Inglis in Africa: 2011

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Inglis in France........Out of Africa!

Praia de Rochas near Tofu, Mozambique

Inglis in France…Out of Africa (Aug 2011)

Fresh baguette, exquisite red from Bordeaux, succulent rich cheeses, mussels dripping in garlic and fresh cream and French! We couldn’t be further from Africa. I feel vaguely like I have just awoken from a long and entertaining dream and wander if it all really happened. Tiger fishing on the Zambezi, lions in Etosha, genocide museum in Rwanda, Masai tribesmen and hyena frenzy at Masai Mara, wet wet wet at Victoria falls, sunrise at Sossiesvlei in Namibia, Sipi falls in Uganda, fierce roads and bearing blues in Tanzania, scorpion sting, mozzies, beans, ugali, chai and chapattis and ex-pats who treated us like family. What an experience! Oh Africa! Why can’t I get enough of you!

We flew from Durban, South Africa with 9x23kg bags, including 2 bikes, and 9 pieces of hand luggage. It was a mammoth undertaking and miraculously we were regurgitated onto the platform in Niort to the welcome smiles of Ilda’s family. We managed to completely obstruct the corridor of the TGV and had some African style negotiation with one conductor and were then asked by the next if we were moving house! Our last week in Africa was epic. We have this slightly masochistic tendency of trying to make our life as frantic and difficult as possible and our last week in Pietermaritzburg was a scorcher. I think if it wasn’t for the amazing hospitality and generosity of Guy and Leigh Henderson at Briar Ghyll we would have frazzled. Despite the simultaneous arrival of their new son Sam they put us up and basically mollycoddled us. On top of that I left our car for Guy to sell! During that last week we triaged and packed nearly 2 years of our belongings, dedusted and sorted our Africa equipment and rehabilitated the car which needed some pretty serious stuff doing to it. We also squeezed in some great socializing with old friends and had some time with my brother and his family who were visiting SA. Then just to top it we entered a 12 hour adventure race 2 days before we flew and were rewarded with a magnificent tour of the Karkloof area near Howick and enjoyed some good mountain biking, hiking, canopy tour and even paintball!

After the Zambezi we bypassed Beira and made for the coast again. We managed to bend a wheel rim on an impressive pothole but amazingly the tyre didn’t burst. I turned down diamonds and gold at the little town of Inchope on the main road to Zimbabwe and we progressed to Inhassoro where we put up our tents at Goody Villas campsite which gave us our first taste of the South African invasion into Mozambique. Suddenly we were being quoted in Rands and Boerewors was on the menu. Despite this we enjoyed beachfront camping and our SA neighbours took us on a beach drive to a magnificent beach resort called BD (Bartholomew Dias) where we enjoyed ice cold beer and made a mental note to come back someday. Our stop at Vilankulo was to get to the Bazaruto Archipelago to do some diving. However, a seedy campsite and exorbitant fees for diving put us off and our time there was salvaged by lunch at a lodge run by a French/Belgian couple where we dined on pizza that was perfect!

We had met Shelly Zeebrugge in Zimbabwe as we cruised on Lake Kariba and again at Mana Pools. We had a good laugh together and got thrashed at Scrabble. She said to give her a call when we were in Mozambique. This we did, expecting to erect our tent on their lawn, only to find ourselves in the most beautiful beach house perched on the dunes, with our balcony virtually lapping the waves. We had a magical couple of days there swimming, running on the beach, exploring rock pools and feasting like royalty. Thanks so much Shelly. From there we drove onwards south and had a brief stop at a pretty spot called Quissico which was memorable for a good dose of Pepper Ticks which kept us scratching all the way to France!

Our last push was via Maputo into Zululand and back to Mseleni. We had expected the worst in Maputo but were rewarded with a police free transit and enjoyed the historical glamour of the city and squeezed the Pathfinder onto a well loaded boat for an easy ferry ride. We decided to have a few nights at Ponto Malengane and were stopped by one last cocky cop who tried his luck accusing Ilda of not having her seatbelt on. She laughed him off with a combo of Spanish and Portuguese and we were on our way. Ponto Malangane was magical. Diving didn’t happen because the sea was rough but we reveled in the tranquility of the place and had fantastically arrived there pre long week-end, so enjoyed relative peace. We swam, ran and relaxed and the girls had fun with kids at the next door campsite. Sadly our chicken Galena demised after a close encounter with a Jack Russel and seemed to have some sort of cardiac arrest!

Our last border crossing into South Africa was hilarious. We had all our fresh fruit and veg confiscated but luckily not the dissected Galena which had been lovingly prepared for a BBQ dinner. Then Margot’s combo of French and expired Aussie passport with SA visa caused confusion, and had me mumbling incoherently, which seemed to prompt the immigration official to stamp it and we were back home. We spent a wonderful few days at our hospital “home” of Mseleni staying with the Viljoen family and the girls were fabulously reunited. Baie dankie Kobus en Gerda! It felt great to be back there and we visited our old haunts and I even braved a doctors’ ward round. From there we drifted into Hluhluwe-Umfolozi game reserve and had a great couple of days with my brother and his family. Spectacularly we watched nearly 50 elephant crossing, and wallowing in, a marshy river only about 25m away. Definitely comparable with the best that Chobe had to offer.

And so back to PMB; reunions with friends and my dad; farewells to friends and Africa. Now to France, for a year we think. Will we be back? I hope so, but I don’t know. Every step of our adventure takes us on a new one. Carpe diem.

Our Mozambican pet chicken, Galina ...soon to become a curry!

Stepping up a coconut tree

Paradise campsite near Quissoro, Mozambique

Maputo ferry, Mozambique

Kids reunited with their Mseleni best friends, Analou, Wentzel, Uju and Lisa

Camping on the side of lake Sibaya near Mseleni, South Africa

Margot's birthday cake. She is 11 years old

50 elephants crossing river at Hluhluwe Game Reserve...one of the best sighting on our whole trip. South Africa remains one of the best game viewing spot in Africa

Meeting Sandy's family in Imfelozi Game Reserve near Mpila

Red Throated Bee-eater

Bird of prey sanctuary near Pietermaritzburg, SA

Pathfinder being emptied at Bryar Ghyll, Pietermaritsburg

In France at last! The good old French "baguette"

Unmistakably French!!

At our house in La Creche. Having lunch on the lawn.

And yes...we are eating oysters!

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Zambezi, Moz, Dhows and Dunes, July 2011

Makuzi Beach- Lake Malawi

Zambezi, Moz, Dhows and Dunes, July 2011

We crossed the great Zambezi River for the fifth time today, this time via a magnificent modern bridge of 3.2km near Caia in Mozambique. Also this was the first crossing in a southerly direction signaling our route home. Previously we had encountered this incredible waterway at one of its tributaries, the Okavango River, on the Caprivi Strip in Namibia and the Chobe River at Kasane in Botswana, where we were mesmerized by huge herds of elephant frolicking at the waters edge in Chobe national park. At Victoria Falls we marveled at the majesty of these 1.7km wide and 108m high falls which we witnessed at full spate and crossed, by foot, the bridge into Zambia gawking at bungee jumpers screaming their dollars into the boiling pot below. Then again at ‘Lake’ Kariba, where the mighty river is dammed, and we took the ferry across to the huge wall bordering with Zambia. Finally at Mana Pools national park in Zimbabwe where we were awestruck by massive elephant crashing branches metres from us and caught fresh Tiger fish on a fly from calm water littered with wallowing hippo and sunning crocs. From there we had crossed moving north into Zambia. The Zambezi too somehow symbolizes our journey with its rushing rapids and crashing waterfalls, calm tranquil pools and deep green water. Also Africa’s animals and communities living in harmony along the banks. We too have had ups and downs, pleasure and pain, and our extraordinary experience has united us, as we flow to our estuary and the sea and look forward to our return to South Africa and then to our home in La Crèche, France.

Our time in Malawi was brief. This was partly because we had lost two weeks in Tanzania with bearing blues and partly because Malawi is a mess. Despite more than forty years of foreign aide (or perhaps because of it) poor Malawi appears to be going backwards, sliding into an abyss. Only this week there were reports of ‘civil unrest’ thanks to no diesel, no food, no work, no hope……My memories of Malawi from the mid eighties may have been marijuana muddled but the wretchedness of the place now left me despondent and happy to move on. Markets seemed to have little more than tomatoes and onions, queues of cars waited at empty petrol stations and curio touts harassed us to distraction. My student ‘mecca’ of Cape Maclear is now an over populated ramshackle of decrepit huts intermingled with desperate lonely lodges and the ever present filth. The Malawians however are still fantastically friendly and still form the ‘warm heart of Africa’. We had an excellent stop at Dedza about an hour from Lilongwe where we went on a fascinating tour of the clay and pottery production there. The girls are desperate to get a wheel and give it a go. My opinion of foreign aide was further tarnished by a ‘rural development conference’ on at Dedza and sponsored by the EU where obese, tie-toting, lap-top lugging, cell-chatting, munching Malawians gazed blankly at power-point slides defining ‘vision’ and other such banal issues. I couldn’t help thinking that the only vision they needed was to get rid of foreign aide, get off their proverbial backsides and get going. Our last night in Malawi was at the foot of the lake where the Shire river starts and was apt given that we had started at Matema beach in Tanzania at the top of the lake and had travelled the length of the western shore.

We entered Mozambique via Mandimba and got off to a bad start. The ‘I’m a Moslem’ immigration officer attempting to engender trust ripped us off badly. US$100 for a US$75 visa was painful and I was amazed that we allowed it to happen despite all our usual checks. We weren’t alone and met many other travelers who had met the same fate. Incredibly our luck changed shortly thereafter when our dealings with hyena-like money changers went in our favour to the tune of US$35 thanks to an accountancy error on their part! We drove on a pot-holed road north to Lichinga on the Moz side of Lake Malawi and then due east to the Indian Ocean. We overnighted at a basic camp and feasted on hunks of BBQ chicken served with Nsima washed down with good Moz beer before tackling the few hundred kilometers of Chinese construction road and then (almost) no road. This ‘road’ was bad but fun-bad and zig-zagged through raw and remote mud hut villages and countless cassava fields passing for a while through a marshy area where we had a few unexpectedly deep water crossings which challenged the BFG (alias for our car by M&Z “Big Friendly Giant”) but it handled them admirably. One crossing that did get our pulses up somewhat was a wooden bridge about 5m across and 3m high constructed from aged logs that had warped and moved leaving big tyre swallowing crevices between them. We laboured for some time replacing logs and filling with rocks and then I traversed while Ilda and the girls watched anxiously from the far bank. Despite an alarming lunge half way across BFG excelled once again and we were on our way.

Pemba is a lovely spot on a massive bay about 300km south of the Tanzanian border. We stopped off at the Pemba Dive and Bush camp and were thoroughly spoilt. Luxury camping with hot showers, beach bar, use of canoes and archery, kitchen with gas stove and fridges, hot water delivered in the morning and a paraffin lamp in the evening had us as content as we’d ever been! M&Z had a ball and we relaxed, sipped on cold beers and I even got to watch a day of the Tour De France on the massive flat screen TV! Thanks Lyn for looking after us so well. We reluctantly left and headed towards Isla de Mozambique where we found semi-wild camping on a gem of a beach at Chocas with talcum white beaches strewn with colourful shiny shells and were ‘harassed’ daily by locals offering us fresh fish, crayfish, crabs and virtually anything else that took our fancy. We accepted a dhow ride out to the Isla and enjoyed perfect sailing on this historical craft. The return trip in a brisk afternoon breeze was more challenging and had the girls somewhat anxious as the boat listed and waves crashed over the bow. The Isla was fascinating with a history stretching back to the 15^th century and a visit by Vasco De Gama in 1498 and whose statue adorns the main square. The Stone Town, Sao Sebastiao fort, museum and hospital all bear witness to a remarkable rich history but are in a somewhat derelict state. However restoration has begun in earnest and, as a UNESCO world heritage site, this is sure to become a second Zanzibar. An early start had us on the road before dawn (4.30 here!) heading determinedly southwards. The drive was long and somewhat monotonous, but on good roads, and we had an anxious stop at a police roadblock where my fake NZ drivers license (original stolen in Rwanda!) failed to impress the officer. Miraculously he seemed to bore with my bantering and waved us on wishing us a ‘good journey’! We have acquired a chicken bought at a roadside stall which was meant to be dinner but has, not unexpectedly, become the girls pet! It travels on the roof in the wheel hub and is fussed over continuously by the girls who have banned me from making it into chicken curry. I remain optimistic.

So across the Zambezi. I think that only a year ago this crossing was by ferry and again shows how African travel is changing. Fortuitously we are now at the peaceful M’phingwe Camp nestled in native forest and rich with birds and small game. We enjoyed an informative tour (in French by a Parisian lass here on work experience) of the sustainable indigenous forestry sawmill where we learnt that 4 trees are planted for every one felled and that only 75% of the trees may be felled within the concession. We were given the option of planting a tree to reduce our carbon footprint but elected to drink a cold beer instead.

Tomorrow to Inhassoro and more white beaches and aquamarine water, cold beer and prawns. Then we dawdle down the coast to the border and back to our friends at Mseleni.

Rats on stick for lunch near Lilongwe

Dedza Pottery

Cape Maclear Beach...no peace!

Cape Maclear- Local boat on lake Malawi in the sunset

Road between Lichinga to Marrupa, Northern Mozambique

Hold your breath! Dodgy wooden bridge on the road between Marrupa and Pemba,northern Mozambique. 6h to do 120km!

Cotton flower. Marrupa Road,Northern Mozambique

Mozambique huts

Malaria Monday tablets..burk!!!

The Ocean at last. Praia de Cabaceira near Choccas, Northern Mozambique

fish caught by locals pulling nets

Dhow trip to Ilha de Mozambique

Dhow sail detail

Ilha de Mozambique

Details of life in Ilha de Mozambique

Dhow trip back to camp

Sandy cooking chapati

Have a crayfish!

Paola during the visit of the saw mill, M'phingwe Camp near the Zambizi, Mozambique

Modern Africa..women talking on cellphone. Northern Mozambique

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Broken Bearings, Beaches and Biting July 2011

Baobab Country south of Dodoma

Broken Bearings, Beaches and Biting July 2011

Travelling in Africa is a roller coaster of pleasure and pain and is definitely not always a bed of roses! Dust, rough roads, filth, beggars and more recently car woes keep the African experience in perspective.

What started as a seemingly benign creaking under Margot’s seat, became more sinister and louder and developed into an ominous, grinding crunch and, as we pulled up at Rungwe Avocado Farm, it was apparent that we were not to go much further. With the help of Rob Clowes, ex Zimbo farmer, and then some local mechanics, we removed the wheel and hub and examined the hand break pads only to discover that the problem was more dire and that the wheel bearing was shot. A futile search throughout Tanzania and even further afield in East Africa was fruitless so that our only option was to import a new bearing form abroad. Thankfully my brother Ian was able to locate one in Dubai and exported it to us express via DHL. Incredibly it took less than 18 hours to get to Tanzania and then, thanks to spectacular incompetence from DHL Tanzania, took nearly a week to arrive with us in Mbeya (a day’s drive away!). The wait was agonizingly frustrating as we saw nearly two weeks of our precious remaining time whittle away. However, the time was not wasted and our experience there was enormously positive thanks to the kindness of firstly Rob and Petra Clowes and their family who kindly allowed us to squat on their wonderful avocado and coffee farm on the slopes of Mont Rungwe and to John, Kay and Asha Rowse, who not only accommodated us in Mbeya, but were also hugely helpful and were great company. Rob not only spent ages trying to locate parts for us but also kept us well stocked with avocados and excellent home-grown coffee. Thank you all so much.

Other than that, we had a great time at the farm learning about coffee and avocado production and did a fabulous 8 hour walk up the 3000m high extinct volcano Mt Rungwe which passes through spectacular and dense rain forest and then bamboo and sub alpine near the summit. Margot and Zara managed to do some good schooling. We also continued with our theme of educational visits by visiting the Rungwe tea processing plant. A fascinating process involving the withering of the moist tea leaves followed by 4 cuttings, two fermentation processes, drying and finally sieving, grading and then packing. We learnt that the only difference between green and black tea is the fermentation and we concluded with a very purist tea tasting in their R&D laboratory. I also had the opportunity to fly to a rural clinic and to experience first hand the amazing work being done by American missionaries in completely remote Tanzania (www.guilzon.com). While in Mbeya, I also visited the Mbeya Medical Research Programme which is doing amazing research on HIV and TB amongst others. During this time too, we spent a couple of days down at Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) at Matema Beach basking in the sun and reveling in the warm water of the lake. Otherwise, in Tanzania, we had a wonderful few nights camping on the side of the lake of the tea estate of Peter and Co Rowland. It was a blissful time of peace and solitude away from tourists and touts where we swam, canoed and relaxed. Thank you so much Peter and Co.

With new wheel bearings in situ, we loaded up, packed our tents and were once again on the road south. We cut our visas fine and exited Tanzania on our final day and were relieved to arrive in Malawi. Our first stop was Karonga, where we learnt about the Malawisorus (www.paleo.net/cmck) and the evolution of mankind and had an excellent lunch of the lake fish Chomba. I visited the London School of Tropical Medicine affiliated Karonga Prevention Study (KPS) and was again intrigued by the depth and extent of their research on HIV, TB and Malaria. We overnighted at Sangilo Lodge campsite which was stunning but marred by Margot’s mauling by the monstrous camp dog. Fortunately her arm injuries were superficial but none-the-less traumatic. We then took the Sani-Pass like climb up to Livingstonia where we spent an excellent night at the Lukwe Eco Camp. Una Brownlie is a midwife, who has been at the Livingstonia Mission Hospital for many years, took me on a very interesting tour of the hospital and I was impressed with the excellent facilities. The dusty road off the plateau took us back down to the lake and the marvelous Makuzi lodge camping. Once again, we reveled in the tranquil warm water and basked on the shimmering white beaches. A quick swing through Lilongwe the capital was disappointing because our long awaited parcel from Michelle & Jackson “poste-restante” was not there. Also diesel was hard to come by in Malawi and we had to watch our route.

We head for the snorkeling paradise of Cape Maclear, at the bottom of the lake, today and then head due east to Pemba Mozambique and the Indian Ocean. Then our last leg down the coast back to Zululand.