We were on the Zambezi River (Africa's 4th longest) for most of the day. First we headed out on Jet Extreme with the owner, Bottles. He set up shop on the Zambezi in the late 1990's after traveling overland through Africa. We passed through a spread out village - all the homes were made of earthen walls and thatched roofs. Electricity appeared to be non existent - just homes in the bush among the corn fields. Small children ran after our vehicle … [Read more...]
Livingstone Zambia
Greetings from the Jollyboy Backpackers Guesthouse. Long gone are the old days of backpacking - where amenities were basic and services on the light side. Here you have excellent Internet access (by sub Saharan Africa standards), a pool, full kitchen and a variety of falls and safari related activities to choose from. The backpackers lodge in Victoria Falls we stayed at even had several onsite masseuses! The "no man's zone" - the area between … [Read more...]
Kruger National Park
If your looking for a Big Game Drive, look no further than the huge Kruger National Park in South Africa. Day visits are the cheapest way to see the park but there are a number of lodges within the park boundaries (more expensive then some of the nearby outside of the park accommodations). We took advantage of our early morning arrival time and drove on dirt roads all day on our own "big game drive". We came across three of the "Big Five" - Cape … [Read more...]
Swaziland
The Kingdom of Swaziland is small and you can easily see the major attractions within 4-5 days or longer if you prefer spreading the driving out over a longer period of time. The oldest mine in the world is here and dates back 43,000 years!! Its an iron ore mine and ancient people's use to get hematite and other iron ore for making tools, and coloring for painting in caves. We drove in just after the the visitor center had closed for the day but … [Read more...]
Nisela Safari Lodge Swaziland!
We arrived at the Nisela Safari Lodge after crossing one of the smaller southern border post crossings. We immediately found ourselves on dirt roads before reaching the main tarred highway leading north. Swaziland is very small and driving distances are not what we had become accustomed to in the much larger country of South Africa. The Nisela Safari Lodge was the perfect stop for us - reaching it at dusk. At first it appeared somewhat … [Read more...]
Southern Mozambique
We arrived in Kosi Bay after about 10 hours of at times stressful driving - from near the Lesotho Border in the Free State of South Africa. We arrived here in the dark of night and promptly made a beeline for the beach on the sandy roads in our 2wd Honda Jaz- looking for lodging - big mistake. There were no lights - and signs indicating hotels located just down the road were misleading as we later found out we were many kilometers from the beach. … [Read more...]
Traffic Riots
Its been a crazy few days in South Eastern Africa! Sitting with John and Trish at Rose House Inn plotting our drive to Mozambique we were discussing how there are no guarantees in Africa. 30 minutes after we left their idyllic location we experienced this "no guarantees" first hand. Our route took us back through the small touristy town of Carens. Only this time as we approached the city limits we were greeted by large rocks strewn across the … [Read more...]
Malealea Lodge, Lesotho
Greetings from Malelea Lodge in the remote hinterlands of the "mountain Kingdom" - the landlocked county of Lesotho (not pronounced how its spelled, rather phonetically you say "Lesootoo"). The country has the highest mountains in Southern Africa and receives significant snowfall at the higher elevations in the winter. There is even a small ski resort in the eastern part of the country! We drove in from South Africa crossing the border at … [Read more...]
Exhausted in South Africa
We arrived in South Africa with no plans. A quick scan of the airport revealed a number of name brand car rental companies - so we bee-lined for the only Internet Cafe we could find and used one of the online car reservation companies. Within 40 minutes of making our reservation we had signed countless forms and were sitting in our almost brand new Nissan Sentra. This was the only "automatic" transmission vehicle we could find at the entire … [Read more...]
Continent Hopping!
We jetted from Bangkok to Addis Ababa yesterday on Ethiopian Airlines. I wasn't too impressed with the two planes we were on - they were just plain old. Both times I used the restroom the broken doors swung in on me even though it said "occupied" on the outside. The video/light control console was broken on both flights and on the second flight my seat had a scant view of the video screens. But, they just joined Star Alliance in late 2011 so more … [Read more...]