Category: Africa

  • A Feast for the Senses

    A Feast for the Senses

    Kampala was a noisy, busy, chaotic city We were having to carefully plan our route wherever we wanted to go as driving through the traffic was a slow and, frankly, nerve-wracking experience But the city was packed full of interesting buildings and fascinating history and we were enjoying every minute We had already seen palaces,…

  • Impenetrable Gorillas

    Impenetrable Gorillas

    I had been awake since 3:30am watching the clock. Eventually my alarm went off at 5:45am and I leapt out of bed in the pitch dark with a big grin on my face. Today was gorilla day! By the time I was up, dressed and down at the lodge, Moses had already printed our permits…

  • Finding Utopia

    Finding Utopia

    After a long wait to see whether we could get gorilla permits, the public holidays were finally over and Moses was all set to drive into town to see what he could sort out for us. So we gave 5.5 million Ugandan Shillings in cash to someone we had only met two days before and…

  • The Pearl of Africa

    The Pearl of Africa

    We were feeling rather schizophrenic. Rwanda was a breath-takingly, jaw-droppingly spectacular country and my heart races even now when I think back on our time there. But it was also small and after only two weeks we were running out of things to do. Unlike Namibia, Rwanda did not feel like home so we weren´t…

  • A Rwandan Spectacular

    A Rwandan Spectacular

    It is impossible to do justice to a country like Rwanda through words or even photographs. Compared with actually being there and experiencing it first hand in full 3D technicolour, everything else I can say or show you pails into two dimensional black and white. I am sure something changed inside me whilst we were…

  • The Land of 1,000 Hills

    The Land of 1,000 Hills

    Lake Victoria was a long drive from the Kondoa Irangi Rock Paintings and we had been unable to find a campsite anywhere in between. There were a few wild camps marked on IOverlander but none had been visited for years and it all seemed very risky. But with no choice we decided to just drive,…

  • Lord James of Stirchley

    Lord James of Stirchley

    After two relaxing days at our fascinating eco lodge at the foot of Kilimanjaro we decided to drive further round on the mountain road to the western face. We were aiming for the Simba Farm campsite which fellow travellers had said was luxurious. The first thing that struck us as we drove was how much…

  • Mountains in the Mist

    Mountains in the Mist

    After two lovely weeks on Zanzibar, arriving back in Dar es Salaam was an assault on our senses. The crossing had been a little rough and we were feeling slightly sea sick. As we disembarked, the port was heaving with people – taxi drivers trying to grab our bags and hustle us into their waiting…

  • Zanzibar

    Zanzibar

    Despite having had almost no sleep we were up, dressed and sitting at the rooftop restaurant of our noisy hotel well before 9am Breakfast was fat balls, noodles and pineapple – an interesting and typically African combination. After sampling the delights of our hotel restaurant, we went through our own fridge and cupboards either eating,…

  • Beaches and History

    Beaches and History

    Dar es Salaam is not the most interesting, or the prettiest, of cities We had spent three nights there getting Henry sorted out, stocking up on food, fuel and cash and having a couple of very nice meals out. I had even splashed out and treated myself to a new iPhone 14 – bought purely…