Africa

About this blog

Hello Family, Friends, and new friends I've met while travelling,

I thought it was due time to let you know what stage in my travels I'm up to. To those of you whom I have already seen in person, you may skip to the end where I will wish you a Happy New Year!

So I've been back this weekend to London, staying at Juju's house. Mum came up to London to get some over-due cuddles and we all caught up with the Linton cousins on friday over a big brazilian dinner- Mum's home cooking - much missed. Today, we went for a lovely walk on southbank at sunset. I also went along to the southbank book fair with Matt, to gather some essential reading for the onward trip. As some of you know, I've been carrying more books than clothes, and being without reading material makes me sulk like a child, so I'm glad Matt had the sense to march me down to a cheap-book-paradise!

So, back to the past 2 months, I ventured off to Egypt on the second week of December, just as Mari was getting ready to set off to Brazil. We did a comprehensive tour of Cairo and Luxor, with 16 or so other varied travellers. It was a great experience to see the Ancient sites, though the temple of Karnak was my favourite site, it was so extensive and grand leaving me with an awed impression of the scale of Egyptian feats, obviously, the pyramids and the temple of Hatshepsut, along with the newly discovered princes tombs at the Valley of the Queens were mesmerising. I was naturally incredibly blown away with the King Tut burial masks and gold painted sarcophagi. I'm so glad that I finally got to see the sites that have captivated my imagination since early school days. I also enjoyed a sunset cruise on the Nile at Luxor, on a traditional felucca.

I really enjoyed my occasional runs with Shortie, while I was staying with them, firstly at their home outside Cape Town, so we had a wonderful view of the vineyards and mountains. It was just as beautiful as Lake Como. The run was all through the Hooper's vineywards and the neighbour's, going up and down hills and dirt tracks, although it was only 9am it was pretty warm outside already and the run was tragic on my part. In fact, Shortie, was in much better shape than me. So, he started going up this near vertical hill, and in my head I thought...."Oh My, this is crazy!?" but bravely said nothing, and prepared my self for the sheer pain, and Shortie stopped and said... "Just kidding". Lol. He's such a joker! I thought I my heart would break out in a tap dance with relief!

When we were in a town called Swellendam, we stayed at a guest house called Schoone Oordt. Look it up online, it's beautiful. Charmian, thank you so much for the recommendation, Alison was lovely and friendly that I wanted to stay longer. Then we trooped off to Knysna for 2 nights, which was beautiful, especially at sunset at the headlands look out path. We continued to Chalumna, near East London for new year with the Hoopers. It was such a prime location for sincere chilling out, floating down the river with the current to the sea, catching some rays on the beach, and although I didn't manage to do any fishing myself, I did enjoy my observation post and camera donning role.

Cape Town is beautiful!!! It reminds me of Rio, in the sense of a major urban area compromised between mountains and sea, the natural setting is sensational, it really is one of those phenomenal places. I didn't want to leave. Between the neaby beach life, the town itself, and the rolling green hills and vineyards of stellenbosch. I'm in love. I wish I could work there for a year. I really doubt that there are many places that can incite/inspire this response. Though, Juju and I both know that San Fran is going to have a life-altering effect..... So, I didn't go cliff jumping in the end, although I'm still keen to find out which cliff it is that people are inclined to jump along the Cape coast so that I can test out my hard-core alter ego whenever I return to Cape Town.

So back to the begining, regarding Zanzibar.....the arrival was rather bombastic. No joke intended. We got a speedy 1 hour ferry to the Island from Dar-Es-Salaam harbour, and it was one of those ferries that's rather powerful, the whole thing was bouncing from wave top to wave top, the contents of my stomach, (thankfully empty) aside from the pepsin, was being churned around like a rag doll in a washing machine. Or perhaps a plastic bag in a hurricane. It was a rollercoaster ride. I was glued to my seat, and didn't dare flinch a muscle when my visa entry form flew away from my hands. Madness. Unfortunately, that was the highlight, well, that and the awesome pizza-like local food I had from a night-time stall. In the main square they have bahakas with night lamps and the locals make all sorts of food, including squeezing fresh sugar cane for juice right there. It was a such a serious throw back to Acampamento Prisma, in Brazil, when we had some freshly squeezed sugar cane juice there, I remember it so well. Anywho, Zanzibar, was pretty (ish), way way too hot and humid, I had a nap every day, on the rood-top veranda, the only place that had an inkling of a breeze! Where I managed to finish my book, 'The Girls who Kicked the Hornet's nest', mum you have got to read the trilogy, I can't stress enough how excellent they are. Other than that, there really was nothing to do, see and so I won't waste any more time on that one.

Next was Pemba, great to hear portuguese, even if the accent was sometime tricky to master, and master it I did not. Mum, you will be duly glad to note that I found a place to have cochina and croquete. They were excellent, to my highly deprived self, although in reality they may well have been mediocre, I would have paid a king's ransom for them anyway! hehe. Only found one place that served feijoada, they ran out of beans. I very nearly cried. No word of a lie. I'd been banging on about having some beans well before the plane landed in Mozambique, I'd even been banging on about how one mouthful would make up for the crummy food in Zanzibar. No go. Gutted. Moving on, we had some good shell fish as predicted, and hung out at a great beach shack which had a live band in the evenings, playing.....no wait for it......south african music, yes really! It was excellent....as were the caipiroskas. Not great was the sea swim, too many sea urchins...I was mortally afraid of catching one of my little toes on them, and so was swimming more of a doggie-paddle than seasoned swimmer strokes. I also swam in a way that carried me as far as the beach so that my exit was more like a beached whale than graceful ursula andress. Darn it.

Moving on to Cape Town, (oh yeah, I'm pretty sure that the food poisoning originated from a dodgy tuna sandwich issued to passengers on the mozambiquan airlines...n.b.to-self... don't eat their airplane food ever again!) I went on the tour bus on my own, dad was still in bed, I was ferried into town by Debbie and Shortie's son John, who also showed my a competative vineyard, very stylish, sadly I did not wine tasting as I decided to abstain from consuming anything but water till I felt better....I lasted until 6pm, when I had some try toast....I was rather proud of myself.

So the bus tour took me through the centre, showed us the old beach line before much of the land was reclaimed from the sea, much of the new high-rise business buildings are in the new section, then we zoomed past historic District 6, the Castle/Fort, then on to Table Mountain, the beaches and seapoint, and the Victoria and Alfred waterfront, past the goverment buildings and over to the company's gardens. It was a boiling hot day and I managed to keep covered up - mari you were in my throughts throughout both because of Cape Town and I was sure that if I'd burnt I'd never hear the end of it.

I know that I'm missing a lot of information out but I simply don't have enough internet time to fill you all in.

I'm in Bangkok airport now, on the way to Siem Reap. I'm so excited as Mari told me all about Cambodia years ago and I've been itching to go ever since.

Emerald, I'll think of you when I get to Saigon! That too will be satisfying to finally to images, tastes, smells, and ambiance bringing to life all the stories you told me about your experience in Vietnam. I've also read up a bit on the Vietnam war so that I can better appreciate the experience with that vital context. I think the underground tunnels will be particularly gruelling, I read too many details about the tactics used by the Vietcong to fuel various nightmares.

Over the past few weeks, I saw tigers at Bandhavgarh tiger park, bungy jumped off Blourkans Bridge - the highest bungy jump in the world - which was insane yet i couldn't wipe the smile off my face for days - , went up table mountain, sat in front of the Taj Mahal for a classic Princess Diana pose, went to Phuket and sat on the beach from the film 'the beach' - thinking of Juju the entire time, as she's fond of that film. I've eaten far too much delicious indian, thai and south african cuisine, but naturally it was worth it. I've been to a tailors in Phuket who measured me up for two custom made suits, which looked all too professional -Mum I honestly didn't recognise myself in the mirror, and I thought of you...you might get emotional when you see me in a suit, I actually look like a grown up not a troll in costume. I'd love to hear from family and friends, as I feel oddly out of touch, please drop a line to let me know how you are.

Debbie and David Hooper - Thank you so much for having us to stay for Christmas and New Year, it was a memorable first trip to SA, and I'll tell yo that I'm absolutely coming back.

Maxine - Congratulations on the birth of your daughter Stella! I'm so happy for you.

Maryann - Congrats on the birth of Sarina, 18 hours sounds like...well.... it sounds like it probably was! Well done for getting through it. I can't wait to see you all!

Melissa - Congratulations on the birth of Iris - she is utterly adorable! I can't wait to meet her when I return to London in May.

Mum, Mari, Ju......miss you like you wouldn't believe.

All my love, Vivi x