travel

There are 10 posts tagged travel (this is page 1 of 2).

IMoL: Update From Durban, South Africa

IMoL logo from original 2003 blog Well I’m in Durban and almost out of time!

(Note: This is a post from my 2003 travel blog IMoL: Travels and Travails.)

I left Storms River for Port Elizabeth where I stayed only one night then headed to East London. I stayed at a place called The Sugar Shack right on the beach – a surfer’s hostel. I met a surfer dude named Andy who is my age and working there and saw what could have been had I become a surf bum…

From East London, I headed up to Hogsback in the mountains to do some hiking. Tolkien used to live in this area when he was a boy and rumour has it the Misty Mountains and some of the other things from The Lord of The Rings came from this area. I can see why people might think that as it is quite stunning.

After a couple of days there, I went to Cintsa, back on the coast. I did a day trip into the Trans-Kei and visited a job creation project in the area. They have a little village where they do tours to show the traditional lifestyle of the people. In order to maintain and expand the place, they cut down alien wood (trees that are not indigenous to South Africa) to make furniture, they create leather goods, and they sell seedlings to local farmers. It was quite interesting and I even joined in with the traditional healers to do a little dance and bang on the drums. We also visited a ship wreck on the coast, where we saw lots of dolphins, and stopped at a nice lagoon for a swim and a bit of cliff jumping.

From there, I went to Coffee Bay where I partied a bit, chilled on the beach, and took a drumming lesson. Last night I arrived in Durban to pick up some more anti-malarial drugs before heading up to Swaziland. Unfortunately, I’m almost out of time, so I’m going to have to skip KwaZulu-Natal to get to Swaziland and Kruger. I guess that leaves me some things to do when I come back.

Talk at you later.

IMoL: Update From Storms River, South Africa

IMoL logo from original 2003 blog I’ve done quite a lot since the last update… Read on for details.

(Note: This is a post from my 2003 travel blog IMoL: Travels and Travails.)

Well, my last day in Cape Town I went to a couple of museums – the South Africa Museum and The District Six Museum. The South Africa Museum is basically a natural history museum, but there was a lot under construction. They do have the only quagga in Africa though. The District Six Museum was interesting, though I spent more time thinking about the concept of the museum than the content really. It’s basically recreating, in the words of the people who were removed, what the area was like when they were living there. The area was never developed after they bulldozed it and the old residents are in the process of reclaiming land from the government.

From Cape Town, I went to Stellenbosh for a wee bit of wine tasting. After our all-day wine tour, we went to dinner then out for more drinks, so it’s a good thing I spent two nights there!

After the educational wine tour, I headed to Oudtshoorn, a little bit north of George. I stayed at a great backpackers there called Backpacker’s Paradise and went on one of their organized tours. This started with the Cango Caves, then to an ostrich farm, and finally a game reserve. The cave tour was an hour and a half and quite cool because we had to go through some pretty tight places including Devil’s Chimney, which is not for the large or the claustrophobic. When we got to the ostrich farm, we sat in the pub and drank a couple of beers while we chatted with the locals and watched the World Cup Rugby match (Australia – New Zealand). After this, we went on the tour which included riding an ostrich. Yes, I DO have the photos, cuts, and scrapes to prove it. The final stop of the day was the game reserve where we checked out the standard lion, tiger, cheetah, leopard, croc, etc… What made this different is that I went into the cages with the white Bengal tigers and the cheetahs to pet them! Very Cool.

After a fine dinner of ostrich steaks at the backpackers, I headed to Wilderness, just down the road to chill for a day. Yesterday I arrived in Storms River and did a canopy tour in the Tsitsikamma National Park. Basically, you are strapped into a full body harness and you slide on a wire from platform to platform between the trees. It was pretty neat and quite relaxing actually. Today, though, was reserved for the adrenaline rush. Somehow, last night at the backpackers lodge (at the bar actually), I was convinced to join a group of people to head out to the Bloukrans River Bridge today to jump off. Yes folks, I just completed the world’s highest bungy (bungie or bungee for North Americans) of 216 metres. Wow, what a rush!

Tonight I head to Port Elizabeth, then on to Hogsback for a couple of days hiking. I’m beginning to feel that I might not make it all the way to Kruger on this trip…

Talk at you later.

IMoL: The Taxi-Brousse

IMoL logo from original 2003 blog I’m on my way to Antsirabe, about 170km south of Tana. My transport of choice – because as you can imagine the choices are quite limited – is the taxi-brousse (bush taxi).

There are several types of vehicles used for taxi-brousse in Madagascar depending on the roads or lack thereof. In order from most to least comfortable, there’s the minivan, the soft covered pickup with wooden benches on either side, and the huge Mercedes Benz soft-covered trucks which make the deuce and halfs we used in the army look like Tonka trucks. Into the truck or van, pile people, sacks of rice, luggage, live chickens, and other foodstuffs. Then tie people, sacks of rice, luggage, live chickens, and other foodstuffs to the roof. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the taxi-brousse.

(Dec 2004: Another version of this appears on BootsnAll.)

Continue reading →

IMoL: Madagascar Initial Thoughts

IMoL logo from original 2003 blog (These are some thoughts I wrote in my journal on October 9 2003, just after I arrived in Madagascar.)

There are an awful lot of people selling ‘things’ on the street, but not too many buying. TV antennas, sunglasses, all kinds of food, souvenirs, etc.. Every second guy here is a money changer, including the security guy at the hotel. (Incidentally, I changed hotels, moving to my original choice yesterday. The roaches at Le Glacier will probably miss me.)

I wonder about the economy here works – or doesn’t. It’s good to see that the bottled water I get is Malagasy – Eau Vive or Olympiko. Whoever runs those companies must be doing fairly well. (Near the end of my trip, I discovered that the president owns and/or runs Tiko which produces Olympiko….) How do you jump start the economy in such a poor country? Surely, if they depend on tourism it will only take them so far because it is heavily dependent on the state of the global economy.

One encouraging sign is that communication seems to be improving steadily here. Internet in Tana is quite readily available and I’ve seen many Orange shops around town. (For you non-Europeans, Orange is a big European telecom company.) By using wireless technology, they can leapfrog the ‘wired’ phones and get service in remote areas relatively easily. Everyone I’ve talked to so far seems to think that this ‘new’ president is going to be good for the country. They say that things have improved steadily since they were on the verge of civil war a couple of years ago.

I look forward to seeing life outside Tana.

It was quite striking going out to the Air France office. Air conditioned office in a brand new multi-story (10 story?) building. Compared to everything else I’ve seen in Tana so far, it’s another world.

I went to La Boussole for dinner. It’s an interesting place with a wine list to put many French restaurants to shame. The clientele seemed to be primarily French ex-pats. Not too many tourists besides me and a couple of Spanish ladies. For dinner I decided to try zébu. Zébu looks essentially like a cow with horns and a hump, which contains fat reserves much like a camel. In fact it tastes exactly like beef, much to my dismay. I hope there’s no mad zébu disease!

As I wandered back to the hotel past the Japanese Embassy (Malagasy soldiers with AK47s as guards), I couldn’t help but think more about the economic situation here. I guess in typical Western style thinking, I see something ‘broken’ and wonder how it can be fixed. I know it doesn’t work like that, but where would you start? Education? Fighting corruption? Food? Infrastructure? Communications? I can’t help thinking about this as I wander the streets and look around.

I’ve discussed this with a number of people – Malagasy, French ex-pats, and other tourists. Of course there are no answers, but it’s an interesting thing to discuss nonetheless. The president has chosen to tackle infrastructure by improving the road system. After having some experience travelling the roads here, I think that’s a Very Good Thing.

When I go to the pharmacy here in Tana and buy something, am I depriving a local of it or am I helping by increasing the profits of the pharmacy so they can buy more? (My guide in Ranamofana explained that the medicines at the pharmacies are too expensive for the locals anyway and that they turn to nature for their medicines.)

(Note: This is a post from my 2003 travel blog IMoL: Travels and Travails.)

IMoL: Another Quick Update

IMoL logo from original 2003 blog I hope I’ll get some time to write again soon, but for now, here’s what I’ve been up to.

I left Tuléar for Anakao, a few kilometres to the south on the ocean. The ride over by boat was very rough and wet. I met an English couple on the boat and the three of us stayed at La Réserve, a hotel in the middle of nowhere on the beach. Nobody around but us and the owners. Other than hanging around and sleeping, eating, and the occasional swim, the only thing of note I did there was to take a pirouge a voil (dugout canoe with sail) to Nosy Ve, an island off the coast to wander about.

After the much needed relaxation, I headed back to Tuléar for the night, where I found a car to take me to Ranohira, the town at the edge of the Parc National Isalo. Here I ran into a Maltese guy and we decided to do a two day trek in the park. We hooked up with a group of four Frenchmen and got a deal with a trekking company. The scenery was absolutely amazing, but I’ll tell you I’ve never been so hot in my life. No cover under the mid-morning and midday sun is quite deadly. We were looking for the least bit of shade to take our breaks. When we got back last night I was shattered, but I hope the photos were worth it.

This morning, I took a car to Fianaratsoa. I’m debating whether to go to Ranomafana National Park for a couple of days before heading back to Tana for my flight on 1 November. I’m not sure a hike in the rainforest after the savannah is in the cards.

Talk at you later.

(Note: This is a post from my 2003 travel blog IMoL: Travels and Travails.)

IMoL: Quick Update

IMoL logo from original 2003 blog I don’t have much time to write here, so here’s a quick update.

I left Tana to go to Antsirabe to the south where I met up with a French guy named Fred and a ‘guide’ named José. We signed on with José for a three day pirogue (dugout canoe) trip down the Tsiribihana River. Turns out we got screwed over by José (full story at a later date) but we made it from Miandrivazo to Belo-sur-Tsiribihana safely. From there I headed North by taxi-brousse (bush taxi) to Bekopaka. I met a Swiss couple from Lausanne who kindly let me join them in their rented quatre-quatre [4×4] for the 17km, 1h15m trip to Grands Tsingy in Parc National Des Tsingy de Bemaraha. It was an amazing 4 hour hike in the hottest place I’ve ever experienced (so far).

From there, I again hitched a ride with the Swiss couple down to Morondavo by 4×4, where we saw the Avenue du Baobab (I took many photos). The next day I flew to Tuléar, where I’m writing this. I’m headed to Anakao by pirogue for a couple of days relaxation and possibly snorkling. Then the plan is to come back here, head to Parc National Isalo for a three day hike, then make my way back to Tana for my flight to Johannesburg on the 31st.

Talk at you later.

(Note: This is a post from my 2003 travel blog IMoL: Travels and Travails.)