying jump clear over the mud.

All in all the 5 days of riding days didn’t take much of a toll on our bodies. The first day we were a little sore but we quickly got used to being in the saddle and we really enjoyed seeing the beautiful country with rivers everywhere, several waterfalls and quite a few shepherds with their flocks.

In summary, the people of Lesotho are extremely kind and inviting. The country is beautiful and very safe to visit. After riding horse back for five days and living in huts both Jill and I were very sad to leave our guide and the villages behind for the faster passed world of Maseru, Bloemfontein, Johannesburg and our next destination, Nelspruit on the border of Kruger National Park.

--Andrej

On the Move

2009-01-20T04:15:00.005-06:00

Greetings from Maseru, the capital of Lesotho! We have made a long and adventuresome trek since Simons Town, and I will try my best to fill you all in on the highlights.

After Simons Town, we spent a few days in Wilderness, a small coastal town on the very scenic 'Garden Route' on the southern coast of South Africa. We took a bus there, which took about 7 hours. The bus ride was fairly uneventful, except when the driver almost left without Andrej at a rest stop :-) In Wilderness, the main attraction was the beach. Beautiful blue waters with lots of waves on pleasant, uncrowded beaches. A Jill paradise.

We spent most of our first full day there on the beach, and I got a decent sunburn. The backpackers that we stayed at was fun and a good place to stay. Our bedroom window looked right over the Indian Ocean, and you could constantly hear the waves crashing in. I think the sound of the waves at night helped me sleep the best that I have slept the whole time we have been here. The backpackers also had good food (we had pizza there one night) and a friendly crowd. We got the chance to meet some fellow backpackers from Switzerland. It was really helpful to get some advice and meet other people who are doing something similar. Our second full day in Wilderness we spent hiking. (We try to even out our days a little. Jill days are spent relaxing and going to the beach. Andrej days are spent hiking and being active). Wilderness is a very accurate name for the town, and we spent a good amount of time hiking nice trails through the forest along a river.

The end destination was a small waterfall with a lot of gigantic boulders. It was a nice hike with cool weather. We decided to walk all the way back to our hostel, which turned out to be a long hike, but we made it. That day, we also took our laundry to a laundromat. Doing it yourself was not an option- they wash, dry, and fold it all for you for about $5. Not bad. It was a nice luxury as we usually wash our clothes in the sink and hang them to dry in our room.

On Saturday, we left Wilderness. We had a nice breakfast in town and had a good chat with a friendly man who sold us our pancakes. It took a long time for us to get a taxi to the bus stop and we were so worried that we had missed our bus. The bus we took to get to Wilderness was running about a half hour EARLY. But, this bus turned out to be 2.5 hours LATE. The bus stop was a gas station. We found a nice, shaded picnic table. The local people who worked at the gas station, and others passing through were all very friendly and helpful. They assured us we hadn't missed the bus and that it would come, it just sometimes takes a while. Once we finally got on, the gas station attendants were waving to us as we left. We took the bus for about 4 hours to Port Elizabeth. On the bus ride, we passed Tsitsikamma national forest. Near there, two baboons decided to cross the road right in front of our bus (which was barreling down the road way above the speed limit). We nearly hit them, but luckily we didn't.

We stayed in Port Elizabeth for one night. At the backpackers we stayed at there, there happened to be a group of about 15 American college students staying there. They were all part of a study abroad program and were taking a tour of the southern coast while waiting for their semester to start. They had there own large van, and were very friendly and eager people. They gave us a lift into town for dinner and were in general nice to talk to. However, they all seemed so young. Was college really that long ago?

The next day we hopped an overnight train to Bloemfontein. The ride was 13.5 hours. The train was not very crowded, and we got our own sleeper car that could have slept 6 just for the two of us! It was a lot of fun, and felt very good compared to a cramped bus. We enjoyed watching the scenery go by and had a nice dinner in the dining car.

We got into Bloemfontein at 2:30 am. We took a taxi to the hostel we had reserved a few days before. It was nice of them to stay up late enough to check us in. However, we really did not like the hostel. It was basically an old warehouse. Instead of putting up walls and ceilings and everything, they just put up steel dividers. No ceilings in the rooms (just the warehouse ceiling high above). So all night long we got to listen to other people snore. And washing the dishes in the morning. The showers were also rather unpleasant. Instead of staying two nights as originally planned, we hurried out, got a refund on the second night, and went in search of a way to get to our next destination- Lesotho.

Getting to Lesotho was easier said than done. The afternoon bus listed in the Lonely Planet did not exist. Apparently there was one bus, which left at 6am and you could not buy advance tickets and it was first come first served. I did not feel like having another night of waking up in the middle of the night, so we looked into other options. After some Internet searches, phone calls to major bus companies, wandering around town (which was rather unpleasant and didn't look much like a place we would want to be), asking around, etc. we went with our last resort- a minibus taxi. From here on out, I will refer to our minibus taxi lovingly as a 'death cab.' (A reference to a band, Death Cab For Cutie, for those who are unaware). Andrej does not approve of that nickname and thinks it reflects a negative attitude, but I think it is an accurate name, and I am the one writing the post, so it sticks ;-)

A death cab is a 16 passenger van. They tend to not have seat belts, are very cramped, and have no room for luggage. To take a death cab, after much asking around, we discovered you have to go to a small storefront, approach the man with a book sitting under the sign with your destination name, pay him some money, and he puts your name down on a list. Once the list gets 15 people, the death cab leaves for its destination. We were the last two to sign up, and were both put in the front with the driver. The windshield had a large spiderweb crack on my side. Also, my window did not exist. Our backpacks were stuffed in front of and between our legs. Many of the passengers in back held their luggage on their laps. The ride was an hour and a half of flying down the highway at at least 20 kph above the speed limit. At least it kept us somewhat cool with the lack of air conditioning. By the way, the temperature is MUCH hotter inland than on the coast. Anyways, the death cab stopped at the border crossing and we all had to get out. Our driver just said to follow everyone else. So, we all got out and literally walked across the border around the cars, etc. They stamped our passport without a question asked and we wandered into Lesotho. While in line for customs, a nice young woman about my age was in front of us. She was from Lesotho and was very helpful in directing us where to go. She brought us to a taxi queue to get into Maseru (the capital), and we were absolutely mobbed! She was trying to tell them where we wanted to go. There were about 7 different men fighting to drive. After about 10 minutes of mass confusion, arm grabbing, and yelling, we got into a taxi van and went straight to the first hotel. We got out there and had them call us a normal cab to take us elsewhere (the hotel we were dropped at was really fancy and expensive). After some driving around with a friendly and helpful and calm driver, we ended up at a wonderful bed and breakfast. Very spacious with friendly people. And the best part is, we get our own bathroom! We spent most of the day relaxing. Today is our last day in the capital and we are stocking up on supplies for the next week, as well as planning to watch the inauguration tonight. Next week we will be pony trekking through the mountains of Lesotho. We are planning to do a 6 day guided trek. We need to get enough food, blankets, etc. to last us the week. We will not be around Internet cafes during that time, so you won't hear from us for at least a week. We are looking forward to this very much (Andrej has had his heart set on doing this since we first started planning our Africa trip) and we hope to have a great post for you all in a week or two.
Take Care!

2009-01-16T12:41:00.006-06:00

After laving Cape Town we spent a few days in Simmons Town which is sandwiched between the ocean and a mountain range. So, I took Jill out for a day hiking. We started out well enough wandering on sidewalks up the mountain and then on a small foot path after the sidewalks ended.

We came across a series of cable car towers that had long since fallen out of use. There was, however, a small foot path leading by these towers that lead clear to the top of the mountain. So, I convinced Jill to summit the mountain which looked like a bout a 2 hour climb. After about an hour into the climb we were towering above Simmons Town on a near vertical path of loose rock all among prickly cactuses and long drops.

When Jill thought we absolutely had to turn around I first scouted ahead for five minutes and found a grand stone stair case intersecting our scrubby trail. Once Jill and I got onto the staircase we quickly made it to the top of the mountain and back down safely!

Other activities in Simons Town:
Playing with penguins.

Sliding down railings.

And enjoying the Beach.

'Till next time,
--Andrej

Cape Town, South Africa

2009-01-12T03:48:00.009-06:00

Hello everyone, and greetings from Cape Town! I will get Andrej to post one of these days, but for now, you are once again stuck with me. Thanks to everyone who has left us comments and emails- its nice to know we have fans! Also, I have told some of you that if you are signed up to be a 'follower' of the blog that it will email you when we post. Apparently it doesn't, I apologize for the misinformation. If anybody has been receiving emails about our posts, please let me know so I can pass on how to other people.
Cape Town has been fabulous. It is a fun, coastal city. Its a place where a foreigner can feel very at home and enjoy many of the comforts of their home country. In that regard, it has been a good place for us to ease in to Africa.
Our first few days here, we got to know that town by running errands. Shopping for toiletries, going to the bank, finding a used book store, hitting up the post office- all of that gave us a nice walking tour of the city. I think by far our most ambitious errand was finding a Notary Public. Andrej had to get some legal forms notarized. This took us to a bank (where they had no idea what we were talking about) then to a fancy law firm. This is where we encountered a recurring theme of very helpful strangers- all of their lawyers who could help us where out on vacation, but they spent a good 15 minutes calling around to different law firms and writing us directions and eventually sending us on our way to another law firm that could notarize the forms. We have had many strangers go above and beyond to help us- walking out onto the street to give us directions, offering us helpful advice, offering to drive us into town, etc.
Other highlights of our time in Cape Town include taking the cable way up Table Mountain and hiking around and getting some fantastic views, hiking around Lion's Head mountain, going to some fantastic beaches, and checking out the waterfront shopping area.
Other items of interest- the weather. The first few days it was decidedly on the cool side for being the middle of summer with temps around the low 70s. However, it has now warmed up to around the upper 80s. No rain, and all in all great weather.
Crime. Many people talk about South Africa's extremely high crime rate, especially in their cities. I have heard stories (that I am sure are true) of car jacks, robberies, and shootings. However, I have seen none of that in my short time here, and for the most part feel perfectly safe. Apparently the commuter trains are not the safest- one day we had a nice man and his son pull up in their pick-up offering to take us into town as we were walking into the train station. We said no thank you, but he called us back saying the trains are rather unsafe and it would be no trouble. We again thanked him for the offer and decided that riding in a train in the middle of the afternoon was probably safer than riding in the bed of a pick-up on the highway. We have not had any problems, but we also try to be smart about it and only take the trains during the daytime, etc.
Lastly, I think it is fun when I am traveling to pick out the similarities, as the differences are pretty obvious. I think in Cape Town, there are many more similarities to home than I can name, but here are a few:
-They speak English.
-Movie theaters, shopping centers, etc. One place we were at on the waterfront had everything from a Hallmark, to a couple movie theaters, to a Build a Bear workshop, to J Crew.
-McDonalds, KFC
-Slug bugs!
-taxis, trains, buses
-You still have to wait in line a disproportionate amount of time at the post office. We spent at least an hour there one day.
-ATMs (yes, our cards do work here)

We are leaving Cape Town today and heading down the coast to Simon's Town. Hope everything is well back home! Here are some pictures to enjoy:

Our backpackers lodge in a suburb of Cape Town
Andrej hiking on top of Table Mountain
A view from the top of Table Mountain overlooking the ocean.
Me at the waterfront.
The view of the 'Twelve Apostles' mountains from the beach in Camps Bay.

We Made It!

2009-01-07T11:21:00.006-06:00

Here we are leaving for the airport in Chicago:

We actually made it to Africa! It was quite the adventure, but overall, everything went very well. We hopped a bus to O'Hare and made our flight on time. Our airline randomly flagged us for security, which meant we got a nice pat down when going through the security line. I was not happy about it, but it seems that it is an airline regulation. The flight to London took 8 hours. I slept very little of it, but managed to be awake enough to take the tube into London to hang out with Adele. All in all, it was a great day. It was really cold, so we tried to stay mostly inside. We enjoyed a coffee shop, seeing Buckingham Palace, riding a real double decker bus, accidently going the wrong way on the bus and getting to go to Herrods (no I didn't buy anything), having a meal at a Japanese noodle restaurant, and checking out the British museum before hopping the tube back to Heathrow. Adele is a friend I met in Japan while doing the JET programme, and it was really great to see her again after two and a half years. Here are some photos from London:

The flight to Cape Town was 12 hours. By the time we boarded this flight, I was for once actually tried enough to sleep on the plane. I think I slept about half the flight. Once we got to Cape Town, we took a taxi to our hostel. Its in a very quite area of town located on an eco village. We made a point to take it very slow today. Besides napping and showering, we took a short trip to the grocery store and had lunch in the park, as well as taking a nice walk around the eco village. We will probably take the train into the city center tomorrow and check out what there is to do there. All in all it was a safe trip over, and we hope the rest of our trip goes as smoothly!

Ready To Go

2009-01-05T13:22:00.002-06:00

We are all packed and ready to go and fly out this evening! Last week was a whirlwind week. My sister and her husband Chris threw us a very nice little going away party on New Years Eve. The rest of the week was spent trying to spend as much time with family and friends as possible! The other big event of the week is that I actually managed to sell my car! It all happened at the very last minute. My car broke down the week before (after never having broken down once in the two years I owned it). But the buyer was patient and waited to see and test drive the car. I dropped it off with him and Friday and we left town. We went home to my parents' house in Owatonna for a night before heading out to Kenosha, WI where Andrej's parents live.

It has been a challenge trying to pack for a year. I managed to fit about 5 changes of clothes, all my toiletries, and a few miscellaneous items into my pack without it bursting. I feel pretty comfortable with what I packed, although I am sure I will be sick of my clothes after about a month. Later, I will try to post a picture of us with our backpacks.

We leave in about an hour to take the bus into Chicago where we will catch our plane to London. We are getting really excited! The next time you hear from us, we will be in South Africa...

The Plan

2008-12-14T21:26:00.003-06:00

Our departure is now 3 weeks away. We leave from Chicago on Jan. 5th. We have a nice long layover in London, where we will get to spend the day with my good friend, Adele, then its off to Cape Town, arriving Jan. 7th. Many people are wondering exactly what our plans are. We are planning to take about a year, starting off in South Africa and traveling around the continent of Africa. If time and money allow, we are hoping to also make our way over to Central and South America. We do not have any set-in-stone plans, but here is a map of our tentative route through Africa.

Key:
blue= tentative route
black= countries with travel warnings (which we will be avoiding)
red= closed land borders

We are hoping to use this blog as a way to keep in touch with our family and friends back home and for the curious to follow our adventures. Feel free to leave us comments and send us emails along the way- I'm sure we will be more than happy to hear from everyone back home.