The 1000 Day Holiday

Doing rounds of Konyagi w Jono, Tom, Tim & Charlie a a locals bar beside choccos. We finally call it a night around 3am and head for Kendwa Rocks.

First obstacle: a 10 foot gate that was open when we arrived. Tom climbs it and jumps down. I figure Ill try to open it as well. its africa. Viola – not locked.

We get split up looking for a route from nungwe to kendwa as its high tide and we dont want to walk to the long route down the road.

The night is topped off by us deciding to walk the “beach” route, which is now neck deep. (wallets and cameras held above our heads). As we round one of the points with each move the water lights up with a brillant green glow.  Thanks to bioluminescent plankton. Not unlike the following picture (if we splashed around a whole lot)

Really topped off the night, and everyone and their valuables made it home in one piece.

The island thatsfull of italian tourists (apparently), and stunning beaches with not much to do but relax.

Stone townis quite similar to varanasi, in architecture only. small tight winding streets that it is exceptionally eay to get lost in.

Got woken up at 5am this morning by the discovery there is a mosque loudspeaker right outside my window. DOH!

Off to explore some of the remote beaches on the island

Arrived in Arusha this evening, after another painfully slow bus ride. Couldnt see Kilimanjaro for clouds, but Mt Meru is right behind Arusha, and the clouds lifted at dusk. A really beautiful mountain, and the walk up is supposed to be awesome!

So even tho on my last day hiking I had some niggling knee pain.. knee twist/ACL sorta thing.. I think i will go ahead and do this. Much more exciting than going to Ngorongoro Crater to look at more animals.

Met a local who is a guide on Kili/Meru who was pimping for his hostel at the bus station. But we’ve been talking and hes helping me plan to do the Mt independent (still need a ranger etc..) but will save lots of cash. Even if I end up doing it solo, $250 instead of $400USD from an operator.

Makes you respect what we can for free/very cheap at home aye!

tues/12th After walking around town talking to hiking companies, my knee is feeling it. So it would be silly to head up a mountain. So off to Zanzibar tomorrow for some R&R, and a good few kilos of prawns!

My Guide Jamu and I had hiked all day. So when we arrived at the Convent it was defiantely a welcome sight.

Nuns in their garb all working in the gardens and busying themselves. Once settled into our rooms. We met in the formal dining room for tea and bread. Even this was a formal affair. The nun studiouly setting the table.

Dinner was a similar affair. It started with us arriving back to the dining room. The priest was sitting in a sofa having his evening drink. Again the nuns/servants set the table. small chit chat for the long wait for dinner to be served. The nuns were definately happy in their life though, as hymns being sung would often waft from the kitchen.

Headed up into the mountains near Kili for a few days hiking.

Its weird. I get all excited when i see mountains. Maybe its a homely thing.

Funny being in the middle of nowhere. hiking up a road, we pass a group of kids who in a perfect british english accent say “Good afternoon sir”. Followed by “This is a blackboard, this is a chair, this is a door” repeatedly until we are out of earshot.

Did three days hiking from Lushoto, out to Mtae & Mulalo. Even stayed in a convent full of nuns (surprisingly), had dinner with the priest and everything..

Spent a couple of days in Dar Es Salaam Doing nothing exciting. just enjoying non african food and wandering the streets.

People bag it as a city. Theres nothing special. but its defiantely not awful

 

So when I was leaving Rwanda. The exchange rate at the border was rubbish. I had 80,000 Francs ($200), and wasn’t going to make their day by changing with them.

I knew the bank rate. So figured I would do the exchange in Mwanza or as it turned out in Tabora.

Alas the banks in Tabora didnt change Francs. Only US & Euro.

No problem. The trusty Barclays or Standard & Chartered are in Dar es Salam along with  ~1000 Forex bureaus.

Not one of them will change it. I guess that means its an Internal Currency.

$200 looking like lost money.. Saved by the fruits of the internet!

Irene that I met thru Couchsurfing is gonna change the money in Rwanda for me and Western Union it back to me! I should send an Invoice to Lonely Planet for the WU fees as they dont warn that its an internal currency. (they do for the asian ones!)

/rant off but a happy ending.

Well, it has to be expected.

The Train was due to depart Tabora 9pm. It didnt arrive at the station till 12:40am. and didt depart till 1:40am.

However, we weren’t kept unamused. They played very loud techo thru the PA system. Such classics as the Venga Boys and others.

All in all, a nice ride tho, and much more comfortable than the Buses.

Dodoma is the Capital. Although not much actually happens here. a quaint small town, thats been planned. So everything is really spread out on grid style streets.

Patric the German gains quote of the Day status.

I was looking at a fruit and vege stall. And exclaimed at the size of their enormous avacados.

He said “you can’t buy that”.

I asked why not

“because it doesn’t taste good unless its cooked”  

Kirsten (german) & myself just looked at him. Hes even a Vegetarian!

Also, found a market where everyone brings 30L plastic buckets full of their home brew maize beer. Foreigners never go there, so we were quite the entertainment. lots of people coming over offering samples of their brew.

Some were really rough. however I settled on a Tamarillo infused version. Patric a standard maize flavour. 1Litre for 50cents.

Limited ourselves to one round. Not sure if the alcohol content would sterilise the ditch water or whatever it was made from. (No problems a couple of days on – What are the symptoms of Typhoid???)

with my fandangled calculator watch. (sorry, youll have to wait for a picture)

yesterday while stranded in the middle of nowhere on the bus i did some calculations.

2.5 years of holiday = 78840000 seconds, or 912.5 days, or 21900 hours, or 1314000 minutes, or 78840000 seconds
Ive been travelling 20,773,740 seconds so far (as at 10:29 yesterday)

leaving just 58,066,260 seconds left.

or 96,777 minutes

or 16129.5 hours

or 672 Days

or 1.8 years

Tempting to push it out to make it the 1000 day holiday I think

Note: this is not a moan/whinge, Just for my recollection of details, and some of it was enjoyable!

• 5:30am Check in. Somethings up. My bus is the only one without internal lights on
• 5:45am Departure time. They are attempting to push start the bus. (unsealed, uneven, rocky bus park)
• 6:20am. Success, congratulations the 60seater bus has an engine!
• 6:22am. Realise there is a 1 of 2 windows missing from the frame beside me. And its cold & dusty
• 6:30am. Success, using my pack clipped to the curtain, and wedging myself against the remainder of the curtain. its stopping most of the wind.
• 6.38am. Eveyone in the back of the bus is moved to the front 1/2 in the aisle. The conductor says this is the way its done in Tanzania. We are at the weighbridge
• 6:44am. Bus doesnt sound ok. loud clanking. Bus stops on the road
• 6.50am. Theres guys underneath, striking metal no metal.
• 7:15am. look out my window, and the bus driveshaft is being loaded into a matatu. along with all the bus staff. It drives away. Is this included in the Travel time allowance of 6 hours?
• 7:40am. Wish I’d charged my ipod. battery is low.
• 10:04am. D Joints for driveshaft arrive on a matatu. Still need the actual driveshaft
• 10:40am. RIP ipod
• 11:15 Salvation, a guy with sugar cane is cycling past, and someone stops him (yes someone had to stop him. This is not india!).
• 12:20. 10c well spent for 1hrs entertainment trying to eat raw sugar cane + juicy goodness
• 12:25. Apparently the drive shaft has been made. Just waiting for it to arrive.
• 12:45. Twende! (lets go). The bus is push started in 4 attempts.
• 1pm We leave the tarmac.
• 1:01pm. I realise the reason why there is only 1 window in the frame. All parts of the frame vibrate independently to each other and the wall of the bus. The other  window has obviously previously imploded.
• I didn’t know glass could withstand such violent vibration. If i had a decibel meter, i would have verified. but my guess the glass was creating ~90 to ~110db banging when vibrating. At a max distance of 40cm to my ear.
• Concerned that the glass is going to shatter, and slice my arm to bits, when in the middle of dusty nowhere!
• Thinking of how I packed my earplugs in my pack (under the bus)
• The ‘road’ is made of dust. like sand, but finer and easily airborne. Everything is covered in red dust.
• 5:45pm. We arrive in Tabora
• later on realizing my travel pack (earplugs) was in the bottom of my day bag all along.DOH! Priceless