My last entry. Africa. When I was in the North of Mozambique it all started to get a bit much. I couldn't take anymore smoking over barrels of petrol. But even then I new that I would miss it, almost instantly, and I still do. As stupid as so many things are in the parts of Africa I have seen I love this place because of these things and for so many more reasons. African's are not stupid, they know the problems they face. They know they are poor, they know that fitting 27 people in a mini bus is ridiculous and they know that the shacks they often live in are inadequate for their families. But thats life, and if they have peace, they just get on with it. Its easy to shed tears for the starving kid from Sudan, they deserve our sympathy after all. The best people in Africa truely are those who are bare arsed and not the militias with their guns and machetes or the politians in their suits who have kind words but selfish motives. Africa has the best wildlife, the friendliest people and so much potential it is almost unbelievable. She just needs a chance.

As for my time. Its exceeded every expectation I ever had. The two-and-a-half months in PEDRRU was so special. I thought I was a well rounded person before I came on this trip but my time with the refugees and those at Mirembe school taught me things which I don't even have words for. I will never forget the people I met. Albert, Bolingo, Mary, Jacques Bwira and many more people showed me strengh that I didn't know existed. Terrible things continue to happen in their country. Over one thousand people a day die in the Congo from rebels or terrorists as they may be called if they operated in other parts of the world. This is incredible for a country which is so fertile that feeding itself shouldn't even be a consideration and for a country which has a well educated population. Unfortunately the world cares little for the most deadly more since WWII when there is no oil up for grabs.

Whilst many deserve our sympathy, lets not get a distorted image. Not every African has flies sitting on their distended belly. The kids here are enough to give anyone hope and I will never forget the smile on the Kissu girl at school, it had enough energy to power Kampala for a week.

As for me. I now know.

Well this is the second time I have tried to write this entry. The last time the bloody internet lost its connection so my blog was lost in cyber space forever and quite frankly I can't be all that bothered to go in to much detail. After the leopard sanctury we went to the Namib Nakulf national park, which despite an unpromising start turned out to be beautiful. Freakishly flat grass plains studded with numerous groups of ostriches and springbok. Another night under canvas and stars. We then should have had a nice relaxing three hour drive to the sand dunes of Sousousvlei but Tazzy apparently went out for a joy ride in the night and we had no fuel. Quite literally, the fuel gauge was showing empty for two hours whilst we sat in silent dread and comtemplated our slow demise in the namib desert. How we made it to the fueling stop of solitaire only Tazzy will know, but for the girst time in my adult life I fell in love with a car. We went to Sousovlei which is the main tourist destination in Southern Namibia and was a truely manificent place. Theres little point in me trying to decribe the colours and shapes of these huge sand dunes and patterns that the wind carved, as is quite obvious from this blog I don't have the words. You will instead just to wait for the slide show when I'm back (estimated time of slide show ; 9.5 hours). We spent two days there, got our first puncture of the trip on one of the best roads of our road journey, quickly learnt how to change a tyre from the users manual. Another new skill aquired on this trip; its going on the CV.

After Sosousvlei we went to Windhoek again because we fancied some civilisation again. Probably the wrong choice on reflection, but what can you do. Spent a few more nights there. Spent a day driving down to the area around Fish River Canyon, waste of time although we did get to see an African wild cat. Drove back over to the border to South Africa. The night before we had to drop off the car we spent the night near Augerbies National park which has the seventh largest waterfall in the world. Really nice place and wish we had more time to spent there, but we had to get back to Upington to drop off the car. By the time we handed over the keys we had clocked up just shy of 6000 kms in 18 days and I had been transformed in to a world class off road driver. Although I still can't reverse for sh*t.

The same night we got on a night bus and travelled down to our final destination, Cape Town. Stayed on Long Street and we splashed on a double room for the remainder of our days. We saw the waterfront, drank lots of wine, went to Simons Town and boulders beach and saw the penguins and finally saw a football match. But it wasn't exactly the match that I had been expecting. By chance I read in the paper that Manchester United were coming to play the Kaiser Cheifs in Cape Town so we just had to go. Standing in a pub next to the ground, sipping a pint, watching Sky Sports News talking to a couple of die hard United season holders I could have been anywhere in the UK. It was fun though in all. The game could have done with more goals and if anything it was good way to reacclimatise myself back in to British life. The next day we did a wine tour round the wine growing regions, good fun. Day after we visited Robben Island and then, well, got smashed for it was our last day in this great continent.

Our next destination was the town of Swakopmund which bills itself as a bit of an adventure/extreme activity mecca but these were all well out of our budget, so it would simply provide us with some civilisation after a week or so of bush living and camping. Our plan was to drive down the much lauded skeleton coast which is famed for its trecherous sand banks and fogs which has claimed many a ship. We entered the easily accessible southern section of the park and we were greeted by truely obscene prices; 6 quid each just to drive through the sodding place. And because the place was so remote we couldn't just turn around and leave. So we unhappily paid the money and started the long drive down the skeleton coast. And after a bleak and unpromising start it got more and more bland and the unpromise just carried on we started to rue the extortinate entry charge even more. We saw one wreck which looked so small and pathetic that I couldn't even be bothered to leave the car for. The day was somewhat salvaged by the seal colony further down the coast. I had previously never seen a seal before and before I new it I was looking at a pebble wind swept beach which was home to an estimated 80 000 fighting, stinking, feeding seals of all shapes and sizes. Their amazement brought on by their sheer numbers and noise they generated was almost over shadowed by the stink they produced. We then had a nervous drive along the salt road as our petrol gauge blinked red and cued some rally driving by myself as a figured the faster you drive the more use you get out of the little fuel you have left. We made it, just, and treated ourselves with a sausage role and made our way to Swakopmund, arriving just before dark. We did what we had to do, treated ourselves to a kudu steak, checked the internet and visited the big sand dunes outside the town. I will mainly remember Swakopmund for three things though 1) The fog 2) The school which we walked by showed that whilst Apartheid has ended as a policy, white kids still play with white kids and black kids still play with black kids. 3) It showed me how cynical people can be. Watching the first semi final World Cup game, I have never seen people cheer so loudly at another teams and nations misery as when Italy knocked in their goals to sink Germans. I can't critisise toomuch because I probably jumped the highest of anyone.

After a couple of nights experiencing urban life we headed back in to the bush. We made the relatively short drive to Spitzkoppe which sounds pretty bland dscribed in words. Just really a series of big blood red rocks jutting out of the ground. But it was a spectacular place and we climbed one of the islands of rock which gave us a special and isolated moment to look at the Namibia stretch out before us. Again we had a great isolated campsite, this time straddled by some huge rocks which framed the beautiful star studded desert sky. After Spitzkoppe we again had a relatively short drive to Tsaobis Leopard Sanctury. We didn't know much about it but it was on the way and promised to provide something different and had the allure of a promise to see the one big cat which we had failed to see in the wild. On arrive at the reception we were met by friendly french researcher who had been at the sanctury researching the movements of baboons for the last seven months. He informed us that we were the first visitors in over a week and the place had actually been sold the Monday before we arrived and was now closed for visitors. They kindly, though, realised we had gone out of our way to get there and let us stay for free. We did a nice, and sweaty, walk and also got to see the leopards as well as some a few lynx and cheetahs. The place was little more than a gloryfied zoo but it had a nice campsite again and we again just enjoyed being in the bush with just us, tazzy, our slightly decepit tent, a log fire and a lot of stars.

I'm running out of steam....

Unlike the other countries we have visited on this trip it is not really possible to just get on a bus or in a taxi and visit the places you want to in Namibia. The country is huge with practically nobody living here so public transport is very sparse to say the least as well as quite expensive. So to get around you need to either go on an overland tour or hire your own car. Having spent six month doing our own thing in Africa there was no chance we were going to sign up to a tour so we opted to hire a car. We spent the day walking around the small town of Upington looking for the best deal on hiring a car. To hire a car in Namibia was just too expensive so we got the best price we could find in Upington and drove over the boarder. We hired a gleaming white beauty of a Toyota Tazz which because of the gravel roads in Namibia and also general abuse from her drivers, would not be beautiful and definately not gleaming for very long.

Our first aim was to get to Etosha National Park in the north of Namibia. This meant covering some serious milage and took us about three days to drive. The boarder crossing was ok, if a bit tedious, but was brightened up by Marte's lack of English vocabulary when it comes to cars. Marte confidently got out the drivers seat and opened the boot of 'Tazzy' when the customs official asked her to open the bonet. After both of us laughing at her, I don't think she will be making that mistake again. We drove for as long as there was sunlight and got to the small town of Keetmanshoop which had a basic campsite where we pitched our tent in a little thatched shelter. Apart from the now obligatory freezing night time tempertures the campsite was most memorable for a litter of puppies which took pleasure in biting, gnawing and generally throwing themselves on our tent as well as making us think we were about to be murdered. The campsite was a bleak windswept place which was looked after by one bloke who slept in a very battered caravan with only one other set on campers. So in the middle of the night when we heard footstep directly outside our tent we both awoke thinking 'this is it'. As I prepared myself to fight off the intruder a little puppy let out a wimper and were both reassured that our assasin was in fact a three month old puppy.

Anyway, the next day we drove the 500km's to Windhoek which is the capital. Because of the good main roads we arrived shortly after midday and soon had our tent up and made our way in to town to the national parks office. We had unfortunately timed our stay in Namibia to coincide with both the Namibian and South African school holidays. This means two things, lots of big 4 by 4's on the road and the national park accomodation in generally all booked out. We were lucky enough to get two nights camping at Etosha but in meant speeding of a day early to Etosha and head north the next day. We set off early and arrived in Etosha by mid morning. Etosha is famed for its large amounts of wildlife and also the ease in which you can self navigate around the park. On both these counts it did not let us down. On the first afternoon which we spent driving around the park we saw loads of game including easily the best hunt of our trip. We pulled up at a small watering hole which turned out to be flanked by two prides of lions. As the sun started on to set one pride started to get restless and wander around. They walked right up to our car and we quickly put our cameras on our laps and wound up the windows; they were no more than a few feet away. We hoped they might show interest in some of the zebra's or alike around the watering hole but the lions in Etosha are apparently more ambitious than that. As a giraffe wondered carefully to the watering hole I boldly made the assertion to Marte's prediction of 'I bet they go for the giraffe', that ' I will eat my own pooh if they try and hunt the giraffe.' Any yes, before you know it, the lions are creeping stealthily through the long grass, creeping towards the the long legged, long necked animal. Given its advantageous anatomy, the giraffe saw the lions early and then used its gangly legs to gallop away from the hunting lions. Although it was yet another failed hunt, to see this outlandish attempt to kill an absolutly huge animal was fantastic and to hear the hooves of the giraffe on the salt pan, with out the circus of minibuses like at the Massai Mara, was really exilerating (Note: Marte kindly said I didn't have to eat my own excrement). We went back to the campsite and found our little twon man tent dwarfed by gargantuan tented villages of the holidaying South Africans. But it was a great introducation to Etosha and we made a braii (BBQ) with the help of some friendly South African's and spent the evening cooking and watching the flood-lit water hole. The next day and a half was spent driving around the vast open spaces of Etosha spotting more wildlife, the high light of which was proably a close encounter with a cheetah which was eventually attacked by as a small group of pointy horned oryx. We would have liked to have spent another night but the accomodation was simply all booked out. So we moved on to the near by town of Tsumeb to watch England progress to the semi finals of the World Cup.

We found a sports bar, which because the Namibians had just been paid, was filled with people wisely spending (noisily) their hard earnt money on fruit machines. I sat, nervously, and watched England take on Portugal and was relatively pleased with proceedings until the stupid bloody sending off. I got louder and louder as the game went on and some locals saw an easy target and started to cheer for Portugal. Football has a way of making normal people loose contact with their normal emotions and before I new it I was shouting across the bar like the idiots I normally shake my head at. As Jamie 'yeah he's a world class penalty taker, bring him on' Carragher missed the final penalty I called a few people 'dickheads' in a very enlightened manner and calmly walked out in to the cold Namibain night. Theres not much more to say about that really. Apart from that English people now have a somewhat tarnished reputation, because of a football supporting idiot, in a small northern Namibian town, as well as across most of Europe.

We moved on to the town of Outjo in the search of nothing more than internet and somewhere to restock our backseat which now doubled as a kitched. Because it was a Sunday everywhere was in lcok down so we camped at a nice campsite and bided our time. The following morning we did all our chores and then a lot more very hot dusty driving on gravel roads. We visited the acient rock paintings at Twyfelfontein which are estimated to be anything up to 80 000 yeard old. We then found a truely magnificent campsite. It was actually outside a luxury lodge but for mere peasants like ourselves they had three amazing secluded campsites. It was a really special place and we felt like we were truely out in the nature for the first time as we cooked over our wood fire under the beautiful African stars. A perfect place to reflect on our trip.

No more time....again.

I was quite pessamistic about South Africa. It felt a bit like the end of the trip, which it will be eventually, but only a month too early. Everywhere we had been in Africa had been 'African' Africa which is what we really came for and not the largly westerised South Africa. As the park warden at Nyika described it, South Africa can best be summed up as 'Africa Lite.' Our first destination was Johannesburg which wasn't exactly somewhere where we wanted to go. The middle suburbs are reputed to one of the most dangerous places on earth with people attracted to the city by the same old promises of money and opportunity and instead only find guns, traffic lights surrounded by smashed car windows and lots and lots and a bit more crime. It would have been easy just to miss out the city and go to Pretoria but to Marte's credit she pushed me to go to Soweto, which is the largest township in South Africa. Estimates put the poplation between 1.5 to 3 million people and became famous for its role in bringing down Apartheid and just being a general pain in the arse to the racialist government. We stayed at a place called Lebo's Backpackers which was really just his house, well his grandmothers, with a few beds for guests. One of the first things that we noticed was that it was bloody freezing. We spent two nights shivering under our bedsheets only to hear on the radio as we left that the temperature was approaching freezing point at night. So when (no, if) England get to the World Cup in 2010 they will not have the old heat excuse for being lame; although they will no doubt still be bunch of bottle boys. Anyway, thats a discussion for another blog.

Lebo took us on a truely brilliant day tour of Soweto. Our chosen mode of transport for the day was bicycle which in true African style had brakes which cannot have been working to more than ten per cent of their potential capacity. He took us to the Hector Pieterson museum which is named after the thirteen year old boy who was shot in the back as he ran away from police during the Soweto/ students uprising. The museam was dedicated to the students uprising who were protesting about the truely disgusting Bantu education system. The white government went too far and on top of giving the non-white population sub-standard education introduced Africaans as the official language for a large portion of the lessons. Not only could the students not speak their oppressors language the sodding teachers obviously couldn't either. One girl got so over wealmed during an exam she simply threw herself out of the window. On the back this the students in Soweto led a peaceful march and we can all guess what happened next, the police opened fire and young Hector was one of the youngest victims. He was immortalised because his dead body was pictured being carried by a fellow student protester whilst his sisters ran sobbing by his side. The post uprising crack down was so complete by the South African security services that even the young lad carrying his body was forced to flee the country. The museam was well done and very comprehensive and satisfied my urges for a bit of history. We carried on cycling round Soweto, visiting Nelson Mandela's former house as well as seeing both Winnie Mandela's current abode and also Desmond Tutu's occasional house. We also went to a she-been. Because during Apartheid blacks were only allowed to drink in governement establishements, many opened up their house for to sell beer on the quiet. They still exists and are brilliant, it just like going to someones back garden for a few beers except you have to pay for the drinks. It was an all round top experience and gave us the opportunity to see and experience the township residents at their level rather than peer down on them from a tour bus. Soweto will also host the final of the next World Cup so if our boys get their act together I've at least got a place to stay.

On our way to the bus station we spent stopped at the Apartheid museum. This again was a really indepth museam with lots, maybe even too much, information. The museum starts with some very strong imagery. When you purchase your ticket you are given a slip which enables you to enter the museum through either the 'white' or 'non-white' entrance. I've always considered myself racially androgenous but this is one of the few times in my life I have had to think about it. Marte was given a white ticket and I was forced to go down another entrance, we were kept apart by a steel fence before met again to continue through the rest of the museum. The museum was both interesting and shocking as expected and as my concentration began to fade we watched a video of the young and very innocent and sweet looking Winnie Mandela. Against the back drop of all the violence and just hellishly mistreatment of non-whites, this beautiful young women in her khakis confidently said that one day South Africa would be free and it would be everyones nation where everyone was welcome and that, remembering this was in the 1970's at the latest, that the first President of the free South Africa will be 'Mandela'. Such forsight was impressive and the cool manner in which she laid out her manifesto for a free and fair non-racial South Africa, well...left both Marte and I with wet eyes.

After a great few nights in Soweto we caught the bus to Bloemfontain. It was a very uninspiring town, to put it nicely, and the hostel we stayed in was both expensive and sh*t. But it was the main way to get in to Eastern Lesotho. Lesotho is a strange little country if you look at it on the map. It's toally surrounded by South Africa and is pretty tiny, and the equally strange thing is that when you actually get there you are flung straight back in to 'African' Africa. Our reason for going to Lesotho was to do a Pony Trek through the beautiful mountains of the 'Kingdom in the Sky.' My stallion was called 'Bowing' and for three days and two nights he trustfully guided me through this truely beautiful country. I can't really say any more about the trip other than apart from being very easy on the eye, it was very and I mean VERY cold. I'm not being a big spoilt baby either. On our last night staying in a small village it only sent and bloody haled and snowed. "Snow in Africa?" Thats what I said as well. Overall, like Rwanda and Uganda and Kate Moss, Lesotho was small and perfectly formed and I wish I had more time to spend there. We were forced to spend another night in Bloem before getting the bus to Upington to plan our assault on Namibia.

No more time....I'll finish this later.

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