One thing that I would highly recommend to anyone coming to Africa is catching alocal bus. You arrive at the bus station which is the size of a few football fields with hundreds of combis,thousands of people and dozens of large buses. There are rickety stalls everywhere, and people walking around selling anything you could want. You wind your way through the maze that all the locals seem to understand the order of and point you to the bus that is going your way. On our first bus trip we had arrived in a taxi and when our driver identified the correct bus someone came out grabbed Jason's bag and loaded it on for him. I was trying to keep track of the bag, the bus and Jason (who was waiting for change from the driver). We were soon seated on the bus as dozens of people squeezed up and down the aisle selling food,drinks,sim cards, bags,wallets, DVDs,belts, lollies etc. Not sure if we were supposed to buy a ticket before we left I asked one of these sellers...however he misheard me thinking I wanted to buy a chicken! That was fine with him, did I want a live one or cooked with chips??
We both enjoy the bus stops where food and drink appear at your window. And watching a family of four squeeze into two seats together. We have made it as far as Maun in Botswana, and tomorrow we will be doing a mokoro trip into the Okavango Delta. We spent a lovely couple of nights camping in Francistown, and are now staying in a beautiful campsite beside the river. There is a pool which we plan to enjoy this afternoon, and the showers are the best we've had yet in Africa (open air showers and all).
We have also now experienced our first African border crossing, which went quickly and easily. We asked one of the locals on the bus if there was somewhere to change money at the border,and he then took us under his wing showing us where to go and what to do. Everyone piled off the bus and into South African customs who stamped us out. We then walked about 200 metres to no mans land where there is a currency exchange booth. We took the last of their Pula before heading anouth 300 metres to Botswanan customs. And that was that. Easy and simple.... here's hoping they're all that easy. Of course yesterday the bus got stopped at a checkpoint where they were very interested in what our anti-malarials were...and they only found one box,not the other 8! Luckily once they saw our Australian passports they stopped searching and waved us on. The tourist buses we saw were just waved through the checkpoint.
That's all for now, sorry still no photos...maybe in a few more weeks.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Touch down
Well, we've been in Africa less than 36 hours and Jason has already managed to get bitten by a lion. But, I'm getting ahead of myself so let me start at the beginning. The flight over was long, long, very long (26hours door to door) but like all good flights it was boring and uneventful. We arrived in J'berg at 5:20am and found a nice taxi driver to take us to our hostel. Unfortunately he spent the hour long trip telling us horror stories about muggings and car-jackings. He had been car-jacked 3 times. The first time they took the car, the second time he killed two of them (seeing our faces he hastened to add that he is now Christian and no longer carries a gun), the third time they took his meter, wing mirror and smashed a window.
Arriving in Pretoria with these stories in our heads we were confronted with 8 foot walls topped with razor wire or electric fences. The taxi driver gave a final warning not to walk around by ourselves as the gate to our hostel was opened by some mysterious hidden person.
We are staying at 1322 backpackers and everyone has been very nice and helpful. They've booked tours, organised lifts and explained where we can and can't walk. The first day we were just exhausted. We managed a walk to the nearby shops and a very pretty park. We sat in the park for a couple of hours enjoying the rose bushes and watching people (I'm pretty sure there was a quick nap in there too!) and gradually began to relax. Today we went to the nearby lion park, where after driving past wilderbeest, impala, zebra, giraffe and a few other animals we entered the lion camps. The lions lay in big piles beneath the trees, moving from sun to shade to control their temperature. The highlight though was 'cubworld' where you can go into the enclosure with the cubs and give them a stroke. Numerous times we were carefully posed for photos with one cub when another lion would approach from behind to get some attention too. Then one decided to get a little too friendly with Jason grabbing onto his pants and rolling onto his back and trying to bring him with it. When this failed he started on the shoelaces, but Jason retreated.
So we are now relaxing this afternoon before catching a bus to Botswana tomorrow morning.
Arriving in Pretoria with these stories in our heads we were confronted with 8 foot walls topped with razor wire or electric fences. The taxi driver gave a final warning not to walk around by ourselves as the gate to our hostel was opened by some mysterious hidden person.
We are staying at 1322 backpackers and everyone has been very nice and helpful. They've booked tours, organised lifts and explained where we can and can't walk. The first day we were just exhausted. We managed a walk to the nearby shops and a very pretty park. We sat in the park for a couple of hours enjoying the rose bushes and watching people (I'm pretty sure there was a quick nap in there too!) and gradually began to relax. Today we went to the nearby lion park, where after driving past wilderbeest, impala, zebra, giraffe and a few other animals we entered the lion camps. The lions lay in big piles beneath the trees, moving from sun to shade to control their temperature. The highlight though was 'cubworld' where you can go into the enclosure with the cubs and give them a stroke. Numerous times we were carefully posed for photos with one cub when another lion would approach from behind to get some attention too. Then one decided to get a little too friendly with Jason grabbing onto his pants and rolling onto his back and trying to bring him with it. When this failed he started on the shoelaces, but Jason retreated.
So we are now relaxing this afternoon before catching a bus to Botswana tomorrow morning.
Monday, April 14, 2008
The Joy of Outrage
Today has been a busy day, as it was our last day in Sydney. We cleaned the flat, got out some US dollars and went to the doctor for some malaria tablets. We had been assured by our good friend who happens to be a pharmacist that getting the 5 months supply we needed on a private script wouldn't be a problem and the cost would only be about $22 a month, so not too excessive. So like the trusting individuals we are we toddled off to the doctor and asked for a private script. We ducked in next door to the pharmacist and spent 30 minutes watching him enter things into the computer and label the 40 boxes of doxy! He then rang it up and asked us for $480......
our jaws dropped and the power of speech deserted us temporarily. As we stuttered our disbelief, we reached for our wallets (obviously we'd rather pay the money than risk malaria). The pharmacist obviously sensing our discomfort at parting with all this money voided the transaction and went back for another go. He came back with an offer of $240, and what might have started out sounding expensive all of a sudden sounded like a bargain. So we are now armed with 40 boxes of doxy and have two hours tomorrow morning to work out how it fits into the pack!!
our jaws dropped and the power of speech deserted us temporarily. As we stuttered our disbelief, we reached for our wallets (obviously we'd rather pay the money than risk malaria). The pharmacist obviously sensing our discomfort at parting with all this money voided the transaction and went back for another go. He came back with an offer of $240, and what might have started out sounding expensive all of a sudden sounded like a bargain. So we are now armed with 40 boxes of doxy and have two hours tomorrow morning to work out how it fits into the pack!!
Friday, April 4, 2008
Work is over the pack begins.
Having finally finished work, Giving in those four weeks notice was rather difficult, the real task of packing the household up and selling off the majority of our possessions entered full swing. Really the selling of furniture has been going for a while with the last of the "main" furniture auctions ending the day after completing work. Both my and Ellen's workplaces where wonderful in support and encouragement for our trip, with promises of places when we return (how that could be arranged is a problem for another day).
We now have obtained a much smaller backpack for Ellen to carry, a mere 40L, unfortunately the first pack we did afterwards showed that there is no chance of me carrying Ellen's old backpack, and even with my 70L backpack we will be taking the zip on bag so we can carry some consumables such as food as we travel.
With the pack up in full swing and our furniture disappearing out the door, panic and excitement compete continuously as dominant emotions. Checking, rewriting and rethinking packing lists is one pastime that is becoming more frequent as we try to trim down the amounts of gear we try taking, but the lists end up longer each time rather than shorter. The Internet is getting a workout as we look at what others have done before, but our real gain in bulk is due to our plans to camp in Africa, and possibly continue camping at times till we reach Asia on the second part of our trip. The tent, and the sleeping bag account for nearly a third of the storage space of my larger bag, with the majority of the remainder taken up by shoes. Fortunately two pairs of those shoes will be on our feet at all times.
As we deplete the fridge, and our home, I think our nerves will continue to increase, but I can't wait to start the trip in earnest.
We now have obtained a much smaller backpack for Ellen to carry, a mere 40L, unfortunately the first pack we did afterwards showed that there is no chance of me carrying Ellen's old backpack, and even with my 70L backpack we will be taking the zip on bag so we can carry some consumables such as food as we travel.
With the pack up in full swing and our furniture disappearing out the door, panic and excitement compete continuously as dominant emotions. Checking, rewriting and rethinking packing lists is one pastime that is becoming more frequent as we try to trim down the amounts of gear we try taking, but the lists end up longer each time rather than shorter. The Internet is getting a workout as we look at what others have done before, but our real gain in bulk is due to our plans to camp in Africa, and possibly continue camping at times till we reach Asia on the second part of our trip. The tent, and the sleeping bag account for nearly a third of the storage space of my larger bag, with the majority of the remainder taken up by shoes. Fortunately two pairs of those shoes will be on our feet at all times.
As we deplete the fridge, and our home, I think our nerves will continue to increase, but I can't wait to start the trip in earnest.
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