Blog Posts - Tgon's Travels

Weeks 48, 49 & 50: Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar

Posted on 21/06/2012

Week 48 started well, we managed to get our bikes into Dar es Salaam port and onto a ship. Once the bikes had been secured we headed to the ferry terminal and took a ferry to Zanzibar. We hoped to get the bikes off the ship quite quickly the next day and head to Makunduchi, unfortunately the process took around 9 hours, so when we got the bikes at around 6pm, just before sunset, we decided to stay another night in Stone Town. So on Wednesday morning we set off from Stone Town to Makunduchi. We arrived just before the end of school (1pm), it was a great feeling to drive my bike into the school and see my friends for the first time in six years. We talked about the changes in the school and took a walk into the village to see my friends new son.

Although we had an offer to stay in the school house, we decided that we would prefer to sleep at the beach, so we drove down to the beach and walked around looking for a good spot. While we were walking on the beach we met a guy who worked in the one hotel in Makunduchi and he offered to give us a tour. Swimming in the pool was a Dutch doctor who is doing some charity work in the local hospital, she offered to let us stay in her spare room for the night. The next morning we headed off to Jambiani for a few days, but agreed to meet the Dutch doctors again, during the weekend, to swim with dolphins in Kizimkazi. We camped the beach next to a bar for a few days, enjoying the beach, and took a trip out to the coral reef to do some snorkelling.

On Saturday the Dutch doctors arrived in Jambiani and decided to stay there a night so that they could watch a football match. The guy we had met on the beach in Makunduchi actually lived in Kizimkazi so I managed to negotiate to get the four of us out on a dolphin trip very cheap (around 8 US dollars each). I had been swimming with the dolphins a few times before but this time there were around 15 dolphins, so it made for an awesome experience. On the way back to the shore we stopped to snorkel for a while, I found a huge Triton Shell Sea Snail and our captain said he wanted to take it back to shore. We got back to the village and ate the snail with rice and a coconut sauce.

After lunch we took the doctors back to Makunduchi and headed to Nungwi, on the way north we went through a police check point, Charlie was arrested because he didn’t have the correct permits to drive in Zanzibar, but they let him go when he signed a bail agreement. When we arrived in Nungwi I managed to negotiate some cheap accommodation in a bar which is not currently open for business, the guard had a pet monkey which he let me care for while I was in the area. The next morning Charlie drove to the court to see what punishment they would give him, in the end he just had to pay a bribe to the police and then buy the permits. We spent a few days around the beach, swimming and snorkelling. The best place for snorkelling is a small island called Mnemba Atoll, again we managed to negotiate a cheaper price (13 US dollars instead of 20). The snorkelling was great and we stopped on the beach for lunch before going back to Nungwi.

From Nungwi we headed back to Stone Town so that Charlie could take a ferry back to Tanzania. Charlie left on the Thursday and I headed back to Makunduchi. On my way down to the beach I bumped into two old friends, one of them is now the manager of the hotel on Makunduchi beach, he offered to let me stay there for free so I agreed. I have been there since Saturday but hope to move back into my old house in the village soon. My money has pretty much run out but I have three life-lines which I am looking into. Firstly there is the 450 Euro which the Namibian government still owes me, I have actually heard from them and they are ready to do a bank transfer. Secondly, I need to sell my motorbike, I can concentrate on this a little more once I move back into my old house and can unpack and carry out a few minor repairs. Thirdly, I have heard about some temporary teaching work which pays around 600 US dollars a month. While this isn’t much money, it is actually enough to live on with some left over to save. At the same time I need to start planning my time in India, I need to find a job before I can apply for a working visa so I need to find something soon.

Weeks 46 & 47: Cape Maclear to Dar es Salaam

Posted on 03/06/2012

The last two weeks have been excellent, Malawi is one of my favourite countries. Week 46 started with the birthday celebration of Joana, one of the girls we had met in Monkey Bay. We stayed in Cape Maclear for a few days before we decided to head north, but on the day that we tried to leave Charlie found that he had a puncture in his rear tyre. We tried to patch it but apparently having ‘slime’ in your tyre prevents patches from sticking. We had already slept in Cape Maclear from nine nights but we had to stay a tenth night so that we could sort out Charlies bike, he put a smaller tube in the tyre to last until we could get to the next town. The next morning we set off north and stayed a night in Kande Beach before we arrived in Nkhata Bay.

Nkhata Bay is the most popular tourist destination on Lake Malawi, I prefer Cape Maclear, but Nkhata bay is nice too. We stayed in a lodge called the Butterfly which offers opportunities to volunteer in the local community, in return you get discounts on your accommodation. We spent the weekend there and then stared week 47 by travelling to Livingstonia. Most of the journey was along nice tarmac roads with beautiful views on either side, then for the last 15Km the road turned into a rocky track which winds its way up the mountain to the town of Livinstonia. We stayed in the most amazing lodge I have ever visited, Lukwe Gardens. The lodge has been there for eleven years, the owner has built a permaculture farm which supplies the lodge with fruit and vegetables.

We relaxed there for a few days before heading over the border into Tanzania, but on the way to Mbeya I lost touch with Charlie, we didn’t have mobile phones so we couldn’t find each other, I stayed a night in cheap accommodation before heading off on the long 830Km drive from Mbeya to Dar es Salaam. I arrived late at night and Charlie arrived the next day, now we are trying to arrange a ship to Zanzibar. Yesterday we had a ship that would take us but we couldn’t get past port security, the next ship leaves on Monday, hopefully we can get into the port then.

Africa Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Weeks 44 & 45: Zambia to Malawi

Posted on 20/05/2012

Week 44 started in Livingstone, Zambia. I took some time to make sure my paperwork was in order and sent it off to the customs office in Namibia, this is to claim back the 450 Euro deposit I had to pay in order to have a temporary import permit for my bike. Hopefully this will arrive soon as my budget is running kinda low. From Livingstone we headed east to a lodge on Lake Kariba, a huge man-made lake on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. The lodge is on the grounds of the largest crocodile farm in Africa, they sell the skins for making bags, wallets and belts, the meat for food and the fat is used to make some special ‘healing cream’. We camped by the lake and took a tour around the farm in the morning before heading off east again to the capital of Zambia, Lusaka.

We stayed a couple of nights in Lusaka for Charlie to get his chain replaced then we split up for a few days. Charlie headed to South Luangwa safari park and I took a couple of days travelling east, over the border into Malawi to the capital city, Lilongwe. We met up again at the beginning of this week in a lodge on the banks of Lake Malawi. The lodge was in a small town called Monkey Bay and had been described as a ‘rustic camp’. The water was unbelievably clear and the weather was good, I met a couple of girls there who had been managing the lodge for a couple of months but were about to head off travelling again. We all decided to stay together for a while, as we were heading to the same place, Cape Maclear.

I had thought that Monkey bay was a paradise, but when we arrived in Cape Maclear I was amazed with the beauty of the place, beautiful calm fresh water in the lake, picturesque hills and mountains as a backdrop and lots of colourful Lake Malawi Chichlids to see when snorkelling. We have been in Cape Maclear for just over a week now, relaxing, socialising and doing a lot of swimming and snorkelling in the lake. In the evenings as the sun is about to set, children walk along the lake shore with home made instruments and busk for the tourists, I have managed to get some good pictures and videos together and will upload them when I can get some time on the internet. Cape Maclear is a place I could easily live out the rest of my life, but in a couple of days we will continue north along the edge of Lake Malawi towards the Tanzanian border.

Africa Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Week 43: Namibia to Zambia

Posted on 06/05/2012

Last weekend we crossed over the border from Botswana back into Namibia and stayed in the Ngepi lodge, we met a cool Canadian couple who travel all around the world in a loe budget style. They walk and hitchhike around, staying in cheap places and finding cheap or free ways to see the tourist attractions. They gave us some advice about Victoria Falls and other places along our Africa route and throughout Asia. From Ngepi we headed through the Caprivi strip to the Zambian border, there is a main road which runs through the Caprivi park, when you drive along it there is a chance that you will see elephants and other safari animals at the side of the road. We saw two groups of elephants before we arrived in the border town of Katima Mulilo.

My wrist has been hurting since the crash, two weeks ago, so I started looking into what the problem could be. I suspected it could be a fracture on my Scaphoid bone and decided that I should go to the hospital and get it checked out, I spent seven hours in the hospital, first I spent four hours waiting to see a nurse, then another two hours waiting to see a doctor. They sent me for an xray but couldn’t see any fracture and said it was probably soft tissue damage, so they gave me some cream, painkillers and bandages. Meanwhile Charlie was tired of sitting around in the guesthouse waiting for me so he left and crossed into Zambia, headed to Livingstone. The next day I followed him and was pleased to get into Zambia, it feels alot more like Africa, especially after the very German feeling Namibia. Now I have to start the process of claiming back the 450 pounds which I gave to the Namibian customs for my temporary import permit.

Over the last few days I have been chilling out in Livingstone, there are a lot of tourists here and it’s nice to speak with some English people again. On Friday night there was a full moon and the main tourist attraction was the lunar rainbow at Victoria Falls. A group of around nine of us set off to the park, but when we saw there were too many security guards for us to sneak in for free and the entrance was 25 US dollars each, we decided to skip it. We headed to the border and crossed out of Zambia without going all the way in to Zimbabwe, there is a large bridge which looks down onto the falls and its free to go there. We sat in a little shelter on the bridge for a couple of hours drinking beer and eating snacks with a soldier who was guarding the bridge. We saw the lunar rainbow and were out of beer, so we decided to leave. On the way back to the Zambian border post we decided to climb the fence into the Victoria Falls park, we wandered through the forest and found the main tourist walkway, we walked around seeing the falls without anyone else around then headed back to the hostel.

We are planning to leave Livingstone tomorrow heading to Lusaka and then on to Malawi.

Africa Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Week 42: Northern Namibia and Botswana

Posted on 30/04/2012

From Sepupa we headed east across the northern border of Namibia, it was on one of these sandy pistes that we met a group of Namibian motorcyclists who were on a weekend break. We decided to camp with them and found that one of them owned a garage in a town further east. We arranged to meet them after a couple of days so that we could use the garage for some repairs. So we decided to spend a night in a nearby town called Ruacana, on the way there we stopped off to visit some hippo pools. A group of local guys were having a BBQ and invited us to join them, it turned out that one of these guys was the owner of the camp site we were planning to stay in that night. We went out on the river on his speedboat and sat drinking beer and playing guitar, at the end of the evening he offered to let us stay in a luxury tent for the price of using our own.

The next day we headed to Oshakati and met the guy who owned the garage, Charlie’s tyres were arriving the next morning so Braun (the garage owner) offered to let us stay at his house. The next morning we headed to the garage and spent a few hours doing minor repairs on the bikes before heading off on the long drive to Rundu. We camped in Rundu for a night before heading to Divindu, staying in a camp called Ngepi. We took a sunset boat ride on the river and saw some elephants and hippos. The next morning we headed into Botswana to the Okavango Delta and did a two day Mokoro safari, spending a night camping on an island in the delta, again we saw some elephants and hippos. We arranged the trip through a community group called the polers trust, they have a lodge in Saronga and the lodge had just come under new management. They were feeling very generous and let us sleep in the chalet for the price of camping. On the way back to Ngepi camp in Namibia we stopped off at a game reserve and saw more elephants.

Over the next few days we will head through the Caprivi strip and cross the border into Zambia to see Victoria falls.