The African Wanderers

Introduction

2010-08-03T04:01:00.000-07:00

In May 1997, Dave Martin and Lance Greyling set off on a now famous journey through Africa.

When we left we had no idea where we were going or what adventures this continent had in store for us. Our journey started in Cape Town and ended in London with 17 months of crazy adventures in between. Below you'll find posts in a blog format with the most recent post first... but this was a journey, and if you want to share this journey with us we strongly recommend you start at the beginning and travel the road with us, step by step, bus by bus, dugout canoe by dugout canoe. This is the only way to truly experience the beauty of East Africa, the enigmas of Ethiopia, the craziness of Congo, the diversity of West Africa, the heat of the Sahara and ultimately our emotional departure from Africa's shores. It is no exageration to say that this journey changed our lives for ever. And, judging by the hundreds of emails we've received from strangers who've stumbled upon this site, our journey has inspired others to explore this amazing continent.

What follows is the collection of the monthly emails and photo's we sent to family and friends (and "subscribers") while on the road. This was in the days before blogging - in fact Hotmail was then a revolutionary thing.

To read this story chronologically, click on the sidebar menu where it says "1997" and work your way up.

WHERE ARE LANCE AND DAVE NOW?

We often get emails asking what we're up to now.

Lance worked in the environmental advocacy field and was then elected as a Member of Parliament in South Africa where he still fights the good fight today. He lives in Cape Town. See: http://www.id.org.za/newsroom/media-releases/lance-greyling

Dave carried on travelling for a number of years around South America, China, etc. He then

started the award-winning, community-based Bulungula Lodge in a remote part of South African paradise. See: http://www.bulungula.com

Dave and his wife Rejane also started a rural development NGO called the Bulungula Incubator. See: http://www.bulungulaincubator.org

Dave's last year was spent travelling South Asia: http://travelwallahs.blogspot.com/

The last word on Africa

1998-12-24T02:14:00.000-08:00

Lance & Dave

"Hey Lion, ek se"

"Ja, what you want Dave, I'm busy"

Hey what you doing bru"

"Ja, nooit China, I'm trying to do this monthly email-jobbie we send out every 6 weeks"

"Aaaahhhh! The one where we tell the people out there what we're doing?"

"Ja....... if only they really knew...."

"So let's tell them"

Sssshtt, after some jamjam wandering the grand finale is about to begin.

Find a seat, take a deep breath and read on...

Hi Everyone

We're in England. We're shell-shocked. We're finding it difficult to tell you quite what we're feeling at the moment. We're trying to deal with the fact that the wanderers are finally about to drift apart on different currents. For you it's the end of a light-hearted series about two zany African travellers. For us it's the end of so much more...

Africa has affected us in so many ways, but the only tangibles are memories. All those experiences are now spiralling round in our emotional Vortex as we consider the concluding of the past 19 months. Decisions were made, dreams were created and Africa touched us in its own unique way. This email tries to capture a small part of what was a truly magical adventure and our self-defined initiation rite into the spirit of "man". It's like, hey man, we've worked out some of the rules but we're just not sure what game we're supposed to be playing.

You left us in Madrid.

We spent one night in Madrid freaking out at all the funny white people. We hung out chatting with the other backpackers and then boarded our last bus. To London. It was vintage wanderers stuff, 36 hours and not a break in the conversation (Karen and Steve thanks for humouring us!) . Our entourage was awaiting us at Victoria Coach Bus Station. Pity the sniffer dog found that Spanish backpacker's hashish and delayed us at the French border for five hours... So our first night in London was spent on the floor of a stranger's lounge.

So that was it! London and the culmination of our 62 000km journey.

Time to reflect and time to party! The next night found us dressed in our tattered African gear partying it up with Bjork and the Fugees in London's most exclusive club, the Met Bar (two year waiting list for membership). Our travel buddy from Ghana and Burkina, Yael , turned out to have great contacts in the London scene. The next six weeks saw us splitting apart during the week as Lance pursued his glamorous job as Chain Boy (don't ask, don't tell) on Junction 11 near Reading Town, while Dave struggled for a few weeks before landing an accounting job. During the weekends we could be found roving the country staying in centuries-old country manors, setting the alarm bells ringing in Cambridge, riding on those weird things that go underground (sort of like trains), Bohemian Xmas parties, raging birthday bashes, dealing with polite disease phobic brits ("What do you mean you had MALARIA and BILHARZIA" he said backing away) and generally re-connecting with old friends collected on the way. Thanks to everyone who gave us the best welcome to Britain we could have hoped for. But that's England, lets get back to Africa.

When we left South Africa in May 97 we had no idea what Africa had in store for us. Africa certainly proved to be an intriguing mistress, offering us up a diversity of experience that we never thought possible.

On her Eastern shores we found paradise beaches, tranquil moments on island-hopping dhows and glimpses of a past glory that was killed before its time. Portugal, Holland, apartheid South Africa and America all inflicted their own peculiar battle wounds on this most amazing region.

Moving on up to Ethiopia we were introduced to the spirituality of Africa. From its ancient tribes and their bizarre rituals to its miraculous rock hewn churches in truly biblical settings and of course not forgetting the holy Muslim town of Harer with its 99 mosques. Our prophets proved to be people like the indubitable " Man" on the bridge and the famous hyena man, all mixed in with elaborate ceremonies and joyous festivities. Our abiding memory though will probably be its absolutely spectacular landscape with its green mountain ranges punctuated by crystal clear rift valley lakes and thermal springs. Come to think of it though, its delectable food and drink offerings will also prove a tough contender for that prize. And how will we ever forget that chorus of "You, You, You, What is my name," and "Where are you go....." Ethiopia you beauty.

Then it was back down to Kenya for an awesome Christmas and New Year celebration, interspersed with the weird spectacle of its elections. The beginning of the new year brought us our greatest challenge, The Congo.

"Where logic ends, Zaire Begins"

That phrase proved to be an apt refrain for our ramblings through its seemingly impenetrable forest with its small pygmy villages, strange culinary delights (elephant is okay, chimpanzee is too much like a human) and openness from the locals that can only be described as the essence of humanity. Unfortunately that phrase seemed even more appropriate for the second part of the journey, as we confronted the mighty Congo river and the full extent of Congo's military might. Eight army interrogations, sneaking out of Kisangani in little wooden pirogues, 500 kilometers of floating downstream in the cover of the night with a star-filled sky as our ceiling and the second most powerful river in the world as our constantly moving floor, those are some of the images that still linger on! But what about being interrogated in a military office filled with furniture appropriated from one of Mobutu's old palaces, or the absolute incongruence of Mobutu's past playground of supertubes and olympic size swimming pools in a country where the people are desperately poor and can still only see the state as another threat rather than as a protector.

Traversing the mighty river we arrived in the second Congo - Congo Brazzaville, and found ourselves in a country at war. From the blood spattered ruins of the once beautiful capital, Brazzaville, we headed to the impenetrable jungles of the North. As the road ended and we began another 170km of jungle walking we crossed the Equator for the eighth and final time. Two weeks later we were leaving this battered nation, victim of a French oil company prepared to instigate a war in its hunger for profits.

Central Africa is one of the most tragic places on earth, continually trapped in the grip of superpower machinations and greedy commercial interests, while the locals are forced to eke out a precarious existence under the shadow of constant military threat. Its a place that we learnt to respect, and above all to hope and pray for. The Congolese in both countries will forever be in our New-Age prayers.

After the jungle was the party, and Peace Corps made sure we had the best welcome to civilisation again in Cameroun's capital Yaounde. The party rolled on with them throughout that land, from beach raves in Kribi, to cheese and wine in Bamenda, and our year anniversary celebration in a PC volunteer's house in Mokolo. Cameroun also took us from the depths of the central African forest to the hot and barren landscape of the Sahel. The five days that we spent marching around the desert environment of Cameroun's Extreme North must rate as one of the most spontaneous and uplifting experiences of the trip. That image of those witch's hats huts (try say that fast) being illuminated by vicious bolts of lighting with powerful winds swirling around still brings a certain chill to our bones. Castaneda's you would have had a field day!

Nigeria, what a crazy place! Plato-quoting military officers, constant bribery attempts, mad motorbike taxi's, and all in all far too many disarmingly friendly people. And oh, Abacha did have to go and die while we were there didn't he?!

From Lagos to Abidjan it was a straight run along the coast. Benin gave us voodoo and a meeting with its High Priest (be scared, be very scared), Togo offered us political insurrection and our very own teargassed protest march to deal with (pull on those red bandannas we've got another dictator to depose here), and Ghana gave us the most consistently fun times of the entire trip. From the joyful exuberance of the Ghanaian people to the chilled atmosphere of Kokrobite with its motley collection of backpackers, we couldn't have asked for a more open country. Amongst all the good times though, we were invited to relive its bloody history too, spending nights in the old slaving castles and hearing the echoes of those past millions who formed the first casualties in Africa's tragic encounter with the tyranny of the outside world. Lastly, it was Cote D'Ivoire with its stunningly beautiful capital and the most bizarre architectural phenomenon of the world's largest church.

After the coast it was inland to Burkina Faso where to our mind its greatest drawcard was that there was absolutely nothing to see. There was, however a helluva lot to experience, and this we did by simply fraternising with the locals in its numerous street-side coffee bars. The most striking feature of Burkina besides its strangely named capital Ouagadougou, is that of the pride which the residents take in their country. It's a place which speaks wonders for African resourcefulness, and that a true sense of belonging can ultimately be the greatest tool towards developing a country.

Mali gave us the seemingly computer generated landscape of Dogon country, mixed in with some extremely tiring bus and river trips. Although ancient Mali was home to Africa's two greatest empires, much of this past glory was lost to us as we struggled to deal with malaria in Timbuktu and Hepatitis in Bamako. Africa can be a trying mistress sometimes.

Then it was on over to Senegal and the start of our ascent Northward. Much to our surprise the desert capital Nouakchott of Mauritania proved to be a welcome break before our crossing into the sands of the Sahara. The Sahara, throughout history, has proved to be the impenetrable wall separating the rest of the world from Africa. And so it was perhaps appropriate that this final hurdle was responsible for the most emotionally draining part of our journey, but, after Dave's adventures in the minefield, we were soon re-united in Morocco.

This country, though beautiful and interesting, could not capture our imaginations as we were now looking ahead to the ending of our trip and the legal hazards involved with crossing Europe. Suddenly we were each on a boat crossing the Mediterranean and watching Africa's shores recede into the distance and as she faded from view and Europe loomed before us it was time to accept that the apparently endless adventure was over.

So that was Africa, and the end of a trip which is sure to live on in our memories for many years to come. What makes it really so special though, is that as two young white South Africans we finally learnt what it means to be part of this broader community that others may call Africa, but which we call Home! As great as all those experiences were and as vivid as those memories are in our minds, it is that unquenchable African spirit that has touched us most and as we float apart on the different trade winds of life, it shall always be that spirit which will serve as our guide.

As your computer receives this e-mail, Lance will be looking out of the aeroplane window watching the mighty continent passing silently below as his plane heads South to a Table Mountain, Christmas sunrise. He's entering back into that zone where being a South African is no longer a novelty but a reality. What will be foremost in his reality, however, is the writing of the book, and you are all encouraged to keep pestering him via e-mail to make sure it gets done. Africa might be great on Spirit, but its not that helpful when it comes to discipline.

What the wandering spirit holds in store for Dave is unclear. Making a few pounds is the first priority and then Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, China, Mongolia..... who knows. The world's an interesting place. (Since his African Wanderings, Dave has been to South America and China and is now building a beautiful community-based lodge on a remote beach on the Wild Coast - come and visit!)

Thanks to everyone who wrote to us while we were busy slogging it out in the backwaters of the continent. You will never really know how much it meant to us to receive those messages, and without them our journey would certainly have been a far poorer one.

During our trip we have met some wonderful people who were instrumental in making our trip the success it was. We'd like to express our thanks to them in the list that follows this letter.

But before that it is time to say good bye for the last time. We hope you've enjoyed experiencing this trip with us and have enjoyed the ride as much as we did. And in a few years you may just find an email titled "The Wanderers are back!" waiting for you in your inbox. In the mean time good luck to all of you spread all over the world and have a merry Xmas and a huge New Year.

Love

The African Wanderers

Lance and Dave

THANK YOU'S

A special thank you must go to Dave's brother Paul. Without him the African Wanderers series would almost certainly not have been possible. Thanks boet, you're a legend

SOUTH AFRICA

Rushdi (our long lost musketeer: thanks for the laughs through Zim and Zam)

Jona (the original African traveller: thanks 'cus we, we both know where this all started)

ZAMBIA

The Gamma family (thanks Richard and Buster and the rest of our Kitwe family for all your hospitality)

MOZAMBIQUE

Ken and Lisa

Annette Louw

TANZANIA

Abdallah (for your profound company on a Mafia-bound dhow)

Lucy and Lucinda (for Zanzibar parties, itchy Mwangwi nights and superior ticket price negotiation skills)

KENYA

The Nightingale family (for three days of welcome, luxurious rest)

The Kiwis (Kirby, Brett, Aaron, Jo, Terri and Cowboy) for the New Year of the century

ETHIOPIA

Man (for a great story)

Mustafa (for introducing us to Man)

Aklilu Assefa (Your internet help was unparalleled)

The Shaw family (Pity about the olympics but thanks for the SA braai - by the way even though you not there anymore, Lance would love to contact your daughter in Cape Town...)

Ron, Tali, Udi and Keren (wherever you are)

Everyone at ActionAid (Great work guys - you imbued two idealists with even more idealism)

Tergane (in Turmi)

John and Barbara Geddes (for lunch amongst the Mursi)

Ivan (for a chat ceremony to ease the Omorate heat)

CONGO

The Beni Orphanage director (we hope the war has left you an the orphans untouched)

Rodeo and Mozanga ( you guys will never read this but we hope that you are riding your bikes into the deep gloom and safety of the jungle to dodge the bullets: you are the true legends)

Remi (in Beni - for helping us to finally get out of that vortex town)

Mama Ngorette (our mom in Epulu, for the dinners and the affection)

Protestant missionary Kisangani (for posting our letters)

Father Jerry in Kisangani

Yaya for engineering our escape from Kisangani

The SA Embassy (David Wud, Helena Botha, Rachel Brummer) for making us proud of our heritage by showing us true South African hospitality.

Bedoiuan for the place to stay

JOE - for being the best 3rd musketeer we could have wished for. We'll never forget our time together.

CONGO-BRAZZA

The Surly official in Pokolo for being intimidated by our story and relinquishing on his bribery request

CAMEROUN

To all the Chad evacuees (Jenn, Krista, Carol, Taylor, etc) for the wonderful welcome party

Rebecca for a great time in Mokolo

Maggie (for looking after us in Koza)

Mousa for the great border milkshakes

BENIN

Tucker (For thinking we walked the whole way)

GHANA

Yael (For being such a good partner in crime)

Bren and Avery (for Mission Jungle Experience and all the laughter)

Mattias and Ludwig (for secretly being famous movie stars)

John (for the car, o.k. so where the hell are you?)

The Kokrobite crowd (for Africa's best vibes)

Mr Mindel (Allowing us to touch base at his house in Accra)

Greg and Guillaume (Play dem tunes, Mon)

BURKINA FASO

Mao Zedong (For providing us with our only transport option to Gorom-Gorom)

PCVs and especially Jen, who we just simply couldn't escape from

MALI

Amagara Guindho (for being such a Doggone good guide)

Dwane and Kath (for the great energy despite the trials and tribulations of Malian travelling)

John (For helping us out in our time of illness and the Morocco book which was also a great help)

Modaye Ahmed (for your insight into the ways of the Sahara nomads)

SENEGAL

The Cissoke family (For giving us a cheap place to stay and throwing in some soothing Djembe and saxophone tunes at the same time)

the SA Embassy

MAURITANIA

Bouya Ahmed and Houdi (for welcoming us into your Saharan home)

MOROCCO

SA Embassy (thanks for the ground support against the Moroccan bureaucracy)

Hassan (for much needed words in Chefchaouan)

Every one on the truck, Ruth, Antonia, Heather, Sue, Ted, Miguel and especially Richard for being our knights in shining armour or should we say desert warriors in flowing indigo robes

Kip, Todd, for making our time in Marakesh that much more interesting

ENGLAND

Yael (for clothing, feeding, housing and entertaining weary travellers)

Robin and Mrs Mindel (for continuing to welcome us despite us abusing your hospitality)

Jessi (for making London a smooth landing)

Mike & Yolanda (For giving me a life; job, accommodations the works ek se'. Ja-Nee you okes are lekker)

Lucy (for my first snow in beautiful Edinburgh)

Lucinda (for alarmingly adventurous nights in Cambridge and Sussex)

Saharan Mis-adventures

1998-10-27T02:05:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone

Sorry for the delay in sending our monthly e-mail but it´s been a hectic 2 months (even by African wanderers standards).

When we last wrote to you we were chilling in the Medina (old city) of Bamako. At the time Dave had contracted Hepatitis A (we didn´t want to worry you!) and Lance was still recovering from his bout of Malaria. A few days later we caught a rough (and expensive) train ride to the capital of Senegal, Dakar. This is a notoriously expensive city for accommodation but luckily we were given a tip by a Peace Corps friend (thanks AfricanZen- you´re a legend) and we ended up staying with a musical family in the poor outskirts of town.

At most times of the day we would hear the sounds of a djembe (drum) saxophone jam which took our minds off our various maladies: Dave had turned a darker shade of yellow and was forced to drink the foulest, most disgusting traditional cure prepared by a wise old Marabout as there´s no western cure while Lance´s Baobab concoction turned out to be a more effective and better tasting cure for his constant spraying of the toilet bowl. Yellow Dave also had to try and convince the British Embassy officials that this was just a temporary change in colour and that it would be o.k. to issue him with a British Work Visa. That hurdle successfully surmounted, we headed North to St Louis, the old colonial capital of Senegal-Mauritania. It´s a delightfully dilapidated town in the centre of the Senegal River (hey, you gotta love Africa) with lots of pastel covered buildings and paved alleyways. We loved it until the 2nd day when our hotel room (where unbeknownst to us, one key fits all) was burgled. Fortunately only one thing was stolen: just the computer! (Yip Dad, get on to the insurance guys - I´ve got a police report in French that they may be interested in.)

The next day we continued North to Mauritania - which is basically a desert trying to be a country. The capital, Nouakchott, was only built 40 years ago and the desert has since successfully mounted a counter attack on the outskirts. This is another notoriously expensive city and we were preparing ourselves for $20 a night accommodation.

That is until we heard about the monkey on the tree!

This was the only information we were given with regards to a mysterious place which seemed to hold within it cheap accommodation. Armed with this knowledge we walked the streets of Nouakchott for an hour until, there it was, a monkey tied to a tree! It turned out to be a restaurant with no accommodation but the Iraqi owner kindly sent us over the road to the Auberge des Nomades.

This place hadn´t officially opened yet, but the guys were so enchanted with us that we became there first clients at a cost of $2-50 each per night. In Nouakchott, Dave had to get Moroccan and European visas which forced us to spend 2 weeks in this funky desert capital. Obviously there´s not too much to do in your average desert capital so we set about turning our new, temporary home into a thriving business empire. We and the owner sat down for a few days over more than a couple of glasses of Nomad mint tea and developed a comprehensive marketing strategy (brochures, internet, traveller´s book, business letters, etc) for the Auberge. We don´t want to blow our trumpets (we would never do a thing like that) but by the time we left his little place was the busiest hotel in Nouakchott! The "what goes around, comes around" principle proved true as our marketing attracted an overland truck which was heading North to Morocco. The problem with the Sahara, amongst other things, is that traffic is notoriously light and extremely expensive. So the truck´s offer of a free lift through the Sahara was miracle that only the Travelling Spirit could deliver (hey, even Dave believes this New Age stuff now!).

Bouya Ahmed & Houdi and us at the Auberge, Mauritania

But it looked like the Wanderers were about to split up as Dave didn´t yet have his Moroccan visa due to bureaucratic delays, but on the day the truck set off the visa came through and in extremely high spirits we set off through the dunes of the Sahara. At that stage, we believed the final hurdle had been crossed: Africa, Jou Moer!

Crossing the Sahara, Mauritania

After three days of desert, dunes, sand storms, heat and laughter we reached the mine field that separates Mauritania from Morocco. Our Mauritanian Nomad guide directed us safely through this zone where one can see the wrecks of three vehicles (they didn´t take a guide!). We eventually arrived at the Moroccan border post and handed in our passports to be stamped and everything went smoothly until the Moroccan military guy finished with the 8 European passports and came to Dave´s African passport. Despite having a valid visa giving that specific border post as the point of entry to Morocco, the Military chief said simply: "No African may pass here, this visa was issued by a civilian authority and I take orders only from the military!"

With that he sent Dave back into the desert minefield to wait for transport back to Mauritania. With tears in our eyes we said goodbye and Lance and the truck headed to Morocco where, the plan was, Lance would contact the SA Embassy for help. Unfortunately the truck was held up at a military checkpoint for 2 days voiding that plan.

So for 4 days, Dave lived in a cave in a Saharan minefield with our SA flag flying proudly above. This part of the Sahara is a sandy plain with scattered rocky outcrops in one of which was a little hollowed-out cave. Every day he had to walk the 2km to the border post, trying as hard as possible to float so as not to set off any mines, to get the military´s generous daily ration of a piece of bread and water and spent the rest of the time trying to build rock walls for the cave to try and get some protection from the terrible sand storms that raged for three of the four days.

Dave's cave, No Man's Land

To cut a long, bleak story short, vehicles heading South arrived on the 4th day and no one stopped! Europeans in empty cars told Dave that they had no place and others simply ignored him. Eventually, the last car in the convoy driven by some Moroccans took pity and gave him a lift to the Mauritanian border post where the Mauritanians kindly ignored the fact that he was technically entering the country twice with one visa.

A cave with a view, No Man's Land

Things happened pretty quickly from there. After arriving in the first big town and sleeping the night there, a kind tourist agency organised a half price airplane ticket to Casablanca and within 24 hours of leaving the desert, Dave arrived in this fabulously exotic city.

In the meantime Lance was working his way North to Marakech on board the overland truck complete with all its typical complexities and personal intrigues amongst the various passengers. Hey we guess we gotta learn this whole social group dynamics deal again!

One day after arriving in Marakech the Wanderers were together again. Africans Unite!

Marakech was lovely, but it all seems so dreamlike now suffice to say that it was 3 days of African Wanderers-style partying. By this stage one would have thought all the hurdles had been crossed, but the fun was just starting.

Dave needed his visa extended by 4 days but his story had hit the SA newspapers and needless to say the Moroccans (Moerkaans) weren´t very enamoured with him. Another long story shortened sees Dave taking a week to deal with, threats ("we want to see nice things in the papers now!"), spies, secret palace (this is a kingdom) officials and a hard working SA Embassy staff in order to successfully get his visa extension.

The Wanderers met up in Fes again for a whole 7 hours before Lance had to head off on his mission. Here´s the deal: Dave had to be out of Morocco in 5 days. Unfortunately he only had a visa for 5 days to cross Europe but England won´t let him in unless Lance is able draw out $1000 in a country with a hard currency at $100 per day (the Credit Card limit) which equals 10 days. So Lance heads off to Gibraltar, a bizarre piece of England in the South of Spain, to start drawing the money. The travelling spirit kicked in one last time and miraculously the ATM just kept on spewing out money which allowed an early Wanderers re-unification in the Southern Spanish city of Algeciras (the first time Dave´s left Africa).

We started hitching with no success and eventually settled for an overnight bus to Madrid.

Europe´s weird, there are too many uptight whities, but the women....! So here we are in Madrid preparing to catch a 24 hour bus to London and complete the final stage of our journey of a life time, which started 17 months and 22 countries ago.

There will be one more e-mail in the African Wanderers series, so stay tuned for our nostalgic summation of the trip from London. In the meantime, would everyone who receives this e-mail directly or via friends please send us a one line note so that we can see how many subscribers travelled Africa with us.

Mayibuye Afrika!

from the proudly African, African Wanderers

Dave and Lance

Hot as Sahel!

1998-09-14T01:25:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone

We're back! After a 6 week silence, we've re-emerged here in Bamako, Mali where, to our amazement, we've found a proliferation of cyber cafes with the cheapest internet access in Africa if not the world ($1-60 per hour)!

We last wrote from Abidjan, the gleaming, sophisticated capital of Cote D'Ivoire. Immediately after sending that e-mail we headed North towards Burkina Faso stopping off at the bizarre town of Yamoussoukro for the night.

What makes this town unique in Africa and the world is apparent to all from more than 10km away. Like an apparition, the giant, shining dome of a church larger than any other towers over the horizon transfixing both traveller and local in awe. But it is only when we visited the gigantic Basilica de Notre Dame later that day that we fully appreciated its immense grandeur. Built in the late 80's by former President Boigny, the Basilica is a near replica of St Peters, just bigger. Surrounded by 7 acres of marble paving, the whole area exudes a powerful aura of peace and we spent nearly 2 hours wandering around the giant building and its grounds. It cost an astronomical $400 million to build which almost bankrupt the country (only 12% of which are Christian!) - but then who remembers how much the equally wasteful pyramids cost to build...

Basilica de Notre Dame, Yamoussoukro, Cote D'Ivoire

We continued on our way north, winding our way through the beautiful, lush Ivorienne countryside admiring the incredible agricultural production which has resulted from the government's focus on the agricultural sector for the past 30 years.

After a few days we were crossing the border into Burkina Faso and entering the country's second biggest city: Bobo Dioulasso. There we camped for three days exploring the city's culinary delights and basically revelling in the fact that there is absolutely nothing to do or see in Burkina Faso which suited us just fine!

We were forced out of our idleness by a bizarre occurrence that has since been common throughout the Sahel. Having crossed the equator 8 times on this trip one would have expected us to have been swamped by a tropical rainstorm on numerous occasions throughout our journey in the equatorial regions. But, amazingly, it was here in Bobo that we were completely flooded out for the first time. Our tent and everything in it was soaked to the core and even after a day of drying, when we swung our already heavy backpacks on to our backs on our way to Ouagadougou, the water added a few unneeded extra kilos.

As luck and our travelling spirit would have it we found Harri, a Burkina Peace Corps volunteer we'd met in Benin on the same bus heading to Ouagadougou and we chatted, catching up on news all the way to the capital.

Ouagadougou is a low, sprawling Sahelan city with just a hint of chic beginning to emerge. It's a bustling place crammed with mobylettes (that try to run you down given the slightest chance) and coffee shops. Dodging the former and frequenting the latter occupied most of our days with welcome breaks being provided by the arrival of Yael (Dave's Ghanaian gymnastics instructor...), shopping for the world's most colourful pants, and visits to the American Recreation Centre courtesy of Peace corps. The Ouaga night life is legendary and we sampled some at the Sahel Bar where the live band was accompanied by 5 or 6 impromptu drummers who just arrived with their drums and enhanced the pulsing rhythm that had everyone including us on the dance floor.

After 5 totally relaxing days the three of us headed north towards the Sahara and the frontier town of Gorom Gorom. The last section of the journey was treacherous due to flooding caused by the heavy rainy season showers and can only be covered by 4x4. We managed to organise a lift on the back of a pickup with the Assistant District Commissioner (known as Mao Zedong) and proceeded to churn our way through the mud and even to push the vehicle through 2 rivers more than 4 feet deep. The bizarreness of the situation is perfectly illustrated by the fact that on the other side of one of the rivers sat a bemused desert nomad and his camel watching us trying to prevent the pickup from being washed away by the river. And all this is going on in what's supposed to be the edge of the Sahara!

Eventually we arrived in Gorom Gorom, wet and bedraggled and found rooms at the local guest house.

Gorom Gorom is unique in Burkina with its incredible array of colourful inhabitants. The Peul/Fulani are a cattle herding people with heavy tattooing and facial scarification. The Peul woman are probably the most beautiful we've seen with large, black tattoos over their mouths and beautiful jewellery. The Mossi are Burkina's major ethnic group and are remarkable for their history as the only nation over the last 1000 years to not only resist the imposition of Islam but also the only nation to successfully defend themselves against the enormous empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai. The Tuareg are the famous desert nomads wrapped in indigo robes and turbans who have for centuries run trans Saharan camel caravans swapping desert salt for daily necessities. The Bella were the Tuareg slaves before but are now free and continue their nomadic existence although to a reduced extent. A visit to the Gorom Gorom market is a colourful experience with all these diverse groups present selling anything from camel milk and traditional soap to Chinese batteries and Nescafe.

Yael and Dave took camels to explore further and wandered round the arid countryside visiting the tiny Peul/Fulani settlements and the Bella nomads before climbing onto the only hillock that breaks the massive flat expanse to watch the sunset.

Dancing at sunset, Gorom Gorom, Burkina Faso

Soon we were heading South again to Ouagadougou to say sad goodbyes to Yael who flew back to Ghana and then onto England while we travelled north-westwards, attempting a little used route to Mali. After spending a night in a tiny town called Ouahigouya we caught another bus on to the village of Koro in Mali so ending our 2 week stay in Burkina Faso.

In Koro, after struggling to get the local transport syndicate to sell us a ticket on to the next town at the normal price (a recurring problem in Mail it turned out...) we finally caught a battered pickup known as a bache to the town of Bankas - the launching point for a visit to the amazing Dogon country.

The flat plains that dominate this region are broken just north of Bankas by a bizarre escarpment that juts out of the earth as a series of cliffs 135km long. In the 13th century the animist tribe known as the Dogon people, after being harassed by Muslim tribes, fled into these cliffs and built the most incredible villages on the sheer faces of these cliffs. Over the years, visiting these cliff villages has become quite a tourist attraction which has inflated prices in the area phenomenally. We met a number of travellers (even hard bargaining Peace Corps volunteers) and on average they were paying their guide $30 each per day! Our guide, Amagara Gindho, (who we were paying $7 a day) said it was not unheard of for a guide to earn $4000 for a four day trip with a couple of Japanese tourists! Go Africa!

Hiking in Dogon country is pretty straightforward. During the day we walked from 15 to 20km at the foot of this beautiful escarpment winding our way through numerous tiny Dogon villages stopping now and again to relax and enjoy the ritual 3 glasses of strong, sweet tea which our guide performed half a dozen times a day. We would stop at a village in the evening and after showering in one of the numerous waterfalls falling down the face of the cliffs we'd cook dinner then fall asleep on a mat on the roof of a house. In the mornings we'd be woken at sun rise by flies buzzing our faces and after breakfast we'd be on our way again.

The first night we slept in the village of Teli. The next morning we climbed up to the now uninhabited cliff village where we learnt about the incredibly difficult lifestyle the Dogon endured there. Their lives were a constant hassle having to climb up and down the steep cliffs to work in the fields below and to fetch firewood explaining why now, in times of peace, most villagers have relocated to the plains. The cliff houses are made of mud and have bizarre rectangular pyramid shapes with log supports jutting out in all directions. These houses and the numerous granaries are all connected to each other by a series of rocky step paths that wind their way along the cliff face. The Dogon developed all sorts of weird contraptions including a clever locking mechanism for their intricately carved wooden doors as well as door hinges.

A cliff-face Dogon Village, Mali

Above the Dogon villages, though, are even more amazing settlements. High up the cliff tiny mud dwellings are visible in the rock crevices, so precariously placed that it would take professional rock climbers with ropes to reach them. These diminutive houses belong to the enigmatic Tellem pygmies who vanished long ago. No one appears quite sure how these tiny people scaled the cliffs to reach their homes: the locals say they used magic while some people postulate that ropes were used. Either way, the Dogon look at the Tellem as being quite mystical and when we explained that we'd spent so much time with the pygmies in the Congos they begged us to tell stories about them. Our tales of how much stronger the pygmies are than the normal sized Congolese threw them into fits of laughter and they sat enraptured as we told them what we knew of the pygmies' jungle culture.

The second day we scaled the escarpment and spent the night in the village of Bengnimato which is perched on the edge of the cliffs with a sweeping view of the plains below and the bizarre rock formations and cliffs on either side. we spent another beautiful night on the roof and then spent most of the morning chatting to the diverse collection of tourists around the breakfast table.

Mud mosque, Dogon country, Mali

The 3rd day we headed back down the cliffs to Ende which is where our guide, Amagara, lives. There we partied the night away making copious quantities of tea and being requested to play our rave/trance music over and over again. We also bought superb mud cloth tops and jester-like hats which we paraded around.

The next morning we climbed up the cliffs to the abandoned village where the ancient Hogon (animist priest) still lives. He spends his days crouched amongst his animal remains, weird fetishes and a strange assortment of pots, poles ropes and masks which he uses to cure medical and spiritual problems. He's a strange old guy who gets pretty happy when people come to visit - his wrinkled, leathery face breaks into a wide smile displaying all his skew, brown, crayfish teeth. After trying to talk for a while we bid him farewell and he returned to his tranced state, fiddling randomly with his bizarre collection of paraphernalia.

After meeting Amagara's family and saying goodbye to the friends we'd made, we walked the 12 odd kilometers back to Bankas again, so ending a memorable 4 days in Dogon country.

The next day on our way to the town of Mopti we befriended a kiwi couple, Dwane and Kath, and as is typical in Africa we ended up travelling together for the next week. After arriving in Mopti we bought tickets for a 4x4 due to leave for Timbuktu in a few days time. Being rainy season all the dirt roads in the region have been pretty much destroyed and we were extremely lucky to find a vehicle going to Timbuktu at all. So, after a fairly debaucherous few days in Mopti mostly spent feasting in the superb pastry shop and chatting to the weird assortment of travellers, we packed our bags and headed over to the truck park to catch our 4x4 to Timbuktu. At least that was the plan.

When we arrived, we found that the vehicle was being repainted and were told that we'd probably leave that afternoon. However, despite our regular visits to the mechanic's garage where we pretended to be VIPs demanding the speedy completion of the job, we eventually realised that this vehicle wasn't going anywhere. Dejected, we decided to leave for Gao in the far North of the country where we could hopefully catch a boat down to Timbuktu.

So the next morning found us ready and waiting at the truck park at 7am only for one incomprehensible delay after another to hold us back till mid-day. Eventually though we were on our way and about 30km from town we were busy passing through the customary military checkpoint when a soldier demanded to see our registration stamp from Mopti. Now this region of Mali has got a bit of a scam going whereby tourists are told that they need to have their passports stamped in all towns and are charged a false fee of $1-60. Having crossed both Congos as well as Nigeria without paying any bribes, we were pretty confident that we wouldn't get caught by this scam. So, imagine our disgust when all the other passengers were forced off the minibus and the driver was ordered to take us back to Mopti to get this stamp. Imagine, too, the rage we were in when the policeman demanded the "fee" knowing that we couldn't fight it out with him because we were delaying everyone else on the minibus! So, yes, the wanderers have paid their first bribe!

It was 2pm when we finally got going again, squashed like sardines in the backseat of the bus. As the sun began setting we passed through the most amazing landscape of flat, Karoo-like desert broken by monstrous rock formations pointing sharply skyward. Dotted on the horizon were countless buttes similar to those which have made Arizona famous although the Malian ones, we were told by Dwane, are far more impressive. It soon became obvious that we had again been duped by idiotic ticket salesmen who, throughout Africa, can never tell you the truth about how long a journey will take. In this case we'd been told 5 hours and it was pretty clear that we'd need a miracle to get us there in less than 12. At around 10pm , the minibus stopped for the night, so we rolled out our mattresses on the side of the road and slept until sun rise when our journey recommenced.

Eventually we reached Gao, found a rooftop room to sleep in and collapsed exhausted. Gao is situated on the Southern edge of the Sahara and is the ancient capital of probably the most powerful African empire ever: the Songhai empire. It's inhabited by the Songhai, Malian and Algerian Arabs, Fulani nomads and Tuaregs. It's very life blood is the amazing Niger River that must have the most bizarre course of any major river. Starting only a few hundred kilometers from the sea in Guinea, this river makes an amazing loop into the Sahara passing through Mopti, Timbuktu and Gao and then turns South through Niger and finally enters Nigeria where it empties into the ocean at the Niger Delta. In its upper reaches in Mali and Niger, gold is common (the women here wear giant gold earrings) and its mouth at the delta is one of the richest oil deposits in the world which when added to its precious desert commodity cargo - water - makes it one of the wealthiest rivers in the world.

Gao is damn hot!

In the mornings we'd walk into town and look around but by 10am it would be just too hot and so we'd siesta until late afternoon when we'd cruise into town again to eat. One evening the 4 of us took a pirogue up the river to where the massive red dunes start and watched the sunset from there. But other than that we did very little in Gao - just tried to survive the heat.

Dwane & Kath, Niger River, Mali

Dwane and Kath were on their way to Niamey in Niger while we were still determined to get to Timbuktu. So when a riverboat arrived, the two of us said the umpteenth sad goodbye, climbed aboard, threw our sleeping mats on the deck and prepared to leave. Naturally, 12 hours later we hadn't moved an inch and when we finally did get going it was at half speed due to one of the engines breaking down. Congo riverboat part II!

We spent 4 days chugging down the river to Timbuktu. The landscape was desert dunes much of the way, broken occasionally by desert, nomadic settlements of a few dozen people who'd wave furiously at us as we sailed past. Surprisingly, the river is lined with green as rice and animal fodder is grown in the shallow waters along almost its entire length. Every day or so, we'd reach a bigger town where we'd stop for a few hours to load goods much to the excitement of the village kids who'd clamber aboard the boat, run around like mad things terrorising the passengers then screaming with joy they'd leap off the boat into the river below.

A nomad's riverside home, on the way to Timbuktu, Mali

We'd spend most of the day reading, writing and listening to our walkmans and would sleep on the deck with the other 4th class passengers. We happened to be surrounded by some mothers and their kids, so every morning at around 5am we'd be woken as they busied themselves with cooking and cleaning despite the unrepeatables which we uttered freely begging them to shut up. The Muslim religion is great and we've come to appreciate it's many virtues on this trip but it's this praying at 5 o'clock in the morning thing that will ensure that we never become practitioners of this religion!

Eventually we arrived at the port around 18km from Timbuktu called Koriame at around 3am where we slept on the riverbank and the next morning got ready to catch a vehicle into town. Here for the first time we encountered the pervasive Timbuktu problem: triple pricing. Now in most of Africa raising prices for white travellers is common but if you know the price and tell the person so, they just laugh and agree. In Timbuktu however the people simply refuse to accept our money unless we paid triple! We sat for 4 hours at the port watching vehicle after vehicle carrying passengers on to Timbuktu but were told uniformly by the drivers that our price was three times more! Eventually we managed to get a ride on a truck carrying sacks of beans and perched high on top of these bags we entered this legendary town that throughout history has proved so difficult to reach. The first European to do so and live was Rene Caille in 1826 long after most of West Africa had been conquered by colonial powers and even he was forced to flee for his life when he was discovered.

But even then Timbuktu was long past its hey days in the 15th century when everyone could read and write and the city had its own university attracting Muslim scholars from all over the Arab world. Although it was never the capital of the immensely wealthy Mali Empire it was still an enormously important trading post for the lucrative trans Saharan caravan trade where Mali's salt and gold were swapped for Asian, Arabian and European commodities brought across the Sahara by camel.

The Malian Empire was so wealthy that when King Kankan Moussa made his pilgrimage to Mecca he gave away so much gold as gifts in Egypt that the gold based currency there was nearly destroyed for 20 years afterwards. The king travelled with an entourage of 60 000 people and had a new mosque built every Friday for him to pray in! His military exploits in the region were legendary and during his reign as king there could have been few richer kingdoms in the world. How ironic it is to see that Timbuktu's literacy rate once perfect is now just 34%.

Timbuktu is now nothing more than a dry, dusty, desert town of low mud houses and two tourist hotels. These are exorbitant but we eventually managed to organise to sleep in a local restaurant fairly cheaply. Lance was really ill with malarial-like symptoms so he spent most of his time in Timbuktu passed out while Dave sat writing postcards or fending off Tuareg men trying to sell all sorts of Tuareg paraphernalia. A substantial portion of our time was spent fighting with various restaurateurs who flatly refused to sell us food at local prices but eventually after 2 days of headaches we found a woman who was prepared to treat us as just another client and charge us accordingly. In doing so, she reconfirmed the fact (as far as we're concerned) that corruption in Africa is definitely a male thing!

Timbuktu, Mali

Dave was invited by a friendly Tuareg guy to have tea on the outskirts of town where the Saharan dunes spread into the distance. We sat sipping tea, talking about the amazing lifestyle of the Tuareg and comparing travel philosophies. These people certainly have a uniquely dignified way about them which we've seen in no-one else anywhere in the world.

However, Timbuktu is a place where nothing is ever what it seems, and we discovered later that the mythical Tuareg camel caravans don't exist and by many accounts never did. In fact, the camel caravans that still head out annually to the desert salt mines of Taoudenni are run by nomadic Arabs who are distinctly different from the Tuareg in that they speak Arabic not Tamanshek and who claim that the Tuareg never ran caravans but were always goat herders. Our limited research seems to back up this theory as early accounts of caravan journeys in the 14th century involved Moroccan Arabs and not Tuaregs. Either way, the Tuareg now make their living selling cheap jewellery and impressive knives and swords. Some enterprising Tuaregs even arrange for tourists to join an annual "Tuareg" caravan heading north even though it is truthfully an Arab caravan.

After 3 days in Timbuktu - the city of deception and intrigue - we caught another riverboat heading down to Mopti. After 4 days on this noisy boat spent sipping tea with some Malian Arabs we befriended and chatting with an American marine called John we arrived, exhausted, in Mopti where we boarded a bus immediately for Bamako.

We've been here in Bamako for the last few days recovering with John in his friend's house enjoying the good food and the world's cheapest Cybercafes.

Tomorrow we head for Senegal in search of that elusive trans-Saharan route. We even considered trying our luck with the faster yet less secure Algerian route, but that was finally closed off to us by the embassy who refused to issue us visas. So it looks like its got to be Mauritania after all (not Moritavia by the way Kevin), where we can hopefully hitch onto an overland vehicle going North. Either way though, we've got our sights firmly fixed on London now and we are sure to use our fifteen months of resourcefulness to get us there. The next time you hear from us will probably be on the other side of that sand-mass they call the Sahara, so make sure you renew your subscription in time to hear about the final African escapade of the wanderers. In case you've forgotten, the subscription price is merely one interesting e-mail from you. Chain letter jokes don't count by the way.

love as always

your African Wanderers

Dave and Lance

West African delights

1998-05-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone

After two quite interesting e-mails (or so we've been told) we decided to now send out a relatively boring one just to prove to all of you out there that we do have a semblance of normality left in us. We don't want people getting the impression that we are simply rugged adventurers unable to enjoy the other side of life. In fact after four months in the jungle, spending a night in the Hilton Hotel proved just as exciting to us as a night in a pygmy village.

We have since recovered from the shock of that glorious hotel room complete with satellite TV, hot shower and air conditioning being provided to us courtesy of the American Peace Corp. It did take us a while though. After leaving that room two weeks ago we made our way down to Kribi beach on board a minibus shuttle aptly entitled La Kribienne. Kribi certainly is a beach paradise, enhanced by the fact that it represented the final point in our 4 month crossing from the Indian Ocean in the East to the Atlantic Ocean in the West. Of course one can just drive for half an hour in Cape Town and achieve the same thing, but you know us, we've just got to do it the hard way.

The Atlantic Ocean was truly glorious though, complete with waves that one could actually bodysurf. The surrounding little town also had a slightly Southern European ambience to it, with little 50cc motorbikes being the preferred mode of transport. Scooting around the town on the back of one of these we ran into the peace corps contingent again who had moved en masse down to Kribi. We enjoyed a wonderful night with them, bodysurfing in the moonlight, consuming various drinks and discussing the esoteric meaning of life until four o'clock in the morning.

After that night of revelry we lifted ourselves out of bed at 10 o'clock the next morning and walked six kilometers down to the area's famous Chutes de Lobe. This is basically a long row of waterfalls cascading directly into the sea and are fairly impressive to look at. We, however, found the motley assemblage of package tourists there far more interesting, taking various inane photographs and getting ripped off by the local tourist touts for everything.

After sampling the delights of Kribi for three days we decided to head on to a little isolated fishing village called Londji. This picturesque village is off the main road about twenty kilometers North of Kribi. During the weekends it gets a sudden rush of expatriates descending on its shores, as this pristine part of the coastline is also the preferred place for rich whiteys to buy their holiday houses. We arrived at the village on a Sunday and were immediately greeted by the sight of four forty year old women running around the beach completely bare-breasted. On the weekend this beach clearly belonged to them and their peculiar culturally insensitive practices. In the late afternoon, however, they closed up their houses, packed the kids in the car and drove back to their life in African suburbia, once again leaving this part of the world to the locals. It was this quiet solitude that we were after, and so we set about securing ourselves a place to put up our tent.

The view from our tent in Londji, Cameroun

The one rudimentary restaurant in the area was losing its owner to the city for the week, and for a small fee he agreed to us putting up a tent on his grounds about twenty steps away from the ocean. He also left us with the key to his outdoor kitchen, complete with running water and all the firewood we would need to cook ourselves up a variety of interesting dinners. We basically had our own restaurant and "house" on the beach for a week. This was what we were holding out for during those tiring months in the jungle.

The first night offered us up a magnificent welcoming in the form of a truly glorious thunderstorm. Sitting underneath one of our thatched eating areas with the rain pouring down above us, we gently sipped our coffee while watching the sky before us explode in a symphony of light. Vast blankets of cloud would form the backdrop for the ever present pulsating glow of sheet lightning, while those short, sharp powerful bolts would routinely come crashing out of the sky, enveloping the sea around it in a wonderful burst of dazzling light. We sat mesmerised by this scene for about an hour, at which stage the play moved off to tackle some other area of virgin sky.

The following morning we settled into our routine which was to stay the same for the next couple of days. Dave would wake up at six thirty, go for a thirty minute run, and join Lance for a swim as he stumbled out of the tent a half an hour later. After enjoying a breakfast of cornflakes and copious amounts of coffee, Lance would then settle into a full day of writing in an attempt at convincing himself that this book of our hapless adventures could one day be completed. Dave would retire to the shade of the palm tree on our beach and read all about the next section of our trip in the Lonely Planet's West Africa book. In the evenings we would treat ourselves to a sumptuous meal cooked over a roaring fire, followed by cups of tea under our thatched eating area on the beach. All of this activity would take place within the context of the locals going about their daily business of bringing in their catch of fish. It most definitely was a tranquil and relaxing period for us, with those images of large Congolese "Guys with Guns" slowly dissipating from our memories.

After Londji we headed straight on to the mayhem of Douala, a city which is sometimes dubbed "the armpit of Africa". One thing is for sure though, we certainly felt like armpits, with the extreme humidity drawing every ounce of sweat from our bodies. We had to come to this city though, as we needed a visa to Nigeria and the embassy in Yaounde was refusing to issue any. We thought we might have better luck with the consulate in Douala, and so with our fingers crossed we landed up inside their offices pleading for assistance. We finally managed to convince the receptionist to try and push for a transit visa, which unfortunately required us to leave our passports there for a week while we headed up to Western Cameroun.

The first city we stopped at was Bafoussam, which was supposed to be the site of one of the most impressive chefferies (chief's compounds) in all of Africa. Well, we weren't really impressed, but then again it takes a lot to compete against the sights of Ethiopia. Leaving the next day, we arrived in Bamenda and set up our tent in the local Presbyterian mission. By some strange quirk of fate, in other words that mysterious travel energy again, we found ourselves camped in the same place as three Peace Corps people we had left in Kribi a week before. In celebration we decided to go and see a movie, which much to our delight was in English. This area of Cameroun used to actually be an English colony, and most of the population here speaks either English or the rather strange pidgin English.

The three peace corps women also knew where the Bamenda Peace Corps house, or "slum" as they call it, was situated, and so we all made our way up there to savour its delights. Meeting more of these strange Americans we had a wonderful time cooking up a delectable meal in their kitchen and enjoying red wine and crackers with cheese. After two days of this living, we all made our way up to Foumban, where low and behold we met up with some more Peace Corps people. Having covered almost every one of America's states in the form of Peace Corps volunteers, we prepared ourselves for another two evenings of slightly non-African fun.

In the day though, we got our dose of African culture in the form of Foumban's royal castle and museum. Now this was an attraction worth seeing, as it housed all the artifacts of the Bamoun culture, including the little black book of the 16th Bamoun king. This King was quite impressive, having formulated an entire alphabet for the Bamoun language and recorded its over 500 year history. His most impressive achievement, however, must certainly be the fact that he managed to have not only a thousand wives, but also a couple of hundred concubines! Some guys have all the luck.

Finally we bid farewell to our Peace Corps friends, with David going off to Douala to pick up our passports, and Lance going off to Yaounde to wait for him. Thankfully the two wanderers weren't apart for too long, meeting up again two days later. We've have since spent the last few days trying to organise our money, speak to parents and deal with internet commitments. This last task has proven particularly difficult, as that very useful palm top computer decided to go and lose all the information stored on it, including the chapters of the book which Lance had battled away with in Londji. Oh well, deep breath, refocus and get the energy up. Don't worry, if we made it through the Congo jungle, we can definitely get this book finished, no matter what the bloody computer might have to say about it.

If you weren't overly impressed with the adventures contained in this e-mail then don't worry, because we will soon be leaving the relative calm of this pseudo Cameroonian democracy and taking on the instability of Nigeria and Niger (yes they are two different two countries). First we will be savouring the delights of arid Northern Cameroun complete with its clifftop villages and lunar landscapes. We thought this would be a nice environment to spend our year's anniversary in. Then its straight into Nigeria to the ancient town of Kano with its grand history and present day dictatorship (more Guys with Guns trying to get money from us: just the way we like it). After that its straight on to Niger, with its famed city of Agadez, once the heart of the trans-Saharan trade. It should be in this desert environment that Lance spends his 25th birthday. If not, then we hear there's lots of peace corps floating around that country who should make excellent company for such an auspicious occasion.

After Niger its straight down to Benin and out of what we envisage to be a month long internet abyss. Try not to miss us too much!!!

Speak to you again in Cotonou.

Love

The African Wanderers

Lance and Dave

1 July 1998

Hi everyone

After a longer than usual break the African Wanderers are back! This e-mail spans five countries and has plenty of Guys with Guns for you to enjoy.

We last wrote from Yaounde, Cameroun. Soon after sending our e-mail to you we caught the overnight train due north to Ngaoundere. While sitting on the train waiting to depart we watched three different people getting beaten up, one of them because he had stolen something from someone. Catching a thief in Cameroun is generally a free for all, where everyone is allowed to have a blow at him before he is handed over to the police. Needless to say, he was quite happy when the police finally took possession of him.

We arrived the next morning in Ngaoundere and immediately caught a minibus further North to the dry, desert town of Maroua. Cameroun, like Nigeria, is a country of climatic contrasts with dense, tropical rain forest in the South and dry, dusty desert in the North. With Christianity being limited to the Southern half of the country we had now entered Islamic territory. We were stopped by the military on the outskirts of town and for the first time in a month the soldiers inspecting our passports spotted that we didn't have visas and we were ordered to report immediately to the immigration office. Fortunately, it was a weekend so the office was closed and we managed to escape the town undetected. On the way to Maroua we met a Peace Corps volunteer, Tara, and were invited to spend the night at the PC house where we spent a pleasant night sleeping outside due to the incredible heat. Yes, if anyone's wondering, the Sahel is damn hot! Over 40 degrees most days.

The next day we caught another minibus to the little town of Mokolo carrying a letter of introduction to another PC volunteer, Rebecca. We hit it off immediately and weren't that inebriated when we concocted a bizarre plan that night to travel the USA together following a band we'd never heard of before called Phish on their summer tour, earning money cooking meals in the parking lots (perhaps even our legendary chicken, mayo and condensed milk stew)! A great way to see the States.

The next day, we did a day trip to a village called Rumsiki, where some of Africa's most bizarre rock formations are to be found. From the relatively flat, brown terrain protrude giant needles of rock pointing at the heavens like giant fingers. Quite breathtaking! After sitting with the chief and chatting for a while it appeared as if we were going to be forced to spend the night there as, even though it was market day, the traffic was basically non-existent. Fortunately however, the chief (who proudly boasted that he now grew a South African strain of maize that had doubled his yield) managed to arrange that we get a lift back to Mokolo with the local military commander.

The lunar landscape of Rumsiki, Cameroun

The next morning after leaving most of the contents of our bags in Rebecca's house we set off on a week's hike into the surrounding semi-desert to visit various tiny villages scattered in the hills that mark the border between Cameroun and Nigeria. The flat lands that represent most of Cameroun are inhabited by the Fulani tribe, legendary cattle herders of the Sahel. The inhospitable mountainous region where we were hiking, on the other hand, was inhabited by the more primitive Kirdi people who had been chased there by slave seeking Fulanis many centuries before.

On the first day, the stupidity of what we were doing really struck home. Without water for a few hours in over 40 degrees of heat and feeling extremely thirsty we eventually discovered that in order to find water one must dig in the dry river beds about a meter down and wait for water to seep into the hole. But this wasn't our problem (in fact it was quite fun): our problem was that we had to reach the village of Tourou by Thursday to witness its bizarre market day. Tourou, however, was only 35km away and we'd left on a Monday. This meant that we could walk only 10km a day, which would take us about 2 hours, and then we'd have to sit around and do nothing in the baking heat for the rest of the day bored out of our minds. Dave almost went out of his mind that day, lying under a tree, when he realized that we were essentially wandering around the desert trying to waste time! The only thing that consoled us was that it couldn't be more boring than sitting in Tourou for 3 days. Fortunately, bizarre Africa came to our rescue.

Lance eating breakfast drew large crowds, Cameroun

That night we cooked under the stars, camping in a deserted cattle kraal. The next morning, after being woken by inquisitive kids at 5:30am we took things extra slow (that wasting time thing again) and eventually after a late porridge breakfast set off walking. The first day we'd mistakenly walked further than expected and had to our dismay stumbled upon a marker which claimed it was only 15km to Tourou. So this second day we decided to just get it over with and go straight to Tourou. We walked for about 4 hours and reached a large village having its market day. It wasn't Tourou but it was picturesque so we thought, what the hell let's camp here. We set up camp next to the water pump (a real luxury) and then Dave went to go and hang out with the locals in the market getting smashed on their traditional brew while Lance tried to write with an audience of 50 people peering over his shoulder. This audience eventually left us at around 10pm having studied our every move for 6 unbroken hours. Just as the crowd decided to leave we enquired about the distance to Tourou: 18km they replied quickly! We were lost!

Astounded we studied our map which was clearly completely inaccurate wondering how it was possible that in 4 hours walking we'd in fact covered minus 3km!

So off we set the next morning, marching towards Tourou - we hoped - and finally arrived that evening. The Kirdi villages are striking in that they are built on rocky slopes so steep that one wouldn't think it possible to farm or build there. What's more, each hut has the pointiest roof we've ever seen - identical to a witch's hat! What made Tourou extra special though was that on market day some really bizarre people from very remote areas would arrive with their small bags of goods for sale. The next morning, market day, we wandered around the market looking at all the strange products for sale and the even stranger people selling them. The most striking was one group of women who wore brightly painted and polished calabashes on their heads. They looked as though they were wearing cooking pots and, along with the piece of metal that jutted from their right nostril, they had to rate as one of the most peculiar sights we've seen on this trip.

Calabash-hat women on market day, Tourou, Cameroun

That afternoon we set off on a road that gradually disappeared into a rocky footpath in the direction of the town of Koza. We were shown to a shortcut by some friendly mountain dwellers and very soon we were completely lost again. We stumbled upon a beautiful camping spot in a valley along side a river bed where we could dig for water quite easily and decided to stop. After eating dinner and chilling by the fire we climbed into our tent to sleep.

We were woken at around 11pm by a mysterious roaring sound which was coming closer and closer. The next thing our whole world turned upside down as the tent collapsed and we were assaulted by the most violent wind we'd ever known. We managed to get out of the tent and sit on top of it to stop it blowing away as all hell broke loose around us. With mighty crashes lightning bolts would come shooting out of the night sky, briefly illuminating the eerie looking canyon complete with its ominous looking witch's hat huts. In a state of constant paranoia we felt as though we had stumbled into a Carlos Castaneda's book, with Don Juan himself casting evil spells on us.

Then the rain came down and we tried to put up the tent again. All in all it blew down three times, and made sure that we didn't enjoy more than a few moments of uneasy sleep that night.

Witches Hat Huts, towards Koza, Cameroun

The next morning, slightly dazed, we set off again and after being lost for the first while we eventually found the correct path. The problem was no one could tell us how far away Koza was. Whenever we pointed in a direction and said "Koza?" the people would think that we were greeting them in "white language" and reply "Koza" politely. Naturally this became a bit frustrating seeing that it was in fact their language. When we discovered a boy who could speak French we eagerly asked him how far we had to go and were dismayed when he replied 32km (in 2 days walking we'd therefore walked minus 2km) and were slightly more relieved 5 minutes later when the next French speaker told us it was 14km away.

Eventually we did reach Koza and spent two relaxing days (if that's possible in temperatures well over 40 degrees) with Maggie, another PC volunteer, reading, chatting and enjoying the best peanut butter basted beef brochettes in Africa. We returned to Mokolo on Koza's market day by truck where we celebrated our year's anniversary. It was marked by us introducing the famous Chicken, Mayo, condensed milk stew to Cameroun and our own personal rave in Rebecca's large lounge area. In case you wondering Christa, yes we did go OFF!

We said our sad goodbyes the next day (after convincing Rebecca that it probably wasn't a good idea to dump peace corps and to tackle Nigeria with us without a visa) and set off by truck and motorbike along a less travelled road to Mora to avoid the military guy who'd spotted our lack of visa.

After a day in Mora we headed to the border town of Banki and prepared ourselves for the problematic exit of Cameroun ("Visa? What visa?") and equally problematic entry to Nigeria ("Gift? What do you mean 'gift'?").

Fortunately everything went smoothly and we sailed into Nigeria with no hassles. On our way to Maidiguri we got stopped countless times and had money demanded from us but after both Congos these guys were a joke and we quickly sorted them out. From Maidiguri we immediately set off for the 1000 year-old city of Kano, once one of the centres of Trans-Saharan trade and of Islamic learning.

We spent three days in Kano, living in a most bizarre hotel. It was basically populated with prostitutes who quite predictably had nothing to do the whole day but sit around in their underwear painting their nails and braiding their hair. What made this hotel really bizarre though, was the list of rules that they had posted up. Here is an extract:

Penalty! Penalty!

1) Fighting in the room will attract a fine of N1000.00 (One thousand Naira only) and who's ever is at fault will pay an additional sum of N500.00 (Five hundred Naira only)

2) Quarrelling or insult of staff will attract a fine of N500.00(Five Hundred Naira only)

3) Quarrelling, direct or indirect insult and gossiping will attract a fine of N1000.00 (One thousand Naira only)

After reading these rules we hatched a plan whereby we could make millions going around eavesdropping on all the women's conversations. It would be the easiest job in the world finding someone engaging in gossip amongst this large group of prostitutes.

Deciding to devote ourselves to more worthy pursuits though, we visited the museum and the old Emir's palace as well browsing the markets and the ancient dye pits. Unfortunately most of the dye pits are now filled with dirty sewerage water. In the nearby town of Danbatta we also got ourselves each a pointy Hausa straw hat which we now wear everywhere! Looks simply fabulous doll!!

Most of the time, however, was just spent enjoying this incredibly cheap country (how about eight 7Ups for a dollar?!) trying out different restaurants and foods. We especially enjoyed the real Italian ice cream made by none other than a Lebanese guy, naturally!!. We have definitely come to the conclusion that there are more Lebanese in Africa than in Lebanon.

As we sat in the bus station waiting for our bus to leave from Kano to Lagos a guy walked up to us and in a worried voice said "Abacha done die!" Now naturally this posed a small problem for us for although we'd travelled in a country where there wasn't a democratic leader before, we hadn't travelled in a country where there wasn't a leader at all. We all sat crowded round the radio listening intently to the radio for news while, little did we know, at that very moment Abacha was being buried in that very city!

Our bus finally left at around 8pm and the next morning we jumped off at the town of Oyo, about 150km before Lagos. It was here that we discovered for sure that Abacha had in fact died. Most of the newspapers that morning were filled with letters from people stating how God had finally caught up with Abacha's acts. It also covered reports of huge jubilation in cities around Ogoniland, but unfortunately we saw none of that. We just checked ourselves into the nearest hotel and enjoyed a well deserved sleep for most of the day. Feeling fully rejuvenated we left the next day for what must certainly rate as one of the world's craziest cities.

Lagos is a giant city - some say it has 16 million inhabitants - which is spread over three islands linked by massive highways. It's grimy and overcrowded but has a real vibe. We dumped our bags with a friendly stall keeper in the market and wandered around the city for a few hours, successfully avoiding being robbed and soaking up its ridiculously hectic atmosphere. All around us people were crammed into narrow alleyways with their strange assortments of goods. Above them stood what can only be described as a complete mess of electrical wires, all crossing over, under and any other which way you can think of. Besides this activity you also had minibuses and cars all trying to squeeze their way through the mayhem, all accompanied by characteristically loud protestations. The police of course are not really there to keep the peace, rather just to extract money from the poor minibus taxis. On each flyway a rudimentary roadblock has been set up, whereby each taxi is required to simply slow down, surrupticiously slip the guy with a gun twenty Naira, and then move on again without stopping. We watched our minibus driver do that four times within the space of half an hour!

At around 2pm we boarded a Peugeot 504 taxi - Africa's most common car - and headed for the Benin border.

At the border we encountered the most incredible corruption we have ever seen. No sooner had we convinced an immigration official that we weren't going to give him $200 to stamp our passport than the next official confiscated our passport demanding money for its return. All in all ten different officials did this and even once it had the necessary stamps it was still confiscated again and again. Eventually we'd pried loose our passports from the last sleazy official (without paying any bribes) and entered Benin with whoops of joy where we were promptly asked for a gift by the immigration people there!

We arrived in Benin's biggest city, Cotonou, that evening and spent 5 days there with 4 other travellers relaxing in this superb city. One of the travellers, Eric , was doing the exact opposite of our trip, London to Cape Town, and he gave us valuable advice on our route ahead (unfortunately, when we last heard he was stuck at the Nigerian border with little hope of getting through). Other than watching World Cup football that's taken the region by storm, we spent an evening in the most fantastic Jazz Bar being enthralled by a Beninoise Jazz musician who after touring Europe for 10 years to great acclaim had returned to Cotonou to retire. On Sunday, the 14th, it was Lance's birthday which was celebrated with much bingeing in true African Wanderers style.

We left Cotonou joined by Stella, a long term British traveller, for the town of Ouidah: the centre of Voodoo for Benin and the world. There we visited museums dedicated both to Voodoo and to the slave trade and we walked down the famous Route d' Esclaves which is the route the millions of slaves that left these shores walked in chains to the waiting boats. They pass two trees: the tree of forgetting which they had to circle 9 times to forget their culture and homeland and the tree of return which they circled 3 times so that their spirits might return to Africa when they died in some far away land. On the beach at the end of this route an arch has been built titled "Port of No Return" and has images engraved which evoke emotions too powerful to write down. Staggering.

In Ouidah we met an African American woman who was studying to be initiated into voodoo under the tutelage of Benin's high priest of voodoo Dagbou Ounou. With her assistance we managed to organise an audience with Dagbou and early one morning we set off with an interpreter and a bottle of Gin each. Gin was the recommended gift of course...

We entered the compound inundated with skulls, statues and other fetishes where we were asked to remove our shoes. We were then lead into a room where, painted on one wall, we could see all Dagbou's predecessors dating back over 500 years. After about 15 minutes something stirred behind the grass mat hanging over the door and a colossal man of about 65 years in age, robed in the finest materials and wearing an ornately decorated top hat appeared. We were directed to approach him, bowing and presenting him with our gifts and after a few words of welcome we were free to ask him anything we liked through the interpreter. Now when one meets the head of voodoo one can't say "so tell me about Voodoo". This would be like meeting the pope and saying "so tell me about Catholicism"! So we asked deep searching questions on the meaning of life and the origins of the universe and Dagbou's answers were so simple they were profound, or evasive. It's difficult to tell which. Anyway he soon tired of our questions and after 45 minutes he made it clear that it was time to leave but not after he'd demanded we have our photo taken with him.

Dagbou Ounou, High Priest of Voodoo, Ouidah, Benin

That afternoon we headed to Grand Popo, a beautiful beach resort where we camped for 3 days, lazing in the sun and getting dumped by giant waves. After this we took up the invitation of a PC volunteer, Tucker, to visit him in his town called Come. There we spent two relaxing days interspersed by a big party night (these Peace Corps know how to party) with Tucker and 5 other volunteers. We also got to meet and chat with Charles Wiwa, Ken Saro Wiwa's nephew who'd just arrived that morning from Chicago.

Soon we were on the road again on our way to Abomey, the centre of the once powerful Dahomey kingdom. The kings here were quite unique in that they had a love of beheading people (criminals usually) during big celebrations and also kept an army of 6000 women - Amazons - who were brave and gallant fighters (and were preferred to men because they were thought less treacherous). King Glele, the most famous king, has his remarkable throne on display which is mounted on four enemy skulls! These kings each built a palace and vowed to leave a kingdom larger and more powerful than they inherited when they died. We also got to visit the tombs where food is brought daily for the spirits of each of the kings to eat.

On leaving we noticed a message left by some American missionaries in the visitor's book. We quote

"Our group had a very interesting visit to the abode of the former kings of Dahomey. It was very interesting and informative. We are grateful for our Christian heritage in America. May God become real to all those who seek him - King or Slave."

Another message criticised the voodoo-based kingdom as being blood thirsty. We thought this all a bit rich coming from a religion that not only brought the World the crusades but also the slavery that raped this country and destroyed the very same kingdom.

We left Benin the next day and entered neighbouring Togo. We soon realized all was not well when after a few kilometers our minibus was surrounded by hundreds of angry protesters marching down the street.

Togo has one of the last remaining long-term dictators. For 31 years Eyadema has ruled the country, and needless to say he is not to keen to give it up. Two days before there had been elections in which everyone had expected the opposition leader Olympio Gilchrist to win. Before the electoral commission had time to announce the results though, the Minister of the Interior came on television and informed everyone that Eyadema had won with 52% of the vote.

This action led to widespread frustration amongst the population culminating in street protests in downtown Lome. As to be expected we inadvertently got trapped in the middle of one. We were calmly eating breakfast at a streetside stall when suddenly we noticed a small cloud of smoke and everyone one around us packing up their goods. We thought it best to be moving on. Our destination for the morning was the American Cultural Centre and so off we went winding our way through the dusty streets. Coming around a corner we noticed a band of people all adorned in red pieces of material tied around their heads and arms. A minute later everyone started running as the police came round the corner and started shooting tear gas. Naturally we joined suit. This whole affair went on for about forty five minutes, us trying to get to the Centre, and the police waiting round different corners shooting off tear gas at protesters. At one stage we were even pulled into a building by a group of women to get us out of the police's line of fire. It was like apartheid South Africa all over again. In fact at one stage we even got the urge to run out and show our solidarity with the protester's by putting on our own red scarves, but then we thought we better wait until we were a little bit more informed on the political situation in Togo before we go and start taking sides.

Eventually we reached the American Cultural Centre only to discover that it was closed today; the reason, because there was a huge protest outside of it asking the American's for international help. All the time that we had been trying to get to the Centre, the police had forcefully been trying to keep people away. And all we wanted was to use the e-mail! We heard on the radio later that day that 31 people were injured in the whole affair. Thankfully we weren't one of them.

As soon as we had acquired our Ghanaian visa we left tumultuous Togo and crossed into Ghana, arriving here in Accra two days ago. Accra is probably the smartest, cleanest and most impressive African capital (after good old Cape Town) we've seen and has certainly been an eye-opener. In a day or two we head down the coast and on to Cote D'ivoire, Burkina Faso, Mali and in about 5 months we should be arriving in London!

We hope you're all well and we'll probably write again in 3 weeks from Abidjan.

Love as always

The African Wanderers Dave and Lance

Quick Language Note:

The two of us are becoming quite well versed in the multitude of languages that exist on this continent. Okay, so we can hardly be called fluent in any of them, but we do know enough French to talk our way out of an interrogation, enough Swahili to organise a dhow trip up the coast, and definitely enough Amharigna to respond to an Ethiopian's insult. with this knowledge we have decided to try and form a Transcontinental African language. What follows is a small list of some the words we feel should be included in it.

To describe something as cool or really fine: A number of languages almost got this one, but after much deliberation we finally decided to give it to Fufulde: Their phrase is "Jam-Jam", and we especially like the way it ties in with a famous Bob Marley song.

Nigerian English gives us the phrase for "get out". Their term is "Drop Down" and needless to say it caused us much confusion when we were first confronted with it.

Finally there is the issue of colours: Pidgin English in Cameroun definitely takes the prize for this. Apparently they only have three colours, Black, White and Red. If you want to say something is green, then you therefore have to say it is "Black like a leaf", blue is "black like the sky." The same goes for all the other colours.

We have many other interesting African languages, but we are afraid that you will just have to wait for further e-mails. Besides we are convinced that only half of you have managed to read this far anyway.

28 July 1998

Hello World

Before we spend the next three hours telling you all about our latest set of misadventures, we just want to take this time to tell you what these monthly e-mails actually mean to us. In this bizarre context of shifting places, weird people, insightful philosophical wanderings and most importantly no deadlines (eat your heart out all you business people), the infamous monthly e-mail represents our only form of structure and reality check. Granted David has also got a spreadsheet running on the palm-top telling us precisely what day our money will run out, but it is only really these e-mails which force us to contemplate everything we go through while we work our way up this map. In many ways it prevents us from becoming overwhelmed by the mass of bizarre stimuli being thrown at us everyday, and your responses confirms the fact that we are still managing to keep it all together. So basically what we are saying is that you can expect your computer screens to continue to be tormented by us for the next four or so months, as we use you wonderful people out there to maintain a tentative hold on our ever fragile sanity during this last stretch up to the top of Africa. Your responses really do go a long way in keeping us slightly normal, and so before you guys rush out to that important business meeting before dropping us a line, consider how bad you will feel when you receive a short e-mail from Mauritania simply stating "The Horror, the Horror".

Anyway, that's enough self indulgence from us so lets get back to the saga. When we last wrote we were in Accra recovering from the political turmoil of Togo and finishing those mundane travel tasks like exchanging traveller's cheques into local currency. This time, however, it proved to be slightly more exciting with us being taken in by a local who claimed he knew where we could get a better rate for our cheques. He was supposed to have been a seaman who had been educated at Oxford and had since visited numerous places around the world. Unfortunately our razor sharp travel instinct deserted us this time, with our suspicions not even being aroused when he claimed to have visited the town of Katanga in South Africa. The bottom line of the story was that David succeeded in being hoodwinked out of a couple of traveller cheques, but unlike our instincts Thomas Cook didn't fail us, replacing them in less than 24 hours.

After finally procuring the required Ghanaian Cedi's at a merchant bank we made our way up to the interesting cultural town of Kumasi on board a crowded Tro-Tro. A Tro-Tro is basically a little bit larger than your average African minibus and it is usually adorned with a variety of religious slogans and typical West African sayings. Of course these sayings do not make any sense to anybody not acquainted with Ghanaian culture, but as is usually the case, by the end of our four weeks in the country, phrases like "Monkey no Fine" and "Feeling Daddy" were somehow no longer seeming that strange to us.

In the town of Kumasi we set about discovering the local Ashanti culture. The Ashanti kingdom came into being about three hundred years ago when the high priest in the area Okomfo Anokye received a message from God to unite all the different clans into one powerful kingdom. To confirm that it was actually God speaking and not someone just pretending to be him, he sent a stool made of solid gold down from the sky, which quite predictably came to represent the power of this new kingdom. Okomfo then placed a sword in the ground at the exact spot on which it descended and claimed that if anyone was able to remove it the entire Ashanti nation would simply disappear. Needless to say, such a challenge certainly brought its fair share of chancers throughout the centuries.

Mohammad Ali tried and failed some years ago but the most infamous attempt was when some mad government official authorised the building of a hospital on that exact area. The folly of his ways soon became apparent though, when as the story goes, the bulldozer failed to budge it one inch from its neat and secure perch in the ground. Not to be put out though the building plans were ever so slightly altered, and amidst the bustle of a modern day hospital one is still able to see the sword buried in its three centuries old resting place. Being the rationalist that David is though, he wasn't prepared to accept any of these fanciful stories at face value and demanded of the attendant to be allowed to make one last attempt on that mystical sword. Unfortunately he was refused, leading to us never really knowing whether it is all true or not. We guess we will just have to wait until the fateful day when they decide to expand the hospital!

Kumasi also boasts an interesting war museum that chronicles both the war in which the Ashanti fought the British in 1900 and the war in which the Ashanti fought for the British in 1939. It contains a large collection of black and white photographs showing how local Ghanaians were sent half way round the world to fight in far flung places like Burma in a conflict which basically revolved around a couple of Europeans being pissed off with some other Europeans. Okay so that's a great simplification of the Second World War, but honestly speaking we are sure that Africans must have found it slightly strange to be taking orders from weird looking whities, in a conflict where they were having to take patches of ground from other different but equally weird looking people. Especially since they were supposed to be fighting oppression while at the same time being oppressed by the people they were fighting for!

Fortunately for us we had a Briton accompanying us through all these museums, who quite predictably served as a perfect sounding board for our newly acquired historical insights. We met Yael or "Sledge" as we prefer to call her, at the local Presbyterian mission in Kumasi which tended to serve as a veritable meeting place for interesting and ever so slightly eccentric travellers. Firstly, there were two German women engaged in a whistle stop tour of Ghana, one of whom worked for a credit card company and the other who played African drums in a band called Dundumba in Germany along with a group of Senegalese musicians. Then there were also the infamous "French Guys", two guys who are travelling around West Africa with a drum and a guitar delighting backpacker's like ourselves with impromptu performances. We spent three nights with this motley bunch of people, sampling the sights and sounds of the Kumasi market, hanging out at the local eateries and watching France carry on its winning run in the world cup.

Having delayed it for as long as we could though, we finally left Kumasi for Ghana's famous coast on the Saturday afternoon. Due to our late departure we ended up arriving at the small fishing village of Busua around 11h00 that night. In darkness we stumbled around the Alaska Beach Resort vainly trying to find the proprietor to show us where we could pitch our tent. Unfortunately we never found him, although we did discover an American by the name of Jordan stumbling naked around the place. He was a fairly strange character who we later found out had a propensity towards taking his clothes off and engaging in shows of naked yoga. Although he had only been in Africa for two months and was due to return to the States in a couple of days, he would still respond to the question of where he was from with the phrase, "originally America".

The Lion and the monkey, Busua beach, Ghana

Thankfully Jordan was not the only traveller at Busua though, as we discovered when we woke up the next morning. Sitting around the beach bar we met two very interesting Swedish guys by the names of Ludwig and Mattias as well as three totally zany American girls called Bren, Avery and Mary-Ann. The whole group of us somehow organised ourselves a boat ride at an extremely inflated price out to the small island which stands about 500 metres from the beach. We then went on an extremely entertaining walk - slightly under the influence - through the surrounding forest where we all proceeded to thoroughly lose it by imitating animal calls and any other random sounds we could think of to a beat set by the person walking in front. Needless to say the few locals that we came across on our forty five minute walk thought we were completely crazy. At the other end of the forest stood the quaint fishing village of Dixcove, complete with its very own slaving fort. The great thing about Ghana is that its coastline is dotted with all these grand forts and castles where one is able to gain a small sense of the dehumanising slave trade that took place here. Not only are you able to go on guided tours of these places, but in many of them one can actually sleep inside for a cost of only two dollars a night!

Party time!, Busua beach, Ghana

Although we didn't sleep in the fort at Dixcove, we did spend the following night at the castle in Prince's Town. We had somehow managed to attract the American girls onto our wave length, and so the five of us set out to explore this little known part of the coast. The castle stands majestically on top of a small hill, and with its own stretch of beautiful beach lying below it, one can't help but feel slightly blessed at being able to spend the night in such regal surrounds. Unfortunately the slaves of centuries past didn't feel the same way though, having being shackled together in the small dingy dungeons below. Fortunately their restless spirits didn't bother us that night as we engaged in abstract painting exercises, with Bren doing two rather bizarre portraits of us.

The following day we all headed back up the coast to the oldest and grandest of the castles in the fishing town of Elmina. It was here that we met up with Yael again and partied the day down in the town. The huge opening of the lagoon festival was taking place on that day, and amidst much revelry we watched as boats battled it out against each other in the lagoon, and various chiefs were carried in on large wooden structures resembling coffins adorned with elaborate gold jewellery. There was a great deal of pomp and ceremony culminating in the main chief throwing a large net into the lagoon to signify the lifting of the ban on fishing. Unfortunately amidst all the mayhem Lance had his pouch taken from him containing all his important travel documentation. Shit happens!

We finally tore ourselves away from the party at seven o clock that evening and headed back to Accra with Avery, Bren and Yael. Avery and Bren were due to meet Mary-Ann later that night at the extremely smart Holiday Hotel. Its the kind of hotel where one night would see six days of our budget being eaten up in one foul swoop. Graciously the three girls offered us the floor of their room, and after having our toenails painted by them (!) we finally drifted off to a peaceful sleep. Their hospitality did not stop there though, as the following day we were treated to hamburgers and pizza's at Southern Fried Chicken. What are we doing right we would like to know!

That night Mary-Ann flew back to the States leaving us with only the three girls of Bren, Avery and Yael to contend with. We managed to handle this tough situation though, with David faring slightly better than Lance. In an effort to show them a good time we took them to the Oldtimers Club, which is one of those great Ghanaian nightclubs that has a dance floor completely open to the night sky. In the light of an almost full moon we danced the night away dressed in our funkiest African clothes collected from various parts of the continent.

The next day saw Dave and Yael (as we said Dave fared better...!), Avery and Bren heading off to the backpacker's resort of Big Milly's, about an hour out of Accra. Unfortunately Lance was left behind to deal with all those bureaucratic niceties of acquiring not one but two bloody passports. He managed to reunite with them later that afternoon though and for the next four days we all enjoyed good company, excellent food, great music, awesome bodysurfing and other activities which are best not described here.

The beach at Big Milly's, Kokrobite, Ghana

Big Milly's is a great meeting point for travellers making their way round Ghana, and being the sociable kind of people that we are we naturally met all of them. The great thing about backpacker's places is simply the opportunity one gets to meet interesting people from all different parts of the world. Camped around the eating tables we found ourselves sharing thoughts with not only a bunch of forever crazy peace corps volunteers, but also a bunch of Dutch nurses and three women travellers from Austria and Germany. We also found ourselves being reunited with the two French Guys ,Greg and Ghiom from Kumasi, naturally leading to an evening of eclectic musical performances. Then there was John, an extremely chilled retired twenty eight year-old Navy Seals officer currently studying photojournalism. By the end of our time together he was offering to give us his pick-up truck in Missouri to travel round the States with. Man you've got to love travelling!

After our fun in the sun it was back to Accra to see Bren and Avery off on their flight back to the States. This crazy pair have got to rival us and the big-lipped Ethiopian mursi tribe as the most insanely weird and funny individuals ever to set foot on this continent. It was one of those heart-wrenching travel farewells, and rest assured girls if you are reading this you are still very much in our thoughts. Anyway as luck would have it, or should we say Dave's immense charm and good looks, we ended up spending two nights in Yael's father's house in Accra, enjoying great hospitality in the form of sumptuous meals, hot showers and satellite television.

Leaving Lance to sort out the continuing saga of his passports, Yael and Dave left to explore the Volta region of Ghana.

Our (Dave and Yael) first stop was the town of Hoehoe. After a short tro tro journey and an hour's walk through the forest we visited and swam below Ghana's highest waterfalls, the Wli Falls. The next day it was on to Likpe where we had an audience with the Nana or chief. He arranged for us to be taken up the mountain to visit the ancestral caves where a whole community was supposed to have lived in hiding from the marauding Ashantis. After a stiff hour's climb with our eccentric guide, Bonnyface, we reached the fairly unimpressive caves with our guide telling us proudly that he was sure that they were the most beautiful in the world. They just looked like holes in the mountain filled with tons of bat poo to us. Anyway we finally emerged from the caves on top of the mountain with stunning sweeping views of Ghana in front of us and nearby Togo behind.

That night we left Hoehoe and headed to the town of Ho where Yael arranged a free night's accommodation in the finest hotel in town which happened to be owned by her dad's business partner. [If you kiwis have managed to read this far, Dave definitely thought of you guys and about ho's in Ho in this town.]

After a sumptuous breakfast it was on to the small town of Atimpoku which is situated just below the monstrous Akosombo Dam. This dam, built in the late 50's is the biggest in Africa and floods over 7% of Ghana's surface providing hydro-electric power for Ghana, Benin and Togo, except when there's a drought like this year which has resulted in the whole country being rationed to 12 hours of electricity per day. After visiting the massive dam wall, we took a canoe trip on the river below the wall and managed to land on a small island where we found two men making palm wine and the local fire water, Apertechi. After chatting with the guys and tasting the brew, we headed back to the canoe, with Dave staggering ever so slightly (being culturally sensitive he didn't refuse the hospitality offered...) which might explain why he has little memory of the trip back to Accra a few hours later.

In the meantime Lance miraculously managed to overcome the bureaucratic hurdles of acquiring his two passports, and reunited with his identity met up with Yael and David again at Yael's father's house. He had spent most of the past six days camped out at Big Milly's, routinely Tro-Troing into Accra to sort out his stuff. During that time he had met another interesting array of people, including a Dutch and two Spanish medical students. There was also a peace corps volunteer whose father happened to be the Ambassador to Rwanda, leading to him making sweeping statements like "America has the best government in the world." Then there was the Berkeley student who believed that the American government was responsible for every evil perpetrated in the world, and was prone to tell you this every time you made a comment about something. Unfortunately these two people missed each other by a day, denying Lance an opportunity of seeing these two battle it out.

Yael and Lance chilling in Kokrobite, Ghana

After two more nights at Big Milly's, the reunited group of Lance, Dave, Yael and John the retired Navy Seal set off down the coast again for one last night in Princess Town Castle. The next day it was back to the two lowly African Wanderers as after another round of heart-wrenching farewells Yael and John left us and went their separate ways while we headed off for Cote D'Iviore. We are now shacked up in our tents on a camping spot on the beach a couple of kilometers outside of the capital Abidjan. It is a place known as the Paris of West Africa, and in our opinion certainly ranks as the most beautiful African capital city that we have come across in our travels. Tomorrow we say goodbye to it though, and start our Northward journey up to Burkina Faso and then on to the intriguing desert country of Mali. But don't worry we will sure to be keeping you informed of all our activities.

Still Chilling

The African Wanderers

Lance and Dave

Where logic ends, Congo begins

1998-04-01T10:25:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone

Well we've just completed the most arduous section of our trip so far, crossing the Democratic Republic of Congo: the first tourists to do so in at least 2 years. Unfortunately, this country has virtually no infrastructure: no roads, no postal service, no phones and definitely no Internet or e-mail.

So the message below spans over two months.

After sorting out a few details the two of us and our newly acquired travel companion, Joe, left Nairobi, taking the overnight bus to Kampala, Uganda. We arrived in Kampala around mid-day and headed off to the backpacker's lodge. The owner of the lodge gave us an inkling into what we could expect in Congo (the former Zaire) when he told us about 6 guys who had attempted the same trip a few months before and had been arrested as mercenaries and deported. He also claimed that there were 4500 rebels in the jungle who were about to overthrow a paranoid Kabila. This view was contradicted by local truckers who claimed that trucks were crossing from Kampala to Kisangani (central Congo) in a week without any problems! Both sources were very wrong.

The night before we left Kampala we partied huge with half a dozen other backpackers in Kampala's various chic night clubs until 4am and then slept for a few hours before catching the morning bus to the Uganda/Congo border. We arrived in the border town of Bwera - the site of horrific massacres by the Ruwenzori rebels a few months before - and camped the night there.

The next morning we walked the 4km from Uganda to Congo: our home for the next two and a half months.

At Kasindi, the Congolese border town we were met by wonderfully helpful and efficient border officials who speedily processed our documents which gave us hope that finally this country had shed it's notoriously corrupt and incompetent government officials. Unfortunately these hopes were completely unfounded as you will read later.

After waiting a few hours we hitched a lift on top of a large truck on its way to Beni, 80km away. It may give you an idea of how bad the roads are in this country if you consider that it took us 9 hours to complete the 80km journey: and this was definitely the best road we saw in our first month in the country!

The state of the road was compensated for by the incredible landscape. We first crossed the magnificent, snow-capped Ruwenzori mountains ("the Mountains of the Moon") famous for their breath-taking beauty and incredible fertility (bamboo grows one meter a day a here!). We then descended into the outer edges of the mighty rain forest that was to be our home for the next three months. The road deteriorated drastically with mud holes everywhere as the jungle thickened steadily: massive trees laden with vines lining our route.

At around 8pm we arrived in Beni where we were immediately confronted by a screaming, machine gun-toting soldier who seemed about to execute us but, in fact, was telling us to report to the local immigration office the next day. A Military Intelligence official then led us to a grassy patch where we could camp which, we discovered the next morning, was in fact the city's main traffic circle.

The next morning, after being reprimanded by the immigration official for camping where we had, we found a hotel where we could pitch our tent. We then headed off to the civil intelligence department where we were told that we couldn't climb the Ruwenzori's due to rebel activity there. Disappointed, we set about searching for trucks heading into the jungle.

We managed to arrange a lift quite easily and were set to leave the next morning. Unfortunately then the military arrived at our hotel and caused us all sorts of hassles. They claimed that their landrover was also heading to Mambasa, our destination, and the commander offered us a lift which promised to be much faster and more comfortable than the truck ride we'd arranged. Naturally this all turned out to be a lie and the military's web of lies eventually kept us in Beni for a week during which time we were searched and Dave had to intervene physically to prevent the drunk commander from executing a 12 year-old kid for theft when in fact all the kid had done was talk with us.

Eventually we managed to sneak out of Beni on the back of a bakkie (pick-up) with 10 other passengers on our way to Mambasa. This road took us into the heart of the jungle, surrounding us with enormous trees and dense foliage, broken every 20km by tiny villages of pygmies and other tribes. The road deteriorated into mud hole after mud hole which took its toll on our vehicle which broke down 11 times and took two days to complete the 150km journey.

Eventually we arrived in Mambasa where we camped for free in a local hotel's grounds. The next morning we were hit for various bribes by immigration officials which we politely and firmly refused. In Congo, unlike any other country in the world, there are immigration offices in every town and city where tourists are forced to report and have all their details recorded (and have bribes demanded of them). In some towns we were forced to report to three different bureaus who each recorded the same information.

Eventually we were finished with all the bureaucracy and were lucky to catch the truck that goes to Epulu twice a week. After 7 hours on 70km of terrible road we eventually made it to the small town of Epulu, insignificant other than for its population of weird Okapi's. These animals look like a cross between a giraffe and a zebra and are the size of a large horse. We camped in the Okapi Reserve alongside the spectacular Epulu River and were taken on a guided tour into the rainforest to look at about 20 of these shy animals.

One of the bizarre-looking Okapis, Epulu, DR Congo

Sunset, Epulu, DR Congo

We spent three days in Epulu swimming in the river and collecting supplies for the next, arduous stage of our journey. In order to cross the Congo from East to West, we needed to reach Kisangani, the large port town on the banks of the dark Congo River. Unfortunately the first 225km of the road from Epulu to Kisangani, once known as the trans-African highway, is now only a muddy path through the forest, only two feet wide in places. Trucks occasionally try this suicidal road every now and again but can easily take longer than 3 months to complete the 120km stretch to Nia Nia and none attempt the road from there on to Kisangani where we were heading. The only supplies the jungle villages receive are brought by bicycle traders. These guys push and ride their single-gear bikes over 600km carrying up to a 100kg of supplies.

We decided to hire two young bicycle traders to carry our backpacks and food supplies and we set off on a two week walk of 225km through the jungle.

Only 220km to go! Lance and Joe, Dem. Rep. of Congo

This may take a bit longer than we expected... DRC

We walked 20 to 30km per day camping in the tiny, palm-fringed villages along the way. The villagers were naturally shocked to see the three of us marching along and received us with wonderful hospitality. We invariably camped free in the chiefs compound and were helped with cooking every night. Naturally food is fairly limited in the jungle but we still managed to cook fine meals of chicken and fish served on rice which grows abundantly in the forest. Bananas were everywhere and we generally managed to find a giant pineapple every day or two. We also ate more exotic meals of monkey, chimpanzee and elephant which were all delicious.

The jungle was incredible. As we walked we were engulfed in swarms of huge, luminous butterflies while numerous species of monkey played in the trees towering above us. The jungle itself was a powerful combination of greens and browns with massive trees dripping with orchids and creepers interspersed occasionally with giant groves of wild bamboo. Occasionally we would find trees and undergrowth torn to shreds with giant forest elephant footprints indicating the guilty party. Now and again we would come across giant rivers where we would lie for hours in the cool water keeping an eye open for crocs while we bathed and washed our clothes.

This part of the forest is home to thousands of pygmies and they would bring us bottles of wild honey which we learnt to eat with everything and which we used to make honey tea. The pygmies as well as the other forest peoples are famous for their drumming and most nights we would fall asleep to a distant throbbing beat. Interestingly, the tiny mud churches found in every village have totally integrated drumming into their ceremonies with singing, preaching and praying all accompanied by electrifying drumming. Every morning we would invariably be woken by the beating of drums or metallic objects summoning the villagers to the daily sunrise service. If the Congo was known as the Heart of Darkness, its multitude of churches - two or three in each tiny village - made it seem more appropriately the Heartt of Lightness!

After about a week we reached the giant Ituri River where we camped and later explored upstream where we discovered the traditional fishermen hard at work in the mighty rapids. These guys used cone-shaped fishing traps made with vines that were positioned in the powerful rapids with the openings facing upstream. The jets of water would then shoot fish into the traps which were emptied by the fishermen who risk life and limb clambering amongst the rapids. The village women would then prepare these fish in a delicious, spicy sauce and would sell portions wrapped in giant forest leaves for $0-10 each. All along the route we bought peanut butter, rice, sugar, banana fritters and fresh vegetables all packaged efficiently in these giant leaves which, when opened, made superb plates.

After another 5 days or so we reached the largish town of Bafwasende where we ate our first bread in 10 days and where we feasted on locally made biscuits and dough balls fried in palm oil with dollops of peanut butter and honey. Mmmmmmm! In Bafwasende we said a sad goodbye to our two bicycle guys, Mozanga and Rodeo, who had taught us French and become good friends. The harshness of the existence in this part of the world is illustrated by these two who have to work as bicycle traders for a year and use that money to pay for school the next year, alternating between a year at school and a year on the road for their entire school career.

Rodeo and Muzanga, Bafwasende, DRC

This region is rich with diamonds and we were repeatedly offered diamonds for our shoes. However we, like the locals, soon realized that walking with shoes is a lot more comfortable than walking with diamonds (even if the diamonds had been on the soles of our shoes...) and so didn't get any. It appears though that diamonds were more important than human rights and democracy. It took the world's longest, most cleptocratic dictator backed by the minerally obsessed West to turn this country, so rich in minerals, fertile land and hydro-electric potential, into a country devoid of basic services, infrastructure and hope to an extent we've not found anywhere else in Africa. Revealingly, Mobutu was invited to the White House by Ronald Reagan who called Mobutu the "voice of reason and goodwill in Africa"!

From Bafwasende we walked the last 24km to the village known as 238 which is the distance it is in kilometers from Kisangani. Here the road improved and vehicles were again able to travel and so we caught a bakkie to Kisangani. After a horrendous trip through the night, repeatedly getting stuck in mud-holes and breaking down we finally arrived in Kisangani ending our first month in Congo.

When we arrived in Kisangani we immediately proceeded to the Olympia Hotel, which in previous years used to be a veritable hub for travellers making the Trans-African crossing. Nowadays, however, travellers have been scared away by the riots in 1993 and the revolution in 1997. The staff were therefore particularly happy to see us, and they allowed us to camp in their large yard at the back. In one of its typical rundown African toilets, there was a piece of inconspicuous graffiti written in 1992 which states:

"Where Logic ends; Zaire begins"

When we first came across this statement, we hadn't had any experiences to indicate that its message could be extended into the emerging country of the Democratic Republic of Congo. That was, however, all about to change!!

It all started when we went to check in with all the requisite authorities in Kisangani. Any tourists visiting Congo have to register with not only the local immigration authorities but the national A.N.R. (civil intelligence) offices as well. This we dutifully did, and at the ANR offices we were greeted with a particularly helpful chief who informed us that we would be able to get a lift on one of the riverboats leaving in a couple of days for Kinshasa. It seemed he knew the commandant of the boat and would try and organise everything for us. He also informed us that in this new country, tourists are extremely welcome and we should feel free to take as many photographs as we wanted.

Acting on this advice we decided to go down to the mighty Congo river and catch a few snaps of the pirogues making their way between the two banks. Five minutes after pulling out our cameras though, two policeman approached us and asked us for documentation. They then, ever so friendly, led us up to the district military office and proceeded to question us. The office was straight out of a movie set, with decaying walls and rotting ceiling rafters enhancing the ambience of a sultry interrogation room. In the offices we watched as various soldiers strode in proudly, with cigarettes drooping out the side of their mouths and huge machine guns hanging loosely from their shoulders. The most disconcerting thing though, was that a large number of them were below the age of thirteen and judging by their look and the way their comrades responded to them, it was evident that they had obviously been in war before.

Anyway, here the three of us sat getting more and more frustrated with the barrage of inane questions that everyone was wanting to ask us. ("What is your mission here?" - "We are tourists" - "How can you prove that you are tourists?") After struggling with these questions for a while and wishing that we had got tattoos across our foreheads stating "This man is definitely a tourist", the mood was changed a bit when we were ushered into a larger office and confronted with an extremely intimidating looking soldier. We only found out later that this man was actually an agent in the special branch who had been called out to deal expressly with our case.

He seemed to know everything there is to know about interrogation, including having only one light source illuminating you from the side and a fan slowly rotating in the corner of the room. He first questioned all three of us together, and when he realized he was getting nothing, he proceeded to take us on individually. Apart from inducing a slight tinge of fear in us and almost taking us to the point where we would be willing to confess (to what we don't know), his brilliant interrogating skills left us in absolute awe of this commandant behind that big solid desk.

After four hours of interrogation they finally escorted us back to our hotel, now about ten o'clock at night, and we retired to our sleeping bags absolutely exhausted.

Two days later we boarded the riverboat to Kinshasa and set up our tents in a prime position right on the front of the main tug. As to be expected though, the boat was delayed by two days, but we consoled ourselves with the thought that we would soon be out of Kisangani and its bizarre military set-up. Five minutes before it was due to leave though, an ANR official gets onto the boat and tells us that the commandant of the river (whoever he might be) doesn't want us travelling on this boat. In a rushed and needless to say extremely infuriated fashion we packed up our tents and disembarked from the ship. As we walked away from the dock, we heard the characteristic sound of the hooter as the boat proceeded to depart from the port. An inordinate amount of profanities were subsequently thrown at both it and Kisangani.

That night was the African Cup of Nations semi final, and we went down to a local bar to loudly support South Africa as it trounced the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was sweet revenge after the harassment that we had been subjected to by the military.

So once again we found ourselves back at Hotel Olympia struggling to find a way out of this cursed town. Conrad's "the horror, the horror", was starting to slowly creep over us. After checking the port the next day we found out the bad news that no ships were due to leave within the next three weeks. Our last hope seemed to be the name of a Gambian we had been given by one of his compatriots we had met in the jungle. Yaya Sammeli who worked in the local market at Kisangani proved to be an absolute gem, informing us that our only option would be to make our way on board pirogues all the way down the river to Bumba, where we should be able to pick up another riverboat to Kinshasa. Pirogues are essentially dugout canoes which are made by hollowing out the inside of a huge rainforest tree.

A couple of days later and we found ourselves on board one of these, being paddled down river towards the first village of Ishangi. We drifted down the river until about ten o'clock that night, at which stage the paddler decided to pull into one of the inlets and sleep for the night. Five o'clock the next morning and off we were again, drifting on the immensity of this awesome river. It is a body of water that has the width of up to 30km, and yet it still has the strength to flow at around seven kilometers an hour. We were in fact informed by our ambassador in Kinshasa that a hydro-electric scheme is currently underway, which when completed will be able to not only supply all of Africa with electricity but also all of Western Europe!!

500km by dugout canoe down the Congo River, Dem. Rep. of Congo

It certainly is one mean river, and when you are floating down it in basically nothing more than a log with the sight of an imposing jungle continuously framing your vision, you can't help but feel overawed with Congo's natural beauty. We spent six days involved in this activity, hitching rides on different pirogues from each of the little villages found scattered along the banks of the river. In each of the villages we were treated to that typical display of rural Congo hospitality, and of course that ever present sound of drumming. As far as the pirogues went, we worked out how it is possible to enjoy an extremely peaceful night's sleep rolled up in your sleeping bag with the river gently pushing you forward. The serenity of waking up at half past twelve in the evening to the sight of a full moon illuminating the river and the surrounding forest is definitely a spiritual experience.

After six days we finally arrived at the large town of Bumba, 500 kilometers from Kisangani. We checked ourselves into a cheap hotel and enjoyed a welcome night's sleep on board good old terra firma. The following morning greeted us with the extremely pleasing news that a riverboat was leaving that afternoon for Kinshasa. Just as we were about to board it though, the military (this time it was DEMIAP: counter revolutionary intelligence) got wind of our presence and invited us into their offices for another friendly chat. Thankfully they were more reasonable than the Kisangani gang, but they still detained us for over an hour, searching our baggage thoroughly and asking the exact same questions. Finally we were allowed to board the boat, which had in fact been held back specially for us.

Amidst great cheering (the passengers had obviously worked out that we were responsible for the delay), we stepped onto the boat and set up our tents on the main tug.

A riverboat is essentially a large tug which pushes a collection of barges in the front of it. The Lonely Planet describes these oddities as a floating village, and that it certainly is. There are between 500 to 700 people on the barges, complete with all their produce that they are taking to Kinshasa to sell. This produce ranges from the mundane like bags of maize and sugar right through to the absolute bizarre. This latter category includes live crocodiles, turtles, monkeys, parrots and a variety of smoked animals including fish, snakes, leguans and monkeys (extremely eerie to look at). Although the bizarre category certainly added to the visual scenery of the boat, it was the ordinary farm animals that gave it the auditory experience. These animals included your typical African roosters, goats and our favourite animals, the pigs. Pigs, it seems, have an annoying habit of letting out bloodcurdling screams whenever they are either being forced to do something they don't like or simply when having sex. We got to know the sexual habits of a pig intimately, as we would often be woken up at four in the morning to the loud yelpings of pigs copulating in the front of the boat.

If it wasn't the pigs, then it was the rooster doing his thing in the early morning, or on a couple of occasions, a man right outside our tent at five in the morning telling his baby a story loudly in French. This man was just one of many of the strange characters that we came across on the riverboat. There was also an old and extremely slender man who we came to dub the "chair-snatcher", as he would pounce on any opportunity, when you got up from your chair to fetch something, to simply remove it from your possession. Then there was one member of the crew who was able to speak fairly fluent English, except it was unfortunately not regular English but the highly esteemed American variety. It is another one of those bizarre peculiarities of the Congo, that people are now not only interested in speaking English, but what they consider to be the entirely different language of American English. Throughout the country one comes across private schools charging people copious amounts of money to learn the specific rules of this new language. People who can speak English fluently will pay up to U$10 a lesson to learn that one needs to pronounce the "t" in water as a "d". You aren't supposed to say "yes" but "Yea right". It really is a strange experience to find people in the Congo proudly telling you in a put-on American drawl that they can speak both English and American English. All we can say is Yeah Right!!!!!

Anyway to get back to the boat, it proved to be our home for 16 days, even though we were assured by the captain that this was an express variety and we would be in Kinshasa in 5 to 8 days. Cruising down the mighty Congo on board this massive conglomeration of metal, people and animals proved to be an extremely interesting experience. Our days would consist of waking up early, usually sometime round half past five, stumbling down onto the barges and almost tripping over the array of pots and racks of smoked fish in order to secure our batch of freshly fried mandazis. Mandazis are balls of dough which have been fried in hot oil, and together with a dollop of peanut butter they are simply heaven in the morning. After enjoying our coffee, we would then attempt a bucket shower, which we had to do by firstly pulling up the water from the side of the boat and then fighting with the rest of the crew to get our time in the shower compartment. After that activity we would be faced with the sun and the heat, which we would try and avoid by retreating into some shady corner of the boat making sure it was far away from Gabriel the chair snatcher.

As evening approached we would cook our sumptuous dinner of rice in an awesome sauce consisting of tomatoes, onion, garlic all fried up with peanut butter, bananas and sometimes pineapple and fish. Unbelievable!!!

This daily ritual would sometimes be broken by one of Congo's equatorial rain storms, in which case we would have to find ways of keeping water out of our tent, or by our arrival at a new town. Arriving at a new town always involved some little excursion to the military, which as you can imagine is not always that pleasant an experience. On the second night in fact, we had to contend with a drunk military commander who at one stage had his hand around Lance's throat. We dealt with it!

One of the barges attached to the riverboat, DRC

The first major town after Bumba was Lisala, where one can see the imposing structure of Mobutu's grand house overlooking the river. In this new era though, the military have simply taken it over, and appropriated all the furniture for their own offices. Needless to say, its a rather absurd experience being interrogated while you are lounging on a chic Italian lounge suite looking at a commandant sitting behind an ebony desk inlaid with gold trimmings.

After Lisala it was off to Mbandaka where we stayed for three days before heading off for Kinshasa. About 200 kilometers out of Kinshasa the omnipresent scenery of the jungle gives way to rolling mountains, and with the corresponding narrowing of the river, you get the impression that you are now cruising down the Rhine. The military soon end that illusion though. We had to deal with them again at a place about 60 kilometers outside of Kinshasa. This place in fact turned out to be the previous playground of Mobutu, complete with two supertubes, a high diving board and an olympic size pool. The thought of a seventy year old dictator whooshing down a supertube just enhances the absurd vision we already have of the previous Zaire and present day Congo.

Finally we arrived in Kinshasa and set about trying to find a hotel for three dollars a night. Unfortunately this city is one of the most expensive in the world, with a night in the Intercontinental setting you back over U$170. Obviously we weren't going to stay there, but even in our customary budget category, there wasn't a hotel to be found for under U$8. Fortunately our embassy proved to be extremely helpful and we ended up staying in the house of a local who works there. He lives in the downtown Cite area which is basically the townships of Kinshasa, packed with all the vibrancy and spirit that one would expect to find in an area like this. About two million people stay in this area, and we have been treated with extreme hospitality and on many occasions simple celebrity status. The family we are staying with are extremely friendly, and although they can't speak much English, we have found out that we have actually acquired a fair knowledge of French to help us get by.

The embassy staff have also been extremely receptive towards us and almost every night we have been treated to a fantastic meal. On the Thursday the Charge d'Affairs (essentially the ambassador) treated us to drinks and huge pizzas at the Intercontinental giving us all the information on the politics of this region. He contextualised a lot of our experiences by telling us that a great deal of the places we passed were in fact the famous refugee massacre sites. Naturally the army were a bit edgy about our presence there, particularly since there are also a number of rebel groups and foreign mercenaries still hiding in the jungle.

The Friday night was spent polishing off half a bottle of whisky with Johann, the person in charge of most of the South African embassies' communication links around the world. Saturday was spent at the administrators house consuming copious amounts of food and drink while watching videos and cricket. That day also saw the arrival of Kingsley Holgate, who for those of you who don't know, is the adventurer who is attempting to cross from the mouth of the Zambezi to the mouth of the Congo river. He is an extremely amiable man, and we spent many long hours swapping stories of our different adventures (and he's also become an African Wanderers e-mail subscriber). On the Sunday we were at Helena's house, the person in charge of the visa section, swimming in her pool and enjoying a sumptuous roast dinner. Monday night we had off, but on Tuesday night back we went to Helena's house for another great dinner of South African trout, fruit salad and Hennessy Cognac. Once again we sat around till half past one in the morning discussing adventures and South Africa's future with Helena, Kingsley and Ian, a British security agent working in Kinshasa.

Anyway, after all this culinary and intellectual stimulation we once again find ourselves preparing to head off for our next far-flung destination. The next two weeks should see us making our way up Congo-Brazzaville, traversing another section of equatorial rainforest complete with its own set of bad roads and bad soldiers. We're finding these rainforests pretty tedious now, and we are starting to hanker after the cooler environments of North Africa's deserts. One thing's for sure, the desert definitely won't have humidity like this. After Congo-Brazzaville it is straight onto Cameroun with its stretches of beautiful beaches and relative security. No more Guys with Guns, hopefully!

So here we are in sultry Kinshasa having successfully traversed the Congo from East to West, and acquiring the title of the first travellers to have done that since the war began in 1996. This just proves that we are dedicated to bringing you the reader, the best possible tales of adventure at a cost which simply cannot be beaten by anyone else. That cost is a simple e-mail each month, and there are some of you (you know who you are) who are reneging on the deal. If you want to read about our hapless wanderings through Congo-Brazzaville and the entire West African region, then we suggest you get typing. If you are especially vigilant in your correspondence you might even be lucky enough to receive one of our highly sought after audio tapes giving you a wacky sound experience of our adventures. Act now, stocks are limited!!!!

Please address all replies only to: africandave@hotmail.com

We've attached a copy of an e-mail written by Joe, our travel companion for the last 2 monthsmonths (who's flying home and will be sending this email for us), so that you can read about what we've been up to from someone else's perspective.

lots of love

the African Wanderers

Dave and Lance

Joe's message :

As I am writing this, I am, sitting on a wicker chair on the third floor deck of a tug boat which is pushing three barges down the Congo River. The trip is everything I expected and less. One thousand people are living (cooking, bathing, sleeping) on top of the merchandise (corn-maize, smoked fish, wicker chairs, etc... ) they are planning to sell in Kinshasa, Congo's capitol. The passengers on the boat are the merchants of Congo. From where I sit I can see a rolling checkerboard of coloured plastic tarps, propped up by poles, tented over the barges, protecting the passengers from the sun and the rain. There are pirogues (canoes dug out of a single tree) crossing the river towards us. The two paddlers of the pirogue stand, one at the front and one at the back, and propel the boat through the muddy water with long thin paddles. They live in the local villages along the river and sell food and merchandise (charcoal, smoked fish, live pigs and crocodiles) to the boat passengers. Every day is another scene of some weird thing that I do not understand.

Dugout's from riverside villages pulling up alongside to sell their smoked snakes, fish and monkeys

Every few days I remind myself to enjoy this wonderfully, unusual experience. I need reminding. Right now, I just want to get off of this boat and out of this country. The trip has been a bit of an endurance test. We originally figured three weeks to traverse the country. We are on week eight now with another week to go (I hope). When I negotiated my spot on the barge, the Captain told me it was an express boat and would arrive in Kinshasa in 5 to 7 days. That was 6 days ago and his answer has not changed. He still says we will arrive in 5 to 7 days. "But Joe," you ask, "how can this be ? " That's just the way things are here. I started a pool with the rest of the crew where they could buy guesses as to when we arrive.

Midway through the trip, I decided it was time to come home. By the time you receive this, I expect I will be in Europe where I hope to spend a couple of weeks.

But lets start at the beginning, shall we. When you last heard from me I was in Kampala, the capitol of Uganda, and still quite excited about my trip. From there, Lance, Dave and I took a bus to Congo's Eastern border.

In order to get to Kisangani to catch a river barge, we travelled 500 miles overland through the 2nd largest rainforest in the world. On the Eastern border of Congo (formerly Zaire) are the "Mountains of the Moon," home of the Mountain Gorillas and bamboo which grows at one meter per day. The mountains are covered with thick jungle growth and look like they were created by Disney for the King Kong movies. The jungle we travelled through looked and sounded like the jungles of the Tarzan movies.

The only transport available for the first two hundred miles were supply trucks carrying goods to various points in the jungle. The driver piles goods on the back of a pickup truck way above the height of the cab and then he secures it with a tarp and ropes. Then he piles more people on top than you could ever imagine. Everyone hangs onto a rope and each other as if riding a bull at a rodeo. As is usually the case with rural Africans, everyone laughs all the time as if it is just another funny adventure. Every time I thought I had had enough, I would look over at the Big Mama next to me breastfeeding her baby and she would laugh at me and I would remember that I choose this.

A couple of times the truck reeled over so far that half of us spilled off into the growth on the roadside. Of course, everyone would laugh and climb back on. Every few hours the truck would get stuck in a three foot deep mud hole, which I previously considered impassable. We would climb down and push it through, or dig it out, and off we would go.

Every so often we passed one of the small villages which lined the route and watched the same interaction unfold. A villager, who looked up to greet the truck roaring by, was shocked to see three Muzungus riding on top. The children ran out to the road waving hello with both hands in front of them shouting " Muzungu, Muzungu." Everyone on the truck would laugh, I felt like the guest of honor in a very small parade.

A 130 mile stretch of road was impassible by truck but bicycle taxis hauled goods through. So we hired Mozanga and Rodeo, two 18 year old locals, to carry our backpacks on their bikes while we walked 130 miles in 12 days. We paid them $100 which will pay for 10 months of their tuition at Kisangani University.

As we slowly walked past a village, we watched the same surprise and slack jaw stares as before but with much more hesitancy from the villagers. Usually someone was bold enough to say Jambo (hello) and then a Mama would yell to her children or neighbors to come see the Muzungus. Several times a family would step out to the road and greet us and give us a papaya. Dave would talk to them in Swahili and they would laugh and squeal because the Muzungus knew their language. The children were too shy to approach more than a few steps without their mothers around. The infants would start to cry if we took a step towards them, while everyone else would laugh. On occasion, I would glance back over my shoulder after we had passed a village to see 10, 20, sometimes 40 Congolese in the road staring at us walking away.

Each day we would stop to swim, bathe and wash our clothes in a river along the way.

At the end of the day, we would pitch our tents in one of the larger villages. From the moment we arrived until we left we had an audience. Tent construction drew between 15 to 40 each night. The highlight of the show is the elastic connected poles snapping together on their own. And of course the dome rising out of a flat piece of material always generated plenty of ooh's and ah's.

One night the crowd was especially large, loud and close. Lance, Dave and I retreated into one tent to escape the throngs. We stayed in there sweating and listening to our fans for close to an hour until the crowd thinned out. Then we crawled out and began to cook dinner.

We brought some food with us but mostly we bought food in the villages. We would eat papaya, banana, and tea for breakfast. For lunch, banana, pineapple and fried manioc (tastes like a dry potato). Dinner consisted of locally grown rice with meat; rice with chicken, or rice with antelope, or rice with elephant, or rice with chimpanzee. You know, whatever the pygmies found in the back yard.

We waited in one village (Bafwasende) for several days for transport. Several times a day we would walk to the outdoor market and past two houses (mud huts with thatched roofs) where two little girls lived. As we approached we would see them by the dirt trail in front of their houses watching for us. As soon as we made eye contact, they would run screaming into their house and slam the wooden front door and peek out until they saw we were safely past. Then they would come out and sit near their amused mothers and stare at us.

After six days I had had enough of walking. The landscape was the same each day and I was tired. Each morning I would attempt and fail to rent a bicycle. Each day I would walk another 12 miles. Eventually we made it out of the jungle and after a gruelling 24 hour pickup truck ride, we arrived in Kisangani; restaurants, ice cream, and television. We were very happy. And then we met the military.

I could tell you the a couple of long stories (and they are good ones), but it wouldn't be enjoyable right now. I am still in it. Suffice to say that during the past 7 weeks I have been interrogated seven times, had my bags searched three times, given a written statement twice, been escorted by soldiers with machine guns, handgrenades and rocket launchers more than a half a dozen times. I watched a Commandant hold his pistol to the head of a ten year old boy that he suspected was a thief. As a bonus, the soldiers have asked for "une cadeau" (a gift) after each of the above cultural activities.

As dramatic as all that sounds, we were never at risk, but still, I was scared plenty of times. The reason for the hassle was two fold. First, it is a time honored tradition here for military men to shake down Muzungus for money. Congo has one of the worst reputations for bribery and corruption. And when the military sees, us he sees money. Secondly, Congo just had a coup d'etat during which white mercenaries were hired by the old government to fight the rebels. So when three white men with crew cuts (Dave and I are both sporting flat tops) rock up into a town with exotic gear for surviving in the jungle, the military become a bit suspicious. So they haul us in to see our papers, ask us the same questions over and over and make us wait for hours.

So that has been a bit tiring and it is almost over (I have been saying that for over a month now).

Meanwhile, before the fun started, I was in Kisangani expecting to be on a boat and out of Congo in a weeks time. 11 days and many hours of interrogation later, we were still in Kisangani with no boat in site. We were going stir crazy and wanted to get out of there and away from the military, so we arranged a ride in a pirogue (dug out canoe) to a small village 50 miles down river. From there we planned to hire another pirogue (and two paddlers) to take us to Bumba, where we could catch a barge to take us the rest of the way to Kinshasa. Six days and five pirogues later, we drifted into Bumba. We slept and cooked on the pirogues and bought supplies from the villages along the way.

We had good luck in Bumba. A boat was leaving for Kinshasa the day after we arrived. So we rushed to do our food shopping, pack our gear and get on the boat. Of course the military spotted us and hauled us in for a few friendly hours of questioning. Fortunately, the chief of Immigration for the port detained the boat and all the passengers for us. When the military let us go we ran down to the dock and the barge departed two minutes after we stepped on board.

We should be in Kinshasa in a week (or three). When the boat stops at a town along the way, my heart skips a beat in expectation of the military hassling us. We have performed the scene so many times now but the thrill is still there.

My experience on the boat has been so strange that it is difficult to only write a few lines. The boat is packed with people and like people all over the world, most of them are crazy. They all want to be my friend and ask me for money. Some days are great; relaxing, scenic, interesting. Other days I stay away from the guard rail because I am tempted to jump overboard and swim to shore just to get off the boat.

Lance had Malaria, but besides that our health has been good.

One great bonus of the voyage is that I have learned to speak French. Because Congo was a colony of Belgium (where mostly French is spoken and some Dutch), the Congolese speak French, in addition to their tribal language (and there are over 500 different tribal languages). So through all of the above, I stumbled to communicate in French. Except with the military, where I let Dave speak Swahili.

Here is your thirty second history of Congo (formerly Zaire). It is taken from the Lonely Planet. Congo is home to over 100,000 pygmies who still live as hunters and gathers in the densely forested areas. It is named after one of the first great Kingdoms to rule in the 14th century. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to trade\raid the interior taking slaves and ivory. In 1874, the British journalist Henry Stanley, who after taking his historic voyage in search of David Livingstone, continued into the interior of Congo.

Belgium formally laid claim to Congo at the Conference of Berlin in1884 when the European powers drew lines on a map of Africa, dividing it up into their colonies. While the King of Belgium, King Leopold, remained the sole owner of this vast territory (as large as the USA east of the Mississippi), its inhabitants were subjected to one of the most preposterous forms of foreign domination Africa would ever know. When the news of the worst atrocities leaked out, King Leopold was forced to hand over the territory to the Belgium government. Colonial administration by the Belgium government, however, resulted in little real change.

Joseph Conrad's novel, The Heart of Darkness, was set on the Congo River. Kurtz, the main character, who worked for "the Company" collecting ivory, exclaimed on his deathbed, "the horror! the horror!" The book is mandatory reading for all visitors to the area.

Belgium gave Congo independence in 1962 as freedom was sweeping through Africa. They were ill prepared for self rule and in 1964, General Joseph Mobutu seized power, changed the name to Zaire, and ruled until he was overthrown last year by a rebel force.

Mobutu was one of the worst dictators in Africa. He amassed a huge fortune while most Congolese live in poverty. He received his fortune by selling off mineral rights and pocketing aid given to him by the West. He spent $15 million to sponsor the "Rumble in the Jungle", the world championship fight between George Foreman and Mohammed Ali in 1974. He had his European hair stylist flown in every two weeks to cut his hair, at an estimated cost of $5,000 each trip.

America supported him because we needed an ally to serve as an arms conduit for the war in Angola. Angola had a popular Communist government and we did not like the thought of Communism sweeping through Africa. So we supplied arms to rebel forces in Angola to fight against the government. And we needed Mobutu in order to ship the arms there. For years, Mobutu was the only Sub-Sahara African leader to be invited to the White House. Reagan called him "the voice of reason and goodwill."

Aid was cut off in 92 after the Cold War and our interest in Angola ended. Zaire's economy crumbled and Mobutu did not pay the military (or any civil servant for that matter) for years. He was overthrown last year by a popular based rebel force led by Lawrence Kabila. Kabila changed the name of the country back to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Congo is rich with resources: copper, cobalt, gold, diamonds, timber, abundant sources of hydro power and land for agriculture. Yet it is one of the poorest countries in Africa. Per capita income is $180 (per year). There are virtually no asphalt roads, only two rail lines, and, except for the capitol, no phones.

Well, that is it for your history lesson and my letter.

With love,

Joe

29 April 1998

Hi everyone

Well, we've finally made it through the terrible Central African region with its wars and military dictatorships into a relatively democratic and stable Cameroun.

A few days after we last wrote we left Kinshasa and crossed the Congo River to Brazzaville, the capital of the neighbouring Republic of Congo (not to be confused with the Democratic Republic of Congo!). Unlike the former Zaire, Congo-Brazza (as it is also known) is still at war. Fortunately for us the French-backed rebels of Denis Sassou-Ngessou had ousted the democratically elected President Lissouba from the capital and the war is now being waged in the West of the country. However, the prospect of now leaving the former-Zaire (which had at least finished its war) and beginning a journey through a country which is still in the midst of one didn't really appeal to us much. From the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak.

After an hour our boat had crossed the river and we were in Brazzaville. After doing the necessary immigration formalities and dumping our bags at the Catholic Cathedral (where we found a room to sleep) we began exploring this beautiful city.

At least it was once beautiful...

After the four months of war waged in the streets of Brazza, every building is riddled with bullets and mortar craters. Beautiful tinted glass skyscrapers have been shattered - we could actually see right through one of them - and even the giant Basilica church is in ruins. As we wandered the completely deserted streets we spotted a chic mini-mall and went exploring inside where we found the Air Portugal offices completely destroyed with the floors covered with pools of dry blood.

Bombed out skyscraper, Brazzaville, Rep. of Congo

Happily, one of the buildings that suffered the worst damage was the Elf Tower. This company was largely responsible for the ending of democracy in Congo as it funnelled funds to the rebels in exchange for a massive oil contract in this oil rich country.

Two days later we were out of Brazza on board a giant truck going North through the beautiful, fertile Savannah area on our way to the town of Makoua where the rain forest begins again. There we were dismayed to hear that the road to Cameroun no longer existed and that we would have to walk another 170km through the jungle. Perhaps only Joe can understand how much that prospect didn't excite us. Anyway, we had no other choice so after a few days of rest in the local Catholic Mission, we piled our backpacks stuffed with food on the back of a bike and off we set.

After about an hour we were in high spirits marching through beautiful countryside which gradually changed from savannah to jungle. We camped the first night in a small village 25km from Makoua and left early the next morning for the village of Mambili a further 25km away. Our bike chauffeur, David, had been acting really strangely the first day and on the second day he waited for us to go on ahead and then dumped our luggage in a small village and disappeared: not before helping himself to Lance's walkman, some money and half our food.

As a result we were forced to spend the night in the picturesque village of Itagniere where we managed to buy some freshly killed antelope which we ate with rice which was about all the food we were left with. The next morning we spent relaxing, waiting for the rain, that had followed the most powerful thunderstorm we'd ever witnessed, to end.

Jungle village of Itagniere, Rep. of Congo

Due to Congo being one of Africa's most unpopulated countries the villages here are tiny when compared with those in the jungle in Congo-Kinshasa, consisting normally of just a handful of families. Each family has their own hut/s and a few families will share a communal cooking/relaxation area which is roofed-over but has no walls. This is where we would normally cook and share our tea/coffee with the village elders in the morning. (Our ex-chauffeur had kindly taken our porridge so we generally ate only one meal a day which sometimes we were able to supplement with fruit growing in the villages.) The area around both the huts and the communal areas are meticulously swept of all leaves and rubbish every morning leaving a clean, sandy village that contrasts sharply with the damp, dark jungle that threatens to engulf it at any moment.

After the rain stopped we found another bike and set off at a good pace for Mambili for the 2nd time. Unlike in the Congo-Kinshasa jungle where at least there was a semblance of a road, the path through this jungle was completely overgrown with vines grabbing at us, brambles hooking on our clothes and no sunshine penetrating the dense foliage. As we walked further we found huge trees that had fallen across the road making passing difficult.

As we walked we were joined by a short, drunk guy (we were sure he was at least part pygmy) who helped us get our bike across the 12 bridges that were no more than two or three 10cm wide poles on which we balanced precariously. We said goodbye to our chauffeur when we reached the massive Mambili River where we found the ferry had long since sunk. This was where our short friend (his name was Zico) came in. He agreed to paddle us across in his little pirogue one by one. So Dave climbed aboard with his backpack and hadn't got more than 2 meters from the riverbank when the pirogue promptly sank, soaking Dave and his backpack. Crying with laughter we watched as the absolutely mortified Zico managed to refloat the piroque and apologised profusely having committed the piroqueman's ultimate error with the his most distinguished clients ever. We eventually made it across and then hacked our way through tall grass until we reached the village. This was one of the smallest on the whole trip with only two families inhabiting it. Naturally, being the bizarre Africa we love, due to some disagreement these two families were not speaking to each other!

Zico's big moment...

Oh dear...

We camped here for two nights as we couldn't arrange a bike for our luggage. We didn't mind the delay though as it gave us time to explore this powerful, mysterious forest as we sat for hours just watching the amazing variety of creatures going about their lives. We eventually arranged a bike with a passing chauffeur and set off early the next morning on our way to Epoma. The path continued to deteriorate with fallen trees across the path about every kilometer but after 5 hours we'd covered the 22km and arrived in the fairly large village. We were really fortunate to be able to buy 5 cups of rice which eased our food problem considerably as did the 5 eggs that were given to us which we scrambled the next morning. Hmmmm! The villagers got one of their hunting dogs to catch one of the very nimble chickens which we feasted on. We ended up eating 6 whole chickens between the two of us in a week!

From Epoma the path becomes so overgrown that bikes can't pass so we paid two pygmies to carry our bags to the next village. One of the pygmies had a baby monkey that sat on top of his head as he walked, screeching every time he put it down. Its mother had been killed and eaten by the pygmies and as it was too young to care for itself they were raising it. The hunting of monkeys is so widespread here that, unlike in the Congo-Kinshasa jungle, there were no monkeys playing in the trees as we walked as they either hid from us or had been eaten. There were tons of butterflies though which swarmed around us like a living rainbow.

The "Great North Road", Rep. of Congo

We would pass small streams every day where we would swim and wash ourselves and our clothes. Lance learnt about the hazards of this natural living, though, when a fish latched onto where it hurts most sending Dave into uncontrollable laughter as Lion stared worriedly at his wounded weapon. Don't worry ladies, he has made a complete recovery.

The next few days passed pretty smoothly except when we couldn't find anyone to carry our bags forcing us to carry the 30kg loads about 26km. One pair of puny pygmies who carried our bags literally jogged all the way as we stumbled behind, having had a few slugs of deadly maize spirits "for morale" as the locals put it.

After about 150km we reached the village of Ibonga which was the last before we reached Liouesso where the road began again. We organised two porters to carry our bags the final 22km and set off. After 14km the two guys sneaked off after having stolen most of what was left of our food and Dave's torch (sorry Sonja and Bieq's!). Two thefts two Sundays in a row!

We finally arrived in Liouesso after 9 days walking and were given a hut to sleep in by the chief.

The next day we caught the bakkie to Ouesso, 80 km away. The vehicle was not only piled high with people but also a range of dead animals including 5 monkeys, 6 antelope and a porcupine. After 60km we were stopped by the military who hauled us off in their vehicle to Ouesso where our bags were searched thoroughly and our passports confiscated.

We spent the night in the catholic mission and went down to the Immigration offices the next morning where we successfully recovered our passports without paying the bribe demanded of us. Then we rushed down to the river where we just managed to catch the motorised pirogue to Pokola, the home of a giant logging company and the village it has borne.

After a few hours and a few breakdowns we arrived in Pokola where we had our passports confiscated and were told we'd only see them again if we paid the necessary bribe. In the meantime we organised a lift on one of the dozens of trucks loaded with timber heading for Cameroun and were set to leave at 6am the next day. Unfortunately the police chief was playing hard ball and we couldn't get our passports back in time so we missed our lift.

Time for the African Wanderers to get tough!

We had the name of the police chief written down so Dave flashed the card of the SA ambassador in Kinshasa and said that he was his dad and that we'd happily pay the money if the police chief would just confirm that we had recorded all his details correctly. We left the office with our passports a minute later!

Unfortunately we only managed to arrange a truck lift the next day and finally reached the Congo-Cameroun border. The Congo official's bribery demand caved in under the same "ambassador's son" trick but we happily paid the $8 bribe entering into Cameroun as we had no visa due to the embassy in Brazzaville having been closed due to the war.

Four days and some uncomfortable truck rides later we arrived here in bustling Yaounde. Two days ago we met 34 Peace Corps guys and girls (!) in the foyer of the Standard Chartered Bank. They had just been evacuated from Chad and we were staying in the extravagant surrounds of the Hilton. That night they invited us over and treated us to drinks and what must rate as one of the greatest meals in 11 months. All paid for by the American government!

Last night we got an even greater treat, dancing down to the jives of the Hilton's nightclub. It was a huge rave where we both remained true to our liberation theology and impressed the girls with an outstanding display of dancing. That all ended at two o'clock in the morning, and then the big surprise was given to us. One of the girls kindly gave up her room and shared one with another person down the hall. This left a beautiful, fully kitted-out room for the two of us, with television, great beds and our first hot shower in over four months. Three nights in Yaounde and we've already organised a free night in the Hilton, the mind boggles at what the African Wanderers are capable of achieving!

Yesterday unfortunately, Lance suffered the indignity of having his wallet snatched with ALL his travel documents (passports, vaccination card...) and about $40 lost. Africa is sometimes a very difficult mistress. At the moment, Lance is considering following the policy of the Nigerian sleeping on the bridge between Kenya and Ethiopia. In his words, "I'm African mon, I don't need no passport to travel on my continent." He's still not too sure whether spending time in a Chadian jail will really be worth the philosophy though. Anyway, with or without a passport, we will be travelling down in a day or two to Cameroun's Kribi beach for a week to rest and recuperate with some Peace Corps friends. We need it! (Late news: the reward we put out got Lance's documents back. So all's well again.)

So we've successfully made the East to West Africa crossing which means we're back in e-mail territory again so all those moaning subscribers out there can expect frequent e-mails again. We hope to send out some personal e-mails soon - definitely within the next 3 weeks.

Thanks for all the messages and keep writing.

love

the African Wanderers

Dave and Lance

Ethiopia: Africa's enigma

1997-09-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone

When we last wrote we were in the sumptuous surrounds of a turkey farm overlooking the majestic Lake Naivasha. After this brief respite we were thrust headlong into the rigours of african travel, namely a two day truck ride through the forbidding north Kenyan desert, home to ruthless shifta bandits and an inordinate amount of dust.

After an extremely tiring journey we finally arrived in the border town of Moyale. Driving through its dusty streets with the sounds of "I'm sitting on the top of Kilimanjaro" and residents waving from their houses we felt slightly regal on our perch at the top of our DAV truck. We also felt slightly relieved at the fact that we had managed to conquer the long desert stretch and were now left with the prospect of Ethiopia and all its mysterious charms.

The road to Ethiopia (see a bottom of this post for photo three months later)

The first thing that struck us upon arrival was the sense of difference from the rest of Africa which Ethiopia exuded. Firstly, the people look completely different with their straight hair and sharp features. Unlike the rest of East Africa, Ethiopia also has an outstanding cuisine both in terms of its food and variety of drinks. In the food section, the staple diet proves to be a pancake form of sour bread called "injera" which is served with different kinds of meat and sauces. Although it doesn't sound very appetising its certainly better than maize meal and four pieces of fried meat.

Dave and crew eating injera

Throughout our time in Ethiopia we have been confronted with more and more bizarre things that completely challenged our sense of reality. The first of these was in Moyale itself, where we met a rastafarian from Nigeria. Actually, he referred to his place of birth as "across the river Niger", and when we asked him his name he said that he had no need of social constructs and would prefer simply to relate to us man to man. He left Nigeria about two years ago and has since been travelling around africa through Cameroun, Chad, Sudan and Ethiopia. He has however chosen to do all these travels with the philosophy that an African doesn't need a passport to travel in Africa. Unfortunately the authorities of these countries didn't agree with him, and, except for Ethiopia, he has spent time in jail in all of them. In Sudan for instance, he spent one year in jail before they released him and permitted him to merrily march to Ethiopia. After passing through Ethiopia he arrived at the Kenyan border only to be refused entry. Ethiopia then suddenly got wise as well and refused to allow him to re-enter this country. He now sleeps on the bridge between the two countries where he's been for the last three months. People from Moyale bring him food and he has a little ganja garden from which he gets his inspiration. Far from being a doped up rasta though, he's an extremely intelligent person who believes a solution will be found as "we are dealing with man and with man there's always a solution."

We left Moyale the next day simply brimming over with enthusiasm for this strange country. About 200km into the trip north all our preconceptions of Ethiopia were shattered. We entered into an extremely green area with the land supporting a wide variety of fruits. It turns out that a large portion of the central region is lush and green in extreme contrast to those previous images of the 1984 famine. In the town of Dilla we met up with our Israeli friends from Zanzibar and, re-united, proceeded on to the junction town of Shashamene. It was here that we first truly discovered the extent of Ethiopia's culinary delights. At a little shop called Fasika Pastry we indulged ourselves in the wide variety of cakes and fresh fruit juices for less than $0.15 and $0.30 respectively. We also discovered Ethiopia's greatest virtue namely its simply fantastic coffee. It is quite easily the best coffee we've ever tasted, putting the old favourites Columbia and Kenya to shame. This is not surprising though since it was in Ethiopia where coffee was first used and the universal name of "coffee" derives from the Ethiopian Kaffe region where it is grown. In true Ethiopian style though, they choose to reject the name they've given the world and instead call it "buna".

The coffee culture is enhanced by the preponderance of cappuccino machines probably a legacy of the Italian occupation. One is therefore able to enjoy a wide variety of coffee drinks, our favourite being buna bowatet, hot frothy milk mixed with strong coffee.

It was also in Shashamene where Lance (or "Lion" as he was renamed by a Zanzibarian) discovered the virtues of an Ethiopian barber who gave him an outstanding haircut and shave for under a dollar. The fact that the owner was trying to marry off his two daughters to us, and they were doing their best to woo us with an Ethiopian coffee ceremony added to the whole mood. An Ethiopian coffee ceremony involves an hour long process, whereby the beans are roasted, ground and then intricately mixed with water to give you a superb cup of coffee. All of this is done amidst burning frankincense, and one is constantly being invited to partake in these ceremonies throughout Ethiopia.

Shashamene is home to a group of Jamaican Rastafarians who were offered land by the late emperor Haile Selassie. A considerable community has since formed there and we decided to go and visit them. Fortunately for us, our two Israeli friends had spent a year in Jamaica and could therefore speak the Patois dialect. This immediately enamoured us to the Rastas and allowed us to enter into their context. Our friend was so good at Patois in fact, that upon leaving, one of the Rastas remarked "Hey, dem man speak like black man."

The following day we all proceeded to the hot springs in Wondo Genet, 17km away. This is a magical place, filled with rolling green hills and luxuriant hot spring pools which enhanced our earlier feelings of absolute decadence. The fact that we were enjoying all these sights of Ethiopia and still coming in under $7 per day fascinated us as to why this country hasn't been discovered by more tourists. It is quite simply the best kept secret of the tourism market. All these pronouncements were made before we had even discovered the diversity of this country, and after a month of travel we can still only say that we've just scratched the surface.

The Ethiopia not seen on CNN (Waka, Ethiopia)

From Wonder Genet we proceeded back to Shashamene and then on to Addis Ababa for the important Olympic announcement. On the way to the embassy we were confronted by the spectre of a run-away bull which had obviously smelt its fate in the rotting bones of the abbatoir and summarily decided to take its chances on the streets of Addis. Its presence in the street created absolute pandemonium with cars having to veer out the way and people running behind fences to escape its horns. The would-be captors eventually cornered it in a deserted parking lot and attempted to lasso it. This proved to be an exciting task as the bull would constantly charge its antagonists. Eventually, after an hour long struggle, they managed to recapture it and we proceeded on to the embassy, amazed at what we had just witnessed. This is Africa after all.

After feasting on the latest SA newspapers in the embassy, we were invited by the ambassador, Dr Sandy Shaw, to join him and his wife for dinner and to await the big announcement. The superb dinner atmosphere (a traditional South African braai) was marred by learning of Diana and Mother Theresa's deaths and then shattered by the IOC's appalling Eurocentric decision.

We spent four days in Addis enjoying all this modern city has to offer. We visited the Merkato, Africa's biggest market, where anything and everything can be bought at prices so low that one has to question the source of the goods. We spent a whole Sunday lounging in a coffee bar, reading our novels as we consumed copious cups of superb coffee. At night we visited the local T'ej house, partying the night away on this golden alcoholic drink made from honey and eucalyptus. Delicious.

After we had thoroughly explored Addis we headed down South again to Shashamene and then South West to Arba Minch for new year. Ethiopia, naturally, chooses to work with a totally different perspective of time, using the Julian calendar of thirteen months. We were about to enter 1990. On new year we headed up into the cool, green mountain town of Chencha about two hours away, where we celebrated with a local family who had thrown a party for all their neighbours. After enjoying various traditional drinks and foods we headed to the local bar where Lance impressed all with his farangi dancing (in Ethiopia the term "mzungu" has now given way to "farangi"). That night, back in Arba Minch, the local restaurant proprietor handed us a jerrycan of T'ej which he demanded we finish. We obliged.

The next morning, far too early for our liking, we caught a bus into the heart of the Western desert region. After 11 torturous, hot hours in the most inhospitable land imaginable we arrived in the mountain oasis of Jinka. This region is populated with ancient tribes who have maintained the same primitive lifestyles since time immemorial. The first tribe we planned to visit were the infamously aggressive Mursi people, famous for the giant disks worn in their lower lips.

The fact that there's virtually no transport in the area forced us to walk for three days to be able to visit these enigmatic people. We first walked 15km to Berka, a beautiful tiny village high in the mountains where we camped at the police station, much to all the local kids' delight. The next morning we set off early with a local guide who spoke no English but who knew where to find the nomadic mursi. After three hours we had completed our rapid descent of the steep escarpment and found ourselves in the arid countryside we had first experienced on the ride to Jinka. After another hour's walk we reached a gathering of mursi men listening intently to an Australian missionary who has been working with the tribe for the last seven years. After introducing ourselves we were invited to a delicious lunch where we learnt of Jonathan and his family's amazing relationship with one of the most difficult tribes imaginable.

After lunch we visited and photographed the nearby mursi village. The men stand giant and naked bearing Kalushnikov machine guns used to fight the neighbouring Bodi tribe. Intermittent gun shots could be heard throughout our visit. The women wear animal skins but by far their most striking feature are the giant clay disks inserted in the lower lip and ears. This tribe is notoriously aggressive and we were harassed by the armed men, drunk on the local firewater, for money regularly.

Mursi woman, South West Ethiopia

After a tough walk up that same mountain, we finally arrived in Berka and the following day we hiked back to Jinka. After a welcome rest, we caught a rather overloaded truck to Omorate, 10 hours away. Omorate is on the banks of the Omo River and is quite possible one of the most inhospitable places in the world. It is a dusty desert town close to the Sudan and Kenya borders and has average temperatures of over 40 degrees centigrade. It is home to the Galeb people who seemed more accommodating than the mursi. We later found out though, they had in fact recently marched across the Kenyan border, killed 500 Turkana people and stolen their cattle. We learnt this from a Belgian anthropologist, Ivan, who had lived with these people for over a year.

The lack of transport in this area, meant that we were stranded here for a couple days. On the last day, at our wits end, we went to seek Ivan's company, only to find him engaged in a traditional chat ceremony. Chat is a legal stimulant comprising foul tasting leaves which one chews with sugar. The effect is quite astounding in that it doesn't have mind altering properties but increases your awareness and mental lucidity. Apparently school children use it while studying for exams. In this instance we used it as catalyst for wide ranging, in-depth talks about the intricate customs of the Galeb people and the significance these hold for the meaning of life.

Eventually we escaped the grips of Omorate on a truck to Turmi, two hours away. Although Turmi doesn't differ much in its layout, it was certainly a bit cooler. Turmi is home to the Hamer people and we were fortunate to witness the rare bull-jumping ceremony.

Hamer woman about to be whipped, Turmi, Ethiopia

Beautifully decorated women challenge the young men to beat them brutally with whips. Although reluctant, the men eventually give in to the women's constant taunting and deep gashes are gouged in the smiling women's backs. The boy who is being initiated, the Jumper, is required to run across the backs of ten bulls stark naked with his hair frissed into a giant afro. He has to do this four times, and if successful, then enters into manhood.

The Boy jumping his way into manhood, Turmi, Ethiopia

After being stuck in Turmi for another two days we hitched a lift to Keyafar, got stuck for to more days with the Bana people, and then eventually got a truck "home" to Arba Minch.

From Arba Minch we hitched a lift to Sodo where we met up with representatives of ActionAid. They took us to their project in the stunningly beautiful Waka area, 2400m above sea-level. After spending two days visiting their various projects we headed off to Addis to witness the Meskel ceremony.

This gigantic ceremony celebrates finding the remains of Jesus' cross 1600 years ago. It was watched by over 50 000 people, and all the various Orthodox churches turned out in full ceremonial garb. In the centre of the square, sat the dignatries who watched the proceedings under the cover of a huge marquee. This was summarily blown over though when a helicopter landed nearby, creating havoc. The climax of the ceremony consisted of the high priest setting fire to the huge wooden cross erect in the centre of Meskel Square lighting up the night's sky.

We are now about to head north to discover the treasures that await us there.

We plan to be in Lamu on the 22nd of December and we hope to see many of you there. (For those going to Zanzibar or Malawi, Lamu is now easily accessible by bus and is just 9 hours away from Dar. You've gotta go to Mombasa first, which is experiencing problems now, but we expect all will be quiet by the end of the year. When we were there we saw no evidence of any problems and we have no fear of going to Lamu.)

Keep sending those messages.

Love

The African Wanderers

Dave and Lance

12 November 1997

Hi All

We said it before and we will say it again, this country is truly amazing. When we last wrote we had just come back from discovering the completely bizarre Southern region of Ethiopia, complete with its strange collection of different tribes. The defining characteristic of Ethiopia is, however, its orthodox Christian religion, and the way it is manifested in the various monasteries scattered throughout the Northern region. We therefore prepared ourselves for another mind-blowing experience, and promptly set off to discover the North.

We were fortunate in that we were able to hook up with another South African who had his own Land Rover. Anton was naturally from Cape Town and had in fact left South Africa at the same time as us. The three of us therefore set off in high spirits jiving to the sounds of Mango Groove and Johnny Clegg. Feeling intensely patriotic we made our way through this mysterious countryside of mountains and monasteries and crossing the mighty Blue Nile en route to the town of Bahir Dar.

Arriving in Bahir Dar, we connected up with an Israeli couple who we had first met in Zanzibar, and had since then travelled with them at various intervals on the trip. Meeting them again was always a joyous occasion, and this time proved no different. The five of us then set about discovering the attractions of Bahir Dar. The town itself is on the shores of Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile. This lake is responsible for 90% of the water that flows into the combined Blue and White Nile riverway. In typical Ethiopian style, a collection of monasteries have been built on the islands which stand in the middle of this Lake. It was, however, going to prove too expensive to organise boat transport out to them, and as we were sure to see other churches on our sojourn through the North, we decided to go and discover the other attraction at Bahir Dar, namely the spectacular Blue Nile Falls. After our customary morning ritual of buna bowatet (coffee with milk), scrambled eggs and freshly squeezed fruit juice, we decided to first see what bargains could be had at the market. The markets in Ethiopia are particularly good for clothes, as many people from Europe and America donate their old second-hand clothes to various aid organisations. These organisations then sell these clothes to traders at a very low cost. The ultimate result is that one can pick up really nice clothes at a fraction of the price that you would normally pay for them. The Israeli girl, Tali, had in fact managed to procure three pairs of original Benetton jeans in various funky colours for less than two dollars each. Needless to say, shopping in these markets was an enjoyable but time consuming process.

We therefore set off to see the falls rather late in the afternoon. As the rains had just come, the falls were very full and provided a magical scene of cascading water which almost matched the beauty of the more famous Victoria Falls. The Blue Nile falls however, has one feature which seems to distinguish it from all the other Falls, namely that you can swim directly under its cascade. To get there we had to walk for an hour, but feeling that water pounding straight onto your head was well worth it. It was also possible to stand on the rocks directly opposite it, and allow the shower of its spray to complete energize you. After about an hour of frolicking in this veritable playground, we decided to head back. It was getting rather late though, and we decided to take a short cut whereby we would catch a small boat across the river that flows above the falls. When we reached the place where the boat was supposed to be though, we found it decidedly absent. The Israeli, Ron, was therefore forced to swim across this river, with the current continually threatening to pull him over the falls. Thankfully he made it to the other side where he was able to arrange for a small papyrus boat to come and pick us all up. It was then our chance to feel the threat of the waterfall as the current continually pulled us towards the precipice. The boatmen proved to be up to the task though, and we all made it safely to the other side.

Swimming below the Blue Nile Falls, Ethiopia

After such an exhilarating day, we decided to head for the famous rock-hewn churches of Lalibela. Getting to Lalibela necessitated us driving over some extremely high and beautiful mountain passes. Ethiopia, contrary to some people's perceptions, is not a desert country. Quite to the contrary, it is in fact spanned with a whole series of mountains - the slopes of which are a colourful patchwork of green, brown and yellow cultivated fields - all providing one with some of the most majestic views that you can ever hope to see anywhere. Our general mood of festivity in the Land Rover meant that the journey to Lalibela took longer than expected, and we were forced to camp on the side of the road, with one of those majestic views spread out before us. Being high in the mountains though, meant that we had to endure an extremely cold night. We saw this experience as a good preparation for what we were sure to encounter on the Semien mountains.

Ron & Tali and ourselves on the road to Lalibela, Ethiopia

We finally arrived in Lalibela and put ourselves up in one of its cheap hotels. The following morning we hiked for three hours up to one of the monasteries which had been carved straight into the cliff-face of the surrounding mountain. As we found out later, there are in fact 200 such monasteries and churches scattered throughout Ethiopia. Ethiopia certainly embodies a unique culture, one that has done more with the Christian religion than any other country in the world. Its elaborate ceremonies and ancient churches stand as a living testimony to this fact. In Lalibela we were to see one of the greatest examples of this, namely its famous rock-hewn churches. These churches were built under the order of King Lalibela in the 13th century, and they have simply been carved straight out of a single monolithic rock. The builders had to first dig straight down into the solid rock for about 20 metres, before they were able to then carve the door and then hollow out the interior of these absolutely amazing structures. There are 11 churches built in such manner, with many of them connected by a maze of underground tunnels, once again, carved straight out of the rock. As we wandered around this strange laberynthian structure, we felt ourselves agreeing with the Ethiopian guidebook that describes this as one of the unrecognised wonders of the world.

The next day saw the sad departure of Anton, as he had to rush off and meet a friend who had flown up to Nairobi in Kenya to meet him. He therefore dropped the four of us off in the small town of Woldiyia, where we spent the night before heading off to Gondar the following day.

Gondar has got its own collection of attractions, including the huge structure of King Fasil's castle and his enormous swimming pool. The old Ethiopian kings certainly knew how to live it up. In customary North Ethiopian style, Gondar has its own special church called Debre Birhan Selassie. What makes this church stand out is its roof mural of a hundred angels' faces each looking in a different direction. The effect is quite mesmerizing.

Gondar also proved to have one of the best second-hand clothes markets in Ethiopia, and we were able to acquire a number of articles for our forthcoming trek into the Semien mountains. After spending three leisurely days in Gondar we made our way to the tiny town of Debark, the gateway to the majestic Semiens. Hiking in these mountains is enhanced by the fact that for a measly one and a half dollars a day you are able to rent a horse to carry all your luggage. The activity therefore becomes one of simply walking through the mountains and taking in the spectacular views you are confronted with at every turn. The first day, however, did prove to be a bit long, demanding about 7 hours walking time. The walk took us through some beautiful Ethiopian countryside with tiny villages dotted all around. These villages allowed us the opportunity of breaking the walk with a number of stops for some spicy tea.

After a long day's hiking we finally arrived in the first camp of Sankaber. The encroaching night brought with it some extremely cold weather, and under the cover of three sweaters and two pairs of pants each, we proceeded to make ourselves a sumptuous dinner. Besides the other two Israelis in our party, we also had an American peace corps worker who had just finished her three year stint in Niger. The five of us had jointly hired three horses for our luggage, a scout with a gun who couldn't speak any English, and lastly, two very strange local mulemen. For the fixed price of only one and a half dollars each a day these mulemen were invested with the task of packing and taking care of the horses, fetching water in the freezing cold night, and by their own volition, washing our pots and plates. Most of this is done barefoot, and when they finally lie down to sleep, their only cover is a sheet-like cloth which is tightly wrapped around them. This was one of the many times in Ethiopia where we just couldn't help remarking, "These Ethiopians are mal !" (For the benefit of our international subscribers, "mal" is Afrikaans for "mad").

The second day proved to be an easier one, with us arriving at Gitch camp in the early afternoon. As night began to fall, we watched the sun gently fall behind the horizon, while on the opposite side of the sky a full moon rose. All of this played itself out within the confines of the imposing Semien mountains. It was simply awesome, but it was in fact the next morning that we got to experience the greatest scene yet. In order to get the best view we had to wake up at half past five in the morning (11:30 Ethiopian time) and hike for two hours to the viewpoint of Imet Gogo. We sat here gazing upon this majestic view for at least three hours. This was nature at its most beautiful, with the rising sun illuminating a scene of craggy mountain peaks piercing the velvet sky and eagles in a somnambulistic reverie to the early morning, allowing themselves to be gently taken up in the wind spirals. On the valley floor far, far below, we noticed a patchwork of different settlements each displaying their own particular hue of green foliage. At the risk of soundly completely New Age, it was almost as though we could feel the Semien Mountains pushing out their energy at us. After three hours of this, we headed back to the camp and proceeded to vacillate between sleep and a game of rummy.

That night we finished our dinner early, only to be confronted with the extremely dismal arrival of a rain storm. As our tent is not the most hardy we had to endure a night of extreme cold exacerbated considerably by a huge pool of water that carpeted the entire floor of our tent. It was then that we vowed to get ourselves a new tent before our confrontation with the Congo forest. [If any of our loyal subscribers knows how we can procure a cheap but extremely good and waterproof tent, we would really appreciate you letting us know. Commercial finished, now back to the movie.]

The next morning in an extremely disheveled shape, we made our way back to the first camp and braced ourselves for another bout of rain. Luckily it abated before we went to sleep, and we were spared another night of being wet and miserable. The next day we made our way back to Debark, encountering a whole troop of endemic Gelada baboons on the way. Unfortunately Debark was to now prove to be the parting point for us and the Israelis, as they were going back to Gondar, and we were proceeding on to Axum. We agreed to meet in Harer in two week's time, and with a sad farewell we went our separate ways.

Axum is a strange town, as it is fairly large by Ethiopian standards, and yet it still manages to project an extremely laid back ambience. In ancient times it was the seat of Queen Sheba's kingdom, and in its inauspicious museum one can find two beautiful glass goblets evidence of the famous glass industry dating back to her reign in 1000 BC. Perhaps the most eerie thing about this town though, was its field of Stellae, which are basically huge rock structures standing perpendicular to the ground and engraved with various esoteric symbols. We couldn't help wondering as we gazed transfixed by their enormity, how such gigantic stone structures, weighing over 500 tons, could have possibly been carried up from the valley 5km away to their current position during the 3rd century.

'Stairway to the Sky', Giant stellae, Axum, Ethiopia

Axum is also supposedly the town where the Ark of the Covenant is hidden according not only to Ethiopian legend but to Graham Hancock's book The Sign and the Seal. We found the church where it's supposedly kept but unfortunately weren't able to enter.

After three days of admiring Axum's historical attractions we made our way to the 6th century Debre Damos, which lies between the towns of Adigrat and Axum. This monastery is built on top of a flat mountain which is ringed by steep cliffs on all sides. The only way one can reach this "name of the rose"-like place is too climb up this cliff with the aid of a 20m rope the priests throw down for you. If that sounds crazy, then picture this. By sheer fluke, or for the New Age among us, the mysterious energy of travel, we landed ourselves here on the exact day that the yearly festival of this church was being held. This meant that there were literally three thousand people all clamoring to get up this rope. It was the most crazy thing that we have ever witnessed, and saying that after spending over a month in Ethiopia, means that this was truly a "mal" scene. At any one time there would be 10 people on the rope, with some coming down and some going up. David in a show of bravado, grabbed hold of this rope, and with a determined look on his face proceeded to work his way up it. About half way up, after fighting for his space on the rope, he was forced to seek solace on a precarious ledge. With the aid of a rope tied round his waist, he finally made it to the top. Lance followed him, this time aided all the way with a rope harness. The scene on top is truly holy, with sweeping views of the surrounding desert-like landscape being offered from all sides. Besides the church, there is also a stone village housing all the priests and monks who live here. As it was a festival, the holy ambience was enhanced by colourfully robed priests complete with velvet umbrellas and huge silver crosses, preaching to the hundreds of men who had fought to get up the rope. Only men are in fact allowed up here, a gender bias which the priests extend to absolutely every living thing. The chickens, sheep, and every other animal they possess are strictly only male. Bizarre!!!!

'A mad rush to the top', Climbing up to the Debre Damos monastery, Ethiopia

While wandering around spellbound by its beauty, a monk invited us and two other Ethiopians into his house for lunch. For the first time in Africa, we were to witness a man preparing all the food and drink. Sadly no women will ever get to meet this liberated male.

After spending a couple of hours on the top, we decided to confront the prospect of the ropes again, this time allowing ourselves to be let down by means of a leather rope held by five men on the top. In an abseil fashion we descended only to be confronted with an extremely festive atmosphere at the foot of the cliffs. On the grass patch below, a number of tents had been erected, each offering their own form of loud music, good food and Ethiopian beer. To the right of this scene stood a church complete with a priest who was preaching to the scores of women left behind at the base of the mountain. This co-existence of drunken revelry and religious solemnity carried on throughout the night, and we wandered around this mysterious place sampling both elements.

The following morning after witnessing the final grand and colourful service on top of the mountain, we hiked about six kilometers back along the road to Adigrat until we were finally able to hitch a lift on top of a truck. We spent a night in Adigrat and then made our way down to the tiny Tigrayan town of Hawzen.

Colourful procession watched by the crowds below, Debre Damos, Ethiopia

This town is in the middle of an extremely eerie landscape, where a flat desert-like landscape is sporadically broken by a series of craggy mountains and sheer cliffs. As we had come to expect from the Ethiopians, these cliffs each contained their own rock-hewn church reached by clambering up steps and footholds carved into the cliffs over the centuries by the priests who worship there. After hiking for three hours we finally reached the spectacular Debre Mariam Korkor church carved once again, straight into the rock face. From our vantage point on top of this mountain, we were also offered the added attraction of one of the most spectacular views we have ever seen. Sheer cliffs and strange rock formations dotted the landscape creating a scene of extreme beauty.

Magnificent view from Debre Mariam Korkor, Ethiopia

The following day we made our way down to Tekatisfaye, a small town on the main road, which has a collection of rock hewn churches nearby. Although these weren't in as spectacular a setting as the churches the day before, their size and colourful murals painted on the inside made them particularly attractive.

A rock-hewn church, Ethiopia

Having finished with the churches, we made our way South to Mekelle. This is the capital of Tigray province, and we were fortunate in being able to visit the impressive Tigray Development Association. The Northern province of Tigray is an extremely determined one, as evidenced by the fact that it was their army of only 80 000 men and women which ultimately brought down the previous Dergue regime complete with its army of 1.2 million soldiers. This determination now manifests itself in their desire to develop their region as best as possible.

After enjoying the delights of Mekelle's pastry and coffee shops, one of which even had waiters wearing shower caps in an ill-fated attempt to make themselves look smart, we headed back to Addis Ababa. On the bus ride back we got to witness the ridiculously humorous event of pepper being spilt on the bus. Ethiopians still cling on to this highly annoying belief that air flowing in through the windows of a bus somehow possesses dangerous germs which are sure to make you sick. On every bus ride we have taken in Ethiopia, we had to suffer the suffocating effects of having every single window on the bus being tightly shut. The release of pepper into the air therefore led to everyone spluttering and wheezing, but still demanding that no window be opened. These Ethiopians are really Mal!!

We didn't stay long in Addis Ababa, as we wanted to meet up with our two Israeli friends in Harer. We therefore jumped on the next bus out of there and after 13 hours finally arrived in the strange town of Harer.

This town is supposed to be the fourth most holy city in the Muslim world, although the preponderance of bars and Ethiopian nightclubs certainly subverts this image. Harer is also one of the cheapest places to buy goods, as the majority of it comes from Dubai without any import duties being levied on it. This is due to the goods being transported first to Mogadishu in government-less Somalia and then on the backs of camels through the desert border of Ethiopia to Harer.

The defining element of Harer though, is the incessant chewing of chat which almost every resident engages in. As stated in our last e-mail, chat is a plant whose leaves possess a stimulant that allows one to think more clearly and to voice those thoughts for many an hour on end. We therefore decided that when in Harer, we should do as these mal people do, and chew this strange plant. Needless to say, we ended up whiling way the hours discussing everything of meaning in life.

After four days in Harer we were beginning to give up on our Israeli friends ever arriving, as we knew they were flying out soon, making it almost impossible for them to make it to Harer in time. In typical Israeli style though, they made a plan and ended up flying to Harer so that they could spend the last three days of their trip with us. The four of us ended up raving the night away in a bar situated in the fourth most holy city in the Muslim world. This continent is most definitely a strange place.

On one of our last evenings in Harer, we set off to see the Hyena Man of Harer.

On the outskirts of the wall that surrounds the town, protecting it during the ancient wars, we found a desolate field. There, as our eyes became accustomed to the moonlight, we gradually made out the forms of a dozen or so hyenas skulking in the gloom. After about half an hour a man appeared carrying meat and bones which he used to tempt the hyenas closer. Eventually the hyenas were bold enough to take meat from his hands and then, amazingly, from his mouth. After watching this for about an hour, we plucked up enough courage to successfully feed them by hand ourselves. Face to face with these animals we were grateful that we weren't around a few decades ago when during the famine, Ethiopians fed them in a much more unwilling and direct fashion...

After a week in Harer we headed back to Addis Ababa, but this time we were able to enhance the journey with a bit of Ethiopian chat chewing. On Sunday we had to sadly bid farewell to our Israeli friends, who it must be said we had become strangely accustomed to meeting at various intervals on our travels.

We and two other backpacker friends hit the town in a big way for Dave's birthday on the 10th celebrating with copious quantities of T'ej well into the 11th which also happened to be our one friend's birthday.

Anyway, we are now back on our own again, although it seems like we have already been able to replace our two Israeli friends with another two Israeli's who we are going to meet up with in the Western border town of Gambela.

Anyway we need to rush off now and partake in a few more adventures, but as always we will keep you informed of our various travails.

For those who have not yet confirmed their tickets, we'll be in Lamu by the 22nd of December for the biggest Christmas and New Year's parties ever to hit the Southern Hemisphere.

Love

The African Wanderers

Lance and Dave

14 January 1998

Hi everyone

After almost two months we've finally managed to escape the internet abyss. When we last wrote we had just returned from Harer in Eastern Ethiopia: the city of 99 Mosques and the Hyena Man.

A few days later we left Addis Ababa with two Israeli friends, Udi and Keren, heading Westwards on a circular route. The first town we stopped at was Ambo, the site of a naturally sparkling hot spring. Swimming in this water was like swimming in hot Coke: bubbles everywhere. After another two days travelling through what one Ethiopian described as a "lowland desert" - even though it just happened to be a tropically vegetated area 1600m above sea-level - we arrived at the remote, fascinating town of Gimbi. This tiny town is in the heart of Ethiopia's coffee growing area and the people here didn't display the same abrasive manner we had become familiar with throughout the rest of Ethiopia. That night while wandering around the sandy streets, we came across a jubilant wedding celebration. The best man spotted us and invited us in as guests of honour to have our photo's taken with the bridal couple and to enjoy the festivities. A few hours of dancing and T'ej drinking later, we stumbled home to bed.

Two days later we reached our ultimate destination, the steamy river port called Gambela. This place is unlike any other in Ethiopia. Its population consists entirely of the pitch black Nuer people, easily the tallest tribe we've come across, dwarfing the legendary Maasai people. They originate from Sudan which is only a few kilometers West of Gambela and due to the town being colonised by the British at the beginning of the century, they speak perfect English. The town itself is situated on the mighty Baro river and in the past it used to be the departure point for river steamers making their way to Khartoum via the Nile. This setting as well as its steamy climate gives Gambela a distinctly Conradian feel, making us feel as if we'd stepped right into the heart of darkness.

After a few days in Gambela we decided to explore some even more remote areas closer to the border and to the strangely named town of Gog. After a 2 hour bus trip we were summarily dropped off at a tiny gravel junction from where we walked to the stunningly beautiful, yet unknown Tata Lake. There, after meeting with the local chief, we camped in the tiny Anuak fishing village on the water's edge. We spent the day exploring the lake and its surrounds and frolicking in the warm water.

With the belief that all Africans have an inherent rhythm, Dave enquired whether there was likely to be any drumming or dancing that evening. That evening we were treated to the most ludicrous musical performance with inebriated men and women cavorting about in the strangest attire of leaves and pieces of cloth all to the beat of a distinctly untalented drummer. Needless to say, Dave's belief was proved horribly wrong.

Sunset over Lake Tata, Ethiopia

The following day, on the information of locals, we hiked back to the junction where we waited for the 1pm bus that never came. Eventually we managed to hitch a lift to the tiny town of Pungnido, primarily a Sudanese refugee centre. Fortunately we managed to get transport from here back to Gambela the following day and five days later after making our way through the towns of Metu and Jima we reached Addis Ababa.

After savouring the delights of Addis for the last time we bade a sad farewell to this city that in many respects had become our surrogate home. The two of us and Keren (now more than merely Lance's "friend") made our way down to the town of Tiya where we visited some less than inspiring stone stellae. We proceeded on to Lake Ziway where we organised a boat to take us to the island monastery that contrary to the guide book's information proved to be non-existent. We then headed South to another lakeside town called Awasa. Situated on beautiful Lake Awasa we relaxed in its beautiful ambience and explored its numerous culinary delights.

Ancient burial stones of Tiya, Ethiopia

The following day we said a sad goodbye to Keren as we headed to the Bale Mountains. After hitching a lift to Robe, we decided to try and make our way to the legendary Sof Omar caves. For the first time on our trip, that ever-present Travelling Spirit deserted us as we found ourselves stranded in the tiny town of Goro, 40km from the caves. Dejected we had to return to Robe. The following day the Travelling Spirit, as a form of appeasement for its previous day's misdemeanors, directed us on a totally unplanned diversion. While sitting in a truck waiting to go to Shek Husen, we suddenly got the impulse to change our destination to Goba. After getting our tickets refunded, we took a bus to Goba where, on finding nothing of interest, we decided to hitch a lift to tiny Dolla Mene. We got a lift on a truck that took us through the Bale Mountains National Park along Africa's highest all-weather road, 4000m above sea-level. For about an hour we were the highest vehicle in Africa! Along the way we were fortunate to spot not one but two Semien Foxes, the world's rarest canid. We then descended into a recently discovered medieval-like forest filled with gnarled trees dripping with moss and lichens. All of this was accompanied by the sounds of Deep Forest's pygmy lullaby. Only once in Dolla Mene were we informed by a Red Cross official that this forest road was the scene of brutal hijack killings by the rebel army a few months before. Ignorance is bliss.

Dolla Mene was the first place where El Nino began to impact on our travel plans. The road to the next town of Bidre had been closed for a month by the flooded Gobele River. Amazingly though (that Travel Spirit again) we found a landrover that was going to make an attempt to traverse the river the very next day. After a 3 hour drive we reached the side of the flooded river and, with a complete disrespect for its power, our driver launched the landrover straight through the surging water. To everyone's delight the gamble paid off.

As is usual in Ethiopia this region has an element to it that is completely different from the rest of the country. Its distinctive nature is heavily influenced by the strong Somali culture of the area. The land is more arid than the rest of Ethiopia with camels the main means of transporting goods and people. The food is primarily Somalian with the most popular dish being a spicy meat stew called Spestino. The people, all Muslim, are incredibly colourful with the women looking particularly beautiful.

From Bidre we caught a truck to Negelle Borena situated on the road to Mogadishu. This colourful town possesses a magnificent market filled with goods which are brought from Dubai via Mogadishu with no import duties and are thus ridiculously cheap. After spending a few days shopping in the markets and absorbing the vibrant culture of the town we finally managed to find a truck on its way South along the rarely used road to Moyale. From this point onwards El Nino, the cause of the disastrous floods in Somalia and Northern Kenya, began to impact heavily on our travels. Our journey to Moyale became a nightmare with the road becoming a swamp in parts requiring us to push and pull our landrover out of mud holes every few hours. The comforting sounds of Dave's walkman came to an abrupt and absurd ending when, at high speed, a branch hooked onto his earphones and ripped them out of the walkman to be lost forever!

Chewing chat on the way to Moyale, Ethiopia

Eventually, after two muddy days, we reached the border town of Moyale only to find that the road to Nairobi had been completely destroyed and that no trucks had made it through in 3 months. We were informed that our only option was to fly to Nairobi at a cost of $100!

At the border we met up with 7 kiwis and a Briton and together we approached an overland truck in Kenya offering our free labour to dig it through the mud in exchange for a free lift to Nairobi. The night before we left we introduced the kiwis to the joys of T'ej on the Ethiopian side and got absolutely smashed, stumbling back across the border after midnight.

The following day we said goodbye to Ethiopia, a country we had come to know intimately over the past three and a half months. We boarded the giant overland truck, laden with chat, and prepared to dig our way through the treacherous road down to Nairobi. Fortunately the Travel Spirit was good to us, and we were one of only 7 trucks to successfully make it through. En route we came across a truck that had been stuck in the mud since October with its load of beans being the only sustenance for the driver for the last two months!

The muddy road back to Nairobi (how it looked three months before)

After resting for a day in Nairobi we rushed down to Mombasa and then Malindi to make sure we could reach Lamu by Christmas. El Nino attempted to frustrate our plans again, having destroyed the road to Lamu. We were therefore forced to spend a night in Malindi devising a plan. We decided to stay in the same hotel as the one we stayed in three years ago. When we were there last time we met an Mzungu (white person) who told us that the World Health Organisation had just released news that AIDS is in fact transmitted by mosquitoes, and that Malindi was enjoying an infection rate of 98%. We obviously dismissed that information then, but now three years later we came to find that same person at the same hotel attempting to scare travellers with the identical story. Africa just seems to be a magnet for mallies.

After speaking to locals we finally worked out that we needed to get ourselves to the tiny port of Ngomeni, from where we could catch a motorboat to Lamu. Unfortunately being Christmas, this form of transport was overloaded with goods with hardly any space being left for passengers. David's unique powers of persuasion, however, convinced the captain to offload some of the goods to make space for us and the Kiwi's. On the morning of Christmas eve we set off for Lamu, enduring the clanging noise of the motorboat for eight hours before reaching this veritable island paradise.

Being eight of us we were able to rent out an entire house at a cost of only U$1.90 per person per day. The house was designed in typical Lamu style, with big rooftop patios offering views of Lamu's unique Swahili skyline. After spending 6 debaucherous days soaking up the laid-back island ambience, we prepared ourselves for the prospect of New Year's Eve. The party was due to be held at the other end of the island, at the site of an exclusive hotel with an adjoining stretch of pristine beach. After consuming copious amounts of alcohol we made our way across to the hotel, engaging in a multitude of seemingly meaningless exchanges with the scores of people that had congregated there. The alcohol had proved too much for Lance, however, and he found himself laid out on one of the hotel benches before New Year had even come round. In a style reflecting South Africa's will to win though, he managed to bring himself round at two O'clock in the morning and proceeded to march to the other end of the beach where he found Dave and a band that was jiving up the party that had congregated around the sand dunes. Putting the Kiwi's to shame, and demonstrating why we won the world cup, we both completely raved it up until the sun came up the next morning. The party proved to be truly superb, with its collection of rave, African and trance music providing the necessary sustenance for our display of completely liberated dance moves. After seven months of travelling through Africa, we couldn't think of a better way to see the new year in. It was quite simply the best new year we have ever had.

Dave and Lance shouting the praises of South Africa, New Year '98, Lamu, Kenya

Having met our final deadline of being in Lamu for Christmas and New Year, we found ourselves in the unique position of not being limited in any way by time constraints. This meant that we could quite easily spend the next few days in Lamu recovering, without worrying about the time we were wasting. Finally on the 6th of January we left the island and made our way back to Mombasa. It was here that we said a sad farewell to our Kiwi friends, with them going off to Dar Es Salaam and us returning to Nairobi.

In Nairobi we met up with two South Africans who have been travelling up in a Landcruiser from Cape Town. As coincidence would have it, or perhaps that ever faithful Travelling Spirit, Phil and Francis turned out to be the brother and cousin of a friend, Josie, in Cape Town. Dave had met them in Cape Town before we left and after a bit of dazed introduction we set off with Francis to Naivasha for the weekend where we visited the home of Joy Adamson.

We also met an American named Joe, who has been travelling around South and East Africa for the past year. After hearing about our tales, he decided that he would like to travel through Zaire with us, and the three of us should be setting off for that enigmatic country at the end of the week. As it turns out, Joe has a small digital video camera with him, which we will be using to shoot an amateurish video of our journey down the vast Congo river. Who knows, we just might be able to make some form of a documentary out of this!!!!

So don't expect e-mails for a while as we'll have limited internet access in the Congo jungle. You should hear from us again within two months.

Have a wicked 1998.

Love the african wanderers

Dave and Lance

East African Paradise

1997-08-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone

When we last wrote we were in Nampula, Mozambique on our way to the coast.

We hitched up with three Israelis in a camper land rover and head off to Ilha de Mozambique. This place is an enigmatic island that exudes a peculiar Portuguese/Arab/African ambience. The ancient buildings are really run down - damaged by the cyclone in '94. The giant fort dates all the way back to around 1550 and is quite something to behold.

We camped on the beach near Nacala a few hours north. The next day we headed back to the junction town of Namialo where we briefly parted ways with the Israelis. We headed north on a bus with a wide variety of characters including someone who summarily threw up next to Lance.

Arriving in Pemba we met another 2 Israelis (a total of 13 Israelis on the trip so far) and together we made our way to Wimbi Beach about 5kms out of town. At the Nautilus hotel we camped for free in, believe it or not, the children's playground! This proved to be a great meeting spot for backpackers, and as we have come to expect the three Israelis we left behind in Namialo managed to locate the 2 Israelis with us. We spent 4 days at Wimbi, basking on the pristine, coconut-lined beach enjoying the sun. Dave came down with Malaria, feeling pretty rotten for 2 days but it passed with no long lasting effects.

Wimbi Beach, Pemba, Mozambique

A group of about 11 of us left aboard a motorised boat for the splendid, undiscovered island of Ibo. This must be the most tranquil place on the face of the Earth. We spent five days here, camping in the grounds of an absent french woman's villa. The rest of the group went back to Pemba while we proceeded to discover the pleasures of the rest of the Northern Mozambiquan coast.

We took a sailing dhow north to Pangane stopping off at the Island of Matamu on the way. Matamu is what the lexicographer had in mind when he devised the term paradise: coconut trees, warm turquoise sea, long white beaches (we will ignore the local crapping on the beach nearby - an effective means of waste disposal which detracts slightly from the ambience). If we thought the beach at Matamu was good, the one at Pangane proved to be even better.

Dave attempting a Camel Man pose next to our dhow, Matamu Island, Mozambique

Pangane doesn't feature on any Michilan map, but on our route it certainly stands out. This part of Mozambique is very desolate with only the shop in Pangane stocking cigarettes, condensed milk and coke. Bread, fruit and other food had to be ferreted from surrounding houses. On the Saturday, we were privileged to witness the local soccer match which drew almost the entire village's population. Afterwards, we demonstrated the virtues of the SA frisbee drawing an equally large crowd as the soccer match did.

We decided to venture back onto the disastrous roads of Mozambique, after a misunderstanding occurred when negotiating the price of a dhow to Mocimboa de Praia. We travelled by bakkie and truck to Menengelewa, a small village in the middle of nowhere which we are convinced no other traveller has stayed at. After Dave's impressive display of culinary expertise in the form of a chicken stew in Mayonnaise and condensed milk sauce (mom, you would be so proud), we set off to find the source of the drumming that was echoing deep in the village. In the moonlight we came upon a group of young people beating a variety of percussion instruments. In addition to the drums there was also an old car's exhaust which the drummer was beating with a wrench to produce an extremely trance-like sound. The locals were using a range of trance inducing substances but we found it possible to achieve this state without them. Circling the drummers, about 50 people performed an intricate, synchronized dance that had us transfixed for about two hours. We slept in a local person's garden with the sounds of the music echoing throughout the night. We know this sounds awfully similar to our Pygmy experience in '94 but we promise that we're not making it up. These things just keep happening to us.

The next day brought with it an arduous and extremely painful truck journey to Mocimboa de Praia. From there we caught a dhow to the Tanzanian town of Mtwara. The journey took 2 days with the full moon to keep us company at night. The dhow was carrying about 5 tons of weevil infested maize and we spent much the day at war with these pesky creatures. Lance became a source of mirth for everyone on board when urinating proved to be an impossible dream. He was even reduced to having someone holding him over the side of the boat in his birthday suit trying desperately to overcome stagefright.

Lance relaxing before the Embarrassing Stagefright Incident, Mozambique

In Mtwara we were spellbound by another unique sight, a fully laden store. Lance discovered he had a mild case of Malaria, but fortunately it was only bad for one night. It seems that both of us can now pass ourselves as true African travellers.

From Mtwara we proceeded to Kilwa where we visited the 9th century Arab ruins. After much effort, we managed to firstly find their location and then got the council officer to issue us with permits on a Sunday!

From Kilwa we headed straight off to Dar Es Salaam where we are currently sitting behind a computer at the university.

We'll be heading to Mafia Island for 4 days and then on to Zanzibar, after that we will be going straight to Nairobi to secure our Ethiopian visas.

A message to all African Wanderer subscribers: if you fail to pay your subscription dues in the form of return letters informing us of your activities, then you will run the risk of having this service disconnected. So get typing.

Kwaheri rafikis

the African Wanderers

Dave & Lance

3 September 1998

Dear all

It seems that our subscription list has grown somewhat since last time. We wish to welcome all newcomers and would like to remind you of our conditions of subscription, namely that we must receive one email/month.

When we last wrote we were just about to depart for Mafia Island. The following day saw us leave by bus for a small junction town called Mkuranga but our bus went and broke down just 500m from the bus station, naturally a short trip became a 3 hour affair. The best was yet to come.

At Mkuranga we boarded the only available transport to the port village of Kisiju, which in this case was an extremely overloaded bakkie (for our international subscribers a "pickup"). Picture this: 30 people (excluding babies) with considerable luggage all crammed into a space that should realistically have contained ten. Add to this picture a sandy road filled with more than its fair share of bumps and potholes experienced in the comfort of our steel bar seat which never failed to elicit pangs of pain. Of course the locals had built up some kind of immunity to this pain and took great pleasure in observing our wincing faces at each approaching bump. After two and a half hours of this we finally arrived in Kisiju. Kisiju is a tiny village that serves as a port for the local fishermen and the dhow captains who transport goods to Mafia and its surrounding islands. It hardly ever sees any tourists, as the majority of them simply take the ferry or plane direct from Dar to Mafia.

We set up camp in a small forest next to the village which has proved to be the best camping spot so far. Our captain informed us that his dhow would be leaving before dawn the next morning at around 11 o'clock! This statement initially confused us until we realized that he was using swahili time (11 o'clock being 5am our time). After removing our shoes in accordance with local superstition we boarded the dhow and took off for Mafia Island and promptly beached on a sandbank about 500m out. It seems sailing isn't a precise science! We waited 5 hours for the tide to come in and free us, only to be greeted by bad winds. After "looking for another wind" (as our captain put it) for a few hours we decided that it was an impossible task and docked at the nearest island called Koma. It was here that we made our now famous chicken in mayonnaise and condensed milk sauce, a meal so spectacular that our muslim guest, Abdallah, declared "in my life I shall never forget this meal that I had on Koma Island with my two South African friends."(So much for all the derogatory remarks we've received regarding this recipe.)

The following morning we set off in earnest for Mafia. Thankfully the winds were on our side this time. As experienced as we have now become in dhow sailing, one thing which has proven itself time and again is that, as Abdallah stated, "we are merely guests of the wind".

Sunset, Mafia Island, Tanzania

We landed at Mafia at lunch time and immediately booked ourselves into a local guest house. We then decided to imitate CNN and took in the Sights and Sounds of Mafia Island. This strangely titled island is slightly smaller than Zanzibar and is blessed with an even greater abundance of beauty. One thing that Mafia doesn't have an abundance of is tourists (we saw two in the whole week we were there) allowing us to truly immerse ourselves in the culture of the island's 10 000 inhabitants. The port town where we resided was called Kilindini which comprised a small market, a handful of shops, a tiny harbour and a stunning beach that stretched forever. We spent a week in this haven of tranquility before taking a grimy smelly and overloaded motorboat back to Kisiju (give us a dhow any day).

The one's that didn't get away!, Mafia Island, Tanzania

After an equally uncomfortable trip back to Dar we finalised our arrangements to leave for Zanzibar the next day.

Unfortunately the Zanzibari authorities ran a much tighter affair than those on Mafia, and we were forced to abandon dhows as a form of transport for the far more expensive luxury cruise ferry. Indicative of the culture shock in store for us was our cabin full of rambunctious English school children who squealed with delight upon seeing a solitary dhow: "hey I think that's a dhow, it's got a sail and everything!" In our superior frame of mind we stepped off the ship and were confronted by a host of beach boy touts who all wanted to direct us to a hotel where they would receive a commission.

We eventually decided on Bottom's Up Hotel complete with its own pet monkey and a bar that resembles the inside of a brain. That night we went raging!!! The Tarembetha Disco proved to be the greatest cultural shock that we have experienced in our 3 months of travelling. It seems that our frame of reference has shifted to view frenzied, traditional dancing in obscure rural villages as completely ordinary, while the sight of 50 mzungus (white people) dancing with local Zanzibari's to the strains of almost westernised music in a disco environment proves to be completely dis-orientating. We decided to adopt our own version of liberation theology, which promoted a complete lack of inhibitions due to us not knowing anyone and us being unlikely to ever meet any of them again. We danced through the night and spent the next day recovering.

We did the customary, day-long tourist spice tour and then departed for the beaches of Nungwi in the North. There we spent two days relaxing in the sun teaching the local proprietor the virtues of Banana Custard (now with a biscuit base added). We returned to Stone Town, the ancient slave city that still exudes an air of mystery - a place where you are happy to wander around in complete confusion through its myriad of narrow streets and alleyways.

In one of our lost wanderings we met two British girls who had just finished a stint of voluntary teaching in Zimbabwe. It turns out that this teaching was a part of their "gap year" experience. This completely foreign concept of "the gap" basically revolves around a multitude of British school leavers taking an institutionalised break before embarking on their university careers. This "gap year" necessitates them justifying their leave of absence by doing good work in some of the lesser developed countries of the world. In the end though they all ultimately end their stint with a short revelry of pleasure in Zanzibar which we thankfully were a part of.

So. predictably, out went our carefully laid travel plans and back we went to the beaches of Nungwi for another two days of basking in the sun, but this time with superb company. We were convinced to change our plans further, and to stretch our budgets by taking a luxury cruise ship to the island of Pemba. It turned out that Lucy, Dave's companion (read that as you will), possessed a small island off the north coast of Pemba which we decided to visit. After hiring a dhow we landed on tiny Mwangwi Island and set up camp for the night. This island is uninhabited except for microscopic sand lice that mercilessly attacked us the whole night leaving us covered in huge red itchy bites. Aside for the sand lice, we spent the evening lying in the warm water watching the sun set to the tune of distant drums and chanting emanating from the mainland. We returned to Pemba the next morning and climbed aboard our privately hired dala dala (minibus taxi) - our budget now well and truly sunk - and toured the northern part of the island, visiting the Ngezi Forest and the beautiful beaches of Vuma Wimbi. All this was viewed from our roof top perch where we swayed to the sounds of "goolie goolie goolie goolie wap bam boolie" and Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing.

After three days of Pemba we caught another luxury cruiser north to Mombasa (don't worry somehow we still managed to come in under our $300/month budget). Mombasa is currently going through its own form of political strife with ethnic/political killings happening on a random basis. In SA terms though it is nothing more more than a quiet get together in Jo'burg and we never once felt in the slightest danger. One of the advantages of this conflict is that the depreciation of the Kenyan shilling has made this our cheapest country yet!

We somehow managed to convince the owner of the luxury Oceanic Hotel to allow us to spend the night for only $5 each including a fantastic breakfast the next morning. Our budgeting senses finally returned as we allowed the girls to fly to Nairobi while we followed by bus later that night. In Nairobi we sorted out some visa formalities and then made our way to Naivasha where we are currently staying in immense luxury on Lucy's farm.

Tomorrow we leave for Nairobi and then onto the wilds of Ethiopia.

At this stage we are 3 months into our journey and have completed our first objective, to thoroughly get to grips with the East coast of Africa. Our next three months will be spent grappling with the enigma of Ethiopia and we will endeavour to keep you informed of our progress.

A short advertising note: we are still planning to be in Lamu at Christmas, and we extend an invitation to all our loyal subscribers.

Kwaheri from the African Wanderers

Lance and Dave

For all those gastronomic critics, here follows a summary of the chicken stew recipe:

Fry chicken until half done in oil and spices (we use a whole combination of spices known locally as Masala)

Next fry diced tomatoes, onions, potatoes, carrots (and any other veggies) in oil for 5 minutes.

Add a cup of boiling water with a dissolved chicken stock cube plus another cup of plain boiling water. (We use coconut milk, so if you can get it, use it).

Bring to the boil and then add the chicken as well as 3 table spoons of tomato paste. Now add 4 tablespoons mayonnaise and about 4 table spoons of condensed milk.

Allow this to simmer until the potatoes and chicken are done.We serve this with coconut rice although normal rice is also fine.

Malawi Wowee

1997-06-12T09:39:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone

This is the first message of many that we plan to send monthly during our 18 month journey through Africa. We will send this to whoever is interested so if you know of any friends or relatives with e-mail who've been omitted from the mailing list, please give them our e-mail address.

We left Cape Town separately - Dave and Rushdi by train, Lance by plane - and met up at the end of May in Jo'burg. After sorting out visas and money matters we boarded the train North to Messina. After a scenic 12-hour ride through sparsely populated bushveld we alighted and hitched a ride to Beitbridge, the border with Zimbabwe. The lady who gave us the ride exclaimed on hearing our planned trip "you guys must be from Cape Town. Only Capetonians would do something this crazy!"

Train to Musina, South Africa

As we crossed the bridge over the Limpopo River we tossed our frisbee wondering what all we would experience before we set foot again on our motherland many years from now.

After completing the necessary administrative formalities, we entered Zimbabwe where we were immediately befriended by an official intrigued by the frisbee. So taken was he by us and our flying saucer that he introduced us to the truck drivers in the compound he monitored and organised that we got a free ride to Harare. Well, not entirely free. The hard-core Afrikaans drivers demanded that we buy a crate of beers and, after we had done so, ordered us to drink the lot! Obviously this posed a religious predicament for Rushdi, so we had to cover for him, getting completely plastered in the process. After an action packed 12-hour journey through the night we arrived in Harare where we promptly and erroneously caught a bus to Kariba. After discovering that we had been misinformed, we got off at the turn-off to Chirundu, where we were supposed to be going.

After waiting by the side of the road, trying unsuccessfully to hitch a ride, we got out the frisbee and began tossing it around. No sooner had we done so when a pickup (bakkie) did a U-turn and gave us a high speed ride all the way into Zambia, to the capital Lusaka.

There we stayed at the Sikh Temple, a haven of peace in this big, bad, crime-infested city. The temple was run by an old woman, Mrs Vridi, who takes in all travellers for free for three days at most. Although she couldn't speak a word of English, she was kind and helpful and took us into the kitchly decorated temple where we were able to watch as she prayed.

The next day we caught the bus to Kitwe from the infamous Lusaka bus station: the site of many an armed robbery/kidnapping and equipped with toilets too disgusting to describe.

After 7 hours we finally reached the green copperbelt town of Kitwe where we stayed with Rushdi's business clients in their lovely home.

Lance has had the freak misfortune of coming down with chickenpox so we were forced to stay in Kitwe for a week until he was no longer contagious. Dave and Rushdi decided to check out nearby Zaire (or, more correctly, the Democratic Republic of Congo) for two days.

After travelling on various busses and taxis we reached Zaire's main southern city, Lubumbashi. Situated next to the biggest copper mine we've ever seen (the mine dump made those in Jo'burg seem like ant hills), Lubumbashi's former glory can be seen in the crumbling remains of its French architecture. The atmosphere, though, was very much alive and vibrant with the scent of revolution in the air after Kabila's recent dramatic rise to power. Within months of his victory, traffic lights were installed, the banks were up and running and corruption at the border appeared to have been eliminated. After a day and a night in Lubumbashi, we returned to Kitwe to find Lance recovered and ready for the next leg of the journey.

We say a sad goodbye to Rushdi tomorrow and then it's off to Malawi where we hope to spend a couple of days lazing by its beautiful lake.

2 July 1997

Hi All

We're glad to report that we have emerged unscathed from the internet abyss. During our absence we have been involved in numerous adventures and have been relaxing in various idyllic, paradise locations.

After leaving Kitwe two and a half weeks ago, we took a 40-hour bus trip to Nkhata Bay in the North of Malawi. We vowed that we would never do such a long stretch of travelling in one go again, but in this instance we were determined to reach the lake before Lance's birthday. Thankfully we did, and we were able to wake up in our bamboo hut to the sight of a crystal clear lake and a spectacular beach. For the first time in his twenty four years, Lance was able to lie on the beach soaking up the rays of the sun on his birthday, generating a mean suntan.

The tranquil beauty of Nkhata Bay, Malawi

Lance enjoying a sunkissed birthday at Njaya Lodge, Nkhata Bay, Lake Malawi

After spending a couple of lazy days in Nkhata Bay, we took the iLala ferry across to Chizimulu Island in the middle of lake Malawi. It is a very small island - one can walk around it in less than three hours - that afforded us great opportunities to snorkel and relax in its peaceful island ambience. We also happened to befriend the chief who showed us around his territory.

Lazy days, Chizimulu Island, Malawi

After three days there, we took a dhow trip across to the bigger island of Likoma. It was here that we met two interesting Britons who were busy running a backpackers lodge, and dreaming of a future luxury tourist resort. The lodge, appropriately named Kaya Mawa: ("maybe tomorrow"), was situated on a stunning, desolate beach overlooking turquoise water and captivating sunsets. After spending another two lazy days by the lake we decided to venture off and do what we came to do: hard-core travelling.

"Maybe tomorrow", Likoma Island, Malawi

It started off with a two hour dhow ride across to the small Mozambican town of Cobue. Upon arrival we realized that we would now have to contend with the added problem of Portuguese. The border official also warned us not to venture off as there were a number of live land mines in the area. We spent two days and a night in this town, which had virtually no food available and possesses poverty the likes of which we'd never seen before. Mozambique is after all, the world's poorest country.

On the second night we were able to secure a ride in a speedboat down South to the town of Metangula, about 70 kilometers away. This proved to be an exhilarating experience as the pilot had decided to travel at night with only darkness to keep us company. At high speeds we could feel the lake race away below us, getting wet occasionally by over-zealous waves. Although we were only able to make out the fine outline of the shore, there were tiny pricks of light penetrating the darkness which emanated from the fires of the locals who preciously guarded their day's catch of fish on the lake shore. This whole experience was of course enhanced by the sound of our walkmen reverberating in our ears. The trip took the entire night, as we stopped off at one of the lake-side fires to eat supper (samp and dried fish) and caught up on two hours sleep on a beach when cloud made it impossible to navigate.

The boat was very small and the captain, Mr Joseph, had decided to fill it up with a lot of passengers. Two of these passengers were a brother and sister team from Burundi who were making their way to Swaziland to seek political asylum. It had already taken them a month to make their way through Tanzania into Mozambique and what lies ahead for them is daunting. The four of us made breakfast together on the beach in Metangula after which we moved to the road where we had to wait six hours for the bus to Lichinga. This trip took us six hours, and saw us traverse some really treacherous roads.

Lance using the frisbee to make friends and influence people, Metangula, Mozambique

We arrived in Lichinga at five in the evening and found all the hotels full. Undeterred we decided to walk around the town and ask the first Mzungu (white person) we saw for advice: Portuguese was proving an insurmountable barrier to our communicating with Mozambicans. Obviously our guides must be with us because the person we pounced upon turned out to be a South African, Annette Louw. She had apparently made the news back in South Africa over her epic solo journey to Lichinga and her wranglings with SACADA, the group of right-wing Afrikaners who migrated to Mozambique to farm unused land there. Apparently Lichinga was their base, and throughout the course of the night and the following day we came to meet various of its members, including the leader of the SA Freedom Front's brother, Dominee Braam Viljoen. Annette had become disillusioned with SACADA and throughout the evening related stories of various scandals surrounding them. She also allowed us to stay the night in her home where we were cared for with true South African hospitality.

The next morning we managed to hitch a ride on an old DAF truck down to Mandimba, a small Mozambican town, 6 hours away on a terrible road in rack and ruins from the war. At six the following morning we set off from Mandimba to Cuamba where we arrived at lunchtime after breaking down on the steadily deteriorating road. We spent the night there where a local befriended us and dished out beers freely. After a drunken day we then had to suffer the indignity of listening to the Boks losing the rugby test to the Lions.

The following morning at half past five we were off on a South African train to Nampula. This was the best form of transport we had encountered in Mozambique, and we arrived in Nampula on Sunday afternoon after a speedy journey through lush countryside bursting with fruits and vegetables. On Monday we were able to connect up with Lance's friends in World Vision here in Nampula, and they have graciously agreed to put us up for the week in style.

From Nampula we will be heading to Ilha De Mozambique and then up the coast to Zanzibar. This is largely unknown territory and we anticipate it taking us three to four weeks to traverse.

Lots of love

The African Wanderers

Lance and Dave