I think I've done it

Well folks, after 9 months, 22,000+ miles, and 18 countries, I'm writing this post from Cape Town, South Africa. I think I've actually made it.

There were a lot of great things and a lot of difficult things about the trip. Probably the hardest was dragging mom back from the pub at 2 a.m. each night, but that's just what a good son has to do. (She's surprisingly strong after a few whiskeys.)

Seriously, this isn't a long, philosophical wrap up post. The trip has been too big, too intense, and too diverse for me to even begin trying to make sense of it. Rather, this is just a simple "I'm relaxing in Cape Town, and my mom made it safely to the airport" post. I also loaded my Land Cruiser into a shipping container today, so it will soon be on its way back to England. (It was actually quite a feat to load the Cruiser, as I had to take everything off the roof rack except the tent, and even then I had to deflate the tires to less than half their normal pressure to fit the thing inside a container.)

It's been a long road, so I'm going to head out to the little seaside town of Hermanus for a bit of quiet time with the whales.

My best to everyone back home.

From Zambia

I’ve done a bit of time travel since my last post. Specifically, I went all the way back to the 1980’s… to a time before the internet! With the exception of Nairobi, internet has been non-existent or dial up from Ethiopia south, until now. But now I’m in Lusaka, Zambia, and from here south it shouldn’t be difficult to get online. (I’ve taken advantage of the internet to post many more photos in addition to this blog post.)

As the old Johnny Cash song says, since my last post “I’ve been everywhere, man.” Well, not really everywhere, but I’ve been through Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and most of Zambia. I’m not exactly sure how many miles I’ve covered since Nairobi, but it’s somewhere around five or six thousand. (So far I’ve logged about 19,000 miles on the trip.) And many of them have been hard miles on really rough roads. Sometimes “drivable trails” might come closer to the mark. (Or maybe even “semi-drivable trails.”)

I’ve seen a lot in these last two months. My favorite place was the Serengeti ecosystem in Tanzania and Kenya. (The park is Serengeti in Tanzania and Masai Mara in Kenya, but it’s really the same place, just separated by an invisible border.) It’s a beautiful place of dry forests, hippo and croc filled rivers, and especially, of endless golden grassland. And in terms of animal watching, it lives up to its billing as one of the premier wildlife destinations in the world. There are so many herbivores and birds that it seems almost artificial (though of course it’s not, it’s just prolific). And it’s also a huge place; crossing from the west gate of Serengeti to the east gate of (adjacent) Ngorongoro is something like the distance from Visalia to L.A. or the bay area. Only instead of orange groves, Ford trucks, and farmers, you’ve got acacia forests, elephants, and Masai herders. Plus wildebeest by the millions, gazelle, impala, zebra, giraffe, hippos, crocodiles, lions, cheetahs, etc., etc. Anyway, it’s a pretty special place.

Kenya’s other parks were also pretty amazing. Amboseli features huge herds of elephants under the massive Kilimanjaro; Lake Nakuru has rhinos and more flamingoes that you can imagine; and lovely Kakamega forest is a tiny bit of equatorial rainforest full of birds, monkeys, and all sorts of interesting tiny critters.

By the way, if you’ve never seen Weebl’s-Stuff’s Kenya video, do check it out. It’s fantastic:

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/kenya/

But back to blogging. Uganda definitely lived up to its reputation as “the Pearl of Africa.” It’s a beautiful country that sits right at the junction of east and west Africa, with features of both. You can see savannah animals in some parks, then drive for a few hours and hike in Congolese rainforest or spend some time in the forest with any number of our primate cousins (including gorillas, chimps, and many species of monkey). Uganda also has very friendly people and (one of my favorite surprises) great Indian food! If you haven’t tried Indian food, go out tonight and get yourself some garlic naan and a plate of chicken tikka masala, a dish that makes a great intro to the cuisine.

Anyway, I managed to drive, hike, and eat my way through Uganda for two and a half or three weeks before turning south. From Fort Portal in western Uganda to Lusaka, Zambia is something like 1,500 miles, which is a long way on African roads. Along the way I spent a day and a half in Kigali, Rwanda, which is a surprisingly organized and developed place. And while I was there, I visited the genocide museum, which was just gutwrenching and powerful. There’s not much reason to visit Rwanda (it’s a small country with fewer attractions than its neighbors), but if you are ever there, the museum is a must-see.

After Rwanda, I drove something like 600 miles through Western Tanzania across terrible roads, and through some very isolated places. It was tough stretch, through fortunately I came through it with only one flat tire and a now pathological aversion to dirt roads.

Needless to say, I was pretty relieved when I finally made it to Zambia, as the road from the Tanzania border all the way to Lusaka is paved. Granted, it has some potholes the size of lunar craters, but most of it is fine and very welcome after the “roads” of Western Tanzania.

In Zambia I visited a former colonial estate (Shiwa Ng’andu), which was quite a lovely place, as well as some wetlands (which didn’t turn out to be such a great experience). I then drove the last few hundred miles to Lusaka, which is where I’m posting from today.

So I’m definitely not doing justice to the places I’ve visited and the things I’ve seen, but that will have to do for now.

The next portion of my trip will be very different. For one thing, Southern Africa is a very different place than East Africa – environmentally, culturally, and economically. But the bigger thing is that my mom will be arriving in a little over 36 hours to join me on safari. I’m glad I’ll finally have someone else to do the driving…

My First Birthday in Africa

Hello everyone,

I’m writing from beautiful Nairobi, Kenya. And it really is beautiful… at least where I’m sitting right now. I’m splurging on a nice hotel (the Fairview – thankfully no connection to my elementary school of the same name) to celebrate my birthday and reward myself for making it this far. So right now I’m sitting in the leafy courtyard of this historic old hotel, enjoying a Guinness in the late afternoon light, and finally catching up on my blog.

I haven’t been able to post anything for quite a while, as Ethiopia’s internet was either unavailable or too slow to access my blog. So I’ll try to cover the events of the past month or so in this post.

Sudan

(Quickly excerpted from an earlier entry I was never able to post.)

Sudan was a strange, difficult experience, but not for the reasons you’d think.

It wasn’t difficult because of banditry, crazed militias, or anything of the sort. There was never any danger, and in fact, the people in Sudan were among the friendliest I’ve ever encountered. Everyone was polite, hundreds of people waved to me and yelled greetings as I drove by, and as far as hospitality goes, let’s just say they’re tough to beat (more on that later in this post). The people really were the best part of the country.

So how does one reconcile that with the Sudan of Darfur, the long civil war, etc.? Frankly, that’s too big a subject for a little blog like this. Perhaps for now I’ll just say that it would be a mistake to equate a people with the actions of their government, perhaps doubly so in Africa, and I’ll leave it at that.

As for the strange and difficult part, you can basically divide my trip across Sudan into three stages. The first was the ferry across Lake Nasser, from Aswan to Wadi Halfa. The short version of the ferry experience went something like this. On the first day, I arrived at the ferry port at 9am, and it took all day to complete the emigration procedures for Egypt, load the Land Cruiser to a separate barge, and board. It also took this long to load the other passengers, but more so, the incredible quantity and diversity of stuff they were bringing with them. I think this is the only way to get from Egypt to Sudan (if you’re not flying), so people brought as much stuff as could physically be stuffed onto the ship, everything from full size refrigerators to mountains of personal effects. And since everything was transported and loaded by hand, with no plan other than “get it on the ship,” it was a long, messy business.

Which is not to say that it was completely unpleasant. I’m finding that if I just go with the flow of whatever country I’m in, things get done in the local way, in their own good time.

Loading the Land Cruiser to the barge was an experience, though. A potentially dangerous one (but one that fortunately turned out fine). To get onto the barge, you had to navigate a path through the stuff waiting to be loaded to the ship, make a sharp turn, then immediately drive up two rickety ramps that were barely attached to anything. And you had to get up those ramps quickly enough that they didn’t shift, collapse, etc., but not so quickly that you shot off the other side of the barge, which was just barely wider than the Land Cruiser was long. It was a slightly harrowing experience, but everything turned out okay. It also helped that I met a nice Belgian couple also driving across Africa, so I had some company and folks to share the difficulty with.

Once on board, I was very thankful I had sprung for a first class cabin. You can dismiss any thoughts you have of tuxedoed staff, caviar, art deco staircases, etc. The ferry was ancient, the room and bedding dirty, and my roommate was an old Sudanese fellow who stuffed the cabin with his things. But compared to second and third class, it was paradise. Second class meant that you had no cabin, and you slept on the lower deck in a great mass of sweaty humanity. And third class meant you slept on the top deck wherever you could find space. So I was grateful for air-conditioning and a bed.

The trip across Lake Nasser was pretty uneventful. In addition to the Belgian couple (Bjorn and Nele), I met a German journalist travelling overland to the World Cup, and a funny Irish fellow who made a habit of wearing football jerseys (which actually did seem a lot cooler than my t-shirt). And as for the safety of the ship, one of the crew told me not to worry – if the ship sank, there are no sharks, only small crocodiles!

The ferry arrived the next day in Wadi Halfa, which looks like the Sudanese version of a small Old West town – most of the roads are dirt, and the town is only a few buildings wide on either side of the main street. So after arriving, I spent the next two days waiting, for the truck (the separate barge was delayed by a massive sandstorm that blotted out the stars at night) and for Sudanese bureaucracy to run its course. And while I was waiting, I stayed in possibly the worst hotel on the planet. The room (which I shared with the German and Irish fellows the first night) was basically a concrete box, with the tiniest of windows above the metal door, and the smell of pit toilets periodically wafting into the room. Oh, and it was really, really hot. I could go on, but you get the idea.

So between the ferry and the waiting, it was four days from the time I arrived at the ferry port in Aswan to the time I was free to leave Wadi Halfa.

Now to stage two of Sudan, which was all about covering a lot of ground very quickly. Like 1,000 miles in a touch over 48 hours quickly. I saw a lot of really hot desert (the temperature maxed out at around 120), all during the day (since it’s not safe to drive at night). I drank so much water I started to think I was just breathing it like a fish. Along the way I saw a few interesting things: the pleasant Nile village of Dongola (where I had a great conversation with a university English lit professor), the royal tombs at Meroe (Sudan’s answer to Egypt’s pyramids), and spent one short night in Khartoum (where I had some delicious lamb ribs). And did I mention I did a lot of driving?

The German journalist (Simon) joined me for the last part of the drive, from Khartoum to the Sudan / Ethiopia border. Which brings me to stage three: more waiting. We made great time to the border, saw some prettier countryside (as the Sahara finally made way to the Sahel region), and chatted the hours away. But when we got to the border, we got some bad news: Ethiopia was having an election the next day, and they had closed the border. (I’m still not sure what the connection is between the two.) To make matters worse, the border town really was a just a shanty town, and all the buildings except the government buildings were just random bits of sticks, corrugated metal, and odd fabrics. (And to make matters worse for Simon, he had a flight to catch in Ethiopia, and it wasn’t looking good for him making it.)

Here’s where the Sudanese hospitality really showed itself. The border guards and immigration officials, who are generally not the most polite and compassionate class of people in any country, took Simon and I in and helped us make the best of things. They bought us dinner the first night, brought many rounds of tea, and generally made sure we were as comfortable as the circumstances would allow. They were a really good group of guys, and they helped turn a potentially miserable situation into just a boring one.

After about 36 hours of waiting (and one false alarm where Sudan let us go, but Ethiopia wouldn’t let us enter), we finally made it into Ethiopia. And with that border crossing, I left the Islamic world and entered Sub-Saharan Africa.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia is a place unlike any other. Sometimes it’s gorgeous. Sometimes fascinating. Sometimes frustrating. But it’s never like any other place in the world.

For starters, if you don’t know much about the country (as I didn’t before I arrived), it’s not a desert, it’s not perpetually famine stricken, and it’s not like any other country in Africa (except Eritrea, but I won’t go into that here). Most of the population lives on a very high, mostly mountainous plateau. It’s a green and sunny place (the weather is gorgeous, actually), and even with Ethiopia’s low level of agricultural technology, it produces a lot of food (in most years), enough to support the second largest population in Africa.

It’s also a country that has a much richer history than most people realize. In Roman times, the Axumite kingdom of northern Ethiopia was the trade link between the Mediterranean Roman Empire and both sub-Saharan African and the Indian subcontinent. In the Dark Ages, Ethiopia became a Christian kingdom, and the highlands have remained so ever since (though the country is also home to many Muslims and traditional African religions). And in Medieval times, it was home to several kingdoms. And all of these different time periods have left ruins, paintings, books, etc. throughout the country.

It’s also one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries. The GDP per capita (basically the amount the average person makes in a year) is $700. Something like 80%+ of the population are farmers that live a subsistence existence.

For me, all of this meant that Ethiopia was alternately fascinating and frustrating. It’s a country of really interesting historical treasures, some really beautiful natural places, and extraordinarily diverse cultures. But it’s also a very insular and undeveloped place. Distances are very long, many of the roads are quite bad (bumpy, rutted gravel / rock / dirt), and all of the roads are congested with people, donkeys, carts, rocks, you name it. And while most of the people are kind, there are also many who try to take advantage of you, and in such a poor country it is inevitable that many people ask you for money. Oh, and you can almost literally count the seconds before someone (usually children) shouts at you, “you, you, you, you, you!!!!” The writer of my guidebook calls it “faranji (foreigner) fever.” It sounds sort of funny, but it gets a little tiring after a while. And in the fact that there are relatively few amenities outside of the capital, and it’s not the easiest place to travel.

But while Ethiopia was sometimes difficult, it was also really rewarding. Whether your cup of tea is history, nature, or culture, Ethiopia has you well covered. I started out by seeing the historical sites in the north, including Gondar (the site of several castles), Axum (the site of the ancient Axumite Empire), and Lalibela (home of ancient churches hewn from the rock, sort of the Ethiopian version of Petra). The historical sites were impressive, and the long hours of driving in between them were kept interesting by the constantly changing landscapes and the occasional fantastic bird that would fly by the car. (Really, the birds of Ethiopia are so colorful, so beautiful, that they have no business existing in the real world.)

I also broke up the historical circuit by spending a few days hiking in the Simien Mountains, which look something like a very green version of the Grand Canyon if you were to raise the rim another mile or so. The air was thin, but the vistas were sublime in the old 18^th / 19^th century use of that word – beautiful, terrifying, and humbling. And as if the scenery weren’t good enough, there were also plenty of animals to see, from the Ethiopian wolf to klipspringers to my favorite of all, the gelada (which looks like a baboon but technically isn’t). The geladas look pretty imposing (especially when you see their huge incisors), but they’re completely mellow and harmless. It was great to share the mountain with them for a time.

After the northern loop, I spent a couple of days in the capital, Addis Ababa. It’s not exactly a grand city, but the weather is perfect, the food is really good (and diverse – I went to a German style beer garden, for example), and it’s a fairly relaxed place for a big city. And being in a real city for the first time in a few thousand miles also gave me the chance to give the Land Cruiser a little TLC (just maintenance, but definitely needed before the epic drive south).

From Addis I headed south toward Kenya. But before I got there, I stopped in the beautiful city of Awassa, which sits beside a picture perfect lake in Africa’s Rift Valley. It was gorgeous, positively overflowing with spectacular birds, and had the friendliest locals in all of Ethiopia. I would have loved to have stayed longer.

After Awassa it was time for some high adventure. I drove to the far southwest of Ethiopia, to the Lower Omo Valley and the legendary Lake Turkana. It doesn’t really get any wilder than this, at least not on my trip. Sometimes it felt like a sort of land that time forgot: people in the area still dress in their traditional tribal styles, cattle are the most valuable currency, huts are made of mud or wood (or sometimes cardboard and U.S. Aid food bags), etc. Oh, and many of the men still carried spears, though these have now often been replaced by AK-47’s, which were about as common as smart phones back home. It was really wild country, at once exhausting and rewarding. Unfortunately, I don’t have time right now to fully detail my adventures, but do have a look at the “Omo” pictures to get a sense of what it was like.

From Omo, I headed south to Moyale, the town that straddles the Ethiopian / Kenyan border. On the way I picked up two guys who were heading to Nairobi and agreed to share the cost of gas, and I also had my first mechanical problem of the trip. Dust got into the space between the battery post and clamp and caused a short, which melted about half of the battery post away. But it was nothing Moyale’s mechanics couldn’t handle: they rebuilt the post with solder, attached a new clamp, and the Land Cruiser was as good as new.

Kenya

Travelling to Kenya has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. Before I knew better, Kenya was Africa, and even now it holds a special place in my imagination. So I was really on the morning I (along with my two travel companions) crossed the border entered that fabled country.

The first thing I was struck by on entering Kenya was that everything worked. This might not sound important, but after the continual harassment of Egypt, the extremely difficult bureaucracy of Sudan, and the general chaos of Ethiopia, it was quite a relief to be greeted by polite, competent professionals at the border. So from the beginning, Kenya felt right. I was going to like this place.

Well, I was going to like it once I had travelled a few hundred miles south. For about the first 300 miles, the road from the border has a reputation as being one of the worst in Africa, and it lived up to its reputation. (It used to also be one of the most dangerous in Africa, but now that the Somalis are robbing ships instead of cars, that’s no longer the case.) But it was bad. Really bad. How bad? It destroyed two of my tires in the first 150 miles. It rattled pieces off the car of a British couple I met. The washboarding was so bad that I sometimes had trouble keeping the car straight at 20 mph. It rattled me and my passengers to pieces for two straight days, and for good measure, it coated us with dust. It’s one of those crucibles you have to pass if you’re going to make it across Africa.

It was really, really rough, but it wasn’t all bad. The landscapes were as open and wild as any I’ve ever seen, and the hardship of the road was occasionally relieved by the sight of colorfully dressed tribesmen or majestic animals (several species of antelope, baboon, ostrich). I’d never want to drive that road again, but at the same time, the memories of it will stay with me forever.

And once we finally reached paved road, Kenya began to live up to its billing. The landscapes are beautiful, the people are really wonderful, and I have a feeling I’m going to like it very much here.

Somewhat surprisingly, that even goes for Nairobi, which I’ve really enjoyed so far. Statistically, Nairobi (or “Nairobbery,” as it’s sometimes called) is the most dangerous city in Africa, so I was a bit nervous about coming here. But with a few simple precautions, it’s a really wonderful place. It’s a real city, and it’s really African, and the mix of the two is just great. I haven’t felt the least bit worried even once while I’ve been here, but I have met dozens of really nice people.

So this has been something of a haphazard and rambling post, and I haven’t covered half of what I should have, but time is limited, so it will have to do. Tomorrow I drive to the famed Masai Mara National Park, one of the great nature parks in the world, and I have a few preparations to make before then.

Oh, and this old man also has to do a tiny bit of birthday celebrating. So before I leave Nairobi, I’m going to enjoy a nice dinner, a little French wine, and some cake at this beautiful old hotel. I feel like a very lucky man right now.

Quick Update

Hello Semicolon readers,

This is going to be a very quick post. I'm in Khartoum right now, and just wanted to let you all know that everything is fine. Sudan has been incredibly hot (111 in the city, probably much higher in the desert), and the weather forecast was "widespread dust," but the people have been extremely friendly and kind. I know some of you were worried about me traveling through Sudan, but except for the heat, it really has been pleasant.

I'm leaving Khartoum this morning for the Ethiopian border, and I'll post again once I'm in the (blessedly cool) highlands of Ethiopia.

Exodus

And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. Exodus 5:1.

So it was with my Hebrew tocayo, and so it is with me. I may not have the gravity of Charlton Heston (or the N.R.A. membership, which I may yet regret), and the toadish Sudanese bureaucrat in Cairo was certainly no Yul Brynner, but nonetheless I have been freed from Egypt at last!

Altogether, it took almost six weeks just to get the permission for my Sudan VISA from Khartoum, plus all manner of additional time to fix all the problems my extended stay in Egypt caused. And just how long did I have to stay in Egypt, you might be wondering? Long enough that I had to become a temporary resident, according to the government! That’s right, I’m officially an Egyptian! (But thankfully a temporary one.)

A lot of time has passed since my last post, but not much happened for most of that time. But once I secured my entry into Sudan, I did drive the length of the Nile to Egypt’s southernmost town (Aswan, from which I’m writing this post). Along the way I saw some of Egypt’s most famous monuments at Luxor and Edfu, and because I drove, I also saw a lot of desert and a fair stretch of the Nile. So here are a few random thoughts about the things that I’ve seen.

First, the desert. I’ve watched quite a few nature documentaries about the Sahara (and other deserts), and the general theme of them is usually something like “in spite of the harsh conditions, life thrives even in the desert.” But I have news for you, gentle readers: that’s a big lie. It is true that there is life in places in the Sahara, but what makes it extraordinary isn’t the life, but the lifelessness. I’ve seen something like 1,300 miles of it now, and outside of the Nile and the odd Oasis, I could probably count the number of trees I’ve seen on one hand. If that. There’s just nothing but rock and sand and sun covering an area the size of the continental U.S.A. And anyone or anything that wanders out into it without the right resources (natural or manmade) will be dead in fairly short order. At least for me, it was quite an amazing and scary moment when I realized that such a huge part of the globe is almost totally inimical to life.

In the midst of this vast wasteland runs the tiny ribbon of the Nile. It’s the world’s longest river, but it’s not especially wide (given its length, that is). It’s like a slender little lifeline slipping through the desert, and all of Egypt depends on it. In fact, it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that Egypt is the Nile River Valley. It’s rather amazing to emerge from the desert and see the Nile River valley, as long as one can see, but only a few miles wide (at most) for much of its length. And those are very green miles, completely filled with agricultural fields, palm trees, and (in the south) lots of birds. (I’ve seen some gorgeous kingfishers, but I’m afraid there are no photos yet.)

Driving down the Nile, it’s not difficult to see why the world’s first truly great civilization emerged here. (Sorry Sumerians and Babylonians, but you built your pyramids out of dirt.) There’s so little available land that agriculture and social organization are necessities, and the environment must have forced development must faster than in places with abundant land and resources.

And there’s no doubt that ancient Egypt was a great civilization. There’s not much evidence of it in the north (around Cairo), but southern Egypt is full of magnificent temples and tombs, most of which have been well preserved by the dry climate. I’ve added photos from the Luxor area as well as from Edfu, which is a smaller (but still impressive) temple complex south of Luxor.

Those of you who have been in contact with me know that I’m not the biggest fan of modern Egypt, as the hassle factor is off the charts. (I suspect it’s better if you travel as part of a tour group, but it’s still there.) But whereas I’m not sure Cairo is worth the hassle, southern Egypt definitely is. It still wouldn’t be the first destination I’d recommend (in fact, it’s still toward the bottom of the list), but the monuments are pretty amazing.

So now I’m in Aswan, and I’ll be boarding a ferry for Sudan Monday morning. It’s a sad testament to Egyptian and Sudanese politics that in the largest desert on earth, the only way to get from one country to the other is on an artificial lake, but so it is. On Tuesday I’ll arrive in Wadi Halfa, do the obligatory paperwork (border crossing is a joy), and then spend my first night in a town called Wawa. I love Sudanese town names already.

And for those of you who are worried about me travelling through Sudan, don’t be. Africa is an absolutely massive place – for context, my drive from Cairo to Aswan (which will look quite small if you look at it on a map) is almost the same distance as the drive from San Diego to the Oregon border. And Egypt is small compared to Sudan, which is the 10^th largest country on earth. My point is that Sudan is massive, and I’ll be far, far away from the trouble spots. (Hundreds and hundreds of miles away. They lead long distance bicycle tours through the areas I’ll be driving through.) By and large I’ll be travelling through barren desert and small villages, the inhabitants of which have a reputation for being some of the friendliest people on earth. And for what it’s worth, every Sudanese person I’ve met outside the consulate in Cairo has been extraordinarily kind and polite. So I can’t believe I’m writing this, but I can’t wait to get to the Sudan!

Well, except for the heat. It’s really hot there. But I’ve been trying to acclimate in southern Egypt (where the high is 108 today, and will be 116 on Monday). The sun is so intense that you can feel it radiating right through your clothing like some sort of giant microwave. But it’s not bad in the shade (or in the car), and as with all things in life, you get used to it and plan around it.

I think that’s enough for now. I’ll post again once I get to Ethiopia, which should be next weekend. In the meantime, I’ve added new photos to my Cairo set on Flikr, and I’ve also posted my Luxor and Edfu photos. I’ll post my Aswan photos from Sudan or Ethiopia.

It’s good to be on the move again. Until next time…