Cheers to Ramadan

I'm now in Stone Town in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Zanzibar was run by the Omani people for many years. The Omani's introduced Islam and Slavery. The Zanzibarians said cheers for the religion and are still devout Muslims, which is not so great for a hungry tourist during Ramadan. But they weren't so keen on the slavery and gained their independence in 1964.

In the last African advocate I missed a member of the group. She's a very quiet 18 year old on a world tour.

The new members are;

• A pair of Aussie sisters whose constant bickering is a source of great amusement.


• Two more kiwi chicks, one is the organising type, the other is staunch, and both are always up for some Rugby World Cup watching.


• A slightly weird woman from Adelaide (perhaps that's an tautology).


• Ken a very funny Irish guy who is a bit of a drunk. (See above point about tautologies).


• Another aussie woman named Ange.
  
• Sweet innocent Rachel who just turned 21.
  

Scott, one of the guys who's left already, suggested that Bjoern, the Norwegian guy was sitting in his tent sharpening knives. So luckily for me I managed to share a tent with Ken instead. At one point I was having a shower and Bjoern was standing outside. When Ange arrived and asked if he was waiting for the shower he replied..., "no." For the second time this trip I became concerned for my anal virginity.

Bjoern also has the habit of keeping his video camera inside a large perspex box. It looks quite nerdy walking around with this big box, but I thought, well that's probably clever he's using his underwater camera case to keep the dust off. But in Zanzibar we learnt that he doesn't swim. Ken suggested that the box looks like something out of ghost busters, and that he can collect souls with that thing. I laughed a lot, but you probably had to be there.

Although our cruel high-school style jokes about Bjoern continue we do all make every effort to include him in activities. We are constantly looking out for him and making sure he makes it to dinner etc. Several people have tried to make conversations with him but his English is very poor and he struggles in a group. From what he was saying he booked the trip through a Norwegian company and was not expecting to be surrounding by a bunch of beer drinking idiots with strange accents.

Things have improved a lot on the social front. We all got put in the proper Kumuka truck, as was seen on the website. There's no longer a old crew, new crew divide. So much so that Ken, old crew, has hooked up with Claire, American from the new crew. Which makes we a third wheel and has meant I've had to share a room with Bjoern. So I have now been the butt of the jokes about sharpening knives.

On the tourist sights front we've done quite a bit I guess. We went to Ngorongoro crater and saw so many Zebra's I think I'm ready to eat one. I've now seen 4 of the "big 5" the leopard remains elusive, and the rhino I saw was so far away there's still conjecture as to whether it was a hippo. I guess I won't know until I get my 10 rolls of film developed.

I learnt the word in Swahilli for white person. It's Muzungu. Aparently it comes from the word kuzungu-zungu which means dizzy or hung over. So I've learnt to say "Mimi kuzungu-zungu muzungu" which is seems to please the locals.

We went to a Masai village and despite a bunch of Muzungu heading through there daily the children were still pleased to see us. It's difficult since we aren't supposed to give them anything, as it will turn them into beggars. But the army couple give balloons which give them a small amount of pleasure until the inevitable "pop" and cry.

We stayed a few nights in snake park. It's a camping ground and dangerous animal zoo. The combination of a bar and an open top crocodile enclosure seems like a severe breakdown in Operational Health and Safety standards. Claire proved her Americaness by lustfully hoping for the snakes to eat the small chicks during feeding time. Unfortunately for her, and probably her new partner Ken, this blood lust remains unresolved.

A few days ago it was Rachel's 21st. I saw it as a perfect excuse to get drunk. I bought myself a bottle of vodka. Apparently I had a great time. We were all dancing on the bar. Not long after that I was sleeping beside the bar. When did they make vodka so strong, 40% is ridiculous. The next day people were drawing straws to see who should sit next to me on the truck. Luckily I survived the trip without the need for a receptacle of any kind.

We're now on Zanzibar as I said at the top. Yesterday we went on the spice tour. We learnt all about spices and stuff. It was quite interesting. We then learnt what you can do with palm tree leaves. As you can see from this photo the answer is not much.

Tomorrow we take the ferry back to Dar Es Salam. Then we relax on the beach there for a day before heading to my 57th country Malawi. Am I winning yet Lisa and Jon?

It Began in Africa ca ca ca

Well I arrived into Nairobi and managed to get to the hotel without being mugged. So it was a good start.

The Kumuka leader was late for our pre-tour debriefing so we headed to the pub for a couple of drinks. I believe this has set the pattern for the remainder of the trip, if in doubt have a beer.

Our tour leader, Temba, eventually arrived. He's a Zimbabwean from Harare who thinks Mugabe is alright. He is also a farmer who managed to keep his farm.

The tour group at this initial meeting point consisted of 15 people;

• An aussie couple who are both ex-army. I'm getting on well with them, we went up the street to buy a hamburger.
  
• A kiwi chick. She's the chatty mousey type not the staunch type or the organising type.
  
• A creepy guy who we has hardly said a word. We discovered he was Norwegian which we thought explained it, but now we think he's weird as well.
  
• A mother and daughter team from Australia.
  
• An english couple who I've also bonded with. They are a bit posh and live in Edinburgh.
  
• An Australian woman doing the standard working in London trick.
  
• An ex-Zimbabwean farmers daughter who is not sure if she should talk politics with Temba.
  
• An American lady who is familiar with world views on the US and compensates by agreeing that Americans are crap.
  
• An older english couple. The husband annoyed me in the first 10 mins by complaining about a visa we may have to pay to corrupt officials. I immediately earmarked him as the whinger.
  
• Myself and someone else I must have forgotten.
  

In the morning a truck arrived spewing diesel fumes and looking nothing like the truck on the Kumuka website. But it's OK the fumes help you sleep on the long trips, so time really flies.

We arrived at Naivasha and met a group who had seen Gorillas. I'm sick of hearing about how great their experience was. (Yes I'm aware of the hypocracy in that statement.)

The new crew was mostly young drinkers from Australia. They had some leaving their group so they were very drunk when we arrived, making it a challenge to bond with them. But over the next few days I gave it a shot.

The tent system is generally, you share a tent. As the only 2 single guys, creepy Norwegian and I are the obvious ones to share. But so far we've had enough tents to have one each. Fingers crossed this system remains in place.

There is a roster system with Kumuka where you cook in a group every 4 or 5 days. I was on when we had a bunch of chickens to cook and not much to go with it. We'd also started late. But we did the best we could and everyone agreed it was the worst meal so far. The rice wasn't done but I think the chicken stew with random ingredients was OK. The undercooked chicken drumsticks were less popular. Of course the old english guy, who I'd earmarked as the whinger, did the most whinging. After cooking for 3 hours I was close to showing him where he could shove his stew.

Aside from all that I've seen 1,563 gazelles and/or impalas, 789 zebras, 341 wildebeasts, 120 Topies, 15 giraffes, 12 elephants, 8 hippos, 8 hyenas, 2 osriches, half a buffalo, 1 crocodile, 3 lionesses and 3 lion cubs.

I'm back in Nairobi after spendng time in the Masai Mara. I had a huge feed of meat at carnivores last night. Tomorrow we'd heading to Tanzania.