In flight entertainment

In the middle of the airline-imposed night, I staggered blearily to the galley at the back of the cabin for water. I flipped up the blind in the window of the door and gave an involuntary gasp - below me in bright sunlight spread the mountains of Northern Pakistan. Fold after fold of steep smooth brown rock, white with snow along the ridges, rose up from deep valleys. Rivers snaked coldly on the valley floors, the patchwork of small fields beside them just discernable. I gazed in awe as the mountains rose higher towards me, the snow now thick and constant, reaching down into higher valleys. Grey-green glaciers edged their way down from the snows into the rocky landscape. I tried to work out where we were - it was indeed Northern Pakistan. Below me somewhere was the bridge built by Greg Mortenson, the school, the village he described so well... I could see it now even more clearly, dwarfed by this huge, harsh beautiful landscape. I stood and watched unable to tear myself away, until the mountains gave way to desert.

Leaving Malaysia

I fully expected it to be awful, but with the last minute rushes of packing, goodbyes and closing bank accounts I didn't have time to process the enormity of leaving. Equipped with enough hugs from Anna to protect me through the airport and beyond, I left KL. Even in Dubai I felt fine. Just travelling. That universal airport feeling, easy to associate it with good things.

But then, as the hours-to-go counted down on the in-flight info screen, the doom swelled heavily in my stomach. The hours trickled quickly into even more rapidly vanishing minutes. Heathrow in sight, I knew it wouldn't feel any worse if we were falling out of the sky with no engines or wings.

Strange Journey

I travelled from Kampala to Entebbe today in a matatu with only one person per seat.

Into Uganda

Ruhungeri was a nice spot to stay, another very typical African town, populated by lovely friendly people. I left in the morning on a relatively comfortable minibus to the border at Cyanika. This was real nowhere-land. On the Ugandan side of the border, the immigration office was shut as the officer had apparently gone for his breakfast. I sat down for a wait.

From the border to Kisoro the only available transport was a boda-boda (motorbike taxi), so I clung on as the driver, balancing my pack on the handlebars, negotiated the rocky, rutted road. I was still doing quite well for time, so decided to try to push on to Kabale. The minibus (now back to being a matatu rather than a daladala), spent the best part of three hours cruising and tooting through the tiny town to pick up more passengers before setting off. The road to Kabale was stunning, steep and rough, clinging to the hillsides as it snaked round and over the mountains. If i'd felt in any way safe, I'd have enjoyed it immensely. But of course, in a seriously overloaded matatu, negotiating a road more suited to 4x4 vehicles, driving often terrifyingly close to the edge of the roads and the precipices it bordered, my mind was taken up mostly with other thoughts.

Kabale struck me as a dismal spot. Rubbish lined the streets, in huge reeking heaps. Children demanded money (to say they begged would imply a measure of asking), boda boda drivers responded rudely if you didn't require their services. In what could have been a small green "square" on a pile of slightly burning stinking rubbish, two cows grazed on smouldering newspaper. In a nice little backpackers' cafe, two American tourists (who would never call themselves tourists, but travellers) engaged in a lengthy and loud conversation which would best be described as "competititve travel", each had 'done it better'. This apparently invovles claiming not to use the Lonely Planet, but knowing everything it says and generally being above doing anything that tourists might do. But of course, listening to them, they were just like every other traveller, but with bigger egos. I hadn't seen another mzungu for days, but kept quiet when repeatedly invited to join the competition, simply explaining that I'd just arrived and hadn't been anywhere yet.

Kigali to Ruhungeri

This was a stunning drive through lush green hills, where mud-brick houses clung onto the steeply terraced hillsides. Every inch of every slope was roughly terraced, into tiny narrow plots where a huge range of crops grew, including bananas, cassava, cabbages. Rows of people worked together, heaving mattocks over their heads and into the soil. Along the road, people carried wood, leafy branches, water, pots and baskets on their heads. Children had jerrycans rigged up like rucksacks on their backs. Other kids weilded machetes as long as their legs. Women crouched, digging, on slopes steep enough to warrant use of a harness. Dry-faced children smiled in their threadbare clothes. People squatted by the road to cut long grass, toddlers toddled onto the road here and there. Everyone seemed to be working, carrying, or going somewhere with a purpose.

Many houses did not even seem to be made of mud-bricks, but rather had a wattle and daub kind of construction, with lumpy mud patted onto a woven frame of branches. Most villages had a pump or tap station, looking fairly new and built in concrete, labelled "Safe Water," and at each of these, dozens of people waited with rows and rows of yellow jerry-cans. There were also "Eco-Lav" buildings, presumably another recent rural improvement initiative. Maybe that's where all those Oxfam "Give a bog for Christmas" toilets have ended up.

The road climbed and wound over and between the mountains. The day was hazy, sultry, welcoming. The volcanoes rose over us, shrouded in low cloud, only their lower slopes visible, hinting at their perfect smooth steep sides. This is a stunningly beautiful part of the world.

Kigoma to Kigali

In Kigoma, it took the best part of a day to find out anything much about buses, never mind buy a ticket. I was told that if I got to Nyakanazi, it should be possible to get transport from there to the Rwandan border. My informer had that eager-to-please optimism that doesn't always bode well, but as I could see no alternative, I decided to give it a go.

My 05:30 departure left only an hour and a half late, already with passengers standing in the aisle. We had two armed guards - that is scruffy youths with big guns - as this area isn't considered very safe. After half a dozen stops in the first two miles, the bus was bursting. I had a child on my lap, a bum in my cheek and a shirt in my face. It was impossible to move. At stops more people fought their way on and there was no chance to get off even at longer market-place stops to make sure that my luggage stayed on - I mentally waved it goodbye and focused on trying to wriggle some blood towards my numb toes. I was becoming seriously tempted to get off - anywhere - and sleep by the road or thumb a lift, or anything other than stay on that bus.

We passed a number of aid stations and refugee camps - this area is home to quite a lot of Congolese and Burundian refugees. There was not much else to see, except the harshness of life and the level of poverty.

At one point we met a broken-down truck blocking the road, so our driver tried to pass by driving with one set of wheels in a ditch. When the bus reached a critical angle, I was more than relieved by the decision to get everybody off. The bus made it without toppling over and we all piled on again - a time consuming exercise with space so limited. In the re-seating arrangements I managed to swap the largish child for a toddler, which seemed like a good deal - a lot cooler and better for circulation to the legs.

It was dirt roads all the way, for which I was quite grateful, as it kept our speed down - Tanzanian buses are famed for their high speed and dangerous driving. Even so, I was surprised that the 270km to Nyakanazi took over nine hours, not including the initial delay. There was certainly no point pushing on to the border - it was past four o'clock when I squeezed myself from the patchwork collection of scrap metal that called itself a bus. I returned various infants to their respective parents (possibly) and was delighted to be reunited with my luggage, now so red-brown with dust that I didn't at first recognize it.

Nyakanazi is just a junction, one dusty street which luckily had a grotty guesthouse (no running water), food and beer on offer. I partook of all of these, and even managed to find out that there might be a daladala going all the way to Rusumo in the morning, which would save me doing the journey in four stages.

After a night of bites (bed-bugs again?) the morning saw me sitting dustily on my dusty pack on the dusty roadside, nursing a swollen eye and hand, waiting to see what would come along. After only an hour, the promised daladala turned up, so full I couldn't imagine fitting so much as a chicken inside. But of course there was room for me and my pack. It was uncomfortable, but better than yesterday's bus, although the driving was quite alarming at times. I particularly admired the ploy of putting speedbumps (piles of sand) across just half of the road, so as to slow down only the downhill traffic. The result? We went careering at high speed down the winding road on the wrong side, blind corners included. But soon enough we were at Rusumo and the border, I had the whiff of new lands enticing me onward and I wasn't sorry to leave Tanzania behind.

Walking across no-man's land between Tanzania and Rwanda, I realized how much the landscape had changed since leaving Nyakanazi. I'd been aware that we had entered hill country, but only once out of the minibus did I see how lush and green and tropical this area is. The river runs brown, lumps of floating vegetation sail by, and the road crosses the river at the short but impressive Rusumo falls.

On the Rwandan side of the border, a minibus waited. I bought a ticket (!) and only had to wait for an hour and a half for it to be ready to go. It took me a while to realize that we were driving on the right, because sides seemed irrelevant most of the time - at least when compared to the horn which is clearly the single most essential part of the vehicle. I closed my eyes.

From Lusaka all the way to Kigali has been a journey - a journey for its own sake. It has been a real experience of African travel, and at times a journey into the unknown - just trusting that at each stage the next stage would become apparent.

Coming into Kigali, the city appeared quite modern and prosperous. Built on a series of hills, the city has many spots offering good views, so it is easy to see where the development diminishes and dirt roads begin. Everything is in French, which is un peu d'une probleme, mais je croix que c'est plus facile que Swahili. Actuellement, c'est un peu humourous. Last night I enjoyed getting clean, fed and watered as never before. I've spent today pottering round Kigali, soaking up the atmosphere. Moto-taxi drivers are all in team colours, wearing bibs and matching helmets bearing their license number, and they even provide their passenger with a helmet. On the pavements, boys in yellow bibs wander around clutching phones. Proper desk-top phones, which apparently are running on the mobile network. Want to make a call? Just grab this mobile phone-box.

It's been a good day, resting, doing laundry, banking, lazing over coffee with the local paper... I like it here. Tomorrow I must go to the genocide memorial centre, which is not something I am looking forward to. This place feels so untainted, so pleasant, it is hard to imagine that just a few years ago the streets ran with blood.

Cruising Lake Tanganyika

A fabulous journey. An African journey.

On Friday morning, the port at Mpulungu was pure chaos. Hordes of locals stormed the gates, trying to gain entry to the harbour area to buy dried fish from the newly arrived ferry. Armed guards came out and shook guns at the crowd, which held them back for a while. Eventually I followed the lead of two other mzungus and together we pushed to the front and talked our way in, explaining that we wanted to buy tickets for the ferry.

You can't actually buy a ticket until you are on board, so after a very thorough customs check (I'd read on another traveller's blog that they liked to look for 'illegal' drugs such as antihistimines and antibiotics, so had already hidden these in the depths of my sleeping bag), I headed to immigration, where I had to pay for a sixty-five dollar Zambian visa just to leave the country - apparently my free one is only valid if I leave the way I entered, and I can see little point in arguing with these people. All that remained was to fight my way through the dried fish sellers and hurl myself over the railing onto the boat. Securing my first class (!) cabin wasn't a problem, so dumped my luggage and explored the ferry. This didn't take long - it's pretty small.

The MV Liemba is an old German troop ship which was dismantled and brought to the lake by land. Here it was rebuilt and has apparently been in use for nearly a hundred years. The none-too-swanky first class cabins were up on the open deck, as was a small restaurant and outdoor seating area which was very full - people set up permanent camp here. Below this were cargo decks and noisy airless seating and other cabins - it would definitely be better to sleep on deck than down below. On the top deck there was a little more room to sit, if you didn't mind engine noise and fumes.

The boat seemed very full, but it turned out that many of those on board were just there for fun, treating the ferry as a mobile restaurant, bar and general amusement centre. Photographers charged a couple of thousand kwacha for those who wanted their photo taken on board, and soon quite a number of people had paid him to take a photo of them standing with me - something I always find strange, but stranger still when you have to pay for the picture. After a good few hours, at about 2pm, non-passengers fled and we were off.

Lake Tanganyika is beautiful, it's water is clear and blue, stretching sea-like into the distance. It's also huge and deep - over 1.4km deep in places, which explains how it can hold 6% of the earth's fresh water. It was very pleasant to lean on the rails and watch both lake and shore go by.

A couple of hours into the journey we reached our first stop, Kasanga, in Tanzania. I watched as sacks of beans and maize were cargo-netted and craned aboard. Huge bags of onions, each carried by six heaving men, were loaded by hand. Local boys swarmed aboard too, some selling pineapples or cigarettes, others just running around.

It was dark when we made our next stop, at a place with no dock. Seemingly from nowhere, a flotilla of small boats crowded round the ferry, packed with people, luggage, cargo. Against the black night-water of the lake, the ferry's lights picked out vibrant colours, urgent faces, white eyes, glistening skin. There was a cacophany of shouting - directions and counter-directions, reprimands and requests - as the boats jostled for position and their occupants tried to get themselves or their cargo aboard. People were hauled up by those on board, scrambling up the side of the ferry as if being rescued from a shipwreck. Women climbed with babies tied onto their backs, toddlers were swung upwards by their chubby limbs, one frail old lady was somehow raised onto the boat in a plastic chair. A few pieces of luggage landed in the water, though they were obviously a lot lighter than my pack as they floated and were fished out.

This scene was repeated many times throughout the two day journey, and it was always a pleasure to watch - quite fascinating. Gradually the ship filled with passengers, the hold with cargo. On the top deck, I sat for a while watching the world go by, Congo on my left, Tanzania on my right, chickens at my feet.

It was a sociable place to be for two days, getting to know my fellow passengers, but I was ready to leave when we finally reached Kigoma at midday on Sunday. Kigoma had a proper dock, but even so, the method of disembarking was to climb over the side of the ship, hanging by your hands until your feet reached the rail on the side of the dock, then jumping down.

Apart from a stunning lake, I haven't seen any 'sights' since before Lusaka, but I feel that I have seen more of Africa in these few days than in all the months I've been here.

The road to Mpulungu

Amazingly, the bus left Lusaka only five minutes late on Wednesday afternoon. I climbed over crates and boxes to reach my tiny (5 seats across the width of the bus) seat, while outside noisy arguments continued about the squeezing of more luggage - bags, boxes, mattresses, sacks of maize - into the now non-existent space.

The road was good, the driving not too alarming, and I watched Lusaka recede. It was dark by the time we made our first 'comfort stop' - thank heavens I'd put myself onto a severe dehydration regime. When it was time to set off again, I found myself being hussled onto a minibus instead - it turned out that it was necessary to transport eighteen of us separately to a spot beyond the weighbridge so that the bus wouldn't be too overweight when checked. An interesting ploy, which did work (safety concerns aside, of course), as we were dropped off in some gloomy laybye and picked up by our bus without incident.

On we went into the night, sleep made difficult by the constant ear-hammering blaring of gospel-pop, which was even loud enough to drown out my headphones which were trying to feed me a rather good audiobook. Pee stops involved communal squatting around the bus on the open roadside, under a night of glorious stars. As we picked up more passengers, they sat in the aisle on boxes and bags, the bus groaning.

At dawn we reached Mbala, where the roads were full of bare-footed children walking to school in torn uniforms. A good few passengers got off, a few got on. As we left Mbala, the road became very narrow and potholed, twisting down towards the lake. Behind me, something squawked. A chicken! People often refer to overcrowded buses in Asia and Africa as being the sort with chickens in the aisle, but I'd never encountered one myself. Despite the noise, I was delighted. The old woman behind me sat with a basket of six tomatoes on her knees and a chicken tucked into her clothing. Were these her goods to sell at market? It seemed so little.

In God we trust

I wonder at the wisdom of getting on a bus with "In God we trust" painted in eight inch letters across the top of its windscreen. But having looked at the state of the vehicle and the baldness of its tyres I could understand the need to trust in something other than the bus itself for your safe arrival at your destination.

Lusaka's intercity bus station is a buzzing hive of activity, but I was distracted from my purpose there by the names or mottoes on the buses. I rather liked "Terminal Justice" and "Heaven Awaits". Once I'd got down to the business of sorting out a ticket, I asked one company what their buses were like and one was pointed out. Half of its windscreen was cracked and sagging. I asked whether something had hit it and was told,
"No, no, it's ok. It's just the wind pushing against it when you drive that does that." How reassuring. I decided to buy my ticket from the other company serving my destination, deciding that a few bald tyres won't matter too much in the dry season.

I don't normally blog stuff before it happens, but if all goes to plan I could be off the air for a while. So get out your maps if you will, and trace my proposed route: bus to Mpulungu, followed by a ferry up Lake Tanganyika to Kigoma in Tanzania. The ferry seems to be unbookable, only runs once a week, and is a 100-year old German battleship which takes two days to do the journey. Coupled with a 15 hour (if all goes to timetable - unlikely!) bus ride and no way of finding somewhere to stay in Mpulungu until I get there, this sounds like a long and probably uncomfortable but interesting journey.

This 'ere truck

For those of you who've been emailing and leaving comments requesting more info on the truck and its inmates, here we go...

L to R: Marina, Nick, Phill

Phill, otherwise known as Sargeant Smutt, is really good company. And not always smutty.

A typical interior scene, featuring Denise, Aaron, Marina, Nick

Nick with his trusty guitar. He claims not to remember the night he serenaded me in Vic Falls.

The Truck.

Those of you who have been paying attention will know where and when this was taken. Also featuring Mckenzie modelling a classy camp chair and Sam cooking, with Steve trying to look useful in the background.

The driver.

That's him on the left. Sorry, Chris, not your best look.

Chris is our driver / guide / cook and all round good guy. Good company and really passionate and knowledgable about Africa.

A clearer, but not necessarily better, view of Sam. Another all round good guy. Guaranteed to say exactly what he thinks. Likely to remove his clothes when inebriated.

Steve. Another nice guy. Wow, the truck must be full of them! Something of a hidden gem I think, this one.

Tanya

Tanya had a certain something with her royal wave. Sweet girl, from Costa Rica. Lusted after by every male on the trip. Sadly she hopped off in Vic Falls.

Nick again. Well, really he deserves an entry of his own, but I don't want him to get ideas. Nick is a fabulous guy. "So nice," as he would say. Interesting to talk to and really interested in everyone he meets. Can usually be found surrounded by children or learning the latest local language or arranging to meet supermarket shelf-stackers in downtown bars. He's full of enthusiasm for everything: "I wish I had a trunk - I'd swing it about," or "Wow.. it's like I've got magic in my fingertips!" Plans to start med school and I reckon he'll make a lovely doctor. As long as he remembers to treat people after chatting to them...

To be continued...

Tanzania to Malawi

Other than a fearsome haircut from the butcher of Zanzibar, left the island without incident. Next time I'll swot up on the Swahili for "Just a trim" - luckily I managed to remember and sputter out the word for stop - simama! simama! - while I still had a little stubble. Oh yes, one other incident - an internet cafe wiped out my memory card with a virus, losing me 1kb of photos. Hey ho.

So instead of risking card again have burned a cd - only to find myself in a place where the computers have no cd drives. So you'll just have to look back for the photos when I add them.

After Zanzibar and one night back near Dar es Salaam, we headed South through Tanzania. First through a lush tropical landscape and then as the road climbed the land became drier and scrubbier again. Climbing more, the air started to feel cold and fresh and there were stunning views. We drove for some time through a rocky alpine area where sunflowers were being grown along with some more wild looking white-flowered plants. All very Swiss Alpish. Half expected Julie Andrews to come skipping down the hillside to freedom.

From there we descended into an absolutely stunning valley, bordering Udzangwa National Park, where the road snaked along above the river. On either side scrubby trees grew, and between them, dwarfing them, bizarrely grandiose leafless baobab trees rose. Their twisted, bulbuous trunks were topped with ever decreasing branches and they looked like large vegetable roots growing upside down out of the ground. We camped amongst all this - possibly the most beautiful campsite I have ever seen. I could happily have stayed there a month. It was nothing but a space between the trees with a shower and candlelit toilet, and it was perfect. We watched the sun go down and the clear sky fill with millions of stars. A sight which may have been made even more mind-boggling by the consumption of a quantity of Zimbabwean cane spirit.

In the morning we drove to Iringe, then on through Mbeya, and a small town which I suspect may be the banana capital of Tanzania. Again, the scenery stunned at every turn. Gaining altititude once more, we were shrouded in a very wet mist, then descended through the rain to find a bush camp site, just short of the Malawi border.

Within minutes of arriving, we had been joined by dozens of children who had a great time playing with a football Chris gave them and generally running round in a state of high excitement trying to steal cutlery while we tried to put up tents, cook, erect a tarp for cooking under in the pouring rain and dark. The kids were great fun but somewhat exuberant - somewhere in the course of all this, my tent was knocked down. Yes, I had put it up properly! By the time I found it (hard in the dark when you are looking for what you expect to be a vaguely vertical structure), it contained three inches of water and a couple of frogs so I opted to sleep in the truck. Hopping out for a pee, I found myself calf-deep in a puddle and loved it. There was a real scooby-doo thunderstorm - you know, where the lightning is coming so thick and fast that it's never quite dark, and the thunder rumbles and grumbles and growls incessantly. The rain drumme on the roof, even drowning out the sound of the frogs and I fell asleep damp and blissfully happy.

The next morning was a stunning one. The sun beat down as we crossed the border into Malawi. Sitting up front in the cab I enjoyed even more wonderful views. Malawi is quite heart-achingly beautiful. Chris pumped up the music - some fabulous African stuff - and the whole world seemed to smile. People here seem friendlier than anywhere, smiling, waving, calling welcomes. The sun, the people, the music, the landscape... sounds naff, but it made my heart sing. Lake Malawi appeared before us - the far side not visible 40km away. We crawled up a steep and winding road, round potholes and sleeping cows, and eventually in the early evening we reached our campsite on the shore of Lake Malawi, at Mbambo, about 50k south of Nkhata Bay.

I thought that the driving might be tiresome, but the three driving days from Dar to Mbambo have been fantastic.

Will backdate this (it's actually the 19th today) and write some more catch-up soon. And go back and add photos. Thanks for your lovely comments, Kate. And for the wide african skies.