Southern Uganda; traveling with a lack of money and seating….

A few hours later, I caught a taxi from the border post to the next town, approximately 100km away. It cost $5. Bargain? You say. Well, I shared it with a few others. Eight others actually. Nope, not a minivan, a normal sized car. Four men crammed in the back, myself and another man shared the front passenger seat, whilst the eighth passenger managed to share a seat with the driver. “Hey Mzungu” asked the quiet man next to me. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking you are all crazy” I said. I got eight little “He he he” as a reply.

When we reached police roadblocks, it became a group effort to conceal the number of passengers traveling in the vehicle. Of course, given the lack of space, our efforts were poor and fooled no one. Each police officer we crossed gave us all a firm screaming to, before waving our car on. No one threatened a fine, or forbid us to proceed.

In Masaka, after asking directions to my hotel, a passenger from the bus offered to walk with me. Geradaline was around my age, and spoke perfect unaccented English, as did her educated parents, whom I met when we stopped at her family’s shop. She was a final year law student at the University of Kampala. She thought my trip sounded very brave. It was funny to hear that even Africans have the impression that their continent was very dangerous for travelers.

The hotel recommended in the Lonely Planet had taken advantage of it popularity and good write up and increased its prices from $10 to $30 a night. This wasn’t unusual, I told then I could find something else. “The thing about cheaper hotels is that your possessions….” I cut her off and shook my head.
“Nobody would want my dirty clothes” I said. I found a hotel and had dinner in a restaurant on the main road.

The true reason I turned down the hotel, was frankly, I didn’t have the cash. I had changed a pile of my travellers cheques in Tanzania to Tanzanian Shillings, on the advice of the bank teller, who possessing no Ugandan currency, promised I could change it at the forex at the border. Unfortunately, the only method available is known as “The Mobile Forex”, young men with piles of cash, who operate out of car booths. Whilst their rates are reasonable, too many Mzungu’s have fallen victim to their traps; phony calculators, folded notes, or simply confusion over the hundreds of thousands of shillings being exchanged. I’d changed only enough currency to get me to the next town, but having arrived late on a Friday night, I hadn’t had the opportunity to visit the bank. The weekend was now upon me, and I panicked at the thought of being stuck in a remote village, with extremely meager finds. When Saturday morning arrived, my night in a hotel left me with the equivalent of a few dollars.

After popping in on Geraldine again to suss out the situation, I learned Mbarara, a slightly larger town, 100km west, may have a bank opened till midday on a Saturday morning. Arriving at the taxi rank, I offered the first driver I saw all my money and explained the situation. Hesitantly, he accepted my discounted fare, but still awarded me the front seat in the bus.

In Mbarara I ran though town, searching furiously for the open bank branch, dodging offers of rides from taxi drivers, and ever eager Africans with their confusing directions. I was the last customer in the bank line when they closed their doors. An hour later, I finally reached the front counter. The forex was only for a limited number of currencies, none of them Tanzanian, so I handed over what I had previously considered to be an expensive waste of time, some travellers cheques.
“I am sorry madam, but our computer is down and we can not exchange these for you today”. 100% penniless and scared, I cried.

The bank teller, a young sympathetic girl, devised a plan. Hesitantly, I handed over my passport and all my documentation to a younger clerk to take to the nearby market to be photo copied (the bank didn’t have a photo copy machine). Following many forms and phone calls to Kampala, she finally produced some cash. Despite losing 50% of the cheques value on transaction fees, I was thrilled! I finally left the bank, two hours after they had closed.

Cashed up, I was ready to move on. The bus was full, but we waited about two hours before it left. I sat in the front seat, next to the window, and crowds of hawkers passed by selling a collection of goods. An old man with crossed eyes spent some time quizzing me about my country.
“In your country, is the Prime Minister elected by the cabinet, or by the people?”
“What type of cows does your country bred? Are they long horned like ours?”
“In your country, how long does it take the average person to save up to buy land?”

The bus conductor lay against my window using the rear vision mirror to try on the sunglasses I wasn’t buying. “Try the red ones” I offered.
“I am a black man, so I wear black sunglasses” he said. “Here, you should try the orange ones”. Well, the look I was going for was ‘tanned”, but anyway.

We finally departed. Twenty minutes later I was sitting on the side of the road next to a broken bus. Another hour later, what was meant to be an empty bus arrived, half full. Four of us squashed in the front, again, two in the driver’s seat, and the back looked unimaginably tight. It took fifteen minutes to place the ‘Tetris’ of bodies together. A young boy stood up against the back of our seat, his body bent in half at the hips, hanging in the gap between our heads.
“He could sit on my lap” I offered the driver.
“No, it’s against the law to have children in the front” he said.

By the time we got into Kabale it was late and I fell into the nearest hotel, and offended the chef by eating only a few spoonfuls of my meal. In the morning there were a number of taxi drivers waiting outside the door of my hotel. A guy called Harbib introduced himself and explained. “The guy from the hotel told us that there was a Mzungu who came last night, and in the morning would go to the Lake. I have been waiting here all morning”. I hadn’t told the hotel staff I was going to the Lake, but I had written it in the guest details sheet. I had breakfast and went with Habib.

The road to Lake Bunyonyi was spectacular. Uganda was proving to be the ‘Pearl’ Winston Churchill had described after his visit to the country in 1907. Habib stopped to let me take photos. Kabale is Uganda’s highest town, but the road to the lake kept climbing, the hills covered with perfectly sculptured rows of banana tress, vegetables and forests. The day was hazy, but everywhere I looked was the quintessential jungle green I had imagined in Central Africa. The bright red road was decorated with the contrasting colorful skirts of the women walking alongside it. The Lake was captivating, islands and bays sprinkled along its idyllic surface. It was hard to believe it was all real.

Later that afternoon I went for a walk. The road we had driven down continued past the camp where I was staying, and I followed it. It grew higher and offered beautiful views of the Lake and its islands. I was quickly joined by a mass of children who wanted to walk with me, and I remembered why I’d struggled through the walks I’d taken in Africa. I begged them to let me walk by myself, but as soon as I chased some off, more appeared. “You’re going the wrong way!!!” they yelled.
“It doesn’t matter, I’m just walking” I pleaded.

The ‘wrong’ road I took curled around a hill, before it reached a small church at the top. The Church had a roof, but the walls were open arches, looking over the amazing view in every direction. It was Sunday morning, and the parish sung beautiful African hymns.

Along the road people went mad to see a Mzungu. Sometimes I could hear children screaming out “Hey Mzungu, how are you!?!”, and I had to scan the hills, finding a house at the very top, and next to it miniscule figures jumping out and down.

I turned back when I encounter a very persistent child called Hillary. He had raced across the lake shore when he saw me, but didn’t catch me for about ten minutes. I had seen he had a canoe and I knew he wanted to take me to the Island, for a fee. He was quite young, but I knew I was in for a whole conversation, where he told me about his life, then pestered me to join him in the canoe, and I was desperate for some peace and to simply enjoy the scenery. After I told him this, he would not relent; I got annoyed, and turned back.

The next day at breakfast the guys at the restaurant wanted to know what I was up to. The camp ran a lot of activities, canoeing, bird watching, nature walks, bike ridding, and they were keen to sign me up for something. I was interested in canoeing the lake, until I pictured myself stuck in the middle, alone, calling to Hillary to come and rescue me because my unfit body was too weak to paddle anymore. I decided to go for another walk instead. I trekked up one of the steeper, higher hills, less populated with children.

At the top, an hour later, huffing and puffing, I sat down and had a drink. The top of the hill was a popular transport junction. The guys on a truck asked me where I was going. “Back down the hill where I came from” I said. He explained to everyone else and they roared with laughter. The music emulating from a nearby shop was Men at Work, “Down Under”. I laughed and though that perhaps I could just explain that the same place this crazy song is from, is the same place the crazy Mzungu is from too. Would I make more sense then?

The next day I decided to pack up and head to Kampala, whilst I still had the funds to get there. I rang Harbib and asked him if he would come and pick me up. He explained that in the last two days, the petrol price had increased dramatically, and the fee to pick me up from a remote destination, where I didn’t have many other options, would now be double. Fair enough, I guess. He took me back to Kabale.

Long way round

With our safari adjured, Siobhan headed to Zanzibar, while Ash and Andy were booked on the next bus back to Kampala. Initially this had been my planned escape route from the dreaded town of Arusha, but the bus had been booked out for days. Whilst I could have waited it out for the next bus two nights later, I still had 6 weeks in Africa, and Nairobi was now only a few hours drive away. There was more than one way into Uganda, and I decided to take the back door, the long way round.

Since hitting the relatively developed Tanzania, I had hidden myself for weeks from the dramas of real African bus travel, avoiding dalla dallas (minibuses) and traveling on Tazania’s 1st class Scandanavian bus service. The lonely planet warned me that “luxury” was a relative term, but relative to what id been on, it was! But now I was strung out for a real adventure. Further more, in Tanzania I had seen nothing bar the typical tourist haunts of Zanizbar and Arusha, and I was determine to leave me with a better impression of the country.

There is a direct bus to Mwanza, where I was headed, a small town on the shores of the massive Lake Victoria, but even though it passes without stopping through the Serengeti Park, foreigners are still required to pay the park fees at the gates, a hefty $100 US per day. Other possible routes include passing through Central Tanzania via Dodoma, the potholed road deemed possibly the worst in the country, or via Kenya, where the damage was a mild $20 transit visa.

I arrived at the ticket counter on the morning of the evening’s departure, only to be told the bus was already full. “Oh” I replied. I waited at the counter a few more minutes, before the attendant reluctantly handed over a ticket, after no more words had been uttered.

Hours later as I was loading my luggage on the bus, due to depart in a few minutes, a group of four Spaniards arrived at the counter, only to be told, as I had that morning, the bus was full. “Oh please”, said one of the men, they waited at the counter. Later, they were all on the bus, which was full, but every passenger had a seat.

The sun sank, and the last of its fury pierced our bus as we drove head on into it, towards the Kenyan boarder. I tried not to curse myself for my long sleeves and jeans, as I knew only a few hours later, the passengers and I would be shivering in the dark.

Even during the night, the boarder post was a flurry of activity. Passengers loading on and off buses, officially leaving one country, before walking 100 meters away and entering another. Customs officers perform seemingly pointless searchers of the buses cargo, prodding bags and asking passengers what was in them. “My clothes” replied an English backpacker standing beside me. The officer stared him hard in the face and moved on.

I worried about my visa. A single entry Tanzanian visa has cost me $50US, and I hadn’t calculated that by leaving the country even momentarily (as I would return to Tanzanian soil the next morning), I may have voided its use. I tried to ask the customs official, as even if another visa was required, I wouldn’t have the currency (foreigners were required to pay US dollars at all boarder posts, local currency was not accepted), but the official was to busy to answer and shoed me away.

It was close to midnight as we entered Nairobi. Having just driven through dark nothingness, the lights and glowing advertisements of East Africa’s biggest city took me by surprise. I had envisaged Nairobi as a town of slums and pickpockets, but the BMW dealerships and classy bars had been omitted from the stories id been warned about.

At the bus station in Nairobi, a guy collected my ticket, and promptly disappeared. I panicked and tried to explain to other staff member that I hadn’t finished my journey and would need my ticket back. Between my sleeplessness and disorientation, and his poor grasp of my panicked English, he could only laugh in the typical African manner. “No worries, best you go upstairs and get a cup of tea”. 40 mins later, the same laughing African, returned my ticket personally, stamped and ready for boarding the bus.

The bad road out of Nairobi didn’t allow us any sleep, and through the night all the passenger kept there eyes tightly shut and were silent in the dark. I tumbled and fell around my seat, as a mere half an hour of trying to keep my composure had left me jarred and saw. “My tummy hurts from the bumps” whispered the young guy next to me.
“Mine to” I whispered back. Our bus screeched to a holt as a herd of giraffes raced past my window, away from the headlights.

The next morning, around 5am, I had cleared Tanzanian customs in record time, the tired clerk coming off night duty stamping my passport without a glance as to determine the status of my visa. As I waited for my the rest of my bus to slowly make there way through the boarder post, and brought a mug of warm sweet porridge from the thermos of some entrepreneurial women of the nearby village.

A young African man who I had sat next to on the bus joined me. “You drink this?” he asked.
“Yes, very nice, very warm” I said.
“This is African!” he laughs “Look” he yelled to his friends “She is African, she drinks our porridge, she likes it! Do you eat Ugali?” Ugali, maize porridge, is the stable diet of most Sub Saharan Africans, but adopts different names in each country.
“Yes, many times, almost every night.” I wonder where they think ive been traveling.
“Ha!” they scream, crowding around me to watch me finish my drink and ask more about my culinary adventures.

Back on the bus, I woke as we drove into Musoma, a town, like Mwanza, situated on the shores of Lake Victoria. Quaint English cottages lined the streets, bright colorful flowers bloomed from the tress plentiful along street. We stopped for a coffee, and I wandered a short way laughing at how different regions of the country can be. As we drove away, i saw for the first time, the shores of Lake Victoria. A small bay filled with reeds, circled but by cottages, the Lake waters itself covered by a think blanket of purple flowers. I squealed in shock and sat up at the window. The Africans sitting around me knodded and laughed. “Yes, very beautiful. Lake Victoria”.

I finally rested and conscious from the coffee, I chatted to Dawood, the man I had been sitting next to. He was from Mwanza and was heading home after a holiday to Dubai to visit his brother. He was one of the most traveled Africans I had met. The youngest of ten siblings, all of whom ran businesses, in Canada, the UK, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, whilst he had stay in the home town to run a mobile phone store, but took time out to visit them all whenever he could. He was also extremely knowledgeable about other countries in Africa, which again was not part of conversations I had had with other Africans. We had a fascinating conversation, but not wanting to wreak it, when asked, I told him I was married to a man back in Australia.

When we finally reached Mwanza, he gave me his number and drew a map to his mobile phone store should I need anything during my stay, he would be happy to help. He found me a taxi, and explained to the driver in the local language where I was staying. I protested, he even paid the fare.

Unfortunately, despite the effort Dawood had made, the taxi driver ad no idea where he was going. The Lonely Planet recommended a couple of downtown hotels in Mwanza, and also a recommendation for a campsite about 13kms out of the main town. Ujamma camp was apparently ran by a Rasta named Japhet, whose vision was to create an education centre, running classes in everything from African drumming to third world politics. With the realistic expectation that the Rasta’s visions had floated away in a proverbial puff of smoke, I was still curious enough to give it a go. The camp was in a small village outside Mwanza called Nyegezi, and the taxi driver drove me out there were we began to ask around about the camp. Nobody had heard of it. Down the road further we stopped to talk to an old man. He spoke English and took the guidebook and read out the description of the camp.
“There was once a man who purchased a property on this road” he told solomly “And the reason I think of him is that they use to call him ‘Rasta’. He often had Europeans staying there which makes me think that this is the place. But now I believe it is no longer operating as a camp. If this is the place you are looking for, then it is now an orphanage.”

The taxi driver and the old man talked amongst themselves in Swahali, before announcing they had decided the best course of action would be to take me to the orphanage further up the road.
“Ummm maybe not.” I laughed “Let go back to town.”

I hadn’t lay flat for well over 30 hours and was desperate to sleep but at 4pm, I knew it would only add to my disturbed patterns. I had a shower, and tucked into a big plate of local dried fish, pink, due to the amount of spices it had cooked into its sink. Washing it down with a big glass of mango fresh mango juice, I felt refreshed enough to explore the town.

Mwanza turned out to be a surprisingly nice little town. The town centre embodied a small fountain, the street shop fronts were neatly cared for. The hills overlooking the town were covered with mud huts, whose view overlooked Lake Victoria. It reminded me of the shores of Sydney Harbor, but different somehow.

As disrupted sleep wore on my enthusiasm, I wandered back to my hotel. A few streets later, I hadn’t found it. I hadn’t paid attention to the name of the hotel when I checked in, so there wasn’t even the possibility of asking around. All I could do was keep on wandering. Eventually I stumbled upon it quite unexpectantly, two very hot hours later. Mzungu, I thought to myself.*

The next day I realized what a terribly easy tourist route id been traveling on in Tanzania, I’d been spoilt and treated to English everywhere. But now I sat in a café in Mwanza trying to order my breakfast from a menu in Swahili and a waiter of the same linguistic lean. I opened my lonely planet appendix and pointed at the Swahili for eggs. The waiter nodded and returned with a bowl of chicken meat and broth. Fat fingers. As I tucked into my breakfast broth I looked around the café and eyed off the fluffy omeletts everyone else had ordered. Then it came to me, the Swahili for omlette, is omelette.

I spent a few hours walking around the markets, trying to sneak some pictures of the amazing colors of African towns, the piles of fruit, the woman’s colorful Kangas. I wasn’t photographing people, but trying to photograph the scene. However, people remained suspicious. On woman yelled out to me in Swahili, I walked over to her.
“Hello” I said.
“Jumbo” she replied and asked me something in Swahili.
“Did you want me to take your photo?” I asked. I pointed at the camera and then at her. She nodded once. I lifted my camera to my eye, but at that point her husband saw me from across the market. He leapt over the fruit and ran towards me screaming, “No No No”. I hoped he’d been cleaning fish, because he was yelling and waving a very sharp knife. I put the camera away quickly and held me hands up saying “okay okay”. Then I just decided to run.

I spent the day enjoying the town, peaking into a local football match, and sitting by the lake listening to the church choir practice nearby. The people in Mwanza said hello without any agenda. They spoke to me, asked me why I was here on my own, and then left without asking for any money or attempting to sell me anything. Unfortunately, my experience was that in Tanzania, this was very unusual.

As the sunset, I headed to a roof top bar I had spotted that day, and settled down with a beer and my book. I read for a while until a young guy, Bond, introduced himself. He was a computer science student who lived in the town. We had dinner nearby at a local restaurant and chatted about his school and his town.

Bond helped me carry my bags to the ferry and waited with me. Again, my fake boyfriend story meant that I could partly avoid the uncomfortable conversation around why I wasn’t going to return to Mwanza next month to marry him. However I did promise that if I meant any nice single Australian women, I would send then his way.

Aboard the ferry, I quickly ran into the only other white people making the crossing that night, a family with two teenage boys and a girl, from the Netherlands. They were very edger to catch up to me and ask me about my travels, as they could see I was alone. The mother especially was fascinated that I had decided to come this far, and that I hadn’t experienced any trouble as a lone female traveler.

I had booked a bed in a cabin in second class, which was arranged into two bunks, three beds high. The other members of my cabin were all enormous African women, and I quickly suggested that I sleep up top. As usual, these women were carrying massive bundles of stuff, one woman alone was carting 30 pillows. I offered the end of my bunk as storage space. They all tutted and said no, its okay, but there was no physical room anywhere else so they gave up and put it there anyway.

After the cabin was arranged I explored the boat. 3rd class was a cramped space, with no beds, and much more luggage than our cabin. I didn’t venture down, but the heat rose from the stairwell. The second class deck was quite nice. You could pay to sleep on this deck, which was slightly cheaper than a cabin. On the whole boat, only about 10 or 15 people had chosen this option, which made it more space than any of the cabins! Two women had it made, they were taking a new mattress to Baboka, and had crashed out on top of it with blankets.

On the bus, Dawood had told me that the MV Baboka had sunk about 10 years back, killing 600 people. But the MV Victoria was a much bigger, newer ship, and there were no problems. I looked at Victoria, and she looked very Titanic like. She even had gates to lock the classes in.

The night on the boat was smooth, and I slept well. At 5am many of the women got up and begun to pack up their things. I got up and headed up to the deck. The view was beautiful, the hazy lake, its water the same colour as the sky, the shoreline cover with forrest, spotted with beach. As the sun rose, I was joined by many Muslim men who stood on deck, performing their morning prayer ritual.

We pulled into the banana tree covered shores of Baboka and I walked into town. I was the only Mzungu in sight and everyone pointed it out. On a little café in the main street a woman asked “Mzungu, where is your friend?”
“No friends” I said. “I am one”.

In Baboka I spent painstaking hours trying to cash traveler’s cheques whilst cursing myself for not simply stuffing my boots with US dollars. I would have been much cheaper, and whilst it meant taking the risk of it being stolen, that commissions I was paying it may not have mattered.

The drive to the boarder through this part of Tanzania was beautiful, lush and green. The man next to me spoke very good English, but I kept falling asleep. This didn’t worry him, he was engrossed in my Lonely Planet guide. He wrote down the name of the book, and said he hoped he could find it for sale in Tanzania.

The bus stopped just before the Ugandan border gates, and I got out. In all of African, this was the first time there was no bus taking me straight through. At the remote post, there was no guarantee that at this time of the day there was going to be any buses to pick me up at the other side. And, I was on my own.

I tired to look cool, like I knew what I was doing, but a policeman stopped and asked me questions, where I was going and why, and then did I have a boyfriend? My overall impression of police in Africa had mostly been that they were nothing but a joke.

Across the border, my fears were realized. No buses going anywhere. No worries, this was Africa, I decide to go with the flow and instead of panicking, I got some lunch.

“Hey cow” and other tricks for surviving your safari

After five days in Arusha I wasn’t so much looking forward to going on safari, as I was to just leaving town, by means of safari truck or otherwise. The town, frequented by tourists on the way to the nearby Serengeti and Mt Kilimanjaro has evolved into a gauntlet of sly and untrustworthy safari salesmen, people continually asking for money, or trying to sell goods. Polite refusal sparked unprecedented anger, and rage at my expected wealth.

For five nights I barely slept. My hotel room was perched above a noisy matatu (minibus) station, and a hallway light shone into my room, enough light to watch the clock tick over till sunrise. During the day I felt crazed, threatened and suspicious of everyone. There were moments where I simply wanted to go home.

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Eventually, I found a safari group who were happy to have me along too. Siobhan, from California, and Ashley and Andy from England, had been working together on aid projects in Uganda.

Day one we set off for the first national park, Taragire, famous for its elephants, and baobab trees. I was surprised how quickly we spotted animals, considering how infrequent they are seen outside the parks, yet within minutes we were greeted by zebras, just inside the park gates.

Its seems a large part of the safari experience is the photos you take with you. Four heads attached to cameras poked out the top of our van, at the ready. We couldn’t help but comment as much on the beauty of the animals in their natural environment, as their poses and photogenic attributes.

Further down the road, three wilderbeast moped around the front of a beautiful baobab tree, framing them perfectly. We all gasped and took photos, but with their heads down, eating, we were missing the beautiful silhouettes of their horned heads. I quickly explained my solution. “On car trips we play ‘hey cow’. Rules are simple: wind down the window and scream ‘HEY COW!’ as loud as you can - One point for every cow that looks, two for a sheep.”

Andy caught on immediately. “HEY SQUIRREL!” he yelled. All three wilderbeast lifted their heads in perfect timing.
“Nice, Nice, 6 points!” I judged. Cameras went wild.

Second to capturing the perfect Kodak moment, was being the first to spot an animal. Ash took her lead here seriously. Of course, she couldn’t be right all the time. “Over there, Over there” she yelled. “Oh no, wait…that’s a tree.”
“You lose points in the squirrel game for that Ashley” ruled Andy.

The deeper into the park we saw herds of wilderbeast, right next to the car, beautiful birds, giraffes appeared, first their heads over the tops of trees, and as we drove closer, careful not to disturb, their young at their feet.

Around at the watering hole, all my Lion King dreams came true. A couple of little warthogs hanging out with none other than their meerkat mates. Disney didn’t make it up, the musical was right in front of me. Couldn’t wait to tell my little cousins.

And finally the prize of Taragire, Elephants. How many, we couldn’t tell, most of them hidden in the tress, but at least two large and a baby stripping leaves of the branches in the front. We squealed and held up 5 or 6 safari vans behind us.

Driving around in safari vans it was hard to remember your not in an open air zoo, animals conveniently appearing beside you on the road. But perched on a hilltop, overlooking a river winding through the landscape, and observing a far off field of buffalo, we were reminded of how amazing the landscape itself was, and surprising. In the valley below, an enormous old bull elephant strolled down the river, swaying from side to side, at a commanding statue and pace, its power captivating and terrifying, despite its physical distance.

We had asked our driver Frank about predators, and yes, there were a couple of lions, in the park, but only a few, and due to the long grass and hilly landscape, we were unlikely to see them today. You could judge where the exciting animals were by the number of safari vans parked beside them, and there were a lot near the clearing ahead. We watched and waited. Soon, a tail flicked above the grass. Perhaps a baboon. But then two unmistakable ears flicked just above the grass line.

A lot of the vehicles cleared off, the parked closed at 6pm, and we had to be outside the gates by then. But Frank gave us an extra few minutes and we were rewarded with a playful young lion couple frolicking towards our van. We waited for the photo, but they were too quick. With four minutes to go, we had to leave, and Frank sped though the gates.

We stayed that night at a campsite outside the park, treated to our cook, Damian’s, wonderful meal, as we relayed to him excitedly the highlight of our day.

Day two was essentially a long drive through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area to our campsite in the Serengeti National Park. The conservation area was named so as it is not a not a national park, but specifically an area aimed at the conservation of both flora and fauna, as well as the culture of the native Masai people.

As we drove through the hills were still covered with mist. But as the plains appeared, from a distance you could see the tall figure of a lone Masai warriors striding at a ferocious pace across the plain, unmistakable in his red cloak.

Throughout Eastern Africa, the Masai are the most celebrated tribe. For tourists, its there tall slender figure, their colourful clothing, and excessive jewelry, which makes them the ultimate national geographic photo opportunity.

Within African culture, there popularity is much more foreboding. The Masai tribe were warriors, and for centuries caused havoc from Tanzania, to the coast of Kenya, brutally attacking tribe after tribe, looking to claim the cattle they believed God bestowed upon them. But these days the areas they claimed and fought for are the National parks of Ngorongoro and Masai Mara in Kenya, from which they receive 19% of the park fees.

At lunch we stopped at a small picnic site. A small group of massai, one young man, no older than myself, and his many young wives, some of which were very young, cautiously wandered over to talk to our guides. As they spoke in a local language, afterwards we questioned frank eagerly. Not all the women were married yet, Frank explained, only the ones with extended earlobes. It was possible that the other women had been promised to him, once they reached maturity, as it is the case that when a female is born into the family, a husband is immediately arranged. When the woman is old enough, the man will pay for his wife with cows. The Tanzanian Government had introduced laws which stated that every child must attend school until the age of 14 in the hope that it would curb the number of young marriages.

In the truck we discussed amongst ourselves how hard it is to accept the idea of preserving this amazing culture vs our western values and preconceptions. From our point of view, the idea of marriage and children so young seems quite distressing, yet we have very little understanding of their culture, and they could probably criticize points of ours quiet readily also.

Previously, both female and male circumcision had been a large part of the massai culture, the ceremony which signifies the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood at the age of 11 – 14. As it is now called, Female genital mutilation has become an issue on the world front, stories of horrific mistakes in un-sterilized and un-anesthetized conditions resulting in many women becoming infected or dying. The process appears to me as frightening, dangerous, and chauvinistic in the most unforgivable sense, and has been outlawed in Kenya and Tanzania, yet as an outsider I was unsure were to draw the line in criticizing their culture.

We camped inside the Serengeti that night, and after dinner Frank came to speak to us. Camping inside the park there were a few extra precautions to be taken. If we had to get up to go to the bathroom in the night, (given the facilities the bathroom was a fairly frightening experience in daylight hours anyhow), we had to flash a touch outside the tent first, and check for hyenas.

“Do lions come into the camp?” we asked Frank. Rarely, he said. Hyenas scavenge for food, so all food must be locked in the kitchen, but the occasional lion does visit. Last year, during the wet season, some of the lions came and slept against a persons tent in search of warmth. The guy woke to a lion pressed against his back, breathing heavily.
“If we do get up” asked Ashley, “and come across a lion while were walking back, what shall we do?”
“Oh” said Frank, gravely. “Very dangerous.” That was the most information we got from him. Apparently no one had lived to provide any tips about on situation.

When you go to a museum when your younger, the best, biggest, and most exciting of all the bugs are from Africa. A little pin through the centre, sitting in a glass cabinet, looking amazing. I hadn’t thought about the bugs actually being in Africa, yet by the light of our paraffin lamp, they were landing all over the table and us. Caterpillar /Dragonfly /the mosquito that changed the world in Jurassic park like animals crawling up our legs. We tried to match some insects that looked like praying mantises against each other, but they weren’t as interested as we were.

That night I slept terribly. I woke continually, wanting to puke, which may have done me more good than lying in the tent. Except a story from my childhood haunted my visions. One of our family friends famously puked in the backyard at a party. Between bouts of sickness she had to fight the pet dog away, who was bent on eating her vomit. I imagined myself, crouched outside the tent, doing the same, except fighting away a hyena with teeth that can bite through steel, trying to get a bit of the action. I decided to work on swallowing it.

Our last night on safari was spent on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater, a collapsed volcano. Year round the area is blessed with green grass and water, which means that unlike the Serengeti, the animals of this area do not migrate. The campsite is notoriously cold, as every night a dense fog settles in the area. Ash, Andy and myself armed ourselves with a large bottle of Konyagi, the local Tanzanian gin, for freezing emergencies. We had always invited Frank and Damian to sit with us at dinner, and they occasionally, but reluctantly joined us, but preferred to hang out with the other Swahili speaking guides from other safari groups. But once we bought out the gin at dinner, they weren’t so shy.

That night I was awoken by Siobhan’s terrified screams from the other tent, followed by Ashley’s laughter. “What was that!?!” I asked Andy. Prone to night terrors and semi conscious conversation Andy calmly answered “Siobhan got attacked by a monkey”. I was tired and decided to believe him and went back to sleep.

The girls woke at 6:30 and a good dose of uncontrollable laughter followed. When they finally got it together they managed to tell us of the nights events. Siobhan had woken to a nuzzle against her ear, and believing it was her dog, at home. As she snuggled into it further, she began to remember she was in Africa, and it really couldn’t be her dogs back in San Francisco. But it stopped, and she needed to use the bathroom. As she unzipped the tent , a hyena enthusiastically stuck its head through the gap. The commotion that I had woken to was Siobhan falling back into the tent, kicking the creature in the head and screaming, while Ashley awoke to the sight, and broke into a laughing fit! Full points to Siobhan though, a mere half an hour later, nature still called. It take a brave woman to, as she described, crouch down, butt cheeks glowing in the moonlight, peeing for what seemed forever, and watching the other hyenas and wild pigs strolling in between the other tents!

To Zanzibar, to see the Zanibarbarians!

Nina, Lee and I looked over Dar from the top deck of the ferry. Our view was interrupted by an Indian woman pushing her teenage son into our well staked position.
“There, stand there” she told him, and with a smile turned to us “He’s curing his fear of water” she said.

It had been a strange 24 hours. Sarah had floated away to her usual life, but would try to see us in Zanzibar. Desperate for precious internet time, we had been egger to spent our evening in the café under our hotel. But, it was nothing except bad news. Lee had six emails from her Croatian boyfriend, due in Dar the following evening, explaining how he had failed to receive his Tanzanian visa from the Italian embassy, who had taken four days off to party after their world cup victory.
“I cant believe my holiday has been ruined over a penalty shoot out” cried Lee. Lee rang her Mum. Nina and i tried to look supportive. I didn’t feel like writing emails, so I read the food section of The Age newspaper online instead.

Lee’s family was concerned about what the reaction in a Muslim town like Dar would be to rescent events. It didn’t matter, the next day we left for Zanzibar. Early in the morning the taxi drove us through the quiet streets, void of any cars, pedestrians, or sights of life, bar the large squads of riot police that had gathered in some areas. While we collected ferry tickets, Lee read the paper. Obviously the local media weren’t happy with the bombs directed at Lebanon, but they were less happy with the American head of the World Bank who would be visiting the city today. “Get me outa here” sang Lee as we climbed aboard the boat.

The ferry made me queasy, and I soon left the girls to sit at the back and watch the waves of water gushing out the back, wishing the trip was over. I wasn’t alone. The boy from the deck sat quietly to my right, wearing a similar shade of green.

Once on land we dumped our stuff at the hotel and quickly left to explore the famously confusing and enchanting streets of Zanzibar, lined with photogenic rotting buildings, ornate window shutters and doors, and beautiful Arabic children running though the streets.

For centuries, Zanzibar has been a center of trade, the capital of the Arab Empire in East Africa, famous for spices and slaves. The alleyways were shrouded in all nature of exotic paraphernalia, but by the time we arrive on the Island, there were a far more spices than slaves available. Easier to fit into the suitcases of all the visiting tourist, for there was no lack of those, and unlike other parts of Africa, Zanzibar had it made for them. There was bureau de change on every corner, thousands of souvenirs, and to the squealing delight of Lee and myself, a café serving REAL COFFEE, cappuccino coffee, and sandwiches with CHEESE – for about the same price we would pay for them at home….

We spent the afternoon devouring the shops. Alongside a thousand wood carvings, were the perfectly soft cotton scarves, African inspired clothing, jewelry and homewares, and antique stores filled with treasures from floor to ceiling. The girls would head home in a few weeks, and went wild with the shopping oppurtunities, while I sang along and tried to remind myself of the months I would spend carrying anything I bought. It didn’t help, and i would live to cursed my heavy load.

Later on we met up with Albert, and Cotton, also from the States, who had met Albert along the way. That evening we headed to the festival.

I had heard about the Zanzibar International Film Festival through some means whilst still in Australia, and had planned to make it there during my trip. Unfortunately this meant screaming through Malawi and missing out on some of the other lake side beaches I had hoped to visit, but once there, it was worth every sigh I had made on leaving Nykata bay. Set in the open air amphitheatre of an old fort, built by the Portuguese in the 17th century, every evening, a collection of short films at an amazing standard, fiction and documentary style, in most cases made by African film makers, about Africa, were shown.

Over the nights we were there, two films in particular stood out as my favorites. “Sisters in Law”, told the story of two female magistrates were working to change the laws and attitudes towards women in their country of Cameroon. “Streetcar from Zanzibar” told the story of two sixteen year old girls, both from Zanzibar, living very different lives. One girl had lived in Canada for two years with her parents, the other dreamed of the country, as her sister prepared to marry a Canadian man and emigrate. The differing options told a lot about the culture of the people of Zanzibar, the sister, a soon to be bride, promises that she will still wear the traditional kanga’s (African wraps) of her glory box, whilst the young, disappointed girl in Canada explains to the camera that there are no festivals or dancing in Canada, people go to see a movie for fun.

In addition to cheese, Zanzibar was unsurprisingly privy to many a culinary delight. On the top of our list, were the fish markets. After a few beverages at the movies, we stepped out of the fort in search of food and were greeted with tables of fresh seafood; octopus, prawns, calamari steaks, flake, a variety of fish coated in spices, alongside tradition foods such as chapatti, potato dumplings and grilled bananas. After filling your plate with a cross sections of what was available, always far to much food than would normally be considered healthy, the guys at the end grilled everything to perfection, and charged you whatever they felt like, in our case, about $2 a plate. We wouldn’t be able to tell you what else was available in town for dinner. We ate there every night.

After a couple of days in Stone Town, our group headed to the other main attraction of the island, the beaches. We laughed at all the space in the back of our minibus. After Lee’s resent transport experiences she was focusing on being alive for her nearing homecoming, and had vowed to avoid matatus at all cost. It had cost us $3 (over ten times the going local bus rate) to upgrade to a “tourist bus”, a private vehicle that had an equal number of passengers and seats, and a space for our luggage that wasn’t our laps. Cotton, Albert and I expected our dream ride to collapse once we got on the road, imagining all the extra passengers that would soon be squeezed on, but surprisingly this never eventuated.

Lee scored the frount seat next to a local woman, with the quick line “I get less car sick up here”. She was buzzing as she stepped off the bus forty minutes later at the beach. The women next to her had told her the legend of a loose man who had slept with too many women. He was seduced by a demon that haunts the baobob trees at night. The local woman warned that you should kept away from these trees at nightime or risk being seduced by the devil woman herself. “Sweet” says Cotton. “So which ones were the baobob trees again?”

We checked into our resort, a collection of little cottages along the amazing turquoise beach. Surprisingly the views were unspoilt by the rain, which plagued most of our morning. We read books in the beachside bar; Albert and Lee got cheap massages from the local women who passed through the resorts, Cotton ran a yoga class for Lee. We ate a traditional lunch of beans and rice at a local restaurant, a grass hut, along the road.

As the weather cleared up I went for a walk along the beach. The rest of the crew kept themselves entertained in the grass lounges spread across the sand. The place was amazing, I snapped away, capturing the alluring colour of the water, framed with the dramatic, interesting cliff rocks. But I wondered if my pictures were truthfully representing the paradise that is Zanzibar. The water was honestly that blue, the cliffs that magical, but none of the beaches I walked were as secluded as portrayed, as I continually cut out whatever fat white tourist was standing in the frame. But I knew they were doing the same. I was just one of many fat white tourists that had wondered onto their carefully staked out beach that afternoon.

A few days lying on the beach gave me a chance to improve my tan, read a soppy romance novel, and catch up on my diary. I bid farewell to my new friends and heading back to Dar with Nina, with no plans for the remainder of my trip. The ZIFF festival had been my only time constraint and solid plan for my whole trip. From here on in, i had no idea where to next.

Travelling through time, not space: The Train to Dar es Salaam

I meet Lee the day before i left Malawi in an Indian Resturant in Mwanza. Pat and I had made the "day trip" to the nearest ATM, from Nykata Bay, and id come to investgate which buses would get me across the border to the nearest town in Tanzania, the following day. Lee knew all this information, she was doing the same. The bus left from Mwanza at 6am, and i agreed to meet her there. Only thing was, i never followed through with it, back at Myoka village I thought about packing my stuff and heading back to town straight away, were i would need to stay the night, but i couldn't find everyone i wanted to say goodbye to, the buses last buses would leave shortly, and i decided i could just see how i fared on a later bus. Depending who you speak to, myself or Lee, this was either a very good, or quite cruel decision.

Later that night i was explaing all this to someone, who tipped me off that Sarah, "the Canadain hippy, standing at the bar" was also making this journey. I found Sarah, introduced myself and told her id be come with her.

The next morning we sat at the top of the stairs in Myoka village looking out over the bay, waiting for Nina, who was also heading the same way. We talked about what we were both doing in Africa, or rather i asked her. She replied that she was living in Dar, not working, or volunteering, "just living". I though that perhaps Sarah was the sort of person who i perhaps should have asked if i could follow along, rather than just annoncing it. When we set off down the track Sarah took her basket, full of stuff, and placed it on her head, then struggled along the rocky embankment, just as a white girl should.

What followed our departure from the village was the usual series of minibuses, until the closest town to the northern border of Malawi. Sarah spoke quite good swahili and arranged a taxi with a couple of local women, to travel the last 60 kms to the border.

After literally battling to pass the money changing hawkers at the border, whose business had been serverly debilitated by the presence of an offical forex bureuo, who offered slightly smaller exchange rates in return for (hopefully) calculators that hadn't been tampered with, a stack of notes that hadn't been decievingly folded in half, or quick miscalculation in denominations, for which tourist fell so hard among the thousand of shilling they were dealing with.

Like a strange number of places in Tanzania, mainly those which deal with forgieners, the border officals would not accept Tanzanian currency, insisting that the visa fee could only be paid in US dollars, cash only. I knew this earlier, and had been checking banks in Malawi so i could purchase some, but so valued was the dollar against the local currency, no where would sell. Nina and I bought our US dollars for a highly inflated rate at the border, which i imagined was simply sold back to the forex at the end of the day, while Sarah sweetly used her swahili to aviod the rule all together.

That night we stayed in Mbeya, a town just above the tip of Malawi, were the train line from Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia, to Dar on the Tanzanian Coast, stoped a few times a week. All the hotels we had been recommended were booked out, in fact it appeared that all the hotels in the area were, but eventally we found a very empty establishment, a couple of dark blocks back from the main bus station. Our room, which slept the three of us, cost the eqiveilent of three Australian dollars. All the rooms in hotel were named after cities of the world. We had "Bagdad".

Unsure of what time the train left we got to the station early in the morning, and booked our tickets. The train would not arrive till 2pm, but our second class tickets entitiled us to sit in the upper class waiting rooms, a section of the waiting room fitted out with nicer chairs and a shower curtain to seperate you from the rest of the station. We opted for the steps in the sun. We brought sweet tea and delicious fresh chippati (bread like greasy pancake) for 10 cents, from an old lady walking around on the steps with a thermos.

Shortly after Lee arrived at the station. I leapt up to greet my abandoned travel partner and she told us of her woes. The axle on a the minibus she had been travelling on had broken, luckly whilst they were travelling quite slowly or else it could have been one of the all to common accidents where crowded minibuses overturn on the bad roads. Nobody was hurt badly, but she had spent most of the day sitting on the side of the road by herself disparingly trying to hitch a ride on another bus. Then poor Lee encountered the same hotel trouble we had, except much later in the night. She had stayed a long way out of town. Exhasted and relieved, Lee was happy she wasn't left to complete the rest of the trip on her own.

We hung around for the rest of the day, went shopping in the markets nearby and found some lunch. We rushed back to the station, to meet the train at 2pm. As we waited, another mzungu glowed through the station. I had seen Albert in Myoka village, but we hadn't introduced ourselves and he came over to chat.
"Oh your a doctor too?" asked Lee.
"No" sighed Albert, "I just play one on TV".

At 2:30 the train arrived, and in the chaos which is Africa, we boared and found our cabin. 6 beds and only four girls to share them, the train seemed such a nicer way to travel than the squished buses. The cabins are segreated by sex, Albert was in a cabin a little further up.

Within minutes our stuff was thrown all over the cabin, streached out in all the space, we chatted and carried on for hours. Albert joined us. The five of us had never met before yesturday, all were travelling indepentantly in Africa, doing completly different things. Sarah had been living in Dar for a few months, and previously in a small village in Kenya. She had been compiling a documentry on Swahili culture. Nina had taken a break from her history degree to work in a orphanage in Malawi. Lee and Albert were doctors. Lee had worked for a small amount of time in a severely underfunded clinic in Malawi, delivering babies, whilst Albert had been travelling and working, using the time to ponder on the structures of African healthcare. Everyone had disaster stories to fill the hours.

It was great fun, but after sometime we noticed a small problem which threatended to put our wonderful luxury journey in jepordy. The train wasn't moving. It hadn't moved since we got on. Nina, Sarah and myself had been at the station since 7am. It was now 5pm and we were still there. At 6pm, our position remained unchanged. Albert suggested that the train perhaps moved through time, not space.

Back in our cabin, six hours behind schedule, and still acting as if we were having a slumber party, the all reliable TAZARA rail made its first announcement. The train ahead of us had derailed earlier that day. Attempts to remove it had failed. The train we were currently occupying would return to Zambia, after swapping passangers with the locomative travelling in the other direction. Passangers were advised to await further instructions. These were the last directions we heard from the rail company.

Lee and i decided to head for the dinning cart. With no further instructions we all crawled into bed at 10pm. About half and hour later the train moved, and i fell asleep.

At 1am i awoke to the commotion of our fellow passangers packing there cabins and moving out. I woke the girls and we packed and followed. As we tried to leave the train, other passangers tried to push their way on. The train wasn't at a station, it was simply just bush. We spoke to an English family who were travelling in the other direction. They had been waiting outside in the cold for hours, after there train had derailed at 2pm, on this spot. People had lit fires using the wood they had found scattered about, and they gathered around with there bags, wearing everything they owned, on the cold, high Southern Tazanian plain.

Albert waited for us outside, and helped Lee with her suitcase. We began walking, with our bags, no lights, along the stony, unpredictable side of the narrow railroad track. Everyone walked in single file, there was no room to pass anyone. Typically the African women were carrying amazing amount of eqiupment, full baskets on there head, and there children tied to there back. People tripped and fell on the uneven ground, stumbled and there goods scattered. I couldn't be much help if i stopped to gather there things. I had two backpacks and when i crouched down, the ant line of people pushed and shoved until the line began to move again, and everyone stepped over the destressed victims of the trail.

We walked the entire lenght of the train, past the passanger carridges and cargo, then along the empty track for some time. Eventally we came across the derailed carridge, spookily lit up with the light of the rescue teams, still trying to remove it from the tracks.

A little further along waited to train from Dar. The track got worse. By this time i could only see Nina, i followed behind her, careful not to lose the last of my friends in the dark. The railroad he been built up from hilly ground and from the track fell away to a small hill. We turned on our sides, and held on to the carridges to stop us falling down the rocky slope below.
"Im so glad im not doing this alone" said Nina.

Eventually Nina and I discovered that the carridge we were currently clinging to was a second class cabin. As we climbed up the steps, an excited Sarah appeared from the carridge next to us. She threw her arms up in the air and let out a hilarious "Woohoo!" collecting Nina and i as we stubbled into the train in her embrace.

Inside the train there was not enough room to pass anyone in the corridoors. If someone was coming the other way, everyone either had to step into a cabin or reverse. The electricty was still out. We came across a British woman on crouches, trying to get through the train. Nobody bid her any sympathy and her twisted ankle had been stepped on a crush nurmous time through the ordeal. She was close to hysterical when she told us she couldn't find her two kids.

Eventally i found a train offical. I held up my ticket and asked him were carridge 2009 was.
"2018, Thats the carridge behind you" he said.
"No, the handwritting on the ticket is funny, but its actually carridge 2009" I said.
"Yes, 2009, thats the carridge behind you" he said and waved us away. He wasn't interested in helping us, he just wanted us to go away from him. I pushed past and kept going.

When we finally stepped inside our cabin and put down our bags, i nearly burst into tears. It had taken us over an hour to walk from one train to the next. Inside Nina span around;
" Give me your hand" she said and shook Sarah's too. "Congratulations! We made it and we all deserve a big cheer. Yay!" We were in our cabin, not falling over in the dark, with no need to cry. We just had to find Lee.

I turned aorund to search for her and an offical stopped me. "No, stay in your cabin, we dont need anyone wandering around" he said.
"I need to find our friend" I said. "Her name is Lee and she is carrying a big yellow suitcase."
"If she is on the train, you can find her later" he said.
"Oh please, can you look for her and send her home?" I asked. He nodded and walked away. We took to screaming her name out the window, into the night.

Later two British girls walked down the corridoor.
"Are you missing Lee?" They asked. I leaped up and followed them through the train. Lee was sitting on the floor, a few carridges down, crying.
"Oh god", she screamed when she saw me. By this stage she hadn't seen any of us for an hour, and she had walked through the dark, along the gravelly paths, trying to wheel her suitcase. She had lost Albert. She sat down for ages and bawled her eyes out before we went back to the cabin.

Later, all in our bunks and safe i was so happy we were all inside. Albert had come past to say he made it, but had lost sight of everyone. Lee said, that the whole thing reminded her of a scence from a holocost movie, hundreds of people, with so much luggage, wandering across a dark railroad track in the middle of the night. We fell asleep relieved it was all over.

The nexy day there were more delays. We waited hours for hours at stations. We wondered at this rate how long we would be on the train. We played games and took pictures of the spectacular Tanzanian countryside out the window. Orignally we were due in Dar at 2pm that day, but the train continued on into the night.

I woke the next morning to Sarah's tired voice annoncing we were in Dar. I didn't really know what to make of this, there had been so many delays i expected another day on the train. I sat at the window, and as we travelled through the early dawn light, across suburbs of houses and palm trees i figured that we couldn't really be in any other town.

Packed up and waiting on the platform we met Albert. None of us had showered in two days, and we were all still wearing the same clothes, but we weren't ready to abandon our new friends for seperate directions, and we all needed coffee. Sarah's local knowledge had us invading a fancy French bakery, which served REAL coffee and chocolate crossiants, and to top it, off came complete with a western bathroom, flushing toilets, and soap! (To be fair, the train had toliets too, they were the sqat variety, that came with a special view of the tracks racing below. Scenic....)

Discussing our plans, Albert, Lee, Nina and I agreed to stay at the same hotel nearby, Sarah would head home and join us later, and we would all head to Zanzibar the next day.

Nykata Bay

You can't feel any better when your backpack serves as a soft pillow behind your head, and your looking back at the densely forested mountains of Malawi, backdrop to the plateaus of banana trees, rivers and lakes, speeding past as you stretch out, in the back of an empty pickup truck.

After weeks of crowded matolas and chappas, their choking smoke filling my lungs till I felt ill, fresh air never tasted so sweet. To top it all off, I had my two best mates to keep me company. Admittedly i had only met them a few hours ago, but they were the only people i know for a few thousand kilometres so I figured they would do. And I’m all the better for it, cause Pat and Finn seemed like pretty nice guys.

The afternoon before I had stepped of one of the mention matolas in Senga bay, and headed to the only hostel in town. There was no room left in the dorm, but I begged, but the owner let me stay in the caravan she had stored out the back. The next morning id heard that Pat and Finn were heading the same way, so i introduced myself, and we found a lift on the main road just outside of town, late in the morning.

We spent the day sleeping and chatting in the back of the truck. With the sun beating down on the warm tray you couldn't help but fall away into a dozy coma.

Pat and Finn got off at the town before Nykata Bay, where I was headed, and my coma was disturbed by the small Irish man who replaced them, climbing in the tray. Colm loved the truck. He crawled on and relished in the space as we had done a few hours earlier. "Im never travelling in those minibuses again" he declared, and delighted in kicking back and lighting up a joint.
"Yeah, nice work if you can get it" I muttered, upset by the break in my daydreaming and still drunk on the sunshine.

My lack of commitment to the conversation didn't put Colm off and he talked incessantly, despite my varying levels of consciousness. But after an hour i had grown found of the guy, he seemed to have enough to say. This was Colm's second trip to Africa; during the last a few years ago, he had made a daring attempt to ride a pushbike from Jinja in Uganda to Cape Town. He made it to Tofo, in Southern Mozambique, before contracting a mega dose of malaria that resulted in kindly failure. It didn't out him off the place though, and this trip he was heading in the opposite direction, but taking the bus.

Nykata Bay had a ragging reputation as the place to be for backpackers in Malawi, and alongside Colm it was sure to draw its fair share of characters; none more notable that the owner of our hostel, Gary. As Colm and I sailed up in a boat to the jetty of Myoka village, the jovial Gary was waving his arms and yelling in his Cape Townian assent to us. “Welcome! Welcome!” he called from the large deck of the bar.

Gary’s reputation had preceded him and throughout Malawi I had heard the tales that lead to his notoriety. Backpackers loved him, fellow hostel owners saw him as an irresponsible drunk, but overall Gary was smiles and laughter and had a good time doing so. It was not uncommon to catch him dancing on the bar, wearing only boxers and dressing gowns, partying hard and fast before falling asleep on the couch, in the early hours of the morning, when the bar tender quietly covered him with a blanket.

My first night in the big dorm at the top of the hill I opted out of the nightly performance hoping to get some sleep. It was not to be. A few hours later Gary could be heard howling at the top of the steps. The view that much of the aid work performed in Malawi is necessary and counter productive is not uncommon among the expat community that resides in the country, but im sure the volunteer teacher I imagined cowering underneath the ferocious slander didn’t need it delivered in that manner. Neither did I at 3 am.

Nights of partying lead to days of lethargy, and Nykata Bay proved the perfect formula. Most of Myoka villages residents could be found spending their days lying around on the massive couches overlooking the majestic bay. I found that if I got up at a reasonable hour I could read a book a day. Ceildhe and her family, whom I had meet in Monkey bay, were about for a few days. Pat and Finn joined the fun a few days later. The village had markets full of fresh avocados, papaya, and bananas, as well as cheap local restaurants. Colm was always at the bar ready for a chat whenever anyone cared to join him.

Most afternoons, around 2pm, the girls would gather for a swim across the bay. It was about 500m to the diving school opposite were we stopped for coffee before swimming back. The swim itself was not a big one, but it took a bit of courage. The deepest point of Lake Malawi is 1000m. The centre of Nykata Bay it 80m deep. It was exactly half way across the Lake, where it was neither quicker to swim back or to continue on where the fear hit. Nobody talks about it in the water, but once safely on shore we can all relate. The question is: In a deep lake, in the middle of Africa, what the hell could be swimming underneath me??

One huge Saturday night saw the sun rising on Sunday morning as I was losing a stone skipping competition to the guys, who were trying to teach me with the threat of the loser being thrown in the lake.

We crawled back to the bar to get some breakfast merely an hour after leaving it, and tried to convince the bar staff who had started work since we had been gone that we were getting an early start on the glorious day, but something in our swagger and drunken mumbling told them otherwise.

We decided to take a swim out to the floating platform in the middle of the bay. Even early in the morning the lake water was warm, but the sun was warmer and i dried off and sat up on the raft. Finn ran around the edges of the platform, yelling a Pat trying to get him to swim back and get some snorkels, discussing how deep the water was and if we could swim to the bottom and retrieve a handful of sand. As Pat feel asleep, Finn had still found more energy, despite being up all night, and started work on trying to sink the platform or at the very least capsize it. I used the last of my energy explaining how it would be mean to put Pat in the water, so Finn kept himself entertained by pushing me in, letting me crawl mostly back on the platform and then pushing me back in. Finally he fell asleep to and i could go back to relaxing quietly in the sun.

When i awoke i felt horrible. I checked Pat's watch and it was midday. We'd had no water since yesterday night. The sun was fiery. I got in the water to swim back, but then thought about the guys. I was worried that having not slept all night they could easily spend the hottest part of the day unknowingly expiring as they slept.

"Pat......Fin" I whispered quietly. No reply. I tried again. Eventually i spoke louder, then yelled, and then took to shaking them violently. They woke slightly, but on the whole ignored me. It was cruel, but in the end i resorted to tipping cold lake water on them. Pat woke up and looked like he was going to cry, grizzled and rubbed his eyes. Finn was less passive, in fact he was furious. He swore, yelled and abused me. I quickly explained my motives, dived back in the water and swam back to shore. I joined the girls lying around on the deck and watched as Finn swam back and curled up under a tree and fell asleep, convinced he would never speak to me again.

That night as we sat silently, exhausted in an African "Pizza" restaurant (Please note: use of the word pizza was the restaurant owner’s idea, and it was certainly not influenced by the Italian version of the food. Think pancake covered with spinach.....). "Gee im so glad we didn't sleep all day on the platform hey?" said the guys. We were all glowing pink after only a few hours. I mentioned to Finn that he didn't say that when i woke him up. "Did you wake me?" he asked.

As my week at The Bay drew to a close one night assured itself a place in my memory as truly unforgettable. On the night of the world cup final we boarded a local fishing boat and floated across the lake to the village football field, where a large screen had been set up for the match. The whole village had turned up; kids, old men, the local teams and their girls, and we sat cross legged on the floor with big bottles of Malawian beer. For every goal the audience went wild, jumping into the air, running around tipping over anyone who hadn't followed, embracing stranger and crying in sheer delight. Collingwood fans have nothing on the ferocious football fever of this little African village!

The Beach Boys

On the day i left Monkey Bay it seemed everyone else did too. There was a funeral in nearby Cape McClear and the ute i climbed into was so full there was no room to hold on. As we turned the corners even the locals squealed. 20km later, i stepped off petrified.

While walking down the beach that afternoon, friendly locals abound, and i wasn't far before a group of boys invited me to the bar for a beer. Malawi, like the rest of Africa, has great local beers. They have a Carlsberg Brewery, and another brand, Kuche Kuche, whose slogan once translated reads "Drink till sunrise", promoting its relatively low alcohol levels. The locals tend to drink Chibuku, which come packaged in a milk carton, and needs to be shaken before each sip to carbonate it. Its rather foul....

Soon the boys from Monkey bay turned up at the bar. Leylo, who had walked me to the hostel a few days early in Monkey Bay, lived in Cape McClear and invited me for dinner. I agreed, and later on we walked though the markets buying fish, tomatoes and onions. Leylo sang and danced for all the store owners, obviously well known in his little town. We dropped the food off at his Mum's house, who would prepare it.
"Does she mind cooking for everyone?" I asked, testing Leylo's realisation of the male dominated society.
"No" he says, "Ive been away, she missed me and wants to cook for me". I laughed.
"Yeah, my Mum would do the same" I said.

As our food was cooking we headed to another bar a few blocks down. It seemed that halfway through this beer Leylo lost it, he was completely drunk within a few minutes. He slammed his beer down on the concrete table, it broke and spilt all over my lap.
"Leylo, go home, and have some dinner, and im going back to my lodge." I said "Thanks for your invite tonight, ill see you tomorrow." I wandered off down the road with Leylo following me the whole way, asking why and denying he'd spilt anything. The next day he meet me in the street and sheepishly apologized for his behaviour.

In the mornings in Cape McClear i made an effort to walk to the markets and buy my breakfast from one of the local stalls, rather than the hostel. One morning two young girls about 8 years old meet me on the path to the market about a kilometre down the beach.
"Excuse me Mother, where are you going" they asked. (Mother and sister are used as generic terms for a woman). I told them to the markets.
"Would you mind if we held your hand while you walked?" They said. They both took a hand each and laughed and giggled, whispering in the local language the whole way. When i reached the markets both girls hugged my knees and ran off smiling. "Thank you!" They called.

The lodge i was staying at was a sleepy small hostel with a few volunteers who worked in the local area, and a couple of lazy travellers. I meet an older German man who was travelling with his son, around my age. He had been to Africa before, in the 70's he and a friend had tried to drive from Germany to Cape Town in a Volkswagen Beetle. They had come through Morocco and across West Africa. At the border of Zaire (now DRC) they waited for weeks for visas. Eventually they had to give up and they sold the car. A week later there passports arrived, visas included, but it was too late and instead they had to return home.
"All my life i have dreamt of the shores of Lake Malawi" laughed the man as he looked across to the islands in the bay. "I have three children. I promised all of them that when they graduate school i will take each of them to Africa." His son was trip number two, Malawi and Zambia. His eldest daughter had requested a trip to Madagascar a few years earlier, his youngest was planning an ambitious rafting trip down the Niger River in a few years time.

I took lunch in a local restaurant. The restaurants in Malawi are lovely. The walls are painted with colourful messages welcoming all, and the waiter will fuss over your tea like they have never made it before. The menu is mostly the same, fish with rice or Nysima, a stiff maize porridge you eat with your hands (known in other countries of Africa as Ugali or Posho). But i began to suspect they never even brought the ingredients for your meal until you ordered. It often took two hours to prepare a meal despite the fact the restaurant was empty. When it finally arrived it didn't disappointed, and i was glad nobody was around to see me struggle without cutlery.

Back at the hostel, i ran into the German man again. He told me of his wonderful afternoon. He told me at first he didn't move for hours, but then he moved to a chair on the beach. Now he's thinking of moving to the hammock. He may even order a coffee. I agreed it was just to easy to do nothing except enjoy the peaceful surroundings. "A few more days and I might not bother getting up, just sleep all day" I said. He smiled and said he’s looking forward to that point.

Despite Cape McClear's reputation as a backpacker hangout where you can do nothing for weeks on end, after a few days the village boys drove me crazy and i couldn't wait to leave. It wasn't their attempts to sell me jewellery or batiks, in the end it was simply there continual presence. Most of them knew my name, either being the boys i had met at the pub or friends who had been introduced to me since. They would catch me on the street, follow me around, desperate for anything to fill in there days with. Despite there unfaultable English, i couldn't hold a conversation with them, we had nothing in common to talk about past a basic introduction. I could ask them what they planned for the day but the answer was always nothing.


They would quiz me for information about Australia, something which i gave out reluctantly and sparingly. They asked me what jobs my family had, and when i told them my sister was studying, she wants to make movies, they responded saying how great my country must be, you can do anything you want. After that i couldn't really explain that it wasn't that simple, that Tess was never guaranteed to do that, and she might never make any money from it, but explaining to boys who had the choice of being a fisherman, or not being a fisherman it didn't translate. There was of course a lot of truth to what they were saying, we were given more opportunities. I found it hard work.

It was such a shame. All the beach boys i met were all intelligent, well spoken, young, fit boys with nothing to do all day. Universities and corporate companies would have snapped up the same class of young men born in Australia within weeks of graduating. In Malawi, despite how well they had done at school, if they had no one to sponsor them, they would never attend university and jobs don’t exist. Charismatic salesmen, alongside the suitcase full of useless jewellery they sold me, the guys scrounged a living from tourists, running guided walks, taking trips in friends fishing boats, and getting there sisters to cook traditional dinner on the beach for groups. Unfortunately, the number of beach boys outnumbered the tourists, even in the warmer months.

I crawled through the bush to the most remote point of the Cape, careful no one was following me, desperate for some quiet time on the beach alone. There were no lodge or huts in the area, just bush and the occasional fisherman passing by, calling out and flexing their muscles for my camera. It didn't take long, it was about 20 minutes before i was joined by Frankson and a couple of his mates who politely bought up the chance to have a look at there jewellery. Other Australians had told Frankson that we couldn't take seeds home, which most of the jewellery contained, so he had made some pieces out of wire that were Australian customs safe!

After his friends left Frankson stay behind to chat. I told him that it bothered me that there were so many beach boys, and that there businesses seemed unsustainable given the few tourists around. He said in the past there was more, and of course fewer boys selling their goods, but these days it was hard, and he maybe only sold a few pieces a week.

After leaving school Frankson had attended University in Blantye, supported by his brother, a fisherman, who had look after him since his parents died when he was young. When his brother lost his job, Frankson had no money to continue his education and had to come home.
"When i came here i had nothing to do, and all the time i had to ask my brother for money. He showed me how to make jewellery, and now when i sell some i can take money back for his children."

I asked about women our age. He said this is a problem in Malawi too. When women mature they often have children very quickly and stop their education. But, I said, if they see that the men their age cant get jobs then getting married and having children may seem about the nicest path available. No, said Frankson, Malawi has gender equality, the problem is we are not educated. Education is the key, i have none and therefore i must sell jewellery.

To me it seemed despite what education they had, Malawi’s future creative class were wasting away in the sun on the shores of the lake. As a land locked country in Africa, the barriers to establishing industries in the country were high, and therefore not many past the American Tobacco Company had bothered. I thought about it for a long time, but I didn't come up with any answers.

I left the Cape early the next morning, the first bus out, with no time to say goodbye.