Adieu 2010...Welcome 2011

A long, sometimes difficult year is approaching its end, only a few hours left of this 2010 so full of hopes and dreams, but that turned out to be rather different from what I could have expected.

 

Worse or better? It's hard to say. It has definitely been an intense learning experience that I feel started even before, back in 2009 when I flew home to South Africa after spending the summer in Europe, came to its climax around March and April 2010, and got dramatically ripe in May when I decided to leave Cape Town and set on this Cape to Cairo journey of mine.


I'm now in Kenya, spending New Year's Eve in the peace of Kakamega Forest Reserve: not many people around, simple food, great hikes, and the opportunity for some good one-to-one time with myself, taking stock everything that happened in my life this year. Ups, downs, pain, loss and new light and purpose too.

Kakamega rainforest at sunrise, by Melanie Szirony

The end of year is traditionally a time of reflection, so here are a few thoughts I will mull over tonight and that I'd like to share:

1. I've just purchased my air ticket from Nairobi to Addis Ababa, my gateway to Ethiopia, the next country along the road...but am a little bit disappointed that I'm not traveling overland, the first time (and hopefully last) on this trip.
2. Said that, I've also extended my Kenyan visa, so I should have time to travel north to Lake Turkana anyway... just need to find a lift on a truck after Maralal I reckon, no public transport up there.
3. On a different note, it comes to mind now that last year I was watching the first sunrise of 2010 in Cape Town, on Muizenberg beach sharing a bottle of champagne with Claire...many things have changed since then, but am still here, a whole lot of inspiring extra experiences in the bag, and looking forward to another year worth living to the fullest.
4. Yes, it's been a roller-coaster ride this 2010: many ups and downs, thrills and chills, but in the end one of the most dramatic, life-changing, and min-opening I've had in a long while. For some time after leaving Cape Town in tatters I thought it was going to be my classic annus horribilis, but I have a feeling that I'm going to remember it as an annus mirabilis instead.

"All energy flows according to the whims of the Great Magnet.

What a fool I was to defy Him.

Never cross the Great Magnet. I understood this now..."

-Hunter S. Thompson

To all my friends and readers, old and new, near and far, I wish you a very happy beginning of a prosperous new year. Stay Tuned, I will see you on the other side.



An African Christmas

Well, it's Christmas today, even if where I am it doesn't really feel like it...30°C as a daily mean temperature, deep into the Kenyan countryside straddling the Equator somewhere around Mt Kenya.

An African Christmas card..now on its way to Italy

The last few days have witnessed another shift in perspective, yet another lesson I've learned from the road and the way I'm going about this journey of mine. Something clicked on Wednesday, December 22, the day after the last full moon, which happened to coincide with winter/summer solstice...how often does that actually happen? Probably rarer than blue moons I reckon. Oh, and there was a total lunar eclipse too. But I'm not an authority on the subject, so I'll leave at that.

More importantly, I realised that I haven't been enjoying my time in Kenya as much as I could have so far. Since I've arrived on December 9, I've been rushing around between As and Bs, seeking the destination rather than enjoying the traveling in between...beside trying to sort out my visa for Ethiopia as I was talking about in my last blog post.

But on Wednesday, after my umpteenth email to the Ethiopian embassy in Pretoria was bounced, I tossed a coin: flying was the verdict, and I'll go with it. Suddenly the clouds in my head cleared up, and I saw myself jumping around getting ready for the road ahead. Even if that first stretch will be a runway rather than the sand tracks of northern Kenya.


Merry Christmas y'all ... Ethiopia here I come.

In Nairobi...thinking of Cape Town

And so I've just spent yet another month on the road, today it's been seven (7) months since I left Cape Town and started my journey across much of Southern and Eastern Africa: May 12 to December 12.

I'm in Nairobi at the moment, trying to sort out my Ethiopian visa before the Christmas holidays...in case you don't know my predicament, which I share with oh-so many overland travellers I've met: Ethiopian embassies in Kampala and Nairobi are not issuing visas for onward northbound travel these days, so since I want to stick to the road and avoid flying, I need to

1. courier my passport to Italy, 
2. have the visa issued by the Ethiopian embassy there, 
3. then have the passport sent back to me...

 hectic? yes...but this is also Africa, and very much part of the journey.     

Muizenberg Village Street Fest Today!

On a different note, as the title of this post suggests, I am thinking of Cape Town today.
As we speak the peeps at Communitree are organising the latest of their renown Street Festivals in Muizenberg, the new, up-and-coming, arts centre down the Southern Peninsula.   

The event's menu looks inviting, with scores of live music and painting, interactive activities, exhibitions, theatre and what not, so if you happen to be around town looking for something cool to do on your Sunday, look no further.

And once again, thumbs up to the creative minds of Cape Town.

0° 18′ 49″ N

Up and down Africa, along a somewhat tortuous route, and crossing the equator one, two, three times, maybe more...an imaginary line that is, in the end, the most meaningful of them all. Will it be downhill from now on? ..It does feel like it in a way.

Below is a tribute in pictures to Uganda, a little great country, the 7th out of 14 on my African trip, and which has turned out to be a nourishing place for my blossoming new me.

Enjoy, and Stay Tuned for more. 

Nyama choma (meat) sellers on a bus, between Kabale and Kampala.

Spoonbills and boats, Ssese Islands.

Mama Africa, Ssese Islands.

On an morning stroll, Ssese Islands. 

Under the shade of an African tree, Ssese Islands.

Child from the village, name unknown, Ssese Islands.

Sunset over the bay and dugout, Ssese Islands.

The water as we pass (no colour added), Lake Victoria.

You and I in the morning, Kabale.

Jetty, Rotunda market, Lake Bunyonyi.

My postcards will fly, Kabale.

Street-side tailor, Kabale.

The Professor, Kabale.

Independence's not for everyone, Kampala.

A tale of three neighbours

Uganda. Rwanda. Democratic Republic of Congo.
Three massively different nations, in size, history, and current state of affairs, they meet not far from the equator, in the area aruond the Virunga volcanic range.

Mt Sabyinyo (3,634m) seen from Mt Muhavura (4,137m), Uganda

Silverback and bamboo shoot, Mgahinga Gorilla NP, Uganda

Sorghum seller and her earnings, Bunagana market, DRC

Child and local immigration officer, Bunagana market, DRC

Photographs of genocide victims, Kigali Memorial Centre, Rwanda

Frangipani flowers, Hotel des Milles Collines, Kigali, Rwanda

In the limelight...at least locally

From La Stampa, Tuesday, October 26.

The observer turns subject

Somewhere in north-western Tanzania ...

The other day...

Five months gone: a brief update

So, it's been nearly five months since I left Cape Town: the World Cup came and went, I haven't kept my promises of updating this blog more often, let alone starting that new blogazine project I was talking about two posts ago....besides, I'm still in Tanzania, only the fifth on my 15-country, Cape to Cairo trip.

Pole pole they'd say in Swahili, slowly slowly, an expression that many non-Africans like to think sums up all that makes the continent not working properly. At least, according to Western standards.

But pole pole also means "gently, softly, quietly; be calm, take it quietly, don't excite yourself, never mind; take it easy."
Yes, things get done in their own time, sometimes they don't, but so what? Perhaps, it is us, busy little ants that we are, who should take it a bit easier, slow down and appreciate the time we believe we don't have, the opportunities we usually don't seize, the stillness we ought to get to know and honour.

...
And now what?

I am in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.
I've been here longer than I had expected, but this another story altogether. I am finally ready to leave, and will do so after the weekend. The plan is now to head north towards Moshi and Kilimanjaro, to check it out but not to climb it, then west, reach Kigoma on Lake Tanganyka, turn north again and push through Rwanda, the DRC, and Uganda.
In December I will be in Nairobi, where, as I might have mentioned, I should have a gig helping out the guys at the iHub.

Apparently I am 2297 miles (3697 kilometres) from Cape Town and 2499 miles (4283 kilometres) to Cairo. Not bad. If I was going in a straight line.

Stay Tuned.

Where is Dani? ...my trip and the World Cup

Today the 2010 FIFA World Cup begins in South Africa, and a month ago tomorrow my Cape to Cairo overland trip began in Cape Town. I felt it was time I'd write up a short update.

I am in Siavonga, Zambia, a sleepy little town on the northern shore of Lake Kariba. My trip so far has taken me through South Africa, but very quickly, then three weeks in Zimbabwe, an incredibly moving country that susprised me at every corner: Great Zimbabwe, Harare, Chimanimani, Bulawayo, Victoria Falls...finally I got to Zambia in the beginning of June, crossing over the mighty River Zambezi, and via Livingstone I've reached Lusaka and then Siavonga.

I am staying with an old friend of mine, an Italian volunteer who works in the micro-credit business. I rest, I eat well, I marvel at stunning African sunsets, I drink local beer...and that's pretty much all I do at the moment. Heaven!

But talking a little bit of World Cup, I've heard mixed reviews so far: some say it's madness of an electryfing kind, with colours and excitement, and others that it's quickly becoming hectic and weird. Discuss.

Something good is defnitely coming out of it though, as the picture below clearly shows, an example of public art sponsored by World Cup money. Happy days.

 Football Mama, by Claire Homewood, Cape Town. 

Stay tuned.