I'm writing this post from the capital of Burundi, Bujumbura.
First, I wanted to write something I forgot to add in the last post, but it was so long anyways it's probably better I forgot. As I wrote I was on a pretty awful fishing boat for 20+ hours from Mahale Mountain park to Kigoma. Well, there was one memorable experience outside of just being on the damn boat for so long. That night was the Champions League final between Man. United and Chelsea, and a few people had brought along radios just to listen to the game. So for quite a few hours, I think the game ended close to 1am our time, I sat with a few folk moving radio antennas around constantly trying to get a faint signal of the game. Since it was a BBC broadcast in English, and I was the only person on the boat with anything remotely close to decent English it was up to me to let them know when goals were scored by who, when it was half time, the extra times, and finally each penalty result. Most people were Chelsea fans, so they were quite dissapointed with the result. For me it was just cool to listen to the Champions League final from a fishing boat in the middle of Lake Tanganyika.
Well, I spent a few days in Kigoma before making a half days set of bus rides over to Bujumbura. At the border they issued me a visa for three days only, so I have to leave tomorrow for Rwanda, despite wanting to have stayed here for a few more days. Apparently tourists get three days. From Kigoma you have to go a little east up into the mountains to the border, and than you go back down the mountains on the Burundi side to the lake which you than take north all the way to the capital. The ride is absolutely spectactular with some beautiful mountain scenery, especially on the Burundi section and than being on the lake is always amazing.
Burundi is a very poor country, possibly the world's poorest. GDP is estimated at less than 100 dollars per person per year!, and you can tell that it's just really, really poor. The GDP figure is misleading in my opinion, because of Bujumbura, but I'll get to that in a second. Outside of the capital there is pretty much just subsistence agriculture, fishing, and I think most people just feed themselves and make less than the 100 dollars figure. The country is very small, but is densely populated with a population around 9 million. Only Rwanda is more densely population in Africa. It has no mineral resources, has pretty much deforested the entire country for agriculture, which will lead to serious problems, and has no strong infrastructure for anything. It's not in the best shape to put it extremely mildly. Much of this is because since independence from the Belgians in the 60's its been fighting an on again off again civil war. The roots of the conflict are the same that caused Rwandas, ethnic violence between Hutus and Tutsis. Most people know quite a bit about Rwanda's violence, but just in the mid-90's more than 100,000 people were killed in Burundi too, and almost nobody's even heard of the country let alone its ethnic and political violence. The final ceasefire was implemented just in 2006, and there has been occasional attacks, including one about a month ago south of the capital. Things are considered in general to be pretty stable, and people think politically its headed in the right direction.
Alright, so now to Bujumbura. Bujumbura kind of sprawls down the hills to the lake at the northern end of Lake Tanganyika. The hills are beautiful, and across the lake you can see the towering mountains on the Congolese side. It's a very pretty natural setting, and the only thing more I could ask for would be beaches. The coast is very marshy in this area, and you have to go further south for beaches.
Bujumbura, despite being the capital of possibly the poorest country in the world, is by no means cheap. There is no cheap accomodation, I'm paying 30 dollars a night in a fine hotel, but one that is considered on the low end of the spectrum here. In Lusaka, for example, I paid five dollars a night, and Zambia's a much richer country. Apparently, the main reason for this is absolutely insane numbers of foreign aid organizations that have operations in Bujumbura. Kigoma, in Tanzania, I thought was a pretty NGO happy place. Bujumbura is on speed and crack together with the amount of NGO's around here. Every possible UN acronym group is here, and so many other groups from the US and every European country you can imagine too. Basically they've single handidly made the city pretty expensive, especially accomodation. For someone like me, here for only a few days, its no big deal, but for the average Burundian I can't even begin to imagine what its like to live here. All of a sudden you have this pretty large foreign population that can pay ten times for more for all basic services and products, and like any market it reacts and adjusts accordingly, screwing over the poorest folks.
There is also a small population is extraordinarily wealthy Burundians. There are ton of villas in this city, some areas remind me of Beverly Hills, and not all belong to foreign aid workers. The 100 dollar figure is off because you have a population in the capital making millions of dollars, meaning to get to the 100 dollar figure most people make nothing during the year, which would make sense based on the small farms you see most people living on everywhere outside the capital. There is some hope though, and its coffee. Burundi apparently produces some of the finest high end coffee in the world, and its now the biggest export of the country. Hopefully it can bring in enough money to help out some portion of the population. I'm not the most optimistic.
During my time in Buj, I've walked around from the top to the bottom of the city, eaten pretty well, and just relaxed. There's nothing in terms of sights to see at all for the place. No museums, no monuments, nada, but that's fine since I'm not a huge museum and monument person. Healthwise, I'm still trying to get back to where I was before I got malaria, and I'm pretty close, basically 100 percent. I do want to mention how good the food is here. There are bakeries everywhere, lots of tropical fruits, and the food is very influenced by the Belgians. There's also a wide variety of asian restaurants from the small, but culinarily active south asian community in Buj, and what I had heard before coming here was true. The food in Bujumbura is the best I've had in East Africa.
So tomorrow I have a bus to Kigali, Rwanda. I'll spend a few days there before going on to my next rift valley lake, Lake Kivu. I haven't seen another traveller yet, although plenty of aid workers in Kigoma and here in Buj, and will see if this continues in Kigali. I'm pretty sure I'll meet other folks on Lake Kivu though, and while its been cool to be the only traveller in these parts the last few weeks, I'm ready to meet some other folks.
Hope everyone is doing well, and I imagine I'll write again after a few days being at Lake Kivu. Tchau, B
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
lake tanganyika pictures
here are links to my albums for the lake. also, shara, maybe you can help with this, it would cool if there was a map feature you could add to the blog. some way so you could see with google earth or some other feature where all these places are. if you know how to add this, por favor let me know.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101189&l=2d334&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101188&l=fa3de&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101187&l=307a2&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101186&l=edc33&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101189&l=2d334&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101188&l=fa3de&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101187&l=307a2&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101186&l=edc33&id=2606069
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Mpulungu, Muslims, Malaria, Mwongozo, Mahale, and More!!!
Hi, I hope you all appreciate the effort that went into this posts title.
Well, its been quite a two weeks to say the least, and this will probably be a long post. I'll just start from where I last ended at Victoria Falls unti I made it this morning to Kigoma, Tanzania.
After a nice few days in southern Zambia in Livingstone and Victoria Falls I took a 24 hour bus ride to the far north of the country to Zambia's port on Lake Tanganyika, Mpulungu. I arrived pretty exhuasted from the bus, but in better shape than I thought I'd be. I assumed there'd be a bank, internet, some someblance of a town there, but I was wrong. It's a pretty small town with just the most basic services, so no bank, no internet, nada. The setting is gorgeous, right on Lake Tangayika, with two islands right off shore. Since I planned on there being a bank, and didn't have enough money for the next part of my trip, two days after arriving I had to take a 5 hour bus(each way!) the nearest town with a bank. I guess that's the price I pay for not checking things out first.
Anyways, I arrived on Sunday and on Friday a big passenger boat was scheduled to depart north towards Tanzania and the chimpanzee park, Mahale Mountain, that I really wanted to visit. Outside of teh bank day I spent my days hiking and canoeing around the lake. First, a little side story.
I found one place in town that served rice, which was great, because I can't stand nsima. There was a big poster of the Dome of the Rock, the Hajj and Medina, so I assumed the owners were muslim. There's a big mosque at the entrance to town as well, and Zambia has an ok sized muslim population, suppsedly. Well, after my second day there in a row the owner came to talk with me in very poor english. Eventually I told him I came from Israel and that I had been to the Dome of the Rock, pointing to the poster on the wall. Well...due to the difficulty in communication it turns out he thought I was a muslim after I told him I was at the mosque. I didn't discover this until the next day when I came back for my rice and vegetables and there were two guys in those perfectly white long dress looking things that you see many arab and muslim men wear. They said hello, they were happy to meet me and quote "you may try to make plans, but only Allah can choose your path". Both were from Malawi originally, I found out, and spoke very good English, unlike the restaurant owner. They than told me that I should stay in Mpulungu start some businesses, but first there are some charitable donations that I should make. They than gave me a list of a few different things from some fellow muslim's medical bills, to mosque repairs, and a donation to their local school.
At this point I'm confused, kind of uncomfortable, but I had figured out at least that they thought I was muslim. At this point I told them that I think there's a misunderstanding. I told them I was not muslim, to which they reacted quite confused. It turns out the misunderstanding was when I pointed to the poster. They all thought you had to be a muslim to be able to go to the Dome of the Rock. They were quite embarrassed after realizing the mistake, but there was no tension. I kept coming back to that place each day I was in mpulungu for rice and vegetables(cabbage only) and the owner was as friendly as you could imagine.
Well, I went on two hikes while I was there waiting for the boat. One was through a road, and footpaths between the closest town to Mpulungu, Mbala, and Mpulungu. Alltogether it was around 35k, so I was pretty tired, but it was an awesome hike. Great views of the lake, nice people and villages along the way, and I got to see a lot of small farms.
The next day I went to Kalambo falls, which is the second highest single drop fall in Africa, whatever that means exactly, at 212 meters. Victoria Falls isn't even the highest falls in its own country. After walking up the rift valley escarpment a few hours I got to the amazing falls. The gorge is stunning, tons of birds flying around, and its a big falls. I'll post pictures so y'all can see. My other days in mpulungu i just rented a small dugout canoe and went to the offshore islands and went swimming. I also read another book, this one by an African author, Elechi Amadi. I read his first book, The Concubine, which was very good, and I highly recommend it. He's Nigerian, and his books are on traditional Nigerian life and his experiences during the civil war there. I'm hoping to find another one of his at some point along the way.
So Friday comes, the boat to Tanzania is supposed to arrive, and I wake up feeling horrible. In the back of my mind I knew immediately what it was, but I didn't want to admit it. The boat hadn't shown up, so I went to the harbor, and they said it was delayed, but would come in the afternoon. Meanwhile, I'm just feeling worse and worse, and I go to the hostel owner and tell him I need to see a doctor. I had aches everywhere, a horrible headache, felt dizzy, all the signs of malaria. A doctor came to the hostel pretty shortly thereafter and gave me this prick on the spot malaria test they do. It came out negative, but they often do when in fact its malaria. In any case he told me to start taking the medications to treat it. I have enough for four or five bouts of Malaria, so that wasn't an issue, and I started on those pills. Well, just after that the hostel owner told me he heard the boat wasn't coming until the next day, which was just as good, because there was no way I was going to be able to get on that boat. For about 24 hours I was competely miserable, and another 24 hours feeling horrible. The boat came in the next morning, and somehow I managed to walk over to the harbor and get on it. It was probably not the best decision to get on the boat for my health, but if I didn't get on the boat than I was stuck in mpulungu with no way of getting to the park and it would have been an enormous hassle.
The boat, normally the Liemba, is supposed to go from its main port of Kigoma, in Tanzania, to Mpulungu and back once a week. Well, the UN has recently started shipping Congolese refugees that fled to Zambia back to the Congo with this boat. For about two months, and for another few months its pretty much just doing the refugee runs. The boat that came, the Mwongozo, usually goes from Kigoma to the capital of Burundi. About once a month now it does the Kigoma to Mpulungu route, and I got really lucky that the week I showed up in Mpulungu it was coming. So if I didn't get on the boat that day I'd really be stuck in Mpulungu.
My first day on the boat I felt horrible still, but it wasn't as bad as the first day, so that was one promising sign at least. I got myself first class cabin, which while not comfortable by any means, at least meant I had a room to myself. This was Saturday, and when I woke up Sunday I felt almost like a new person. Not feeling great, but compared to the previous two days I could not have been happier. Until than I thought there was no way I'd be able to go to Mahale Mountain park, and that I'd have to take the boat all the way to Kigoma. The stop for Mahale Mountain was supposed to be around 3-4am on Monday, so I told myself I keep feeling better all day than I'll still get off.
The boat ride itself is amazing in its own right. The lake is stunning, and there are small villages every few kilometers. The boat stops in the lake at quite a few villages, since there are no docks big enough for it to stop at, and small boats race out to bring it passengers and cargo. Its absolute chaos with boats ramming eachother, cargo falling in the water, fights breaking out, and its quite a scene to witness. I was going to have to get down onto these boats at the Mahale stop, which wasn't the most comforting thought, but I felt better all day and I was set on going to that park. Also, after appearing outside my room, after being holed up teh first day sick, I was something of a celebrity on the boat. The captain invited me to the wheel, radio room, whatever, and everybody wanted to talk to me. I was the only foreigner, and in fact from Mpulungu until I arrived this morning in Kigoma, almost two weeks, I met no other travellers or foreigners at all. I was even given permission to use the officers deck to sit and enjoy the ride. It's the top deck of the boat, and its practically void of people, while the bottom two levels are overflowing with people.
Well, the huge horn that goes off at each stop went off at 4:30am at the stop for Mahale Mountains, I was feeling even better than the day before, and I got off in the middle of the night into the madness of the small fishing boat frenzy. No problems though, and a few minutes later I made it to shore. I may not have had malaria, the test did come out negative, but I'm pretty sure I did. The symptoms were the same, and the fact that after taking the medication I improved so rapidly makes me think it was malaria. Its behind me now though, I feel fine, and I really, really hope I don't get it again. I don't think I can ever donate blood again, which kind of sucks.
Anyways, I got to the park headquarters for Mahale Mountain, and was in for a small shock. The costs for the park, new as of January 1st, are ridiculous. You have to pay 80 US for each 24 hours you stay in the park, you have to pay 50 dollars for the park boat to transport you from their headquarters to the campsite, 20 dollars for every four hours you have a park guide, and you're not allowed to walk without a guide, and finally 30 dollars per night for their accomadations. Even if you bring your own tent, its 30 dollars. In short, you have to pay a fortune to see the park. I had come all this way, so I wasn't not going to go, but I couldn't stay as long as I wanted. The other issue was a boat back to Kigoma. I arrived in the park on Monday, and there was a boat to Kigoma on Wednesday and Saturday. I couldn't afford to pay park fees through Saturday, so I had no choice but to leave on Wednesday, yesterday for Kigoma. The fees, in my opinion, represent how Africa is really a destination more catered for high end tourism only. I'll try to write more about it in a different post, but this one will be way too long as is, so it'll have to wait.
So......after a long argument I got the park people to let me pay 80 dollars one time, enter the park on Monday and leave Wednesday morning. I also got them to agree to let me pay for two guided hikes, but have them be all day and not be timed to the 4 hour bullshit. I had travelled on a boat for two days, planned on going to this park for months, and at this point I was just going to have to bit the bullet and pay a lot of money.
The park is absolutely stunning. The Mahale mountains rise up to 2,500 meters, and go straight into the lake. The water is exceptionally clear in this area and there are stretches of actually white sand from the ground of shells. The forests on the mountains are dense, tropical, and some of the prettiest I have ever seen. The mountains create their own weather system, so the area gets a lot more rain than the surrounding area. The area is also home to around 700 chimpanzees, the largest community left anywhere, and has been the site of a Japanese research project since the 60's.
So I hiked some 12 hours alltogher through thick forest, got stung by nasty flies, ants, and probably some other things, sweated out half my body weight, and I saw.....NO chimpanzees! Writing it just now its still hard for me to grasp, but I saw none. Chimpanzees move along the same trails pretty constantly, and every few days they move high up into the mountains, where there are no hiking trails, for a few days. Well, my guide is pretty convinced that I came during the two days the chimpanzees are up in the mountains. The hiking was absolutely amazing, its beautiful there, but I was, and still am to a lesser degree though, quite dissapointed in not seeing the chimpanzees.
On the second day we came across the Japanese researcher, this was already the end of the day, and upon hearing that I hadn't seen any chimps and that I was leaving the next day because of the costs started pleading with the park rangers to let me stay. I thanked him, but told him it wasn't his fight, and it wouldn't not have done any good. He offered to let me stay at his research station, and he's a really nice guy who's been to Israel too. He's collecting data for some post doctoral research of his, so I wish him lots of good research data and hope his papers get published.
A bit demoralized after everything I had gone through to get to the park and not having seen the chimps I left Mahale mountain yesterday morning for what I thought would be about a 10 hour ride on local fishing boats to Kigoma. When I got on I was told that we'd be arriving the next morning, today. So that just added to my mood, but I think at that point so many things had not gone according to plan that I no longer cared. The boat ride was horribly uncomfortable, but I actually quite enjoyed it. Last night was cold and miserable, and I'll never do anything like it again, but it was a hell of an experience, and I have really experienced this lake.
Now I'm in Kigoma, I've showered, and I'm just starting to take in the last few weeks on this lake. A few things about the lake(no, the post ain't over). Lake Tanganyika is the longest lake in the world and the second deepest. It has the second largest volume too after Lake Baikal in Russia, which is also the worlds deepest. Zambia, Tanzania, Burundi, and Congo border it, and there are almost no roads throughout the entire lake. The only way you get around is some kind of boat or flying, but there are very few airstrips throughout the area as well. You can see the Congo side pretty much everywhere you are, and I can't even begin to imagine what amazing, unknown sites are on that side. If that country ever becomes stable I am going to get to their side of the lake. I'm not done with the lake though on the this trip. I'm going to stay in Kigoma tomorrow, and on Saturday I continue north on the lake to the capital of Burundi, Bujumbura, which lies on the northern tip. I'll be in Burundi for only a day or two on my way to Rwanda. I've talked with people who were there a month ago, the country is stable, so no worries for anyone who has misgivings about Burundi. I've hard Bujumbura, Buj, is a really cool city so I'm looking forward to spending a day or two there. The lake is amazing, I'm in love with the rift valley lakes, and I'm glad I'll have several more days on the lake before I finally leave Bujumbura at the beginning of next week.
I'm absolutely exhausted, I haven't slept well in a long time, but my health is good. The malaria is gone, so there is no need to worry about that, and I'm going to spend the next few days in Kigoma and Bujumbura eating really well and sleeping a lot. I will post pictures tomorrow, the internet is really fast here:-), so I'll post those links when they're ready or just check out my facebook profile.
Hope everyone is doing well, and I'll write more from Bujumbura or Rwanda. Tchau, B
Well, its been quite a two weeks to say the least, and this will probably be a long post. I'll just start from where I last ended at Victoria Falls unti I made it this morning to Kigoma, Tanzania.
After a nice few days in southern Zambia in Livingstone and Victoria Falls I took a 24 hour bus ride to the far north of the country to Zambia's port on Lake Tanganyika, Mpulungu. I arrived pretty exhuasted from the bus, but in better shape than I thought I'd be. I assumed there'd be a bank, internet, some someblance of a town there, but I was wrong. It's a pretty small town with just the most basic services, so no bank, no internet, nada. The setting is gorgeous, right on Lake Tangayika, with two islands right off shore. Since I planned on there being a bank, and didn't have enough money for the next part of my trip, two days after arriving I had to take a 5 hour bus(each way!) the nearest town with a bank. I guess that's the price I pay for not checking things out first.
Anyways, I arrived on Sunday and on Friday a big passenger boat was scheduled to depart north towards Tanzania and the chimpanzee park, Mahale Mountain, that I really wanted to visit. Outside of teh bank day I spent my days hiking and canoeing around the lake. First, a little side story.
I found one place in town that served rice, which was great, because I can't stand nsima. There was a big poster of the Dome of the Rock, the Hajj and Medina, so I assumed the owners were muslim. There's a big mosque at the entrance to town as well, and Zambia has an ok sized muslim population, suppsedly. Well, after my second day there in a row the owner came to talk with me in very poor english. Eventually I told him I came from Israel and that I had been to the Dome of the Rock, pointing to the poster on the wall. Well...due to the difficulty in communication it turns out he thought I was a muslim after I told him I was at the mosque. I didn't discover this until the next day when I came back for my rice and vegetables and there were two guys in those perfectly white long dress looking things that you see many arab and muslim men wear. They said hello, they were happy to meet me and quote "you may try to make plans, but only Allah can choose your path". Both were from Malawi originally, I found out, and spoke very good English, unlike the restaurant owner. They than told me that I should stay in Mpulungu start some businesses, but first there are some charitable donations that I should make. They than gave me a list of a few different things from some fellow muslim's medical bills, to mosque repairs, and a donation to their local school.
At this point I'm confused, kind of uncomfortable, but I had figured out at least that they thought I was muslim. At this point I told them that I think there's a misunderstanding. I told them I was not muslim, to which they reacted quite confused. It turns out the misunderstanding was when I pointed to the poster. They all thought you had to be a muslim to be able to go to the Dome of the Rock. They were quite embarrassed after realizing the mistake, but there was no tension. I kept coming back to that place each day I was in mpulungu for rice and vegetables(cabbage only) and the owner was as friendly as you could imagine.
Well, I went on two hikes while I was there waiting for the boat. One was through a road, and footpaths between the closest town to Mpulungu, Mbala, and Mpulungu. Alltogether it was around 35k, so I was pretty tired, but it was an awesome hike. Great views of the lake, nice people and villages along the way, and I got to see a lot of small farms.
The next day I went to Kalambo falls, which is the second highest single drop fall in Africa, whatever that means exactly, at 212 meters. Victoria Falls isn't even the highest falls in its own country. After walking up the rift valley escarpment a few hours I got to the amazing falls. The gorge is stunning, tons of birds flying around, and its a big falls. I'll post pictures so y'all can see. My other days in mpulungu i just rented a small dugout canoe and went to the offshore islands and went swimming. I also read another book, this one by an African author, Elechi Amadi. I read his first book, The Concubine, which was very good, and I highly recommend it. He's Nigerian, and his books are on traditional Nigerian life and his experiences during the civil war there. I'm hoping to find another one of his at some point along the way.
So Friday comes, the boat to Tanzania is supposed to arrive, and I wake up feeling horrible. In the back of my mind I knew immediately what it was, but I didn't want to admit it. The boat hadn't shown up, so I went to the harbor, and they said it was delayed, but would come in the afternoon. Meanwhile, I'm just feeling worse and worse, and I go to the hostel owner and tell him I need to see a doctor. I had aches everywhere, a horrible headache, felt dizzy, all the signs of malaria. A doctor came to the hostel pretty shortly thereafter and gave me this prick on the spot malaria test they do. It came out negative, but they often do when in fact its malaria. In any case he told me to start taking the medications to treat it. I have enough for four or five bouts of Malaria, so that wasn't an issue, and I started on those pills. Well, just after that the hostel owner told me he heard the boat wasn't coming until the next day, which was just as good, because there was no way I was going to be able to get on that boat. For about 24 hours I was competely miserable, and another 24 hours feeling horrible. The boat came in the next morning, and somehow I managed to walk over to the harbor and get on it. It was probably not the best decision to get on the boat for my health, but if I didn't get on the boat than I was stuck in mpulungu with no way of getting to the park and it would have been an enormous hassle.
The boat, normally the Liemba, is supposed to go from its main port of Kigoma, in Tanzania, to Mpulungu and back once a week. Well, the UN has recently started shipping Congolese refugees that fled to Zambia back to the Congo with this boat. For about two months, and for another few months its pretty much just doing the refugee runs. The boat that came, the Mwongozo, usually goes from Kigoma to the capital of Burundi. About once a month now it does the Kigoma to Mpulungu route, and I got really lucky that the week I showed up in Mpulungu it was coming. So if I didn't get on the boat that day I'd really be stuck in Mpulungu.
My first day on the boat I felt horrible still, but it wasn't as bad as the first day, so that was one promising sign at least. I got myself first class cabin, which while not comfortable by any means, at least meant I had a room to myself. This was Saturday, and when I woke up Sunday I felt almost like a new person. Not feeling great, but compared to the previous two days I could not have been happier. Until than I thought there was no way I'd be able to go to Mahale Mountain park, and that I'd have to take the boat all the way to Kigoma. The stop for Mahale Mountain was supposed to be around 3-4am on Monday, so I told myself I keep feeling better all day than I'll still get off.
The boat ride itself is amazing in its own right. The lake is stunning, and there are small villages every few kilometers. The boat stops in the lake at quite a few villages, since there are no docks big enough for it to stop at, and small boats race out to bring it passengers and cargo. Its absolute chaos with boats ramming eachother, cargo falling in the water, fights breaking out, and its quite a scene to witness. I was going to have to get down onto these boats at the Mahale stop, which wasn't the most comforting thought, but I felt better all day and I was set on going to that park. Also, after appearing outside my room, after being holed up teh first day sick, I was something of a celebrity on the boat. The captain invited me to the wheel, radio room, whatever, and everybody wanted to talk to me. I was the only foreigner, and in fact from Mpulungu until I arrived this morning in Kigoma, almost two weeks, I met no other travellers or foreigners at all. I was even given permission to use the officers deck to sit and enjoy the ride. It's the top deck of the boat, and its practically void of people, while the bottom two levels are overflowing with people.
Well, the huge horn that goes off at each stop went off at 4:30am at the stop for Mahale Mountains, I was feeling even better than the day before, and I got off in the middle of the night into the madness of the small fishing boat frenzy. No problems though, and a few minutes later I made it to shore. I may not have had malaria, the test did come out negative, but I'm pretty sure I did. The symptoms were the same, and the fact that after taking the medication I improved so rapidly makes me think it was malaria. Its behind me now though, I feel fine, and I really, really hope I don't get it again. I don't think I can ever donate blood again, which kind of sucks.
Anyways, I got to the park headquarters for Mahale Mountain, and was in for a small shock. The costs for the park, new as of January 1st, are ridiculous. You have to pay 80 US for each 24 hours you stay in the park, you have to pay 50 dollars for the park boat to transport you from their headquarters to the campsite, 20 dollars for every four hours you have a park guide, and you're not allowed to walk without a guide, and finally 30 dollars per night for their accomadations. Even if you bring your own tent, its 30 dollars. In short, you have to pay a fortune to see the park. I had come all this way, so I wasn't not going to go, but I couldn't stay as long as I wanted. The other issue was a boat back to Kigoma. I arrived in the park on Monday, and there was a boat to Kigoma on Wednesday and Saturday. I couldn't afford to pay park fees through Saturday, so I had no choice but to leave on Wednesday, yesterday for Kigoma. The fees, in my opinion, represent how Africa is really a destination more catered for high end tourism only. I'll try to write more about it in a different post, but this one will be way too long as is, so it'll have to wait.
So......after a long argument I got the park people to let me pay 80 dollars one time, enter the park on Monday and leave Wednesday morning. I also got them to agree to let me pay for two guided hikes, but have them be all day and not be timed to the 4 hour bullshit. I had travelled on a boat for two days, planned on going to this park for months, and at this point I was just going to have to bit the bullet and pay a lot of money.
The park is absolutely stunning. The Mahale mountains rise up to 2,500 meters, and go straight into the lake. The water is exceptionally clear in this area and there are stretches of actually white sand from the ground of shells. The forests on the mountains are dense, tropical, and some of the prettiest I have ever seen. The mountains create their own weather system, so the area gets a lot more rain than the surrounding area. The area is also home to around 700 chimpanzees, the largest community left anywhere, and has been the site of a Japanese research project since the 60's.
So I hiked some 12 hours alltogher through thick forest, got stung by nasty flies, ants, and probably some other things, sweated out half my body weight, and I saw.....NO chimpanzees! Writing it just now its still hard for me to grasp, but I saw none. Chimpanzees move along the same trails pretty constantly, and every few days they move high up into the mountains, where there are no hiking trails, for a few days. Well, my guide is pretty convinced that I came during the two days the chimpanzees are up in the mountains. The hiking was absolutely amazing, its beautiful there, but I was, and still am to a lesser degree though, quite dissapointed in not seeing the chimpanzees.
On the second day we came across the Japanese researcher, this was already the end of the day, and upon hearing that I hadn't seen any chimps and that I was leaving the next day because of the costs started pleading with the park rangers to let me stay. I thanked him, but told him it wasn't his fight, and it wouldn't not have done any good. He offered to let me stay at his research station, and he's a really nice guy who's been to Israel too. He's collecting data for some post doctoral research of his, so I wish him lots of good research data and hope his papers get published.
A bit demoralized after everything I had gone through to get to the park and not having seen the chimps I left Mahale mountain yesterday morning for what I thought would be about a 10 hour ride on local fishing boats to Kigoma. When I got on I was told that we'd be arriving the next morning, today. So that just added to my mood, but I think at that point so many things had not gone according to plan that I no longer cared. The boat ride was horribly uncomfortable, but I actually quite enjoyed it. Last night was cold and miserable, and I'll never do anything like it again, but it was a hell of an experience, and I have really experienced this lake.
Now I'm in Kigoma, I've showered, and I'm just starting to take in the last few weeks on this lake. A few things about the lake(no, the post ain't over). Lake Tanganyika is the longest lake in the world and the second deepest. It has the second largest volume too after Lake Baikal in Russia, which is also the worlds deepest. Zambia, Tanzania, Burundi, and Congo border it, and there are almost no roads throughout the entire lake. The only way you get around is some kind of boat or flying, but there are very few airstrips throughout the area as well. You can see the Congo side pretty much everywhere you are, and I can't even begin to imagine what amazing, unknown sites are on that side. If that country ever becomes stable I am going to get to their side of the lake. I'm not done with the lake though on the this trip. I'm going to stay in Kigoma tomorrow, and on Saturday I continue north on the lake to the capital of Burundi, Bujumbura, which lies on the northern tip. I'll be in Burundi for only a day or two on my way to Rwanda. I've talked with people who were there a month ago, the country is stable, so no worries for anyone who has misgivings about Burundi. I've hard Bujumbura, Buj, is a really cool city so I'm looking forward to spending a day or two there. The lake is amazing, I'm in love with the rift valley lakes, and I'm glad I'll have several more days on the lake before I finally leave Bujumbura at the beginning of next week.
I'm absolutely exhausted, I haven't slept well in a long time, but my health is good. The malaria is gone, so there is no need to worry about that, and I'm going to spend the next few days in Kigoma and Bujumbura eating really well and sleeping a lot. I will post pictures tomorrow, the internet is really fast here:-), so I'll post those links when they're ready or just check out my facebook profile.
Hope everyone is doing well, and I'll write more from Bujumbura or Rwanda. Tchau, B
Friday, May 9, 2008
Victoria Falls Post
I've forgotten what number I'm on, so I think I'll start naming the posts.
I'm in Livingstone, which is Zambia's town on Victoria Falls. Zimbabwe's town is named Victoria Falls too. I'm also happy to say that this is the fastest and cheapest internet I've found yet in Africa. I'm currently loading my pictures, and they're loading fast.
I thought I'd be on an overnight bus from Lusaka, but I misjudged, and of course I never thought to ask, how long the bus ride would be. Instead of getting in early morning I came in Livingstone at 2:30am. So I didn't really sleep much a few nights ago, but I found a great hostel to stay at called Fawlty Towers. You can't go wrong with that name. The hostel has a pool, hot water(a luxury in Africa), free pancakes!, a very nice and friendly staff. It's still nowhere near Mayoka village, but I don't think anything ever will be.
The main thing I wanted to do, besides see the falls, was bunjee jump, so I looked into that first thing in the morning. What I discovered is that it's ridiculously overpriced, 110 US, and that advertising it as 111 meters is a bit misleading. The max height from canyon top to bottom of the zambezi in the area is 111 meters. The free fall on the bunjee is just over 70 meters, which is still something. Anyways, there's another activity you can do called a gorge swing. Just down the gorge from falls you can do this swing which is a bunjee jump, but than attached to an apparatus which than swings you across the gorge. The free fall is 65 meters, and the swing is pretty cool too. So I went for this instead of the bunjee, because for 100 dollars you get picked up, all the beers you can drink, lunch, and you can do the gorge swing as much as you want. A much, much better deal than the famous bunjee jump, which really milks the tourists for their money.
For most of the day I was the only person at the site, and I had a great doing the swing a good six times. It wears you out because you have to than walk out of the canyon below, which has a pretty steep climb out. There are also some ziplines across the canyon and some rapelling you can do, so I spent the whole day just jumping, swinging, or falling down canyon faces. It was an enormous amount of fun to say the least. The staff there were very friendly, and one guy, who was a rafting guide for a dozen or so years, had worked in California, and had been to Oregon a few times. It's nice to know that a Zambian has made it to Oregon, or just in general that an African has been a tourist in the US. You feel constant tourist guilt while in thirld world countries, so this made me feel less bad for a few minutes. I also asked him if anybody had ever rafted the Zambezi from the source to where it empties into the Indian Ocean in Mozambique. He said he was pretty sure nobody had, had never thought of doing it, but was going to get working on setting this up as a trip. I hope one day its possible to do this trip, which would be just amazing.
This morning I got up early and saw the falls. The peak water flow is from March to May, right now, and you can tell. The mist from the falls is viewable from Livingtone, some 8k away, and there's so much water right now that the mist prevents you from getting a full view of the falls. The mist is called Mosi o Tunya, which in the local language means Steam of Thunder. So, despite that the water is at its highest, this is not the best time to view the falls, which apparently is around August. Still, they're impressive falls, and very much worth going to if you're anywhere near them. Y'all can see the pictures in the album I'm posting. A lot of people think Victoria Falls is the biggest, widest, something biggest in the world. Well, it's not number one in any category regarding waterfalls. At 106 meters its twice as high as Niagra Falls, but nowhere near the tallest falls in the world. That goes to Angel Falls in Venezuela, which I've been to, and is 1000 meters high. I actually heard there's another falls in the area even higher, but it dries up in the dry season, so it doesn't get any credit. The falls with the highest amount of volume is Iguazu falls on the Argentina/Brazil border at 55 million litres per minute of water. Victoria Falls is around 6 million. I have heard a rumor that there's a falls on the Congo River, in Congo, that has even more water, but I need to do more research on that. And while it's very wide, over a kilometer, Victoria Falls is not the widest either. I found out today there's a waterfall in Laos over 10 kilometers wide. Ariel, Leora, I hope you both go there and take a picture for me. So Victoria Falls is very pretty, I'm sure more impressive when you can it all clearly too without all the mist, but it's not number for anything.
There are a few trails throughout the area, and one hike down into the gorge on the other side of the falls. Down in this gorge there was a local guy who, for a fee of course, will tell you about the geology, plants, nature, etc. of the area. The money goes towards paying for his education, supposedly, and I decided to give him a few bucks to find out some info on the area. While he does know quite a bit, I was more than a bit wary after my first question. On the way down into the gorge I saw a family of big rodent looking animals. I took a picture, and I showed him the picture and asked him what the name of the animal was. He paused for a second and than told me they were Koalas. I said I had seen them five minutes ago on this hike and there was no way they were Koalas. He laughed, and said he thought I was Australian (???), and thought I was showing him a picture of Koalas from Australia. I forget the name of the animal, which he than recognized, but it doesn't matter. I'm renaming them Zambian Koalas. I've posted the picture of them in the new album so y'all can see a family of Zambian Koalas too.
After seeing the falls from up close I went over the bridge spanning the gorge, just south of the falls, that links Zambia and Zimbabwe. The best view of the falls is from there, and I wanted to step over into Zimbabwe for a minute. Again, there is too much mist to get a clear view of the falls, but its cool to be so high over the Zambezi river, and I got to step into Zimbabwe for a minute. On the way out someone approached me about changing currency. I dismissed him, but than realized that I really wanted to see Zimbabwe currency with their insane inflation that's over 150,00% this year. He was holding a stack of 10,000,000 Zimbabwe Schilling notes. I asked him how much I could get for 2,000 Zambian Kwacha, which is about 50 US cents. After a little negotiating I got 100,000,000 Zimbabwe Schillings for 50 US cents. He said he had altogether 5 billion schillings in his stack of money. The quantities are just so unbelievably absurd, and its just sad that Mugabe is putting the country into a complete economic freefall. Livingstone at night is full of Zimbabwean women prostituting themselves just to be able to get some currency that doesn't lose its entire value overnight. Very, very sad what's happening to that country.
Well, that's all for this post. I'm going to go get some free pancakes and just relax for the rest of the day. Tomorrow I get on 24+ hours worth of bus rides going to the far north of the country to Mpulungu, which is Zambia's port city on Lake Tanganyika. I'm really excited to get there, which is the only thing that will help me get through the hellish day of buses, although my ipod helps too. Buses in Africa are infinitly worse than South America. I think one hour on a bus in Africa is equal to four hours on a South American bus. Mozambique has been the worse so far, so at least I'm not doing this ride there.
Oh, before I forget...I wanted to make a comment about Nsima, and this is primarily for Benjie and Tovi, who I know especially dislike the stuff. Nsima is a mash of either maize or cassava, and its the main food in pretty much all of sub saharan Africa. It's called something slightly different everywhere you go, but its the same food everywhere. It's really disgusting. It has no flavor, which makes it all the more surprising on how bad it is. I avoid it as much as possible, but in Zambia there's very little rice, so you have to bite the bullet and eat nsima more than you would like. On my first night in Zambia I had been travelling all the way from Nkhata Bay in Malawi and I was really hungry. Sure enough the only option in the town we were in was nsima. Normally when you're starving, and I remember being quite hungry, anything will taste good. Well nsima puts that theory to waste, as it was still pretty awful food. I've been meaning to write that in one of the blog posts and kept forgetting. Alright, this the real end of this post.
ate mais, Ben
picture link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2099358&l=38228&id=2606069
I'm in Livingstone, which is Zambia's town on Victoria Falls. Zimbabwe's town is named Victoria Falls too. I'm also happy to say that this is the fastest and cheapest internet I've found yet in Africa. I'm currently loading my pictures, and they're loading fast.
I thought I'd be on an overnight bus from Lusaka, but I misjudged, and of course I never thought to ask, how long the bus ride would be. Instead of getting in early morning I came in Livingstone at 2:30am. So I didn't really sleep much a few nights ago, but I found a great hostel to stay at called Fawlty Towers. You can't go wrong with that name. The hostel has a pool, hot water(a luxury in Africa), free pancakes!, a very nice and friendly staff. It's still nowhere near Mayoka village, but I don't think anything ever will be.
The main thing I wanted to do, besides see the falls, was bunjee jump, so I looked into that first thing in the morning. What I discovered is that it's ridiculously overpriced, 110 US, and that advertising it as 111 meters is a bit misleading. The max height from canyon top to bottom of the zambezi in the area is 111 meters. The free fall on the bunjee is just over 70 meters, which is still something. Anyways, there's another activity you can do called a gorge swing. Just down the gorge from falls you can do this swing which is a bunjee jump, but than attached to an apparatus which than swings you across the gorge. The free fall is 65 meters, and the swing is pretty cool too. So I went for this instead of the bunjee, because for 100 dollars you get picked up, all the beers you can drink, lunch, and you can do the gorge swing as much as you want. A much, much better deal than the famous bunjee jump, which really milks the tourists for their money.
For most of the day I was the only person at the site, and I had a great doing the swing a good six times. It wears you out because you have to than walk out of the canyon below, which has a pretty steep climb out. There are also some ziplines across the canyon and some rapelling you can do, so I spent the whole day just jumping, swinging, or falling down canyon faces. It was an enormous amount of fun to say the least. The staff there were very friendly, and one guy, who was a rafting guide for a dozen or so years, had worked in California, and had been to Oregon a few times. It's nice to know that a Zambian has made it to Oregon, or just in general that an African has been a tourist in the US. You feel constant tourist guilt while in thirld world countries, so this made me feel less bad for a few minutes. I also asked him if anybody had ever rafted the Zambezi from the source to where it empties into the Indian Ocean in Mozambique. He said he was pretty sure nobody had, had never thought of doing it, but was going to get working on setting this up as a trip. I hope one day its possible to do this trip, which would be just amazing.
This morning I got up early and saw the falls. The peak water flow is from March to May, right now, and you can tell. The mist from the falls is viewable from Livingtone, some 8k away, and there's so much water right now that the mist prevents you from getting a full view of the falls. The mist is called Mosi o Tunya, which in the local language means Steam of Thunder. So, despite that the water is at its highest, this is not the best time to view the falls, which apparently is around August. Still, they're impressive falls, and very much worth going to if you're anywhere near them. Y'all can see the pictures in the album I'm posting. A lot of people think Victoria Falls is the biggest, widest, something biggest in the world. Well, it's not number one in any category regarding waterfalls. At 106 meters its twice as high as Niagra Falls, but nowhere near the tallest falls in the world. That goes to Angel Falls in Venezuela, which I've been to, and is 1000 meters high. I actually heard there's another falls in the area even higher, but it dries up in the dry season, so it doesn't get any credit. The falls with the highest amount of volume is Iguazu falls on the Argentina/Brazil border at 55 million litres per minute of water. Victoria Falls is around 6 million. I have heard a rumor that there's a falls on the Congo River, in Congo, that has even more water, but I need to do more research on that. And while it's very wide, over a kilometer, Victoria Falls is not the widest either. I found out today there's a waterfall in Laos over 10 kilometers wide. Ariel, Leora, I hope you both go there and take a picture for me. So Victoria Falls is very pretty, I'm sure more impressive when you can it all clearly too without all the mist, but it's not number for anything.
There are a few trails throughout the area, and one hike down into the gorge on the other side of the falls. Down in this gorge there was a local guy who, for a fee of course, will tell you about the geology, plants, nature, etc. of the area. The money goes towards paying for his education, supposedly, and I decided to give him a few bucks to find out some info on the area. While he does know quite a bit, I was more than a bit wary after my first question. On the way down into the gorge I saw a family of big rodent looking animals. I took a picture, and I showed him the picture and asked him what the name of the animal was. He paused for a second and than told me they were Koalas. I said I had seen them five minutes ago on this hike and there was no way they were Koalas. He laughed, and said he thought I was Australian (???), and thought I was showing him a picture of Koalas from Australia. I forget the name of the animal, which he than recognized, but it doesn't matter. I'm renaming them Zambian Koalas. I've posted the picture of them in the new album so y'all can see a family of Zambian Koalas too.
After seeing the falls from up close I went over the bridge spanning the gorge, just south of the falls, that links Zambia and Zimbabwe. The best view of the falls is from there, and I wanted to step over into Zimbabwe for a minute. Again, there is too much mist to get a clear view of the falls, but its cool to be so high over the Zambezi river, and I got to step into Zimbabwe for a minute. On the way out someone approached me about changing currency. I dismissed him, but than realized that I really wanted to see Zimbabwe currency with their insane inflation that's over 150,00% this year. He was holding a stack of 10,000,000 Zimbabwe Schilling notes. I asked him how much I could get for 2,000 Zambian Kwacha, which is about 50 US cents. After a little negotiating I got 100,000,000 Zimbabwe Schillings for 50 US cents. He said he had altogether 5 billion schillings in his stack of money. The quantities are just so unbelievably absurd, and its just sad that Mugabe is putting the country into a complete economic freefall. Livingstone at night is full of Zimbabwean women prostituting themselves just to be able to get some currency that doesn't lose its entire value overnight. Very, very sad what's happening to that country.
Well, that's all for this post. I'm going to go get some free pancakes and just relax for the rest of the day. Tomorrow I get on 24+ hours worth of bus rides going to the far north of the country to Mpulungu, which is Zambia's port city on Lake Tanganyika. I'm really excited to get there, which is the only thing that will help me get through the hellish day of buses, although my ipod helps too. Buses in Africa are infinitly worse than South America. I think one hour on a bus in Africa is equal to four hours on a South American bus. Mozambique has been the worse so far, so at least I'm not doing this ride there.
Oh, before I forget...I wanted to make a comment about Nsima, and this is primarily for Benjie and Tovi, who I know especially dislike the stuff. Nsima is a mash of either maize or cassava, and its the main food in pretty much all of sub saharan Africa. It's called something slightly different everywhere you go, but its the same food everywhere. It's really disgusting. It has no flavor, which makes it all the more surprising on how bad it is. I avoid it as much as possible, but in Zambia there's very little rice, so you have to bite the bullet and eat nsima more than you would like. On my first night in Zambia I had been travelling all the way from Nkhata Bay in Malawi and I was really hungry. Sure enough the only option in the town we were in was nsima. Normally when you're starving, and I remember being quite hungry, anything will taste good. Well nsima puts that theory to waste, as it was still pretty awful food. I've been meaning to write that in one of the blog posts and kept forgetting. Alright, this the real end of this post.
ate mais, Ben
picture link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2099358&l=38228&id=2606069
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