Revisiting the Africa trip

I just realised that it has been too long without updates on my blog. Now, more than two months after the last blog post, I finally have the trip on a distance, and can start thinking about what was good, and what was not as good. To be honest with you guys, and it is probably not a surprise, there were a lot more positive than negative incidents on my trip. I am a lucky and fortunate guy that have the means and time to travel this much, and I am already starting to plan my next travels.

I will try to tell you chronologically how I experienced travelling in Africa alone for the second time. It was indeed a very different experience from the last travels in West Africa. Maybe because I already knew some people in Ghana, and because I was staying more or less in the same two cities thoughout the three months in 2004, while I was using much more time moving from one place to another this time.

Malawi, the warm heart of Africa, kind of deserves it's reputation as a very friendly and easy country to travel in. However, I found it to be a little bit more problematic than Uganda because of all the people that always wanted to talk to me. In Uganda, I could walk around freely without ever having to have conversation with everyone I met on the streets. This is probably one of the things that makes Malawi interesting if you look at it that way. I had a nice time in Malawi, but it may have been better to end my trip there. It takes some time to get used to the African mentality, even though I have been on the continent before.

What was easy in Malawi was that the distances from one place to the next were relatively short. I come from Northern Norway, so I am used to distances. Malawi was easy to travel in. The pain of Malawi however is public transport. I really like the Matolas and sitting in the back of pick-ups. However, the buses are quite painful for a guy that is at least 10 cm taller than normal human beings. What made my impression of the buses in Malawi worse, was of course the tragic incident of a child pissing on me. I can of course laugh about it now, but at that time I was more interested in getting off the bus. It made me book a room at a hotel, something I only did once afterwards...

The places I visited in Malawi were very different, but except for Lilongwe, I found them incredibly beautiful. Zomba was the place that reminded me the most of my beloved Cape Coast (Ghana). It had the same athmosphere of a student town, and a beautiful setting just below the Zomba plateau. Cape Maclear is heaven on Earth as I have described in an earlier post. While Lilongwe is a bit messy, and people are trying to sell you anything for Mzungu price. The hostel in Lilongwe probably has the best showers in the whole of Africa though.

Last, but not least. The people I met were truly amazing. I made some friends while at Cape Maclear and I talked to all these interesting people with names such as Gentle Charles, Jon Banana, Born Africa, and the list goes on and on... It was also fun watching the World Cup on the beach of Lake Malawi... The only thing that sucked big time in Malawi was that I couldn't meet Thokozani while in Zomba.

The next country was Zambia, a country that I didn't plan on visiting initially. However, I do not regret going there. Central Lusaka was the city I found easiest to be a tourist in on my trip. The hostel was not very good, but at least I met this German guy that I spent the days with. Zambia will always be the place where I bought my Ryszard Kapucinski book, and what a revelation that book is. It made me realise that my impressions of Africa and Africans is correct. At least in someone else's mind. It is officially one of my favourite books now, and it is still haunting to think about how much I could see of myself in that book.

The highlight of Zambia was however to meet Ephraim again. Five years after we went to school together in Trondheim.

So to the experience I would least want to remember. 31 hours in a bus from Lusaka to Dar Es Salaam, and getting to Dar after twelve o'clock in the night. First of all, this was the most painful busride in the history of my life, and I have travelled over night sometimes. Still remembers Seattle-San Francisco, Merida-Coro, Accra-Ouagadougou as quite comfortable bus rides... Anyway, I could of course not sleep, didn't have food, and not enough space for my feet. Dar Es Salaam is my least favourite place in the whole world. I could not easily find a hotel, and when I did it was a quite strange place. When I left it the morning after, I couldn't imagine that I would use several hours just trying to find it again. Downtown Dar Es Salaam was however quite nice.

Kenya is probably the most modern country in Africa south of the Sahara, except South Africa obviously. I did not see too much of Nairobi, but I had a wonderful time at Nuru. All these lovely children and the fantastic guy Stephen that runs the place, made their best to help me have a good time. Perfect food, a nice place to rest, and a very friendly atmosphere. I had a very good time, but it was very cold in the mornings.

Uganda was the highlight of my trip. Kampala is very close to becoming one of my favourite cities in the world. It has a beautiful setting with numerous hills and even some wonderful architecture. The second biggest mosque in Africa after Cairo, and the least annoying city centre you can imagine. I even liked the one hour hike every day from the hostel to downtown Kampala. Taking a boda-boda was something I found scary the first time, but I started liking it quite soon. They drive like maniacs, but it is so effective in a city full of traffic jams. The drivers are so friendly, and we had many nice talks. I just had to like the hostel too. Very friendly staff and nice quiet rooms with nice looking lizards. I left Kampala twice just to return to the same hostel. I made the right choice of spending half of the trip just in one country. Got to relax and breath after some long travels the weeks before.

The highlights of Uganda was the city of Kampala, the safari in Murchison Falls with all the great people, the chimp trekking and spectacular water falls, the amazing trip to Lake Bunyonyi with Yvonne and Maria, just meeting Roland the strange Dutch guy that ran one of the camps, eating the best ever chocolate banana pancake, and enjoying my life. Downsides of Uganda was the worst infrastructure I ever have seen, waiting outside of the airport for many hours because they wouldn't let me in, and the bombings of Kampala. It was such a nice day at the Dutch pub until we evacuated.

I kind of feel now that I summarised quite well, even if it looks quite not organised. I had a wonderful trip, but it was exhausting. My next travel will be to NY with my class, then hopefully Germany in March, and Japan or Ghana or Argentina/Uruguay/Paraguay next summer. Until then, I plan on writing a big list of 100 movies that I would like to reccommend to whoever reads this blog... :)

For now, thank you for reading.

Big hugs from Big Bear:)