Jambo Tanzania

Before we could start our safari proper we had to make the marathon 8 hour drive to Arusha in Tanzania. We had a very early start on Friday morning as we had to be ready for our pick up from Kenyan Adventures at 6am. The actual journey ended up taking 10 hours thanks to the additional 2 hours it took to negotiate the boarder crossing between Kenya and Tanzania. For some inexplicable reason land boarders are always more of a palaver than when you fly in.

For large parts of the journey the roads were really rough and made of pot holed loose gravel rather than tarmac. Giving us what the locals laughingly refer to as the African massage.

Once we crossed into Tanzania the road skirted around the base of Mt Kilimanjaro. We were able to catch the occasional glimpse of it's snow covered peak through the clouds over 5km above our heads. I would love to have a crack at the summit but the costs are just too high, the average 5 day trek costs about $2000!

The journey also gave us the opportunity to see police corruption at close hand when our driver got shook down by the Tanzanian fuzz for a bribe. Thankfully the policeman was happy with a brand new crisp 100 Kenyan shilling note (about 80p).

The hotel we stayed at in Arusha, Impala Hotel, gave us a great view of Mt Meru and an over-full stomach from their excellent Indian restaurant.

Diani days and traveling ways

Even though the beach at Diani is really nice we ended up spending most of our time avoiding it thanks to the constant attention from the Diani Beach boys. I even had one guy try to tempt me to swap my socks for a wood carving. Wonder what they would have traded me for my skiddies? The only way to avoid the hassle was to stay in the apartment compound or to retreat to the other oasis of calm we found, 40 Thieves, a great beach bar and restaurant a few minutes down the road.

As well as avoiding the hawkers we've spent most of our time in Diani trying to arrange our onward travel plans. Because of the great time and the fantastic deal we had on our last safari we've again teamed up with Doc at Kenyan Adventures to plan our next one. This time we're crossing the boarder into Northern Tanzania to visit the Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti National Parks. Once again Doc has worked his magic and got us a deal that is by far the best we've been able to find.

We've also been trying to make plans for our onwards travel across the continent towards Cape Town. After two weeks in Africa we're finally getting more of a feel of things here. However; there are a few issues that make independent travel a hell of a lot more challenging than in Asia.

The first problem is transport. Unless you have your own vehicle or can afford to hire a car or driver then getting around can be problematic. That leaves us with public transport, where there's a real lack of infrastructure. Most of the train lines are no longer operational, those that are frequently experience breakdowns and delays that have been known to last for days.

Going by road is the only real option for the majority of the continent. The main inter-city routes aren't too bad as they are usually served by express buses which, if you're lucky, may be fairly sensible.

However, once you get off the inter-city routes the main option is the matatu or dalla-dalla, an overcrowded mini bus which is usually driven at break neck speed with scant regard for passenger safety or the rules of the road. Most of them are maxed up and emblazoned with a bad boy name like "Ultimate Power", "Death or Glory" or "Manchester Roony".

There were a couple of classic African journeys that we were looking forwards to doing; the 3 day trip down Lake Malawi on the Ilala and the Tazara train line across Tanzania. However; trying to arrange the connections using public transport has been a complete logistical nightmare.

The second big problem that we have encountered is that the accommodation at the budget end of the market is pretty dreadfull and usually has the ambience of somewhere midway between a doss house, knocking shop or prison. Anything that is to the (fairly modest) standards that we've had in Asia is usually vastly overpriced and way out of our budget.

The third problem is security. Everywhere we've been and most of the places we're going to are listed as unsafe once the sun sets (and a fair few of them aren't much cop during the day either). Although having the continual fear of being mugged keeps you on your toes it does have the effect of curtailing your enjoyment a little. We don't really know how real the threat is but we're certainly not going to risk finding out. Especially when the guide books and most of the locals warn you of the potential danger.

One of the other big problems with using public transport is that the bus stations, where you start and end your journey, are often highlighted as the worst places in town for robbery, muging and scams. Not really the ideal place to be wandering around with all your bags, money and passport looking a little lost.

In light of all these problems we've decided that it is easier, less hassle, cheaper and safer to join an overland expediton. We'll be teaming up with a truck run by African Trails which left London a couple of moths ago and is heading overland all the way to Cape Town.

So once we finish our safari to Ngorongoro and the Serengeti we'll carry on by ourselves for a couple of weeks as we continue down through Tanzania to Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar. Then we'll meet up with the overland truck and push onto Victoria Falls or, if things go well, as far as Swakopmund on the Atlantic coast of Namibia. We then plan to try again on our own, heading South, until we meet up with our next visitors, June and Brett, in Cape Town at the end of August.

Diani Beach and the beach boys

After the excitement of the safari we headed out to Diani Beach to "try" and relax for a few days. Diani is a fairly small beach resort on the East coast of of Kenya which faces onto the Indian Ocean 20km South of Mombasa.

The beach front is dominated by flashy hotels used by package tour companies. Because of the proliferation of expensive hotels there's hardly any accommodation on the beach at the budget end of the market. Thanks to a recommendation from Doc at Kenyan Adventures we're staying at a place called Wayside Apartments. The apartments are self contained flats that are normally let out for long term rental. However, because it's low season and incredibly quiet they are doing a short term deal for us. The big novelty is that we now have a kitchen for the 1st time in over 7 months. It's just like being back at our flat in Brum, only with animal print decor and worse plumbing.

Even though we are now more than 400km from Nairobbery it still isn't safe to be out on our own after dark. If we want to go anywhere in the evening we have to get a taxi, even if it's just a couple of minutes down the road.

It's safe during the day but you then have to put up with the constant attention from the beach boys, which makes relaxing on the beach quite a challenge. The second you go anywhere near the beach you are trialed by swarm of up to half a dozen hawkers.

After extensive anthropological studies we think that we have been able to divide the Diani beach boys into two distinct sub species. Firstly there is the lesser spotted beach boy - who is invariably the captain of a sailing boat and can take you snorkelling (even though the water is silted up at this time of year) or dolphin spotting. Then there is the greater spotted beach boy, or to give them their latin name, hawker-irritatus-maximus.

On our 1st walk down the beach, which was only 20 minutes there and back we were offered the following; 1 massage, a coconut to drink, some "lovely" shells, some shell based jewelry, 2 trips to go snorkelling, 2 trips to watch dolphins, a boat trip to Wasini Island, 2 requests to "come and look at my stall", one request to "come into my shop", a coconut carved to look like a pair of birds, to have our photo taken with (pretend) Masai warrior, at least 3 offers to carve our names into wooden key rings, a carved wooden elephant, some marijuana and a camel ride. Oh, and not forgetting the bloke who outright made a demand for some money so that he could "have lunch without having to steal food". That's what I call a nice relaxing walk.

In addition to the beach boys, between March and December the beach is covered in seaweed and there's also one hell of a rip tide. In spite of all this it's still a lovely spot!

On safari - Tsavo West and Amboseli National Parks

The reason why we ended up in Voi was to meet with our safari guide/driver who was coming in the opposite direction from the beach resort of Diani. We had booked a 3 day / 2 night safari to the Tsavo West and Amboseli National Parks with a company called Kenyan Adventures.

After an hours driving from Voi we reached the gates of Tsavo West and made our way through the park to our lodge, the Kilaguni Serena Lodge. After the hell that was the Vision Guest House in Voi it felt like we had died and gone to heaven. The accommodation and it's location were absolutly stunning, built around a watering hole with a view of the Chyulu Hills and Mt Kilimanjaro on the horizon.

The lodge dining room was a huge open sided affair that faced directly onto the watering hole. Sitting down to eat was like being in front of the worlds biggest widescreen TV that was stuck on the Discovery Channel. It was quite hard to concentrate on your food what with all the animal activity outside.

The game drives into Tsavo West were also spectacular. Even without the animals the landscapes were really dramatic, sweeping savanna peppered with volcanic hills and massive lava flows.

We saw some stunning wildlife including elephants, giraffe, zebra, hippos, hyrax, warthog, buffalo, baboon and more types of antelope than you could shake a Masai stick at.


We were also incredibly lucky to see a black (hook-lipped) rhinoceros. Our guide hadn't seen one in the park for years, since they moved the parks last 49 rhinos to the Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary. Unfortunately we only got photos of its bum!

We also visited the Mzima Springs which produces 93 million gallons of water a day and is the main source of fresh water for the city of Mombasa.

The spring looked like a beautiful spot for a cooling dip but unfortunately the crystal clear waters were out of bounds as they were teeming with hippos and crocodiles.

We had to be escorted by a guide armed with a rifle just in care any of the local wildlife got too friendly.

The following day we made our way from Tsavo West out to Amboseli, stopping by the Shetani lava flow on the way.

Unlike Tsavo, Amboseli is fairly barren and mainly consists of flat plains and swamp land. This makes spotting the wildlife a lot easier but means that the scenery is not as spectacular. The other big disadvantage is the wind and dust storms that sweep across the plains mean that you spend most of the evening picking mounds of sand out of your orifices.

Thanks to the lack of vegetation we were able to see some of the larger predators that weren't visible in Tsavo, including; spotted hyena, cheetah and a very close encounter with a lion.

Liz also got to live out her Torquay / Fawlty Towers / Basil Fawlty fantasy and see the "herds of wilderbeest sweeping majestically across the plains".

You definately could't see that view from a Torquay hotel bedroom window.

Although not quite as swanky as at Tsavo, the Amboseli Serena Lodge was still far plusher than our usual standard of accommodation and again provided more wildlife encounters. We were quite suprised to find a stampede of hundreds of startled zebra and wildebeest charging through the lodge garden when we returned from our afternoon safari at sundown.

The lodge gardens were also home to a troupe of vervet monkeys, of which the male of the species has bright blue testicles!

We also saw a rather scary looking giant beetle that was about three inches long, trumping the one that we saw on Gili Trawangan.

In the evening the hotel also put on some entertainment, what one of the waiters referred to as the "Masai disco". Que lots of shouting, jumping and beating of sticks from the local tribe of Masai warriors.

We had an amazing time on our safari and it more than made up for the difficulties of our first few days in Africa. Driving through the savanna, watching the wildlife from our open top Landcruiser was certainly a fantastic experience.

However; we thought it was all going to go wrong at the very end of the trip. We were making our way to Diani Beach in the safari truck when the driver pulled in for lunch at the very same restaurant in Voi where we had our strange dinner earlier in the week. We feared another 2 hour wait for some inedible mutant food. Thankfully they had a buffet on so there was no waiting and you could see how odd the food was before you ordered.

Avoid Voi

Unfortunately we weren't able to escape Nairobi without going into the city centre unless we spent about £100 hiring a car and driver for the day. So to get to Voi, our next destination, we had to take a cab into the city so that we could get on one of the long distance buses.

So as to minimise the amount of time we had to spend in the "danger zone" the cab was to drop us off directly at the bus. Things only went wrong when we couldn't find the bus office where our map said it should have been. After half an hour of aimless driving around the only option was to get out of the taxi and try and find it on foot. The thing that made me really nervous about leaving the safe confines of our car was that River Road area, where the buses leave from, is highlighted in our guide book as the most notorious part of the city. Just to reassure us further, there was a warning poster featuring a picture of someone being mugged there on the notice board of our hotel in Karen. After a buttock clenching dash around the streets we eventually made it to the bus just minutes before it left, thankfully, with our lives still intact. It was only when were safely on the bus that Liz decided to tell me about the article in the morning paper that detailed a mass riot and police shooting that happened in the surrounding streets the previous night.

The five and a half hour bus journey to Voi was like a mini safari in itself. From the comfort of our coach we saw baboon, wildebeest, zebra and even giraffes grazing at the side of the road.

We had planned to stay in Voi at the Tsavo Park Hotel but decided go somewhere else when they wanted to charge us $60 a night to stay. $60 was way over our backpacker budget, especiallly when the upper 2 floors of the hotel resembled building site and it looked like they hadn't finished putting the roof on.

We ended up at a hotel next door called Vision Guest House which was just too horrible to describe in any detail. The Karen Camp used to be a brothel but we're not sure if the Vision Guest House still is!

As well as shoddy hotels Voi is probably the only place we've been to where the food was as bad in Burma/Myanmar. We weren't sure if it was safe for us to be on the street in Voi after dark so we decided to eat early in order to be back at our lovely hotel/brothel before sundown.

Once again our best made plan failed, this time when it took over two hours for the kitchen to rustle up a pizza and a toasted cheese sandwich. The best of it was that when the food finally did arrive neither dish contained any cheese (which is surely a novel way of making a toasted cheese sarnie). To further add to the culinary adventure the chef had decided to make the pizza base out of pastry and fashion it so that it looked like a mutant pie that had been in a traffic accident. Even Heston Blumenthal couldn't create food this weird.

By the time we had eaten our dinner (o.k. so we forced most of it onto the local stray cats) we then had a very nervous, thankfully incident free, walk back in the dark.

We can safely say it's been one of the more unusual days that we've had so far on our trip.

It began in Africa-ca-ca

After nearly 7 months on the road in Asia it was time for the 9 hour hop across the Indian Ocean to the East coast of Africa.

We weren't really looking forwards to Nairobi before we arrived in Kenya. It has a pretty bad reputation and is regarded as the most dangerous city in Africa (if not the world). Robbery, mugging, theft, car jacking and random violence are a daily occurrence in the city that is affectionately nicknamed Nairobbery.

Even the taxi driver, who picked us up at dawn from the airport, had to wait until after sunrise to fill his car up with petrol because it was too dangerous to do it whilst it was dark.

To try and avoid being bashed on the head we're actually staying in the suburb of Karen which is a big expat community 10 miles South of the city centre. Although it's very calm, leafy and green in Karen it's still a bit disconcerting when you drive around as most of the properties have Fort Knox style security with 8ft high walls and razor wire. Quite a few are also protected by machine gun wielding security guards. The houses in Karen are mostly big English style villas set in private grounds. It feels a lot like Edgebaston only with more weaponry.

The hotel we are staying at is a funny little place called Karen Camp which is very different to the accommodation that we've been used to in Asia. We are in a guarded secure compound that, as well as having the usual accommodation, is also used as a stop off point for overland expedition trucks who pitch tents in the garden. The owner informed us that the property was a brothel before it was converted into a hotel. We're not sure whether the neighbours preferred it when the place was overrun with prostitutes rather than grubby travelers.

Once we had plucked up the courage to leave the hotel compound we headed out to the AFEW Giraffe Centre where we got to see and hand feed some very dribbly Rothchild's giraffes.

We also met some mini-Masai . . .

On our way back to the hotel we stopped off at the Karen Blixen Museum. Karen Blixen, who the suburb of Karen is named after, is the Danish author of Out Of Africa and lived here between 1914 and 1931.

Other than that we've been spending our time at the mecca that is the Karen shopping centre, trying to use their flaky internet connection to arrange our escape without actually going into Nairobi city centre.

Blog updates

We're not sure how easy it's going to be to update the blog on a regular basis for the next couple of months. The computers and Internet connection here in Nairobi/Karen are woeful and I don't think they're likely to improve much. We'll just have to see how things go as we head further South towards Cape Town. We'll postdate our entries whenever we arrive somewhere with enough grunt!