Holiday within a Holiday

To round off our amazing African journey we wanted a true holiday and so decided to spend a few days on the beaches near Mombasa.

We had quite a bit of travelling to do to get from Kampala, Uganda to Mombasa, Kenya! First was a bus ride from Nairobi to Kampala, it's only about 500km but took 14hrs as the roads are so rough in Kenya (the infrastructure in Kenya has deteriorated as a result of economic & aid embargoes at the end of Moi's reign) we even went on the luxury 3 seats per row bus! We broke the journey in Nairobi to do a day of souvenir shopping in Nairobi. We then took the overnight sleeper train from Nairobi to Mombasa. This train ride is touted as evoking the old Victorian colonial era of train travel but sadly the train ride is a mere shadow of it's former self . I have to say that the Zambia to Dar Es Salaam train ride was more exotic and interesting than this one. Never the less it was a comfortable and smooth ride.

We spent a day in the city of Mombasa, it's a nice place and we wondered around the Fort Jesus with it's immensely think coral walls and through the narrow streets of the old town so reminiscent of Stone Town on Zanzibar. We splurged and stayed at the newly renovated Castle Royal Hotel which has retained it's character and charm and has a lovely open terrace overlooking the street.

Fort Jesus Mombasa

Then it was time to relax on the beach! We stayed at the quiet and secluded Tiwi beach 30km south of Mombasa in a lovely self catering thatched bungalow with a big veranda overlooking the sandy beach. Every day the local fishermen would come to sell us their catch (which, thankfully they filleted for us!). Against Chris' better judgement I bought live crab for the first evening and had quite a challenge dealing with the snapping claws and extracting the crab meat once cooked!!

Our bungalow at Tiwi Beach, Mombasa

Tiwi Beach, Mombasa from the veranda of our bungalow

Zoe and the claw snapping crabs, Tiwi Beach, Mombasa

Tiwi Beach, Mombasa

Fishermen in dugout canoe gliding by the Sand Island and reef, Tiwi beach

On our return to Nairobi we had one day before catching our plane to the UK. We went to the Nairobi National Park for a final fix of African animals. This park is in sight of the city skyline but still has quite a few animals. We saw heartbeast, zebras, giraffe, ostriches and our first Elands.

Eland, Nairobi National Park

Ostrich, Nairobi National Park

Yellow Necked Francolin, Nairobi National Park

Heartbeast and zebra, Nairobi National Park with the Ngong Hills of Karen Blixen fame in the background.

We broke our journey back to Canada with a 2 day stop over in UK to visit Zoe's parents, brother, sister-in-law and their lovely little daughter, Emma. She's not even 2yrs old and already a daring high flying swing addict and to our amazement can also identify a Porsche from all other cars - Porsches are all called "daddy's car"!!

Zoe's 2yr old niece, Emma, enjoying the park in London, UK

Zoe with her parents at their home inUK

Chris & Zoe with Zoe's Dad at her parents house in UK

African Reading List

One great thing about travelling is that there seems to be more time to read books. It is also a great opportunity to pick up and read books written about or set in the countries we are visiting or read books by authors from the countries we are visiting. For the book worms out there here are some of the books we have read and our thoughts on them..............

The Sheltering Desert by Henno Martins

Two German geologists in Namibia decide to sit out WWII and evade becoming POWs by heading out into the desert with their faithful dog Otto. They revert to caveman like status, hunting the wild life to get enough food to survive. They evade capture and all other human contact for over 2 years. While in Namibia we visited the area in the Namibian desert that became their hunting grounds and actually stumbled upon one of their cave shelters which was a rather neat experience. This is a fascinating story and amazing to see how ingenious they were in order to survive.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall-Smith

This light hearted series of books is set in Botswana and perfectly captures the spirit and lifestyle of the Setswana people of Botswana. A must read and we are looking forward to the TV series!

Out of Africa by Karen Blixen

This is the classic East African colonial story. The book is much more suttle than the film. Having now visited East Africa and Kenya, the descriptions of the people and the scenery really come alive.

No Picnic on Mount Kenya by ??

Two Italian WWII POWs devise and execute an escape plan to climb mount Kenya. They make use and scrounge what ever they can in their prison for the camping and climbing equipment to climb the mountain. The only map & guide they have of the mountain is on the back of a corned beef can! Quite an amazing story and we are looking forward to re reading this book that we read many years ago.

Reason for Hope by Jane Goodall

This is Jane Goodall' autobiography describing her research into Chimpanzees. Her research in the 1960s was quite revolutionary and controvertial as it showed that humans were closely related to primates.

Abyssinian Cronicles by Moses Issingawa

A fictional story about a boy and his family living through the tumultuous years of Ugandan's post independance years including the Idi Amin years. It is saidthat the story closely resembles the authors life.

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz by Michela Wrong

Having visited DRC we wanted to learn more about the country. This book is an excellent summary of the despotic rule of Mobutu Sesse Seko who ruled the country for three decades. It helps to explain why there were 1 million Zaire denomination notes that we aquired!

BUS-ted in Kampala

This is tale of travel in Africa that beats them all! However if this mis-adventure had not occurred then we would not have seen the Gorillas in DRC, so it was a blessing in disguise!

From Jinja, our original plan had been to go to Murchison Falls in Northern Uganda. We took an early morning bus from Jinja to Kampala, a journey of just 80km but it took almost 3hrs as this main road from Nairobi to Kampala is under construction. The many stops to pick up & drop off people added time to the journey too - there are no bus stops in Uganda, you just ask to be let off exactly where you want to be which means the bus can stop every 100yrds or so!

We got to the bus station in Kampala by 10:30am with plenty of time, we thought, to get to Masindi near Murchison Falls but how wrong we were! In Uganda buses leave when full, but usually that means a wait of 1/2hr to 1 hr at most. We bought our bus tickets to Masindi and boarded the bus, there were not many people on the bus so we prepared for a bit of a wait.

The minutes ticked by...........

We were kept entertained by the continual stream of street vendors walking up & down the bus trying to sell us everything from cosmetics to fluorescent lights. We could have kitted out our whole house if we'd wanted and even got a hot meal on a plate with cold drink into the bargain without leaving the seat of our bus! There were pots & pans, hats, socks, shoes, toys which surely we must want to buy!

The hours ticked by............

After 2hrs the bus was half full but without even starting or moving the bus, by some strange African mechanical divining, its was decided that the bus had a mechanical problem and we must change buses. We all clambered off the bus and onto a different but equally dilapidated bus. The mountain of cargo including a fridge, a TV, 30 boxes of ceramic floor tiles and 25 20ltr bottles of water were labouriously moved from one bus to the other.

After 3hrs the heavens opened with a huge tropical down pour. The bus was almost full but we foolishly thought that they were waiting for the rain to pass before setting off.

After 4hrs the rain eased and I got off the bus to investigate our still stationary status. There I found, to my amazement, that the front of the bus had been raised onto blocks (remember this is a fully loaded bus!!) and there are several men under the bus banging away at the engine or axle! Imminent departure was evidently not on the horizon but I was reliably informed that we would be leaving in 20minutes! The repairs we were told are for our safety and we were implored to please kindly wait.

We thought otherwise. So after 4 1/2 hours of sitting in the wondrously exciting Kampala bus station we abandoned ship, so to speak, and spent the night in Kampala. The thought of trying to get to Masindi the next day did, for some strange reason, not appeal to us. Plans were changed and we headed south to Lake Bunyonyi and hence how we happened to find out about the still available Gorilla permits.

As a side note another entertaining aspect of travel in Uganda is on the minibuses that do short journeys from village to village. They are called shared taxis in Uganda and matatus in Kenya. They too leave when full. The seating capacity stated on the side of the minibus is 14, but that certainly does not mean the shared taxi is full, oh no! There needs to be at least 20 people before it will leave. On such journeys, just for fun we would play the "how many elephants can you fit in a mini" game and count how many people there were in the shared taxi. The most we ever counted was 27!! On one occasion when we were crossing the Sesse Islands, I had just counted 26 people when we ground to a halt half way up a steep hill. Everyone had to get out and walk while the minibus chugged slowly to the top of the hill. Such is travel in Uganda!

Photos - Gorillas in the Mist and Southern Uganda

Photos from Southern Uganda and our Gorilla Trek in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Story to these photos is in the 14th August post below.


Chris paddling across the crater lake of Lake Bunyoni in a dug out canoe.


Chris enyoying a Nile Special beer with great views over Lake Bunyoni from our guest house restaurant Boonya Amagara on an island on the lake.


Zoe & Chris about to enter DRC on our way to see the gorillas in the mist - DRC hasn't been called Zaire for a decade, signs get changed at African pace!!


Children in DRC greet us as we get ready to hike into the Parc des Virungas to see the Gorillas.

Gorillas in the mist, Chris & Zoe meet a family of mountain gorillas in DRC. There are only 700 mountain gorillas left in the world and all concentrated around the volcanic parks on the shared border of Uganda, Rwanda & DRC.




Chris & Zoe celebrate with fellow gorilla trekers Helen & Baz from UK. Congo's premiere beer is called Pimus, what great fuel! For those that don't know, Primus is a British make of camp cooking stove.



Sunset on the Sesse Islands, Uganda.

Gorillas in the Mist!

Hello! We're back in Kampala, capital of Uganda after a short but amazing trip to view a family of mountain gorillas in their native jungle habitat. We weren't planning to do a gorilla trek, but events conspired against us in our efforts to reach Murchison Falls in the northern part of Uganda (details to be revealed in our next blog entry), so we headed south, first to a very relaxing camp on an island in Lake Bunyoni, then further south to see the gorillas.

Byoona Amagara resort was one of the most beautiful places we've visited in Africa. It's set on an island in the middle of a picturesque volcano crater lake, which required a one-hour paddle in a dugout canoe from the nearest road. All along the lake were lush, green, steep terraced hills, with fields of potatoes and other crops reaching up to the very tops of the hills. The best thing about this resort was the food - it was awesome! We had fresh talapia fish from the lake every night, mexican quesidillas for lunch, and potent rum balls for dessert - certainly not food we've seen anywhere else in Africa.

While at this resort we ran into a few people who had organized treks to view mountain gorillas. There's fewer than 700 mountain gorillas left in the wild (and none in captivity), all concentrated in the shared border area between Uganda, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, which was formerly known as Zaire). It's expensive and difficult to obtain a permit to view the gorillas in Uganda and Rwanda, but that isn't the case in DRC, where permits are readily available and cost substantially less money. There's not many tourists who want to venture into DRC, as it's just recovering from a decade-long civil war, but we'd heard it was relatively safe within DRC near the Ugandan border where the gorillas usually hang out. So we took a chance and booked a one-day trip into a country that, despite it's name, isn't very democratic, is barely a republic, but definitely is Congo! How could we resist?

Our day started very early as we piled into a pair of minivans with 20 Spanish tourists and drove an hour to the Uganda-DRC border. At the border we met a couple of Brits, Helen and Baz, with whom we spent the rest of our day gorilla treking with. Border formalities and briefings on do's and don'ts when meeting gorillas (including what to do when they charge at you!) took a couple of hours. We split up into groups of seven or eight people to visit five different families of gorillas. Finally we were off into Congo! The scenery was spectacular, the road was almost non-existent and it felt like we were in a very remote part of the world - definately Africa's Heart of Darkness.

After an hour of driving we continued on foot through fields of sorgum and potatoes and passed tiny mud thatched huts of the local Congalese. The locals were curious to see us and peered from their huts and from behind trees to say hello. After 2 1/2hrs of walking we reached the dense jungle of Parc des Virungas and started to see signs of the gorillas, they were close at hand our armed guides told us. Zoe's first sighting of a gorilla was a 200kg black back male gorilla charging towards her! A gorilla charging you in the DRC, unbelievable story but true! Fortunately the guides protected us and the gorilla was only marking his territory and letting us know who was in charge in his jungle. It was hard to crouch down in submission as we had been told rather than flee!

Visitors are limited to spending an hour with the gorillas. This passed very quickly but was an amazing and fascinating experience to see these wonderful animals in their natural setting and to get a taste of Diane Fossey's gorillas in the mist. The gorillas are quite playful and gentle and behaved a little like chimpanzees. The family we saw had 3 adolescent males and 2 infants who were very cute. The rangers told us that the mother had, unfortunately died and the infants were being looked after by the adolescent males.

Visiting the gorillas was icing on the cake for what has been so far an already very good trip to Africa.

Like everything else in DRC: the size of the countryand it's primates,the beers are very large. Back at the border we celebrated seeing the gorillas with Helen & Baz by quaffing several of Congo's premier 720ml beers. The beer is called Primus which the Brits amongst us had a chuckle at as Primus is a make of British camp stove, so Primus beer must be good fuel!

Next is a few relaxing days on the beaches south of Mombasa before we fly home.

Uganda - Mt Elgon and the River Nile

Hello from the source of the Nile! That would be in the town of Jinja just north of the equator on the shores of Lake Victoria and 6670km from where the Nile empties into the mediteranian sea.

We've been in Uganda for just over a week and it's rained everyday in their supposed dry season, even the Ugandans can't believe the weather!

We started our time in Uganda by climbing Mt. Elgon (4300m) on the border of Uganda and Kenya. This was a 4 day trip and again we hiked without porters, carrying all our own camping stuff. However we were obliged to have 2 armed ranger-guides with us. Our guides Sam & Patrick carried ancient wooden barreled rifles with them ostensibly to protect us from Kenyan poachers and cattle rustlers! However it is quite common place to see guards in town with such rifles outside banks & businesses so we're quite used to it now! Sam and Patrick were great company and always invited us to cook with them in their shelter and sit around the fire to chat, warm up & dry off.

The challenge on this mountain wasn't the altitude or cold but infact the mud. If the inuit have 30 words for snow, then the Ugandans must have 30 words for mud! The first day we climbed steeply up on a muddy trail through villagers fields of bananas and maize and past their small tiny huts to the the Mt Elgon Park boundary to face "The Wall of Death". This is a cliff face with an even steeper and muddier trail that weaves through the cliff face. It was a relief to get to the top and enter the jungle like forest and slightly more level ground although the mud was just as bad! We camped in the forest under dripping trees in the rain.

The next day we continued up through the forest then through bamboo forest and eventually out into the sun and the mooreland where we camped for the second night. Next day was summit day we climbed up to the crater rim and walked around the rim to the highest point. We have obviously retained some acclimitisation from Mt. Kenya as even though we were up at 4300m, the walking was easy and fast. The caldera on Mt Elgon is huge and we had great views into the caldera full of lakes and giant groundsel.

We made a fast descent slipping and sliding down the mud and back to the regional town of Mbale for a celebratory Nile Special beer.

After climbing 4 mountains in a month , it was time for a rest. So we made our way to a remote island in the middle of the Victoria Nile to chill out. It was an epic journey there, from Mbale we took a bus, 2 shared taxis (14 seater minibuses with 22 people crammed in!), a 10km ride on the backs of scooters in torrential rain and finally a dug out canoe across the raging river! It was worth the effort to get to Hairy Lemon (yes that is the name of the place not our bad typing) as we had 3 great days of relaxation and eating 3 big meals a day. Until we arrived we didn't know it was a kayakers haven with 2 of the worlds most famous standing waves just down river, named after local beers! We will say this, kayakers like to party!

Tomorrow we are booked on a bus going to Rwanda but we're geting off just before the border at a place called Lake Bunyonyi near the town of Kabale.

Thanks for all the comments from our Mt Kenya blog!


Zoe and some of the Mt Elgon Rangers in the mooreland on the Sassa River route.


Chris hiking up through giant groundsel on the way to the crater rim on summit day.


Zoe on the summit of Mt Elgon, the Wagagi Peak at 4321meter


Ranger Sam and Chris holding the rifle on summit day with Jacksons Peak behind.


The gardens and restaurant at Hairy Lemon in the middle of the Victoria Nile.


Zoe relaxing on the verandah of our Banda at Hairy Lemon on an island in the middle of the Nile.

No Picnic on Mt. Kenya

"No Picnic on Mt. Kenya" is the title of one of the absolute classic mountaineering books. It's the true story of a couple of Italian prisoners of war during WWII, being held at a British POW camp in Kenya. Before the war they were climbers, and from their POW camp they can see Mt. Kenya. They spend weeks hoarding their rations, making crampons out of tin cans and doing gathering whatever pseudo mountaineering equipment they can find. Their only "map" is a photo of Mt. Kenya on the label of a can of corned beef. Then they break out of their camp and head to the mountain with the intention of climbing it...

Mt. Kenya is Africa's second-highest peak, and is located less than one degree south of the equator. Its two highest points, Nelion and Batian, are only accessible to rock climbers. We thought about bringing a rope and our climbing gear, but we thought that it wasn't worth lugging all that stuff around Africa for two months, when we'd only be using it for two days. And we couldn't find a reliable and inexpensive way of shipping our gear to Kenya. So, like 99% of the other people on the mountain, we settled for trekking to the third-highest peak, Pt. Lenana at 4985m, some 200m below the true summit. However, unlike most visitors to the mountain, we decided to do it without a guide or porters, (part of our penance of having the luxury of having them on Mt. Kilimanjaro). We also decided we'd do an east to west traverse of the mountain, starting in the village of Chogoria and ending some 85km later in the village of Naro Moru. So with huge packs full of clothes for wind, rain and cold, camping gear, and a week's worth of food, we set out. This was going to be "No Picnic on Mt. Kenya" for us, too!

Actually, the afternoon before we left we were rocked by an earthquake in Chogoria! After experiencing a magnitude 6.8 quake in Hawaii last October before Ironman, we're getting a bit tired of being hit by quakes every time we go on holiday! It's actually not too surprising we felt a quake here, as Chogoria is on the edge of the Rift Valley, and on the edge of a tectonic plate, where quakes are quite prevalent. We're taking our next holiday in the middle of a tectonic plate - Saskatchewan sounds good!

Our first day involved a 27km slog up a muddy track through dense jungle and then through bamboo forest. This would have been quite pleasant, except for the eight hours of rain we had during the hike! We were cold, tired and wet by the time we got to our camping spot. When we found that there were wooden cabins available, there was no question about camping - we opted for drying out and warming up by the fire in the cabin!

On the second day we hike 14km along a ridge. Unfortunately it was very misty so we only got the occasional tantalizing glimpse of the stunning views. But we were just happy it wasn't raining! As we reached our campsite for the night at Hall Tarns we climbed above the mist and were treated to spectacular mountain scenery.

We took a rest/acclimatization day at 4300m at Hall Tarn's and explored the surrounding area, including peering over the vertigo-inducing 300m cliff of The Temple down to one of Mt. Kenya's deep valleys.

The following day we climbed up steep scree and over Tooth Col at 4700m then across a precipitous scree slope to the Austrian Hut. We felt we were really in the mountains this day. It was cool hanging out at the Austrian Hut area as we'd read so much about it during our climbing days. The scenery was spectacular with the main summits just across the Lewis Glacier. We had to go and stand on a glacier at the equator!

Most people get up well before dawn to be at Pt. Lenana for sunrise. Having seen plenty of sunrises, we chose the civilized option and climbed in the light. It was much warmer and we had the summit to ourselves when we reached it at 8:00 a.m. We spent a glorious 30 minutes on the summit in cloudless, windless conditions admiring the views on all sides. Later that day we packed up our tent and descended 2000m down through the glacier-scoured Teleki Valley through forests of giant groundsel. We didn't quite escape the day without getting wet; as we descended the notorious "vertical bog" a hailstorm hit us and the bog turned into a river. This was a sting in the tail to a very long, tough day. Fortunately it cleared up within an hour and we had sunshine to finish the day.

The trek wasn't over yet; we had a further 23km to hike to the village of Naro Moru, however the going was much easier, most of it on a 4WD track (and in the sunshine!). We descended through bamboo and cloud forest where we saw plenty of fresh elephant and buffalo dung, but the animals remained elusive. When we reached our hotel in Naro Moru we celebrated with huge plates of chips and cold Tusker beers. Tired, stiff and a little sunburned, we felt like we'd just done an Ironman! This trip was way harder than climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro but it felt much more rewarding. No picnic indeed!

Next stop, Uganda!

Our campsite nestled among the Giant Groundsel by Hall Tarn (4300m). The spires of Mt Kenya ridges behind. Finally some clear sunny weather!

You can just make out Chris on top of the cliff of the Temple along the Chogoria route on the slopes of Mt Kenya.

Chris at our campsite at the Austrian Hut (4800m) with the summit spires Nelion and Batian of Mt Kenya behind.

Glacier at the equator! Zoe on Lewis Glacier (4800m) below Nelion spire on Mt Kenya.

Zoe & Chris with the Kenyan flag at Point Lenana (4985m), the highest point we reached on Mt. Kenya. The true summit, Batian is some 200m higher and is the spire behind us but requires technical rock climbing to reach.

Chris starting the descent down from the Austrian Hut with our exit route from Mt Kenya, the Naro Moru route, going down the Teleki Valley behind.

Zanzibar

We are back in Dar es Salaam after a few very relaxing days on the island of Zanzibar. The first day we wandered through the narrow alleyways of Stone Town. Then we spent a couple of days on the beach, just swimming, sunbathing and eating great seafood. This was just what we needed after 2 weeks of trekking. We have now trversed the African continent from the Atlantic Ocean in Namibia to the Indian Ocean on Zanzibar and dipped our toes in both oceans, the Indian Ocean is much warmer!!

Thanks to everyone who made a comment on our blog, it was nice to hear from you all, it looks like we made a few people jealous with our ascent of Kilimanjaro!

Good luck to all our friends doing Ironman Lake Placid.

Next stop Kenya............


One of the narrow twisty alleyways in Stone Town, Zanzibar.


Typical ornate wooden & brass studded doorway in Stone Town, Zanzibar


Colonial Arabian style Palace in Stone Town, Zanzibar


Chris relaxing in a hammock at Paje Beach east coast of Zanzibar


Dhow sailing at Paje Beach east coast of Zanzibar

Zoe relaxing at Paje Beach east coast of Zanzibar

Crater Highlands and Maasai Country

Jambo from Zanzibar!

We have just returned from an excellent six-day walking safari in the Crater Highlands in nothern Tanzania. We started the trip by driving to Ngorogoro Crater and doing a game drive there. Ngorogoro Crater is a completely enclosed 20km diameter savannah crater, encircled by a tropical forest crater rim. The only way in and out is via tortuously steep 4WD tracks. Within the crater there's a mass of wildlife. We saw a pride of lions eating ribs for dinner, large herds of wildebeasts and zebras, a couple of elephants, and a few black rhinos barely visible above the grass. We camped on the rim of the crater in the mist with hundreds of other campers, but for the rest of our safari we saw no other tourists.

From Ngorogoro we spent three days walking through Maasai country to the village of Ngare Sero down on the desert-like plain below the Rift Valley wall. Along the way we hiked down into the Empakaai Crater, a mini-version of Ngorogoro with a lake filling most of the crater bottom. The shores of the lake were filled with pink flamingos.

We walked among the Maasai herding their cattle, donkeys and goats. The Maasai are very proud people, walking tall and thin wrapped in their brightly checked blankets and bedecked in beaded necklaces, bracelets, anklets and earings. Many were carrying 10-foot long spears.

The last day of this safari we climbed the classic cone-shaped volcano Ol Deinyo Lengai. We climbed for the first two hours by moonlight and arrived at the crater rim soon after sunrise. It was an extremely steep climb, but this made for a very fast descent as we could scree run down most of it. We were surprised that it was such an active volcano. We could hear loud booming sounds as we approached the rim and saw sprays of lava being ejected from the vents and flowing across the crater. This was all happening less than 100m away from us! We spent an hour wandering around the crater and marvelling at this amazing sight.

From Ngare Sero we returned to Moshi and on to Dar es Salaam, and caught a ferry this morning to Zanzibar where we plan to spend a few days relaxing on the beach, eating tasty seafood and soaking up the Arabic cultural atmosphere.


We were surprised to see ostriches in Ngorogoro Crater, as we thought they were only in southern Africa.


White bearded wildebeasts in Ngorogoro Crater.


Zebras in Ngorogoro Crater.


We hiked 300m down into the picturesque Empakaai Crater where there huge flocks of pink flamingos along the edge of the lake.


The Maasai village of Nayobi. The Maasai houses are circular mud huts with thatched roofs and adjoining corrals to keep their animals safe from predators overnight.


Chris at one of our campsites during our Crater Highlands trek, complete with the luxury of a table (covered with a Maasai blanket) and camp chairs.


View of Ol Deinyo Lengai crater from the summit of the volcano.


The crater of Ol Deinyo Lengai. The black in the centre is actually freshly flowing lava.


Zoe and Chris, both very dusty from our scree run down the volcano Ol Deinyo Lengai.