Europe

It has been a whirlwind of travel since we landed in Frankfurt. We arrived early in the morning, rented a car and hit the road. We have visited roman ruins in Germany, amazing castles in Luxembourg all the while enjoying amazing scenery and sunsets over the North Sea. It stays much lighter at night than in Africa. In Belgium a visit to Ypres, Flanders Field, to see the museum, soldier grave yards and many other sights. Today in France we visited Vimy and the Canadian War Memorial. That was very emotional as was our visit to the Somme battlefields and cemeteries. This very brief but it lets you know where we are. Tomorrow we head to Mont St. Michel.

Travelling the Coast

In Cape Town we rented a car to take the long drive to Johannesburg. The first day we went to The Cape of Good Hope. The weather was fantastic and the views were spectacular. Baboons also inhabit the area and wander along the roads. As we were leaving a fog rolled over the Cape giving it a very Hitchcock mood. Farther along the coast we also stopped at h'Aghalus which is the farthest south you can get on the African continent. The drive was extremely scenic with the waves of the Indian Ocean crashing on the shore. We stayed one night in a beautiful old home build in 1880. Looked like an old plantation house. What an atmosphere! On the way to Coffee Bay we got a real taste of how many Africans live in their very modest homes with no electricity etc. Many were painted in bright blues, yellows and pinks. In Coffee Bay itself the waves were absolutely amazing crashing onto the shore and the charming little cabin we stayed in over looked the ocean and we had African drums beating in the background. Amazing! Having our own car was great as we could stop in any of the places which caught our attention like Grahamstown the homes of Cecil Rhodes University. A beautiful place! Last night we stopped at a charming little town of Clarens. To our amazement at the place we stayed they were having a three day workshop for the top blues guitar players in South African. What a treat! It was like having a free concert watching these amazing players jam. Now we are in Johannesburg and fly to Frankfurt on May 27. We will be back in Canada on May 11. The whole trip has been a super experience and we still have more to come.

Cape Town

We are now in Cape Town, South Africa. It is a very modern and vibrant city. There are so many interesting buildings and things to do. One major hi-light for us was to take a tour of Robben Island. That is where Nelson Mandela and many political prisoners were held during the apartheid era. He was there for 18 years! The island has been a place for centuries where convicts, political prisoners and lepers were incarcerated. A former political prisoner took us on a tour of the jail. We also saw lots of seals and Cape penguins on the island. Today we took the cable car up to Table Mountain. The views from there are nothing short of spectacular. We hiked over a great deal of the top of the mountain. Tomorrow we are renting a car and heading down to The Cape of Good Hope, then following the coast to end up in Johannesburg. We fly out on April 27 and will rent a car in Frankfurt and travel around Europe before flying to Toronto on May 11.

Namibia

Driving into Namibia by bus we saw an elephant by the side of the road then a lot more off the road in the trees. Quite exciting. When we arrived in Windhoek we were surprised by how modern the city was. After getting settled in we began to walk downtown and were warned to be careful. Two women had been robbed at our backpackers. As we walked down a very busy main street I felt something tugging at my backpack. Looking in a store window I could see a guy trying to get into my backpack. I had a few choice words for him. We rented a car and camping equipment and set off for Etosha National Park to view the animals. It is a very German country. When we stopped for gas in Outjo we saw a German bakery and was the food ever good. We stopped there two more times. At the park we saw giraffes and zebras in a big herd crossing the road. The park is very upscale and expensive but in we went. The park is very big with a mixture of impressive scenery. There were lots of Sprinbok and such. It was exciting when Donna spotted a large female lion sitting on the road as we drove to a lookout. Where we stayed there was a watering hole but we had no luck seeing animals. Next morning we drove around and spotted more animals that we hadn't seen the day before. After the park we visited a petrified forest. Today we drove to Swakopmund which is right on the Atlantic coast. What a surprise! It is just like a German town with palm trees. Big breakers were crashing onto the shore. The town is very charming and we walked around enjoying the sights, buildings and museum. The safest town that we have been to so far. Tomorrow we are heading back to Windhoek and will try to find transportation to Capetown, South Africa.

Victoria Falls

We are in the heart of Africa. The town of Livingstone, Zambia, is very near Victoria Falls. We went there today with three friends we met on the road. The falls did not disappoint. They were spectacular. The water level of the Zambezi is quite high which made the view amazing. One is able to get very close to things as there are no guard rails like there are in Canada. We took many, many pictures. Putting on our ponchos we walked along a path and crossed a foot bridge where the water was running several inches deep due to the mist from the falls. It was like a hard rain. At the end of the trail we could see Zimbabwe but Robert Mugabe wasn't waving back at us. Near the entrance there were some baboons. One got quite agressive and was trying to grab women's purses. I speculated that he'd learned that women carried things to eat in them. A park employee chased him away. This was a fantastic day. Tomorrow we are scheduled to do a walking safari and are supposed to get up close to the animals. Should be exciting. Sunday we are boarding a bus for Namibia. The adventure continues.

Zambia

Today we are in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. It's quite a modern city but outside the city it is quite remote with mostly traditional mud hut villages. To up-date what's been happening, we abandoned our boat trip up Lake Malawi. It turned out that it was very expensive and they would only accept American dollars. So, we decided to stay in Monkey Bay for an extra day. It's a beautiful spot overlooking the lake. Following that we went by matola (truck/taxi) to Cape Maclear and stayed at another very beautiful spot looking out across the lake with islands. There were some very colourful sunsets. We did some exploring about the town. From Cape Maclear were made our way by bus to Lilongwe. Where we were staying we ran into a group of about sixty cyclists doing a 12,000 km ride from Cairo to Cape Town. A number of Canadians were among them and they had lots of tales to tell. That would be quite an experience. It looked very well organized. Up early we again were on the road for a very long bus ride. The scenery was very rural with mostly mud huts. We saw two baboons scamper across the road in front of the bus. Now we are resting a bit at Chachacha's and will soon be heading for Victoria Falls, something we've both been looking forward to. We'd like to up-date more with more detail but we can't always get access to the Internet and it is often very slow when we do. We hope spring weather has arrived at last.

Tofo To Malawi

After an eight hour bus ride we arrived at Fatima's Nest in Tofo and our first real glimpse of the Indian Ocean with its long, sandy beaches and big rolling waves. We spent two days swimming and exploring the area and sleeping in a traditional thatched hut. From here we had to take a bus into Inhabane, transfer to a boat across the bay to Mexixe. We had to wait a couple of hours for the bus to fill up to take us on to Vilankolos, another beautiful spot on the Indian Ocean. From the bus most of the homes along the way were made with walls of sticks or reeds or rocks held between sticks then plastered with mud. The roofs were thatched with large overhangs to keep the rain off the walls. Vilankolos is known for its archaepeligo and shallow warm water. There is not much choice of food in town as Mozambique is quite a poor country, but the scenery is lush and green and we found the people to be very friendly and helpful. There didn't seem to be any Internet in town and we met a lawyer who let us use his office computer to check our e-mails. Donna mentioned that he spoke English quite well and he told us that he'd fasted for a month in the bush and when he arrived home he went to get something to eat, he was struck down and when he woke he began to pray and it was in English. Wish I could learn a language that fast! We began to travel with three other Canadians and we had a marathon bus ride. We left at 4:30 am and with two mini-buses ended up in Chimoio late that afternoon. We spent the night there, rose the next morning at 4:00 am to catch the bus to Tete over rough roads and we thought that we would have to spend the night there, but we managed to catch a bus which cross over the Zambezi River and to the border of Malawi and luckily from there another mini-bus that took us to a backpackers hostel in Blantyre. The countryside into Malawi has very large hills and is quite lush. We noticed immediately that there is more wealth here. Tomorrow we catch a bus to Monkey Bay where we will take a boat, named the Ilala, up Lake Malawi, a three day trip. What an adventure!