Amanda spends the week with her mother, Jenny. They catch up with an old relative, revisit Jenny’s old home, stay in an old Lord’s summer home, visit an old castle and crash an old car.
Also, Amanda gets bitten by the gambling bug.
Tag Archives: travel
Kilimanjaro
Mount Kilimanjaro looking all mysterious beyond the disturbingly inactive-looking propellors of our plane.
I’m not going to write a huge update right now. Today’s events deserve a proper write up. Right now we’re relaxing in our upgraded hotel suite, which is approximately the size of a tennis court. Our bathroom has enough space in the shower cubicle for a dozen people and there is a view out the window (of our room, not the shower) of a mosque so festooned with fairy lights it looks like the world’s most inappropriate attempt to replicate a Christmas tree architecturally.
Viva la Africa!
Arusha, Tanzania
We spent more time in transit getting from London to Arusha than you would normally spend getting from Australia to the UK, which is twice the distance. Mainly because we had a huge gap between arriving in Tanzania and the domestic flight to Arusha, Tanzania’s second largest city, not far from Mt Kilamanjaro.
Dar Es Salaam airport, where we landed, was possibly the most basic airport we’ve been to so far. We arrived at about 2:30am and, apart from all the people getting off the plane, the airport was almost deserted. We found a shop in the airport complex that would mind our bags for the night. Not a shop that actually advertised bag minding, mind you, just somewhere the lady at the check in counter recommended and I found the owner asleep in a plastic chair out the front of his shop. Thank goodness we bought the pac safe before we left. We were farewelled with ‘Hakuna Matata’, which you will be instantly familiar with from the Lion King and is either something people here say all the time or something people here think tourists expect to hear all the time.
Divested of our huge travel packs, we lay down on some purgatorial metal benches and managed to fall asleep for a few hours, despite garbled loud speaker announcements, occasional blaring of soccer on the nearby tv and the bright fluorescent lights.
We looked, felt and smelled like hobos when we woke up at about 8am to check in for our 11am flight. Fortunately so did half the other people in the airport. The other half were dressed in the fantastically bright colours that I associate with Africa. One lady had on what looked like a black business suit that has had a terminal collision with a flamingo. And shoes! African women like them with gigantic wedge heels with as much sparkle as can be managed. The obvious choice for long haul flights.
We sampled the rather limited fare at the airport… canteen? I’d use the word ‘cafe’ but that would give entirely the wrong impression. It was a lot like a school canteen but nearly everyone looked miserable. So actually more like a hospital canteen. They also refused to take the pre 2003 US dollars which the bank in London had given Luke. Fortunately there weren’t too many of those notes. Apparently people do not like them because they are easily forged.
The flight to Arusha was in a quite small plane. I did not realise how much the size of the plane affects the amount it shudders and bumps in the air. Getting up to cruising altitude and down again was somewhat hair-raising. It was a relatively modern plane – no crates of chickens or wooden benches to sit on a la Indiana Jones (to my disappointment) but the lady in front of me did leave her rather large bag in the aisle nearly the whole flight and the attendants just stepped over it. It seemed a minor thing but so unthinkable to me – how many microseconds exactly would a bag last in the aisle of an Australian plane?
Speaking of planes, the flight from Istanbul was 7 hours and the guy next to me was one of those charming people who does not fit into his seat and does not do anything to help matters, sitting with his foot in my footwell (he was in the aisle seat) and having his elbow and shoulder in my space. It’s a difficult issue – no one wants their space invaded, and yet telling people to buy a more expensive seat or lose 30 kgs doesn’t seem right either. Or does it? I don’t know.
We made it to our Arusha hotel without incident and checked into our rather sparse two bedroom suite. It’s right in the middle of town with a view over the local, rather derelict, sporting field. From our room the sound of car horns is pretty much constant and the mosques can be frequently heard.
We lay down for a rather long nap then headed out for dinner to a place called ‘Khan’s’, which advertises itself as ‘chicken on the bonnet’ because it is a mechanic’s by day and then they grill food out the front at night. The guys there were all super friendly and the food smelled amazing. It also happened to be on the same street as the hotel but two blocks down so nice and easy to find. Another Tripadvisor find. I must say that, while it seems almost lazy to be getting recommendations for things from just one website, Tripadvisor is yet to steer us wrong.
We had a shared meal and drinks for about $7 US each. We helped ourselves to a plate of salad each then they brought over plates of meat, bread and chips. The chips were not great but everything else was really tasty. Tandoori-style chicken, mince cooked on skewers, beef pieces were all really nice.
Chicken pieces over coals.
My ‘passionfruit’ drink was a disturbingly radioactive colour but turned out to be quite nice. The boys got totally retro coke and pepsi bottles.
As we finished a lady, obviously quite poor, wandered up and made motions towards the food. We had eaten everything except the chips so I said she could have them. A couple of guys from the restaurant wandered over and she tipped the chips into her bag. They were telling her to go but she was saying something back (it was all in Swahili) but then hit them and they started fighting! The men were trying to restrain her and push her away then she started ranting at us and called us ‘Americanos’ but we had no idea what she was saying. We got up to go and pay and the owners were very angry with her. Seems like they get people like this coming by and causing trouble. I felt a bit guilty for starting it but they said it happens. They did not have the most charitable attitude towards her, which I can understand, but she genuinely seemed mentally disturbed to me. You wouldn’t think giving unwanted food to a person would start a fight. I couldn’t help but think it was like feeding a seagull at the beach. Things start off calm then swiftly descend into madness.
We wandered back up the road, buying one of those ubiquitous woven bracelets (‘Because it is Ramadan! You help!’) for a couple of dollars. Touts here, as Luke observed, seem more friendly than in Asia. At least they will walk and talk with you for a bit before trying to sell you something. not just ‘You buy! You buy!’.
An early start tomorrow, hopefully the World Vision meet up goes well and then I can relax!
Stressed!
We’re in Gatwick at a B&B for the night before heading to the airport at 8:30 tomorrow morning. We both woke up feeling a bit stressed and frantic this morning. I realised I’d left a few important jobs until it was to late – no time now to get my legs waxed (do people wax their legs in Tanzania? My complete lack of knowledge about Africa is becoming painfully apparent. Can we buy clothes? Pillows if we need them for camping? Somehow my brain has substituted the environment of Mars for Eastern Africa).
Malaria meds were another thing on the list. I’m planning on buying them when I get there because I went into Tesco to buy it at the in-store pharmacy and the non-prescription tablets were over 100 pounds for a 7 week course so I went to the doctor in Bar Hill but it was 45 pounds for a consultation. Online research says I could get the tablets far cheaper in Dar Es Salaam so I’ll aim for that and try to avoid getting bitten before I can stock up. Considering that you’re supposed to start malaria meds before you leave… well… there’s no point in telling me off in the comments box because it’s too late. So don’t bother. Besides, I can feel your judgement from here. And yes I know malaria can be fatal. Quiet!
So, I woke up at 6:45 and couldn’t get back to sleep, not only because I’m disorganised but because we’ve got three flights in a row in 48 hours, which multiplies my punctuality anxiety by a million. If any flight is cancelled or delayed that’s about $2000 down the toilet. Just thinking about it raises my blood pressure. We’re flying London to Istanbul (7 hours) then Istanbul to Dar Es Salaam (about 6 I think) and we arrive there at about 3am and have to wait until 11am for our flight to Arusha. Long airport layovers are among the more serious first world problems, I’m sure you’ll agree. We’re spending one night in Arusha because my school’s World Vision sponsor child lives there and although the tour we’re doing passes through Arusha, it passes through on a Sunday and, being a Christian organisation (but not in the slightest bit charitable or relenting), they won’t offer any visits to students on a holy day. Which has cost me quite a bit of money but I’m sure it’ll all be worth it. The bonus of doing it this way is that we get to visit with this student at school, which is more interesting for me and will also mean better footage for the short film we’re planning to make and send back to the kids at my school to show them where their sponsor money is going.
But until we’re in Arusha and in the hands of our WV rep I’m going to be stressing about getting there on time and with all baggage accounted for. Our carrier, ‘Precision Air’ (ahaha! The irony!) is apparently renowned for losing baggage.
I’ve probably mentioned before that I’m somewhat notorious among friends for being chronically dreadful with times and dates, so organising these flights, the hotels and everything means I’m just waiting for that heart-stopping moment when I realise that I’ve booked a hotel for the wrong night, or that our flights don’t match up or some other obvious and costly thing has been miscalculated. Honestly, it’s only a matter of time.
Today’s mission, to get from Cambridge to London, change our pounds for US dollars (popular in Africa) and then get to our B&B went hearteningly smoothly. Fingers crossed for the rest of the trip.
I should add, before we fly out, that we have no idea what internet access is going to be like over the course of the tour. Hopefully we’ll get occasional opportunities to update but otherwise we’ll be offline for ages and ages. I might die from blog withdrawal, only time will tell. I am planning to buy a paper diary so that I can then transcribe every bit of the trip into blog posts when we get to somewhere with wifi. This, probably, is one of my traditional grand-plans-that-never-happen. We’ll see. I’m envisaging my African tour as heaps of fun with me moaning every half hour or so to anyone who’ll listen that I wish I could put this in the blog and then forgetting about it half an hour later. Just in time to moan about the next thing.
You see what Luke has to put up with.
We get back to Turkey at the end of August. Catch y’all on the flip side!
Isle of Skye Roadtrip
We set off on Sunday morning after dealing with the almost predictable dead battery situation. I left the lights on the previous day so it wasn’t Van Failen’s fault this time. I suppose. Although if I ever get the chance to slap the faces of the people who decided that no indicator light or sound was necessary to let the driver know the lights are on when the engine is off… well, let’s just say that there’ll be a run-up involved.
Due to the many times we’ve had to deal with this in the past, we dealt with it relatively quickly and were on the road around 10am. First stop was the unexpectedly adorable town of Pitlochry. It looked a lot like Kendal in the Lake District… and if you don’t know what that looks like, just picture winding streets, slate houses and add lots of people in shorts and t-shirts because the weather was absolutely beautiful.
We stopped at a bakery which had a stack of 1st class strawberries and raspberries for sale out the front. We ate pastries, stocked up on fruit for snacking on and then headed towards Inverness and Loch Ness. We drove down one side and headed for a castle Leigh had heard of. Unfortunately the price of entry was a bit steep so we headed to Glen Affric, reportedly one of Scotland’s most beautiful glens and not far away at all.
A 5km walk provided a very pleasant break from sitting in the car and we saw waterfalls, a secluded pool and lots of pretty flowers.
On the road again and our next stop was Eilean Donan castle, one of the most picturesque castles in Scotland. We almost inadvertently took part in a wedding that was happening there at the time, Sarah, Nikki and Leigh getting caught between the couple and the photographer as they walked across the bridge.
It was a long day’s drive by the time we reached Skye at about 9pm. We’d talked about wild camping but found a cheap campsite almost immediately. When our camp stove turned out to be lacking fuel we were glad we were able to beg use of the manager’s to make our pasta.
The only downside to camping turned out to be the midges, which I’d heard about but not experienced. They’re tiny, tiny bugs that fly around your face if the air is still. If you walk around they disperse but if you’re still they’re pretty annoying. Bugs around my face usually drive me mental, but strangely it was Luke who freaked out more this time, his nerves probably worn a bit thin by all the driving (we’d done about 4 hours each).
Our mish-mash dinner of pasta mixed with whatever pestos, cheese and vegetables we could find tasted extremely good after all that traveling. We had some wine and chatted… then were told off for talking too loudly (which we were) so we went to bed.
Our campsite the next morning. I think everyone else was asleep at this point.
We decided to drive the loop around the top of Skye the next morning and were blown away by the amazing scenery. We stopped in a few places to look at the view. Notably at the Quiraing, a spectacular spot with some outstanding rock formations. Sarah and I had looked up walks in the area and there seemed to be one that started there. We parked at the carpark and started out but I quickly realised this was far too steep and precarious for my liking so Luke and I drove down to the bottom so we could pick up the others and they could walk the whole way down. We did take some great photos before we left though.
We stopped at Kilt Rock to have a look, then into Portree for lunch. Tasty fish and chips then a drink in a pub but by this time I was starting to fade. Hayfever had been driving me crazy for the last week and so Luke kindly offered to do the first stretch of the return drive and I closed my eyes for most of the trip. We stopped at the charming ‘Old Mill’ in Pitlochry for a drink and to swap drivers. Luke got to have a beer then I did the last 90 minutes back to Edinburgh.
Traveling with a group of people was certainly fun but also a different experience to the way Luke and I had been traveling up to this point. We’d had a month with my mum but 3 doesn’t feel like a group. The more people there are the more toilet stops, food breaks and opinions you need to consider. We only did it for two days, but it made me realise that when you’re on the move as a group things take longer than you expect and everyone needs to communicate their expectations frequently – myself most definitely included. We all got on extremely well and there were no issues but I could see that, if a group of 4 or more traveled together for long periods you’d want to have everything really worked out before you left.
So we made it back to Edinburgh just fine and got ourselves set up to sleep by about midnight. Which was when Sarah realised her flight in the morning was substantially earlier than she’d realised – 6am, in fact. She only ended up getting about an hour’s sleep before having to sneak out and catch the bus to the airport. Luke and I immediately fell back to sleep and lay in bed til 10am. It was sad to farewell Nikki and Leigh… but not for long – we’ll be seeing them in Africa within the week!
Here Comes The Planet 