Da pictures time

Sunset at Waterfront in Livingstone/Zambia, although Livingstone wasn't my cup of tea the sunset was amasing.

the famous vic-falls view from the Zambian side, Simbabwe was unfortunatelly to dangerous to go to.

On the way to Malawi, it started to rain, this is how it looked like after the rain. Only a little bit flooded ;-)

And again the Vic-falls, they're just so beautiful aren't they? Unfortunatelly, I couldn't take a close up picture as my camera isn't waterproof

One of the lions on the lion's walk in Zambia. Isn't he a cutie? Would have loved to take him home.

More pictures to follow for the moment that's it. Hope you like it ;-)

Stay tuned

Home alone in Zanzibar

Hippo in the Okovango Delta, we did an early morning walk this day and were delighted to catch some Hippos bathing

Mick and Loz on Australia day, the Australians tend to get a bit excited about their national day ;-). Anyway, it was a great but rainy day for all of us

Finally, the pool at our campsite near to Chobe National Park

Jambo my friends

I hope life is good to you wherever you are.

As you can see I've once again taken my harddrive to the internetcoffe and uploaded some pictures. And I found a total new feature, at least to me, and am now able to put subtitles to my pictures. How exciting is that? ;-)

If anyone wonders I am still in Zanzibar enjoying the sweet island life. Although it is a bit awkward at the moment. Ruth left yesterday to go back to Switzerland for 2 months and I really felt quiete alone yesterday evening. Anyway, now I getting accustomed to the fact I'm on my 'own' and it is getting better :-).

Not much happened till my last blog entry. Except for the departure of Ruth. Yesterday Maliki gave her a drive to the airport and as there's nothing to do for me here I went along. We droped Ruth at the airport and were very late but she made it to the plane anyway. I expected we'd go back to Nungwi straight afterwards but of course we didn't. After all this is Africa ;-). So, Maliki's plan was quiet easy, go to Starehe meet some friends of his and then go an wash the car and then back to Nungwi but as even Zanzibar town is Africa everything turned out slightly different.

So, we went to Starehe (a local bar/restaurant/club) and met Maliki's friend Cholo, had a little chat and were ready to hit the road towards the carwash. If it weren't for Maliki's phone ringing we would have been there by one o'clock. However, the phone rang and we were sent on a mission by Khamis. We had to pick up some booze for the bar and we were supposed to pick up some papers somewhere in town. O.k. off we went to the bottle shop first, you have to set priorities ;-). We picked up the booze and tried to call the person to pick up the papers. As we couldn't reach him we decided to clean the car first so we went to the carwash which was really a modern one with a lift so the cars could be washed on the bottom (hm, don't remember the word for 'unterseite' in English, samahani). We gave the key to the carwash man and went for a strole through the quarter. I was introduced to the local luna park and the local driving school and was told not to smoke while standing on a petrol station's ground. Yes, yes. Hours later the car was clean and looked as good as new and we were verrrryyy proud we could drive around in a clean car ;-). Still we couldn't reach the paper person so we contacted the boss and he ordered us back to Nungwi. I felt a little bit like 007 actually. Juuuhhuuu.

My plan was to enjoy an afternoon at the beach but by the time we were back in Nungwi it was 5 p.m. and I decided it was too late for the beach so I went straight home.

You must think I'm having just lazy days here in Nungwi but this is not enterly true. Since Ruth left I have some responsebilities and am taking them quiet serious. So, for example every day at around 6.15 pm the chickens have to be let inside the house as 2 weeks ago we had an ants invasion and these nasty ants tried to eat the little chicks alive so Khamis and Ruth decided to have the chickens in the house. Which is cool but means someone has to let them in. As someone has to let them out in morning and I don't mind doing it, my wake up call is a 6 am. Although this morning I set my alarm to 6.15 a.m which wasn't a good idea because the chicks were up already and you don't want to know what chicks on the run in a house do and it isn't anything you want to see in the morning ;-). So, after letting them out back to bed again and I got up at 9 a.m. had my cup of coffee and went to do the groceries at the local supermarket, which I think is great by the way. Back home I was just about to cook my second cup of coffee when I rememebered there was another task of daily duties on my list. The coffee had to wait and watering the plants was set in progress.

You see, I'm quiet occupied here ;-). It's good to have something like a routine here, otherwise the days pass and in the evenings you wonder what you've done all day. I can at least say, I let out the chickens and watered the plants and let in the chickens again ;-)

That's all folks, hope you enjoyed and you stay tuned. Baadye

Oooppss, this wasn't supposed to be like that...Sorry. Our hobit Mick in Chobe National Park Botswana :-)

Zanzibar news

Jambo rafiki, habari?

I'm still fine and still in Zanzibar. It's hot hot hot and sometimes I wished a had a bit of the spring chill from Switzerland here. But this wish doesn't last long as I prefere the heat :-)

The last week or was it the week before? I was travelling the island. I went to Paje and Matemwe by local transport which was a great adventure and I'm going to do it again next week for sure. The eastcoast is verrrrry quiet and therefore very relaxing. Most locals speak Italian as the Italians rule the eastcoast. I stuck to English though and confused some of the locals with it.

Paje is more like Nungwi and I imagine it very crowed during high season. As it is low season at the moment I enjoyed a quiet stay in Paje. The beach is beautiful and I enjoyed long walks along the beach. The low tide on the eastcoast really is low tide and therefore you're not able to swim while low tide. I stayed at Kinazi Upepo which is a small hotel and perfect for single travellers. Although they don't seem to be used to single travellers as I had to repeat that I wanted a single room 4 to 5 times and then finally got my single room.

After spending one night in Paje I decided to move on to Matemwe which brought me back to Zanzibar town first as I there is not direct connection from Paje to Matemwe. Town was hot and crowed so I was looking for the quickets way to the Dala Dala station for Dala Dalas to the north-east. Once safe in the Dala Dala I enjoyed an 1 1/2 hour ride to Matemwe where I walked to the village to get to my accommadation for the night. I stayed at Sele's which is a cute little guesthouse in the middle of all these big resorts in Matemwe. It is located at beach and has its own little beach area. At Sele's the same problem as in Paje occured they couldn't understand why I wanted a single room. And they didn't really speak English so they wanted to charge me with $ 60.00 for a single room. I told them: Hapana, hapana and instited to talk to someone fluent in English. They ended up in calling Sele and he understood what I wanted after I told him 3 times.

I got my room and made my way to the beach. As it was soooo relaxing and as there was no disturbance by beach boys or massage ladies I decided to stay for 2 nights and enjoyed them very much.

After two nights I had enough of the silence and went back to Nungwi. I made my way back to the Dala Dala station in Matemwe where I had to wait for an hour. Unfortunatelly, the sky decided it was time for rain during me waiting there and when the Dala Dala finally arrived I was soaked and so were my clothes. Anyway,the ride back was as much fun as it was before and when I finally arrived back in Nungwi my clothes were dry and dirty ;-).

Back in Nungwi, back to beach life routine. Reading and hanging around in the morning, beach time in the afternoon and drinks at Cholo's at night. It is good to have people around again. But anyway, my next travel is planned already and will take me to the south-east of Zanzibar.

I'll keep you updated in the meantime take care and stay tuned

Pictures another try :-)

Good morning folks,

here some more pictures, the first one is a bush woman from Ghanzi where we stayed for one night and went on a walk with these amasing people. The second one was our first lion sighting at Etosha National Park in Namibia. Isn't she beautiful? Number three is for Jeannette the Elephant bumb I fell in love with and I still want to take an elephant home as for me they're the most amasing creatures in the world with their beautiful eyes and their calm way. Finally two pictures of my hotel in Cape Town "The Fritz Hotel" where I enjoyed my first night in Africa.

More to follow...stay tuned :-)

Pictures 2.

Jammbooo folks

hope you're o.k. I'm greaaattttt. Just came back from eastcoast Zanzibar where I was enjoying a few relaxing days without beach boys and maaassaaaaggeeeee women. It was fanstatic although after 4 days I started to miss Nungwi already and of course the talking, I didn't really talk to anyone at the eastcoast, not because they weren't nice just because I needed some quietness :-).

As you might have discovered I uploaded some pictures again. The first one are kids from the townships in Capetown and the second one is me in the desert of Namibia. Actually that's the spot where the cell with Jennifer Lopez was filmed. Don't I look exactley as she does? ;-)

So, do you want to know the end of my journey with the overlander? Sema? I have to finish it don't I? And then there is going to be Zanzi stories only and soon hopefully some stories from Uganda although I'm a bit scared to go there and find my way on my own.

Anyway, let's get back to the overlander.

After our last night at Snake Park we had to get up bloody early the next day and it was a sad start as we all knew this was our last day together on this trip. We had breakfast (my head bloody pumping) and they forced me to have scrambeld eggs although I rather hadn't. It was good though because after it I just felt fabulous ;-). Els on the other hand didn't feel well at all, pole sana. So we packed up our stuff and a lot of sad faces climbed into the truck. The journey towards the end began. We had a long drive to the border to Kenya, at the border we went through the usual procedure of getting our visa etc. I met a nice police officer who tried to teach me some swahili in the short time we were there :-). Funny things happen in Africa ;-). When all the formalities were over we went on to Nairobi. Where we arrived at around 4 p.m.

As I didn't really had a place to stay in Nairobi one of the group invited me to stay in her room as she had a single with 2 beds. I accepted gratefully and sneaked in her room. After checking in and unpack some stuff we went down to the reception again to say goodbye to the crew. That was the sadest part. And what do you reckon, did I cry? Ah yes of course I cried, when do I not cry if farewells are near? Bloody, I'll never change ;-). The rest of the group, except for Sauce, Nikki, the Australian girls and the crew went out for dinner this evening at Carnevore. And if you ever travel to Nairobi you should go and eat there, it's bloody delicious and I loved it.

I decided to stay for another night in Nairobi as Kate and Mike were there for one other day and I thought it would be nice to explore the city with them. And it was fun. We went to the animal orphanage where we could pet a cheetah, we went to see the giraffes and the house of the writer of 'Out Of Africa' unfortunately, I forgot her name.

It was amasing and I was very glad I decided to stay. Until the evening. As I took the room under another name as my own because actually no one of the hotel should know of my existence as I sneaked in, the people from the hotel called me the name I was registered to the hotel. And these people knew that me, actually the other me, was supposed to leave in the evening and had arranged a pick up. So they contacted the travel agency and the travel agency told them that yes I was booked on a flight that evening to London and that I was not to miss it....holy crab. So the lies begin. I told them that I've decided to stay for another night in Nairobi and go home the next day, that my friends will go with my transfer to the airport as they need one and I don't and on and on and on. They looked verrryyyy suspicious and I almost told them that everything was a big lie and that we cheated on them and that we were bad, bad people and will never do it again but fortunately, the receptionst asking all these questions left by the evening so we decided not to tell anyone what we've done. Mike and Kate left at around 8 for the airport and I waved them goodbye and went straight to my room and stayed there until the next morning when I had to go to the airport myself. When I checked out I had to sign the guestbook under a wrong name and as it was bloody early in the morning I almost signed with my name. But somehow my brain was working already and so even I escaped happy happy ;-).

I went to the airport and flew straight to Zanzibar and since then I'm here enjoying the island and the home of Khamis and Ruth. More news to follow, now I've to write some mails...samahani...

Back in Snake Park

Jambo guys, sorry for being so lazy about the blog recently. It is just too hot here in Zanzibar at the moment and it takes a lot of effort to do other stuff than going to the beach and jump into the water.


Anyway, I left u at Ngorongoro.

After the whole rope business we went on with our drive through the crater which provides food and water for a vast variety of animals. On the game drive through Ngorongoro we saw two male lions one of them with a beautiful grown mane looking like being part of the Lion King the other one slightly younger but as beautiful as the old one. We saw hippos, flamingos, rhinos, elephants, zebras and wilderbeast. It was amasing. We spent half a day at Ngorongoro including having lunch at one of the lakes in the crater. We were told to have lunch inside the cars as there were birds, big birds I must say, who were keen to steal our food. As I experienced this before I obeyed and stayed in the car while eating. Anyway, there were a few people not caring and one of them actually lost his sandwich to the birds much to our amusment. As soon as we've finished lunch we got on the way back to the camp site at the edge of Ngorongoro. From where we started our journey back to the Snake Park in Arusha.

We left our driver behind in a village close to the crater as he was ill the day we left for Serengeti and was suspected to suffer Malaria. Our tourleader therefore drove the truck. So when we crossed through the village where our driver stayed we were all anxious to know if he was fine again. We met him at a petrol station in the village. It turned out he was still shaky but feeling much better and after all he didn't suffer from Malaria but from a very bad cold. We were very happy about the news.

George then drove us back to Snake Park. As we knew our last night of the trip will be in Snake Park we started to plan the last night which of course had to be a big night. And so it was. Once arrived at Snake Parke we set up our tents quickly and then lined up for showers. There were at least 5 trucks at the camp and the whole camp site provided 3 showers only so imagine the line in front of the showers.

Having showered and feeling fresh we waited for dinner as it was the last night Susan didn't has to cook. The crazy dutch and I decided to have our first drinks before dinner as waiting is easier with a drink in your hand. We decided to have a Konyagi night and therefore started with Konyagi. By the time dinner was served we were a bit tipsy already and had a good laugh while eating. After dinner the drinking went on till late at night and till we almost weren't able to stand anymore. Our group once again proved to be a loud one. We did a lot of singing Hakuna Matata was sung a hundred times followed by 'Something's wrong' by K's Choice. Which no one believed is a real song. But it is. Google it. Els and I performed our elephant dance and convinced some people to do a bolognese with us. The Acacia people once again made fun of the crazy Intrepid and we once again didn't really care and went on behaving crazy and inappropriate.

The next day breakfast was a quiet one and espacially Els didn't feel good. We packed our things quietly and took our seats in the truck. Off we went to the Kenyan border.

To be continued as beach time is near...stay tuned