Last blog for my Round The World Trip


And really I feel like I have been all round the world and experienced so may cultures, more than that I cannot say.
A very wise man said to me when I returned that I must remember that the last year was for ME and I cannot and must not expect other people to understand what I had been doing.

Interesting but true................most people asked me 3 questions on my last year!!

I spent the last days of my year long trip in Nairobi. I shopped till I dropped, went to a giraffe centre, went to an elephant orphanage that also played host that day to a bad tempered rhino and wart hogs. We also went to a bead factory opened for single mothers. See flickr for details!

In the last few days of my trip I can honestly say that I did very little in regards to 'seeing' or 'doing' but I felt that I was exhausted! Not physically but emotionally and mentally. I also knew that coming back to a life in the western world would be very difficult. Especially when I thought about the life I had before I left and the way that I thought about things and the ideals and opinions I had about things before i left the UK.

I think that when people go travelling they expect themselves to 'change' as a person and simply that doesn't happen. You are who you are, you just learn a lot about yourself in a year and you learn to deal with situations differently.

I was amazed for the year that people were just as fascinated about me as I was about them and that the reason they hadn't been to the UK was mainly financial (apart from some countries that didn't care about 'the west')

My home country of Scotland was spoiled for me a bit by travelling , yes ok its Scotland and I will always love it as it is a beautiful place and people are friendly. I can assure you they are only friendly by European standards. The rest of the world wins hands down for friendliness.
In terms of beauty, I have seen places that match and excel Scotland's beauty and although its not Scotland when i look at it - it could be.

I always thought that coming back to my previous life was hard.And as it turned out I was right...............................! It was very hard indeed.

The 3 questions i mentioned earlier were
1. Where did you go?
2. What was your favourite & worst place or best & worst experience? (variations on a theme)
3. What are you going to do now?


Last but not least I have uploaded more pictures to Flikr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25554642@N00/

Thank you so much to those of you who kept in touch over the year and who sent letters and emails. It was appreciated more than you can imagine, unless you have been there yourself and then you know EXACTLY what its like to go to the post office and have stuff there for you!
I will be sorting out all my pictures and printing them for albums. I will tell anyone who wants to listen about anywhere that I have been.
Tickling itchy feet is a tricky pastime, no matter where you go, you don't have time to see it all or the town next to it. No matter where you go you realise that you could travel forever and not see it all no matter how hard you try.

Thought I would stick in a few quotes at the end here, some of them I heard when I was away, some of them I got from a book and some of them I don't have a clue where they came from!

'In the mountains we forget to count the days': Nepal

'Recall it as often as you like, a happy memory never wears out'

'Never let your past interfere with the flow of present day life' Thought about the past for the first week and then realised i was in AMERICA and that my past didn't matter at all!!!

'The future belongs to those who who believe in the power of their dreams' I never thought I would leave, but I did!

'Some things are so transparent they don't need evidential proof' Love Actually, watched on nearly every aeroplane I was on, except scary domestic ones in India

'What is more beautiful than a road?' Route 66 New Mexico

'As I passed a window, a young woman with a glowing tan, bright smile and confident gaze stared back at me. I was looking in a mirror' - this may sound corny but it happened to me and it was a fantastic moment!

'Everybody dies but not everybody lives'

'Travelling alone is not lonely, it is an extremely powerful feeling, very similar to love - it is that kind of strength' Told to me by a guy who'd been travelling for 3 years.

'If you travel long enough and far enough, one day you will recognise yourself coming down the road to meet yourself and you will say YES'

'It was like coming home, although to no home I'd ever been, and I felt more at home there than anywhere, even though I was no-where' Sleepless in Seattle although not quite the same

'I questioned the luxury we have as westerners to pop in and out of other peoples lives' Quote from a book i read in India

'It was like seeing the earth for the first time and I felt less homeless that I felt anywhere'

Lastly I need to say thank you to all the people I met and travelled with in the course of a year, I cant mention everyone (even though I could and go on forever!) but I especially want to say thanks for being GREAT travel buddies to Suzanne in New York, Ron in Nashville, Amanda in Florida, Margie and Repete in Oklahoma and Paul in San Francisco.
Dan and Emily in Mexico City, Judy in Puebla and Damu and Stuart in Mexico wilderness.
Jon in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, Aiyana in Merida and Amandine in Mexico city.
Jim, Adele, and Bethany in Mumbai, Olaf and Edis in Hampi, Raole in train from Hyderabad to Varanassi and Jim, Debbie, Jean and Ronan in Varanassi.
Jean and Ronan in Nepal (and India holding my head out the bus window for me to be sick), Doug, Morley and Debbie in India again
Jon in New Zealand, Nicki in Cape Town, Matt, Luka and Olaf in South Africa and Lesotho, Patric, Keeara, Carula and Yannis in Namibia, Botswana and Zambia
Will and Michael in Tanzania and Caroline and Kirsten in Kenya.
I know there are loads of people here I have forgotten and I cant mention everyone but without you this trip wouldn't have been half as good so thank you

After my adventures in Southern Africa it was time to head north.
I left Livingstone with a guy from Australia and another 6 hour bus ride (that took the usual 12 hours!) and we were in Lusaka the capital of Zambia. This is a weird city, there are no tourists - or indeed travellers but it wasn't a great city, very little to do. The people in Lusaka have not yet seemed to have worked out that white people are treated as cash cows in Africa! From Lusaka I decided to go to Malawi for a bit and see what all the hype was about going there!

When I arrived in Lilongwe (the Capital) the woman at the reception of my hostel announced that I was the 30th Scottish person staying in that hostel that night. Needless to say I decided to leave Lilongwe as soon as possible. Not that I don't like my fellow Scots its just that I can see them anytime back home!The one very interesting thing I did in Malawi was visit the tobacco factory where farmers from all over Malawi bring their tobacco cash crop to sell. The taxi driver who took me round told me that the farmers get on average in a very good year about $2 for a kilo (that's about one pound) and when I told him the price of cigarettes in the western world he assured me I must have made a mistake in his maths. I told him no. The buyers are white businessmen from all over Africa who then sell on again to America and Europe.
This is an interesting situation as the farmers are harvesting a cash crop in order to make money to buy things that we have in the 'western world' and then when they have spent that money they often don't have enough to eat as they have no crop that they have harvested themselves to eat! This is the the same with tea in India and coffee in Africa. This is the basis for why we need fair trade and ok what I described here is a very simplified version of it but the basics are here.In a lot of ways it makes me mad as why should we call them 'developing countries?' what are they developing into - USA? UK? if they develop into a westernised country then something very special will have been lost. On the other hand we cannot help influencing other countries and to be fair I met one guy who worked for Starbucks Coffee and he said that his job was to ensure that coffee farmers in Africa are paid a good price for their cash crop.

I left Malawi and took a 2 day bus across the border into Tanzania and arrived in Dar Es Salam (the capital). I managed to sleep on the bus and at the border we found out what the foul smell on the bus was. The driver insisted all bags were taken into the bus and not put underneath as underneath he had stacks of fresh animal skins........! Needless to say the smell was awful and we had to put up with it for 2 days. When I say 'we' I met a guy from South Africa on the bus and we travelled for a bit together. Will had been travelling for 23 months and avoided all questions about how he had afforded it! Dar Es Salam is a melting pot of culture and I would totally recommend it! I didn't see another white person except Will for 3 days as everyone gets to Dar and then gets straight on the boat for Zanzibar. I met a lot of people who went there and they told me that although it was beautiful and had nice beaches it was very much a holiday destination and there was no culture there just a lot of Mzungu - kiswahili word for 'white person who wanders apparently without purpose'.
Dar is full of people from all over the world - except for white people and there are mosques and Hindu temples and its fantastic!

From Dar we caught a bus to Arusha, me so that I could organise another safari and Will so that he could join a trip he had organised. We stayed in a very rough part of Arusha and I didn't have a clue what they meant when the hotel owner said to us that out room will be ready in an hour until Will reminded me that budget hotels often double as brothels......Arusha was the place where I found out about Coinage - pronounced conyagee. It hit me like a car would have done. Nuff said!

I arranged a 5 day safari in Tanzania (pronounced TanZANia) and I went to the Serengeti and Ngorogoro crater and lake Manyara. We also went to the Olduvai gorge where the first footprints of man were found! (another thing for the list!)The Serengeti was where legend met reality. It was just full of animals! We saw all of the 'Big 5' including at least 3 leopards, loads of lions, 2 cheetah and we also saw lion cubs which was a big thing for me to see as I really wanted to!We also surprised a hippo at 5am one morning at the side of the road and I have never been so close to a hippo and OF COURSE I didn't have my camera out!!The other great thing that happened was in the campsite at the Ngorogoro crater. In the evening when we arrived we saw 2 elephants standing at the bottom of the campsite. The camp was the same as the Serengeti in that there was no perimeter fence in the campsite as there had been on my previous safaris!These 2 elephants in the course of 2 hours actually walked right through the campsite pulling down branches of trees for their supper and putting on a great show for us all! Me and Michael (the guy from NY on safari with me) sat outside out tent with a beer and 20ft away these 2 male elephants were pulling branches from the tree as the sun was setting (see pics for further detail!!!)

After my safari I decided that this would be my last, simply because I was getting blase about it ie we didn't even stop at the giraffe, or zebras or wildebeest any more. Weirdly enough we saw the tail end of the migration out of the Serengeti into the Maasai Mara and there were huge herds of wildebeest everywhere - man they are an ugly animal!Not only that but I was told that they wont reach a vantage point in the Maasai Mara for another 3 weeks and by then I would be a long way away!

From Arusha I headed to Moshi, I had decided not to climb Kilimanjaro simply due to the quality of the guides I had found in this part of Africa. I don't want to go into detail here but safe to say that I did not fancy trusting one of them with my life on Kili!I decided to treat myself when I got to Moshi and stayed in a nice place. For 7 quid a night I got my own room with en suite bathroom and tv! I was really sick of dorm beds with 10 to a room and shared cold showers. Also hostels are not that well known in Tanzania. My hotel also had a rooftop bar and it was here I got my only view of Kilimanjaro. I have to say I was pretty horrified at the very small amount of snow left on it. Global warming!I also had a day hike to the first hut on Kilimanjaro on the Marangu route (also known as the Coca Cola route as its so popular). Most people and guides I talked to told me that the best route to climb Kili was actually the route that starts from the Kenyan side as its a slower ascent and you acclimatise better - must keep that in mind for my next Africa trip!
Next blog is Kenya - my last country!

And so on to Kenya (country 27!)

I arrived in Nairobi in the evening and one day later i left to climb Mount Kenya! The first day all we did was climb to the first hut called moses camp 3300m above sea level - so we were already 3 times higher than the top of Ben Nevis.....!

The tour company I was with had one porter each and one guide for me and another for the Dutch couple I was with. We also had a cook! So it was quite a party of people and staff that we had on out trip!

The first camp was really nice and we arrived in cloud. Walking up through the foothills we saw bush buck and although we didn't see any elephants we saw plenty of evidence of them!

The second day we woke up to freezing temperatures and magnificent views of the summit and of point Lenana - the second highest point where you can trek to without ropes and technical climbing, and that's where we were headed!

The next day was fun, heading up the Sirimon route towards the Shipton hut at 4200m. The flora and fauna began to change a lot at this point and we saw a lot of mountain cabbages - see photos!

Arrival at the Shipton hut was fine (for me). Funnily enough all the people there from Holland began to feel pretty ill!

I felt right as rain and went outside and chatted to the porters and guides and went to see the rock hyraxes and generally had fun!

The next day was acclimatisation and we headed up the actual summit route until we got to the saddle above the hut. The view was breathtaking as the hut sits in a valley and we could see all around us - including 2 of the 3 glaciers on Mt Kenya.

Getting to the saddle took about one hour and still no altitude sickness for me at 4600m!
The next day was possibly the hardest physical thing I have ever done but I am so proud of myself and it was amazing to stand there on the top.
We got up at 2am and left at 3am after some tea and food. Using our torches we climbed very steeply up a very loose and slippery path to the summit. It took 3 hours to get there. I was the first person to touch the top! Myself and an Irish guy called James were the first people on the summit. I was the only Scottish person on the top that day!

Standing on the top of Point Lenana was stunning and breathtaking at 4985m or 16334 ft (approx). We could see the clouds way below us and then at 6.20am the first ray of sun broke over the curve of the earth and above the cloud line. To our left was the summit and the 3rd glacier and to our right was Kilimanjaro.
It was amazing, worth every step.
On the summit I still felt as right as rain, it had been hard work getting to the top and progress was slow at best!

The route we chose down was the Chagoria route as it had been recommended to me and it was a lovely day we had wandering down. We went pretty slowly as by then none of us had any appetite and our heads were very painful. We also had pretty bad sunburn despite all precautions taken when we started at 2am!
The last camp we stayed in was lovely as we had real beds and hot showers and log fires and buffalo wandering around outside at night!

The last day was a walk out to where we were picked up by land rover and then Matatu to Nairobi (in Kenya they are called Matatus, In Tanzania they are called dallah dallahs) and they are minibuses that came out of the ark and they are designed to fit 15 people so they squash around 30 in them and drive at breakneck place in order to get to the next village to get the first pick of the people needing transport! Its pretty scary actually. Sometimes it was worse than India - and that's saying something!

I was so glad to have climbed Mt Kenya and it was one of the things I really wanted to do on this trip.
The last blog will be the last days of my trip that I spent in or around Nairobi.

HIPPOPOTAMUS AMPHIBIOUS

African musings

African villages that flash by in a blur of bright colour of yellow bananas and bright clothing and vibrant orange paintings for sale.

Long white arms among the black ones reaching out of the bus windows and instantly the crowd gathers at the white arms to sell you nuts, pineapples, oranges, wood carvings, corn, cakes and anything else that can fit through a bus window.

An African bus ride
12 hours next to a woman from Arusha and her 4 year old daughter called Happy, who at first would only make shy eye contact with me. Then after 2 hours i bought oranges from the bus window and she accepted half of one. After this she played happily with Nicci (my toy monkey) and for the rest of the journey she slept on my lap or sat on her mothers knee and would just reach out and put her tiny little black hand on my comparatively white arm as i was reading which would make me loose concentration on my book and look at her and smile which she would return. She would put her hand on my arm constantly throughout the journey - almost just to reassure herself i was still there and still liked her. She would leave her hand resting on my arm for hours.

Many goats and cows in Tanzania - the Masai still herding them in the fields and at the roadside. I saw one farmer resting at the roadside - an old man with bare feet, Masai are very tall and carry spears and are ornate with earrings and necklaces - especially in the high part of their ears and round their ankles. The man was wrapped in blankets at the side of the road watching his flock. As a bus approached he struggles to his feet and runs down into the field to avoid the inevitable dust cloud (or Tanzanian snow as its sometimes called) that follows the vehicle. He is an old man and he stumbles down the field coughing in the dust while the safari land rover thunders past at a furious rate and his heard is scattered.
thew bus that follows the safari land rover is full to bursting with people - which is the norm and the roof is laden with baskets, bags, cases and anything else u can imagine, all held down with strips of rubber cut from inner tubes they sell at the markets to the bus drivers and also to fishermen who use it for their nets.

Black children will wave at white people as waving is a very white thing to do. African people do not really wave as a parting or greeting gesture.
Dusty red road climbs from a village way up high into the hills and as our land rover puts into second gear and moves slowly up the hill we pass old men pushing bicycles and its hot and they are tired and their bicycles are loaded with huge amounts of stuff and they are often barefoot, as we pass them they smile and wave and shout Mambo
The African spirit.

The trip from Windhoek to The Victoria Falls took 8 days and I can honestly say that by the end of it I really loved this part of Africa. It was an organised trip and I usually hate those sort of things but I loved this!

We left Windhoek early in the morning, when I say 'we' I mean I was on the trip with a German woman, a couple from London who were Greek and Italian and the guide (from South Africa) and the assistant (from Botswana).

I was so lucky to have a small group of people in the trip and as we set off we all got to know each other and they were a great bunch of people. The first day was mainly just driving but even so we saw Warthogs, a Zazu bird (from the lion king! I think its real name is a yellow tailed horn bill or a yellow billed horn tail or something) and we also saw donkeys and vervet monkeys. Patric the guide told us that a lot of people in Botswana live mostly on donkey meat! The male vervet monkey has EXTREMELY bright blue balls - its so funny as they are such a bright blue ie bubblegum blue!

We crossed the border into Botswana (country 22) with no problems, there are as many people in Botswana as there is in Glasgow - so we saw very few people and little or no civilisation - was lovely! We set up camp in a lovely lodge that had lions and cheetahs there - they had been rescued and were now in captivity and it was nice to see them up close. In the camp we also saw eland and the usual baboons and in the morning we also saw giraffe.

Botswana:
This country is one of the most successful, stable and peaceful of all the African Countries, and one of the most beautiful as far as I am concerned as it is home to the Okavango Delta, and the Chobe National Park.

The second day of our trip we arrived at the Okavango Delta and again put up camp. The really nice thing about this trip was, although we were camping in tents we stayed in the grounds of some fabulous lodges with thatched roofs and could use their pools, lovely showers and bars.
The camp in the Okavango delta was one of my favourite as they actually had open air showers with bamboo plants around to protect your modesty (slightly) and it was one thing i really wanted to do in Africa was have a shower outside (dunno why, just seemed part of the African 'experience')
The next morning the vervet monkeys decided to sit in the tree above the toilet I was in (same place as the showers) and throw things at me! Hardly fair when I was a sitting target!

The Okavango delta is breathtaking - I have already emailed pics of this. It is the largest inland Delta in the world, (another thing to add to the list). The water is crystal clear, and we navigated into the delta by traditional mekoro (dug-out canoes), many of which are now made of fibre glass, to preserve the sausage trees in the Delta, that were traditionally used.

The next day we had Mekoro drivers (kind of like punting on the Thames) and they took us deep into the Ocavango Delta. The Mekoros are very low in the water though and there is only room for 2 people and if you move around you end up in the crocodile infested water (as almost happened to us!)

That day was lovely as we moved through the Okavango Delta through narrow channels of water with grasses all around and water lillys seeing hippos and crocodiles and elephants! We saw the elephants when we went for a walk on one of the islands and it was a VERY different experience seeing them on foot as opposed to being in a truck where I felt safe! Seeing them on foot was a bit nerve wracking!

Hippos are really funny animals. Actually it was hippos that caused me to nearly fall in the water and get eaten by crocodiles............

Yannis (the Greek guy from London) was in the boat in front of me and asked me what I thought the Latin for hippo. He then told me it was 'hippopotamus amphibious' which made both me and the German girl laugh and in doing so nearly upset the boat. Hippos kill more people in Africa than any other animal and when males fight they will fight to the death every time. They are very bad tempered and lone females with calves are dangerous as if males find male calves they will kill them as they will be a threat to the dominant males later so females are very protective of their young. They also make the weirdest noise and Yannis could imitate it perfectly - which unfortunately gave rise to silly games of creeping around each others tents making animal noises at 3am after a few too many drinks at the bar!

In the Okavango Delta we also saw a huge monitor lizard - which Patric tried to pick up - with the result it ran straight towards us and had us running in all directions!

From the Okavango Delta we headed into the Caprivi strip (the little strip of Namibia that runs between Botswana and Angola) and we stopped at a huge group of elephants and climbed on the roof of the minibus to take pictures. Our guide Patric was a lot of fun and it was mainly him that instigated a lot of the 'fun but not really part of the itinerary and don't tell the boss'!!

From the Caprivi Strip we went back into Botswana and spent some time in the Chobe National Park, which was amazing again. We saw loads and loads of wildlife and Patric took us to see a dead elephant that had been killed by 2 rangers as it had attacked them. One of the tusks had been stolen by poachers and you could see the wire they used to pull it out with a truck as the spin marks were in the ground. Anti poaching squads are fearsome things in Africa, they are nearly always black guys and they drive around the parks with 5+ men in the back with capes and guns and balaclavas - they look pretty menacing!

The dead elephant was so big you could actually stand inside the ribcage of it. Patric told us that every time elephants pass here they will stop and cry over the elephant and that's why when they cull elephants (as there are too many) they have to cull the whole heard or the rest of them will be upset and angry and destroy villages and attack people.

This brings me to the ivory trade in Africa, there are a lot of articles in the newspapers about the ivory trade as it is forbidden to trade in it yet people still do it through poaching (as we saw in Chobe). However due to elephant culling there is a lot of stockpile of ivory and some people argue that it should be sold/floated on the stock markets as there is so much of it that the world price of ivory would then drop and it would stop people poaching as they wouldn't get any money for the ivory. However other people argue that this is only short term solution and it would not eradicate poaching and there would be no way to tell which ivory was poached and which wasn't.

The other great thing we did in Chobe was go on a river cruise (not to be confused with the booze cruise we did in Zambia)

It was stunning, simply that, I kind of ran out of words to describe it! We floated down the Chobe river?? and saw wildebeest and giraffes and crocodiles and elephants SWIMMING!!! that bit was amazing. The animals in Chobe simply behaved as if we weren't there which in some ways is good as you can get close to them and you know that these animals have never feared humans but on the other hand i question the extent to which humans have taken over Africa and animals are pocketed into these reserves or parks where they are fenced in.

The next morning we headed across the Zambezi river to Zambia! It took a long time at the border but we were allowed to go after several bribes. Patric explained to us that it was getting near to the end of the month so the police and customs officials collect lots of bribes so that they can pay their staff wages at the end of the month. Welcome to Zambia!

We set up camp for the last time in Livingstone after going to see the Victoria Falls or Mosi-oa-Tunya that means 'the smoke that thunders' and it really does thunder! We could see the 'smoke' rising from the falls when we were still 10k away! The walk around it on the Zambian side was amazing - the falls are at their highest right now and it was so hard to take pictures because of all the spray and the fact that I was drenched through immediately i got there.

The fact that the falls were so high though was lovely as there was rainbows everywhere!

When we arrived in Zambia that was the end of the trip so we all went on the infamous 'booze cruise' that was an all you can eat and drink cruise down the Zambezi and we saw crocodiles and hippos and the inside of lots of beer glasses.

After that we were so drunk that Patric did his party piece and made a noise like a lion grunting using the camping kettle - pictures to follow!! That was a bit of a crazy night with lots of Amarula!

On Sunday we all did our own thing and then went out for a 'last supper' in the town. The next day I was dropped at the hostel and I made plans for my next stop off! We all had t-shirts made showing the route that we took across southern Africa and it also has our names on it, the border stamps and the flags!

I went to Zimbabwe for the day before I left here so that I could see the falls from that side and I would very much recommend it. You are not as close to the falls so you can take some good pictures and its fun. Its also perfectly safe to go into Zimbabwe to do this as it is an established part of the Victoria Falls experience.

From here I will go to Malawi and then up to Tanzania and Kenya! I am running out of time and money and I am actually looking forward to some home comforts! I can safely say that I have no idea what my 'favourite' continent or country or even part of this trip has been but this last 8 days from Namibia to Zambia is definitely up there somewhere among the best!

Namibia



I arrived in Windhoek after a 24 hour bus ride from Johannesburg which was 12 hours after i returned from a 4 day safari so I was a little shell shocked on arrival!

The hostel I stayed in was called the Cardboard Box and it was from there I booked a 3 day trip to Etosha National Park. The one thing I noticed instantly in Namibia was although there was still the traditional villages around there was much fewer poor people. I liked Windhoek, ok its just another city but the people were friendly and there was enough to do to keep me occupied (as well as lots and lots of biltong)



When I travelled with Matt from Capetown to Johannesburg the first comment he made about me was on day two when we were clearing out the car and he said 'you and your eating habits'!!

We had a few drinks one night and Matt was talking about me to some girls he was chatting up and gestured towards me and said (quite seriously) 'all she needs is 2 cows and a gallon of tea a day to keep her happy' - referring to the biltong of course but the girls looked a little puzzled!



Etosha National Park was quite simply WONDERFUL!!

We arrived late in the evening and went for a game drive and saw giraffe and warthogs (who always look so indignant!) and then we set up camp by a water hole that was floodlit and watched the comings and goings of the animals.

The next day was another game drive and we arrived at a huge waterhole to see literally hundreds of animals, giraffes drinking at the edge, antelope chasing each other, zebras walking in the waterhole next to the giraffes and the whole image was mirrored perfectly on the water.

In total that day we saw over 100 giraffes and 50 or more elephants. The best elephant sighting we had was when we stopped for lunch at a huge water hole and saw a huge heard drinking. Its interesting to see how much animals play in the wild - something you simply don't see in a zoo! There is also a very strict pecking order at the water hole, most small animals will drink at the same time but the zebras and giraffes are above that in pecking order and everyone moves out of the water and waits when the elephants come to drink.

Another interesting fact was the rhinos. In Kruger we saw a white rhino with a baby (who was having great fun chasing impala much to the annoyance of the impala and the mother rhino as every time she turned around he was off again). Unfortunately him chasing impala was as about effective as dogs that chase seagulls and it looked similar to that - as well as being very funny as he rushed after them on his little wrinkled legs!

The baby white rhino walks in front of the mother and in Etosha we saw black rhino and the baby was following mother. It was explained to us that the black rhino leads by example whereas the white rhino lets the baby learn from its mistakes.

After we left the water hole in Etosha we drove next to the salt pans that cover 25% of Etosha Park and we narrowly escaped being squished by an elephant who charged us as we got too close without realising it!
As soon as I can I will upload my pictures from Etosha, there was literally hundreds of animals all over the place!

The guide we had was really good (as in Kruger) and he told us some interesting stories.
The impala are known as the local fast food as they are on every corner in the park, they are the main food of the predators - AND they have an M shape on their bum - not quite the golden arches but close enough!

The water buck has a curious marking on its back end that looks like it has sat on a freshly painted toilet seat. The guide Tim told us that it was because when Noah let the water buck into the ark he forgot to put a 'wet paint' sign on the toilet door and the water buck sat on the toilet and got that mark!

As for the wildebeest I was told that it was put together from the remains that god was left with once he had finished making all the other animals - as it really is a really ugly animal!



I spent a morning riding in the Namibian desert hills outside Windhoek and spotted dassie and dic dic and impala and eland before I headed off on another trip! The problem with Namibia and Botswana is that it is difficult to get around independently and when I added up the cost it was going to be more than going on an organised trip and as much as I HATE being organised I gritted my teeth and booked an 8 day delta and falls trip and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life!!

I will post that trip in a separate blog as in 8 days we did so much, from Namibia to Botswana and the Ocavango Delta and then back into Namibia and along the Caprivi strip and then back into Botswana and the Chobe National Park and then across to Zambia and the mighty 'smoke that thunders' or in English 'The Victoria falls'

Africa

I arrived in Cape Town and was very unwell. Both times i have left India I have been unwell yet I was never ill when I was there!

Cape Town had some interesting sights including table mountain, Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was held captive) and Cape Point. Cape point was fun as I went on a day trip and we took mountain bikes and rode through the national park - was great! Also saw the hospital where the worlds fist successful heart transplant was carried out (will add this to my growing list from the last blog!)

Table Mountain looks extremely odd to the untrained eye as it really is totally flat when you look at it. Once I had road tripped all the way to Johannesburg though I realised that ALL the mountains in South Africa are of a similar shape!! I never expected Africa to be so mountainous and it was beautiful.

I had decided to spend 3 weeks in South Africa and after a few days in Cape Town I headed up the coast with an Australian guy and a lovely little blue VW golf! Was lovely to be driving again!
We headed up along the garden route and then headed inland to Lesotho! We hired a guide and 4 of us went into Lesotho for an overnight and I can honestly say it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. The guide told us that Lesotho was known as the Kingdom in the Sky and I can well believe it as there was snow and ice everywhere and the route up to the border was up an ice covered track with 29 hairpin bends!!

Entering Lesotho was like entering another world not just another country (am now on my 20th country!) We stayed in an orphanage that takes in kids with no parents and there was about 6 kids there. We also visited the school and went riding on Basoto ponies through the villages. It was very cold though as we were very high up in the mountains and there are special blankets that the basoto people wear and these blankets are actually part of their traditional dress! Even the school teacher was wearing one! On leaving Lesotho we went to the highest pub in Africa (another thing to add to the list!)

From Lesotho we headed up to the Northern Drakensburg and had a couple of days hiking. The altitude is lower here and the hiking very easy for day walking. The view of the amphitheatre at the top of the hill we climbed was stunning as well and you could see the flat topped mountains for miles around.

From the Drakensburg we dropped the car off in Johannesburg and then went on Safari the next morning. Unfortunately my first safari was not too good. Mainly it was bad luck but also I have been told since I left South Africa that the Kruger park has very few roads compared to the other parks and so it is hard to spot the animals. In 3 days we saw very little unfortunately but one evening we followed a pride of lions. We were told that there are a lot of people who jump the border from Zimbabwe and head through the park following the telegraph poles to reach a village in South Africa. However the lions have learnt that if they wait by the telegraph poles then food will appear. The guide told us they often find pairs of shoes under the telegraph poles and hear the screams in the night. However the situation in Zimbabwe is so bad that people will continue to risk it!



From Johannesburg I took a 24 hour bus to Namibia. Although I spent very little time in South Africa I have come away with a few impressions.


Firstly: South Africa is a very difficult country to travel in if you don't have a car. There are buses that go to the touristy spots but if you want to go and explore it is impossible without a car. As we drove there was plenty of black people hitchhiking but no white people at all.

Most of the white people I spoke to in the buses and shops etc all seemed to be extremely racist towards black people - in a quite open manner as well!
Mind you I also found that travelling in a predominantly black country meant I spent more time with white people and some of the black people I spent time with were also pretty racist as well.



I discovered that I have developed a real hard shell whilst travelling - especially towards people less fortunate than myself. People tell me that the Cape Flats or shanty towns outside Cape Town as the most horrifying thing they have ever seen. When I arrived I was amazed to see that most of the tin houses had electricity, running water and some people had cars.

I guess that by comparing it to India the black people living in poverty here have a lot compared to in India. However in India everyone is poor and everything is dirty and grotty - you don't ever really see nice cars or rich people in India. In South Africa the rich-poor divide is very obvious and I couldn't live the way white people do in South Africa knowing that the shanty towns were nearby.

I also could not live in a place or town or country where I had to have high security fences and security guards and I cannot walk anywhere for fear of my life. The guy who ran the hostel I stayed at in Johannesburg told me that 'well its much better here as I have a huge house and pool and garden, in the UK i could only afford a little flat' As far as I am concerned the payoff is not worth it. I want to be able to walk to friends houses and enjoy a sense of community with others. This was possible (in one street) in Cape Town but only as there was 24 hour surveillance cameras and security guards in the street.

I also heard rumblings in the press and among people in South Africa that there was still huge problems following Apartheid and that Nelson Mandela is getting very old. Some people even say that there will need to be a civil war to sort it out and there will be a lot of problems when Nelson Mandela dies.


My next blog will be from Namibia. I decided on Namibia rather than Mozambique as there is a quote in South Africa among travellers that is 'Mozambique is very nice, Namibia is another world'

It turned out that quote was very true!

On leaving India I tried to make a list of likes and dislikes and although I have a few, most of the things in India can be violently hated and loved at the same time but here are a few of the best i could think of.....


LIKES:

The genuine humanity of the Indian people and their genuine friendliness
The haggling everywhere for every price
The fact that you can live like a king for $20 US a day
The amazing food that you can get everywhere
The genuine want to please you - if they cant get it they will find someone who can and they hate to say 'no' to you ever.


DISLIKES:

The red crap that Indian men chew and then spit in a long stream into the road - its a miracle they never hit me. This stuff they chew makes their breath STINK and their teeth rot and its vile
The constant hawking and spitting that is a way of life in India and they do it EVERYWHERE. Men spit all the time and it really started to turn my stomach when i was leaving.
The constant staring. I mean when you are on a train EVERY male on that train will stare at you and some will come into the carriage when the train stops just to stare at you - no matter how you dress or ignore them. You just had to get thick skinned but it really started to get to me after a while.
The fact that you cannot get rid of people. I had one rickshaw driver follow me for 40 mins in his rickshaw when i was on foot trying to pursuade me to get in. I had another one in Agra who followed me on foot and even sat outside the restaurant i went into and then into my hotel so that he could claim commission for taking me there!! That was a total of 4 hours he followed me for.



My return from New Zealand back into Indian culture was a little strange as although I had only 2 weeks left in India and I wanted to do so much I found it pretty hard work as the daily temperatures exceeded 45 degrees C!!I began my whistle stop tour by booking all my train ticket with the usual formalities of going to the front of every queue to get my tickets - I am going to miss the female queue thing when I am back home!!From Delhi I travelled overnight to Ajmer and caught a bus to Pushkar and spent 2 days there buying loads and loads of clothes and sending them home. On the train I met an Austrain guy who had been to India in 1990 and we had an interesting conversation about the changes in India over the last 10 years. The amazing thing he said that the only differences are the fact that there are now petrol stations and internet cafes - everything else was pretty much the same as it was in 1990! Due to the soaring temperatures the place was very quiet and I got some very good bargins as there really was no other tourists there!I took my stuff and went to the post office for the packingwallah to sew it up in cloth and seal it with wax - yes really! and then sent it home. The whole process took around 4 hours for 3 parcels.....Indian post office maths.....


Add the number of parcels to the number of workers in the post office then divide by how many times they go out for chai and then add that to the number of times you have to go to different places in the post office for glue and to find a packingwahlah and you pretty much get the idea!!!

I saw my first camels in Pushkar and you would think that they were slow?? No! Camels move so fast!!!
From Pushkar I went to Jaipur and clever old me I thought that I would be smart and spend the night in the train station in Ajmer as my train was at 5am the next morning. I decided to sleep in the upper class ladies waiting room and as I settled down to sleep thought 'this place actually seems pretty clean' ah foolish me as I woke up with FLEA BITES!!! was absolutly jumping - picture to follow on my web page soon!!!!


I didn't like Jaipur that much - was just another big noisy city and I left after one day. I wanted to go and watch the sunset as Jaipur is billed as 'the pink city' as it was painted pink on order of the king one year to welcome the UK king at the time (1700's) and the tradition was continued. However there was no sunset just the first monsoon rain and the road outside was a river in 2 minutes!
The one good thing I did in Japiur was go to the palace that hosted the worlds biggest sundial and the worlds biggest silver cup.

Seeing those things got me thinking so I have added them to a list....
So far I have been accross New Zealands longest bridge and seen the worlds largest jersey, largest glass of beer, largest silver cup, largest sundial. I will continue this list till i get home and i bet its gonna look a little weird!




From Japiur I continued to Agra, the town that plays host to the Taj Mahal. This town saw the clingiest touts and the most outrageous scams and prices for white people but luckily i avoided most of them! I visted the Taj Mahal and my bad luck with the weather continued. I first saw it from the roof restaurant of my hotel and it was like 'oh it looks like it does in the pictures! It didnt seem real at all!' I then went down and walked round and inside it and all the way round it. Instead of a sunset we got a sand/dust storm so the Taj nearly dissapeared at one point and then it started to rain! I wanted to also view the Taj by moonlight but it was cloudy and when i got up again for the sunrise it was still cloudy!!


It really is an amazing building though and is total testament to the weirness and oddities that is India. It was said to be the greatest monument ever built for love. It was built by a muslim man for an islamic woman and is the greatest tourist attaration in India - a primarily Hindu country!


I also saw my first and only elephant on the streets of Agra. From Agra I headed back to Delhi and spent another night in Delhi airport and then the following morning headed for African shores......!


The following are notes from an Indian newspaper which proves that although many Indian people speak english, it is not Victorian English, or Broken English but very much Indian English where most of what is written makes sense but now and again they choose slightly the wrong word either making the whole thing nonsense or hilarious!


Ie the Indian Express May 5th 2007:
'Man returns from dead, jailed wife,lover freed'
'Tony Blair almost lost control of Scotland'



From shrieking with laughter at that in the paper I turned the page to read a Doctors letter:


'Middle aged woman with pregnant teenage daughter who was also mentally challanged'
In such cases experience points suspicion to a relative as in most cases they are the culprits. Yes confirmed the mother casually it was one of her Uncles.
Doing the only thing I could I asked her mother if I could equip her daughter with some simple birth control. In such cases the law also permits removal of the uterus.
The mother said she was not interested in anything of the sort. Such a reply from someone who understood the full implication of what she said was mind numbing.
Where is that girl now - is she safe, alive, pregnant again, raped again?

Severla points - firstly ok India is not westernised nor has any wish to be so but HOW can the above story be ok, how can this be allowed to continue? However forward thinking and technologically advanced India becomes India will remain the same - fixedly so and blinkered to the best that westernised culture has to offer.

They will take the parts that are permitted to fit along side their culture ie the pornography, the money, the internet and the technological advances but when it comes to culture Indian people will never change - no matter which country they are in. This may seem a little harsh to judge the whole of India this way but after talking to a lot of people both tourists and Indians for the last 3 months the only changes they could tell me about in 20 years was petrol stations, internet, mobile phones, cricket and politics.

As has been said 'a defined culture is strictly for bacteria, let us leave it that way' To me that is the best explanation of India that I can find. I have attempted to explain and show India in several ways and every time I feel I have only scraped the surface of the culture that is India

Next blog will be from Africa!!!