Livin' it up in Livingstone No. 22

On 11th May we waved farewell to Tanzania and set off on our 45 hour long train journey to Zambia. The Tazara train described as being slower than a snail, chugged its way through the rugged Tanzanian countryside. We decided to treat ourselves to our own compartment, which had four beds, a table and not much else, but meant we didn’t have to deal with the grunts and snores from people at night. We did however have four traditionally built (big mamas) Zambian ladies in the compartment next to us, who chatted to each other in a volume matching their waistline! This was a good time for us to reflect on the parts of the journey we had been through and what was still to come. The first part of the journey took us through the Selous national park, where we were told we may catch a glimpse of zebra, giraffe and elephants. Due to the fact we were passing through at night we weren’t fortunate enough to see any game. We did however see some baboons and ververt monkeys sitting in the trees watching the train go by. The train journey was a pleasant alternative to some of the long, bumpy and cramped bus rides we’ve taken.

Our first stop in Zambia was the bustling capital Lusaka. The city had a really good feel and reminded us of being back in Malawi. This part of our trip we were supposed to be spending 2 weeks staying with a friend’s parents who run a lodge in Kafue national park. Due to their very busy schedule and being in South Africa we decided to venture on down to Livingstone early.

The town of Livingstone is synonymous with the seventh natural wonder of the world – Victoria Falls or Mosi-oa-Tunya, which means ‘the smoke that thunders’. Named after the famous explorer, David Livingstone who was the first European to set eyes on the falls. We stayed in a backpackers called Fawlty Towers for the first few nights, and for those of you who have seen the comedy series, we were glad it wasn’t run by someone like Basil! On our first day we ventured to the national park to view the mighty Vic Falls. We were free to roam around the park to gain a number of different views of the falls, along with many baboons that came hurtling down the paths towards us (and we quickly jumped out of their way)! The sheer scale of the falls left us awe-struck and speechless (something that doesn’t happen very often to Nat). Due to the high water levels of the falls after the rainy season, the rising thunderous mist and spray completely drenched us to the bone. There was a bridge we walked across to get a good view of the falls, which felt like walking through a tropical thunderstorm and wearing a raincoat was pretty much useless.

After speaking to some fellow travellers we were advised that one of the most exhilarating activities would be to get a microlight flight over the falls. So with this in mind we set off the following morning to experience the falls from a totally different perspective. For those of you who don’t know a microlight is pretty much a go-kart with a propeller at the back, attached to a hanglider. So with our jumpsuits on – attempting to look like someone from Top Gun, we headed off individually with our own pilots. Reaching a height of 1500 feet we flew right over the falls and were amazed at its sheer scale and magnitude.
A circular rainbow floated over the falls and we really felt privileged to get a view of the falls that Livingstone could have only dreamed of. Even though the flight was only 15 minutes it felt like a life time and we were lucky enough to view a herd of elephants, buffalo, hippos and even a crocodile lazing in the sun. As we landed the huge smiles on our faces said everything and we both agreed its one of the best experiences we’ve ever had.

Another item on the must do list in Livingstone is to visit the Royal Livingstone Hotel, which sits on the mighty Zambezi river close to the lip of Vic falls. Along with our American friend Steve we'd met at our backpackers we went to the Royal Livingstone to have sundowners. On the grounds of the hotel we passed a group of zebra, which looked as natural as cows grazing in the field. After feeling lucky enough to get so close to the Zebra, our luck continued when we spotted a giraffe with its baby grazing no more than 30 metres away from us. Whilst sipping our G&T's on the deck overlooking the falls we saw another beautiful African sunset melt in to the river. After a very civilised evening, on our journey back to Livingstone our taxi had to stop for a herd of elephant that were crossing the road in front of us. This topped of our day.

We decided as our final treat here in Livingstone we would return to the Royal Livingstone Hotel for a spot of high tea. The hotel transports you to a bygone era of British colonialism, with piano music being softly played in the background, zebra skin rugs and large oil painting of David Livingstone. The afternoon tea spread of mouth-watering cakes and scones was indulgent to say the least. Afterwards we joined a group of English friends we had made to go and view the highly recommended lunar rainbow over the falls. The lunar rainbow only occurs when there's a full moon and a large amount of mist and spray coming off of the falls. The light from the full moon illuminated the rainbow over the falls which was magical to see as this is usually the type of natural phenomenon you only get to see in the day.

Due to the vastness of Botswana and Namibia (the next countries on our itinerary) we decided to book an overland trip, which would take in a lot of the sights we wanted to see. As the truck only leaves Livingstone on June 2nd, we've spent a lot more time here than we originally planned but have kept ourselves busy as you can tell from all the things we've written about above.

We’re not sure when we’ll next get to update our adventures so we hope your all keeping well and getting ready for the World Cup. Cmon England!....and South Africa.

Love Nat and Kim xxx

Exotic Zanzibar No.21

Our second stop in Tanzania was at a small town called Mikindani, just a few miles north of Mtwara on the coast. Mikindani is full of history linked to the famous explorer David Livingstone and also the slave trade. There are buildings such as the slave market and the house that Livingstone resided in for some time, which have over the years fallen in to ruin but are now being restored with the help of a local charity.

In our last entry we mentioned how postive our initial experiences of Tanzania were, however sadly so, this was short lived. We were warned by many travellers that Tanzanian's are known to try and relieve you of alot more money that is deemed fair (commonly known as 'being ripped off'). This inevitably happened to us when buying our bus tickets to a place further up the coast called Kilwa, which was a 3-4 hour journey. After buying our tickets and chatting to some locals we discovered that the amount we had paid could have gotten us to Dar-es-Salaam (Dar), atleast a 10 hour journey!! This was later confirmed when at 6am we got on to the bus and everyone going to Dar had actually paid less than us - to say we were annoyed was an understatement. We decided in the end to miss Kilwa and head all the way to Dar that day and managed to get some of the money back owed to us.

We realise a recurring theme in our blog entries is writing about the challenging and bumpy bus rides - but really this journey was the worst we'd had so far. We arrived very tired on 27th April to Dar after 16 hours on the bus, and were very glad to crash in a nice clean bed. Although we realised it was still the rainy season in Tanzania, we hadn't quite expected the roads to turn in to rivers as the rain continued to fall for days. One of the hazards of trying to wade through the water on the roads is the many drains and potholes that are hidden, as Nat soon discovered when she found half her leg stuck in a drain with water past her knee - much to the amusement of some locals!

We soon made our way over to Zanzibar by ferry,which we were really looking forward to as we'd heard many great things about it. For the first couple of days we stayed with a friend, Luis, we'd made whilst travelling in Mozambique, who showed us some of the nicer bars and restaurants Zanzibar has to offer. One evening we went to Mercury's bar with his ex-pat friends, which is named after Freddie Mercury as he was born and grew up on Zanzibar; with Queen music playing in the background we won the quiz and celebrated with a couple of drinks.

We wandered through the historic Stone town, which has a mix Arabic and Indian buildings, and got lost exploring the narrow alleyways with people selling food and their crafts. Zanzibar was the first touristy place we'd really been to on our travels and on one hand this meant there was amazing food and all the ammenities you need which was a treat for us, however on the other hand this meant we paid inflated prices and got hassled alot by people trying to sell tours and their crafts.

We made our way north to a beach village called Nungwi and we made this place our home for 4 days as we were hoping to relax on the beach and get in some snorkelling. Despite the rain we still managed to enjoy our time there, as we met a good bunch of people to hang out with. We were extremely lucky to choose a great day to go on a snorkelling day trip along with the friends we'd made. A dhow (small local sailing boat) sailed us for a couple of hours to a gorgeous island called Mnemba, where we spent some time snorkelling with the tropical fish amongst some beautiful coral. We even saw the fish Dorey from the film 'Finding Nemo'. After having a lunch of freshly bbq'd fish and salad on a stunning stretch of white sandy beach we headed back on the Dhow. Being a sunny day out in the ocean unfortunately Kim got extremely burned and turned the colour of some of the bright red fish we'd seen.

Along with one of our friends we'd made Beth, whose from California, we decided on a change of scenary and headed for a small village called Jambiani on the south-east coast of the island. As its low season its very quiet, which suited us as we swam in the ocean and relaxed reading. After being approached by a local who we thought was trying to sell us another day trip, we stopped ignoring him when he mentioned the word food and all of us ears pricked up. He was inviting us to his home for dinner, for a small price to experience some local cuisine and hospitality.

After some chill out time on the beach it was time to head back to Stone town and before we had to leave we all managed to squeeze in a spice tour on our last day on the island. We were all pleasantly surprised how interesting the tour was and made us realise how little we actually knew about where our food comes from. Our vibrant guide encouraged us to guess what the different spices were and even have a taste, with cinnamon by far being our favourite.
We were all made elaborate accessories from coconut leaves such as crowns, earings and glasses. We even got to watch one of the locals scale a coconut tree within minutes, chop off some coconuts, cut them open and give us fresh coconut juice to drink.

We said our goodbyes to Beth and got on the overnight ferry ride to Dar, which was one experience we don't ever want to repeat. The ferry sat in the port for 6 hours hours before heading off, and to say the ocean was choppy is an understatement. Hearing people vomiting whilst the ferry was rocking vigorously, we were extremely happy when we eventually reached the port in Dar.

The last 2 days in Dar have been spent recovering from the ferry ride and we have booked our train tickets to Zambia, for the next exciting leg of our journey.

Lots of love,

Nat and Kim xxx

Life's a Beach No. 20

We left the historic and quaint Ilha de Mozambique on 16^th April and started our long journey north along the Indian Ocean coast. After parting ways with our Swiss friends, we headed to our next port of call, a small town on the coast called Pemba. We were warned that Pemba was home to many bizarre and unusual characters so we were a little apprehensive when arriving as to what or whom we would encounter. Luckily when we arrived at the lodge we were staying at, we met some friendly fellow travellers who we soon swapped stories and travel tips with. One couple, Michael and Michal from France and Israel respectively, had been travelling by public transport all the way down from Egypt and had experienced the real rough side of African travel. This put our minds at ease about our ‘road less travelled’ route that we were undertaking. Our time in Pemba was spent exploring the town and cooling off in the ocean along with all the local children who had their own method of recycling by making toys out of rubbish and plastic. Another common sight on the beach was seeing men carrying their days catch slung over their shoulder on their way to the fish market.

For some reason in Mozambique they like to travel early so we were up at an ungodly hour of 3.30am again for our onward journey. We decided to head off the beaten track to a small fishing village, called Pangane so the route to get there was once again more challenging. The last 60km of our journey was in a pick-up truck on a bumpy road and took 3 hours, but luckily as we are Mzungus we were given the front seats, but I’m sure for this privilege we were charged double the price! Pangane is set on a long palm lined sandy beach and looks like a paradise getaway. Our so-called beach bungalow was a small room made of stones and bamboo and great air-conditioning (holes in the walls), with no running water or electricity. However, having an amazing sea view and being metres away from the sea made up for our basic standard of living. We thought we’d spend our days lying on the beach, however due to it being soooooo hot we couldn’t lye out for longer than 15 minutes so we spent most of our time in the water, which was more like a bath. One day whilst swimming we noticed one of the local men stroll along the waters edge to these caves, which were exposed at low tide. We could see him crouching down and after some time he exited the cave and we soon realised this was the local toilet! High tide was their version of flushing the toilet so whilst swimming we were constantly on the look out for floating brown objects!

Something commonly seen in the northern region of Mozambique is women with their faces painted white called musiro as a mask to beautify their skin, and there were lots of women with this mask on their face in Pangane. As you can see from the photo one woman was happy to pose for us. As we were the only tourists in the area people were very interested in us, including some smaller creatures (a mouse and a large crab) that would rustle around in our bags at night. The crab we suspect was a little lost, as all of its friends were scuttling along the shoreline.

We were apprehensive about the next leg of our journey as it was going to be two solid days of travelling to make our way over the border to Tanzania. Both days were filled with hair raising and bum bruising bus rides. On the 4x4 truck that took us to the Tanzanian border we were accompanied by lots of locals and all their belongings and produce. Including one lady who was moving house so we had to make room on the truck for her bed, pots and pans and her luggage (all we didn’t have was the kitchen sink)! We’d heard the Mozambican immigration officials could be awkward to deal with. Kim was soon called in by one official who asked for any Mozambique currency we had left as a gesture of kindness (this ladies and gentleman is what we refer to as a bribe!) Luckily we only had a few coins left over, which he seemed content with.

To get from Moz to Tanzania we had to get a small boat over the Ruvuma river, and due to being the only border crossing, the captains of the boats thought they could charge whatever they wanted. We eventually managed to barter down to a reasonable price and by this point we just wanted to get to the other side. We were pleased that we’d made it to the border as we were warned it was an adventurous route to take so we felt a sense of achievement. But we were happy to be going to a country where they could speak some English, and because of our limited Portuguese we found this the biggest challenge so far.

After standing on the back of a pick-up truck for 2 hours we finally made it to Mtwara in Tanzania. Our initial feelings about Tanzania were positive as on our first night we were assisted by a local guy who helped us to order a meal and give us some travel advice.

A local form of transport in Mtwara is a three-wheeled motorbike, and for those of you who have travelled to Asia, they are exactly like motorised rickshaws and a great, cheap way to get around.

So we have made our way to the second country of our Southern Africa adventure and we’re looking forward to experiencing what lies ahead of us.

We hope you are all well and please keep us updated with your news back home.

Love Nat and Kim xxx