Yes, really. Today we have done 4, 6, 2 and 3 (in that order). We went to Bagamoyo on 4 and 6 (you have to change at Mwenge, on the outskirts of Dar), got a taxi to the Catholic Mission, which is where all them explorers set off from (Burton, Speke, Stanley) and where Livingstone’s body was kept before being shipped home. Then we took 2 wheels, as I introduced Eleanor to the world of piki-pikis (motorbike taxis) down to the harbour. She was very glad most of the road was tarred. It should probably be “harbour” in inverted commas, as it is mostly a beach with some dhows pulled up, and a very old mostly unused customs house, as well as a small fish market, on the site of what used to be the slave market. Clearly we like their current produce better. Tastier, more ethical, etc. It’s all very atmospheric, with the fish smoke wafting around. This is the old part of town, and there’s lots of renovation being done, esp. on the Old Post Office, which still has its gorgeous zanzibari doors, and green PO Boxes in the walls. We saw the house where the Emin Pasha got drunk and fell off a second story balcony, ‘cos clearly being out of Sudan and about to go back to Europe went to his head, and hid from the rain in a overly large thatched bar with three bored locals in it. (Despite being wicked important historically, Bagamoyo today is a teensy little place, with not a lot happening, but a very nice feel to it).
Then we took 3 wheels, in the form of a motorised rickshaw, down to the Kaole ruins, C13-15th Arabic ruins by the coast (now behind mangrove swamp), which were very very cool.
Tag: Travel
Check out the bedraggled state of this book. It’s my Tanzania guide from my gap year, when I spent 3 months working in a teeny little village on the edge of the escarpment of the Rift Valley in central Tanzania. Doesn’t it just look loved to death?
Well, it’s time to get another, new guide book to Tanzania, and love it to death as well. I’m toying between the Lonely Planet (which is more recent) and the Bradt (which is by the guy who wrote my Rwanda guide, aka the best guide book I have ever owned). Yep. I booked flights to Dar es Salaam today. It was both a little impetuous and a little not. I was going to be going to Cape Town with Mel to see if we could catch some rugby, but that didn’t work out (*slayeth internal organs of fail*) so I was wondering what to do in June. And before you ask, no, I really couldn’t not travel. That’d make it over six months between my upcoming ski jaunt and, well, September/October and wherever I end up in the next academic year. Not On, World.
1. There’s tension involved in travel, even when you go on your own. The ‘why am I here’, ‘what’s my purpose in life’, am I just jumping through tourist hoops’ kind of tension. I think it happens every trip, and yet, when you come back you just sort-of forget about it. So, just learn that when it happens you should consider stopping seeing the things you’ve got on your list that you want to see – even if you really really really want to see them – for an afternoon and find a park or a sofa to sit and read a novel, or write screeds of nonsense working through your tourist-monkey issues, or email all the folks at home. And then go out the next day and get over it – chances are you’ll find something wonderful that makes you think that even if you are being a tourist-monkey, it’s probably worth it (hello, Kinkaku-Ji and Nanzen-Ji, Kyoto.
2. There’s more tension involved in watching other people travel – especially to historically sensitive places like Auschwitz. You have to work through that too – normally with the aid of pen and paper, but you’re allowed to talk to other people about it, ‘cos it’s not just emo-esque self-indulgent wank. It’s something worth thinking about. What kind of photos should you take in such places?
Please tell me that this is not the new England shirt. I adore the sight of Paul Sackey scoring tries, but I’m not sure that I adore that shirt. Please tell me that it’s just a change strip because the Pacific Islanders were in white. Please. It looks like an Arsenal shirt. Ugh.
In other news, Spain is lots of nice things. Among other stuff, the hot chocolate is amazing, clearly, and the food is all kinds of good things. I have been taking lots’n'lots of pictures, as ever, but I forgot my camera cable, and so ye cannae see any of them till I get home on Wednesday. Or as my father said, “So the world can expect a deluge of Madrid photos then, can it?” Well, just my world. I very much doubt refugees in the DRC will be paying attention.
I wholeheartedly recommend Bulgaria as a holiday destination. I wouldn’t recommend driving in Bulgaria quite so much, unless you have nerves of steel and enjoy driving on long windy pot-holed mountain passes where drivers (including articulated lorries) overtake at will, despite imminent hairpin bends. Those hills in the background of that shot, in fact. On one day trip, from Gabrovo to Plovdiv, we passed an overturned lorry on the way up and over the Shipka pass – fortunately (ha!) it just seemed to have overturned under the force of gravity rather than actually smashing into anything. Our return trip over the pass was made more interesting by and “automobile catastrophe” (pronounce it like it’s French, please), which meant that, in the dark, we had to go up and over the longer, windier, worse laid, older pass next door. So buses, they’re the way forward, especially since they’re often coaches, and you can shut your eyes and pretend that cars aren’t driving straight for you. Anyway, apart from the driving. Gorgeous scenery, stunning weather – pretty much 30-34 degrees everyday we were there – fabulous people. Plus, we got to stay at a place with a pool with a view.
Back from the Bulgarian wedding. More on that later (but it was lots of fun).
Already watching the Olympics – and sniffling over the men in the lightweight double sculls, bless them. Cycling is a very odd sport in the velodrome is it not? They barely move for the first little bit, and then all hell breaks loose, and then it’s over?
