A Final Update in Three Parts

Friday, June 11

11:33am: Imagine you’ve been on the road (in Africa) for three weeks and just spent two and a half days solid on a ferry.  What would your ideal next week look like?

If you were me and your answer was “chilling on the beach with three beautiful Swedish girls,” you’d be very much in luck.

The ferry and subsequent matola (pickup truck) ride to Cape Maclear ultimately took 62 hours, a full day longer than expected.  Once there, however, it only took me 10 minutes to drop my bags in a dorm, hand a pile of laundry into reception, pick up a book from the library (McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, edited by Michael Chabon), and be relaxing in a beach chair, a cold beer in hand and waves lapping at my feet.  Ah, paradise!

I spent the rest of the day reading, replying to email, and walking along the beach, confirming that the accommodations I had selected from the guidebook (Fat Monkeys) did in fact have the best vibe and amenities, despite being the furthest from town center (though it’s hard to complain about a <1Km walk along the beach).

The next day, spotting three beautiful girls at the beach bar, I figured it would be criminal to deny them my company, so I struck up a conversation with one of them.  Her name was Marlene, and she and her friends, Caroline and Elin, were all from Sweden and were on vacation in Malawi for the week after spending a few months volunteering at an orphanage for children with disabilities in Mozambique.  Obviously impressed with my cut physique, sharp wit, and high-roller lifestyle, the trio quickly adopted me into their group.  Accompanied frequently by a couple friendly locals, Jason and Solomon, we spent the next five days laying on the beach, swimming, snorkeling, boating, watching the fish eagles feed, playing with the hostel’s two adorable puppies, watching movies (sadly, it turns out the Princess Bride isn’t nearly as enjoyable if you didn’t grow up watching it countless times), dancing, learning to drum, having dinner at Solomon’s mother’s house, exploring the village market, and feasting on fresh bananas, tangerines, and the largest avocados I have ever seen (seriously, I made a meal out of just sliced avocado and a little salt).

By the time we parted ways, I was about as fully relaxed as imaginable.  Good thing too, because if I weren’t so relaxed, this bus ride I’m now on from Malawi to Johannesburg would be driving me out of my mind.  I’m not going to bother rehashing all the details, but let’s just say that instead of arriving in Johannesburg a couple of hours from now, we are sitting on the side of the road in Zimbabwe, with welders attempting to reattach the door.  As long as we get to Joburg by midday tomorrow so I can get to the USA/England match, it’ll all be ok…

Sunday, June 13

9:10am: GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!

Between my bus troubles (total transit time: 50 hours) and the fact that my ticket benefactors, Aaron and Arthur, were on a flight scheduled to arrive at 4:30pm the same day as the 8:30pm USA v England match a minimum two hour drive away in Rustenburg, I was convinced that we would end up getting to the game after halftime, if at all.  In order to maximize our chances, Josh (the guy from the train in Tanzania who I convinced to come to Malawi for a couple days, then the World Cup, much to the chagrin of his girlfriend in Zambia… sorry!) and I met Aaron and Arthur at the airport, gave their bags to the owner of the hostel where we are staying to bring back for us, then raced around trying to meet the cab driver I had encountered earlier in the day and arranged to drive us to the stadium and back.  Despite getting slightly lost just before reaching the stadium, we managed to get to our seats just in time to join our countrymen in belting out a deafening rendition of our national anthem.

I have never been at a sporting event with as much intensity as that match.  And maybe it’s because I don’t really follow soccer/football or maybe it’s because us USA fans were pleased with the 1-1 draw, but it seemed like everyone was just excited to be there and be cheering for their team, without the intense anxiety and desperate need to win that I associate with fandom at most tournament matches.  After the game, we joined pretty much every other American in the country in stopping off for the only fitting meal: McDonald’s.  Mmm, tastes like freedom!

Thursday, June 17

3:33am: I’m writing this final dispatch from my flight to DC from Johannesburg (via Dakar).  As the especially astute may notice from the timestamp of this post (if they are somehow also aware of my exact itinerary), I’m both attempting to switch myself over to Eastern Standard Time and failing miserably.  Somehow, knowing I’ll be landing in DC in a couple hours has me even more wired with anticipation than I have been for any destination since my first flight to Thailand.  I guess when you’ve gotten used to always arriving in new, foreign places, the familiar can be the one thing to really shock your system.

But before we get to the overwrought reflective stuff: WORLD CUP!!!

So on Monday, we spent most of the day watching matches on TVs and big screens at various restaurants and public venues.  I’ve never been much of a soccer fan, but traveling through the rest of this soccer-crazed world these past eight months has given me a new appreciation for the game.  Aaron and Arthur, however, are quite the dedicated soccer aficionados and their shared knowledge of the players and teams made the games even more interesting to watch.

Tuesday morning, Aaron and Arthur got up early and managed to secure the three of us tickets to the Netherlands/Denmark match.  We said goodbye to Josh who was headed back to Zambia, then raced over to the Soccer City stadium, pushed through the gates along with some 85,000 other fans, and got to our seats just minutes after the opening kick.  It was an exciting match and the throngs of orange-clad Dutch fans in our section were obviously quite pleased with the 2-0 result.

After the match, we expected some challenges leaving the stadium with our 85,000 fellow attendees, but the task was made slightly more difficult by an unexpected strike by a large group of bus drivers who were supposed to be transporting people to and from the stadium.  We eventually got back to the city center by way of a packed train, some apprehensive wandering through a decidedly non-touristy neighborhood, and a short but greatly appreciated cab ride.

While watching the evening’s Italy/Paraguay match in a bar, we met a very intelligent, seemingly-friendly guy who claimed to be a cameraman for SABC and after many hours of talking, offered to hook us up with tickets to the Brazil/Korea PDR match the next night.  Long story short, he ended up with our passport numbers and $20 from each of us, and we watched the Brazil match from the bar at our hostel.

My final day in Johannesburg, we went to the Apartheid Museum, which was really massive and impressive (yeah, sorry, not feeling very descriptive today), then I bid farewell to Aaron and Arthur, went to the airport and got on this plane.  Ta-da: end of trip!

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You know what?  Now that were at the reflective wrap-up section of the post, I really don’t have much that I feel the need to share.  It’s been an incredible trip and I’ve met some great people and seen some amazing thing.  I’m sure it’s changed me, but I don’t know yet quite how.  Maybe I’ll write one final post when I start to figure that out—or maybe you’ll get a bunch more posts if my job prospects don’t pan out and I decide to high-tail it down to Central and South America at the end of the summer to do some more traveling and work on my Spanish.  Either way, thanks so much for reading this blog over these past months.  Knowing that I had you all following along with my adventures gave me the push I needed to make the effort to really chronicle this journey and I’m sure I’ll treasure the record in the years ahead.   Thanks again, and I hope to see most of you very soon!

On the Road to Jo'burg

I really should be better about posting these updates as soon as I write them...

Wednesday, May 19

12:08pm: Didn't end up doing all that much over my two days in Nairobi.  Spent the first day relaxing and reading at a coffee shop in Westgate Mall, watched Iron Man 2, had sushi for lunch and dinner, and talked with other backpackers at the hostel, picking up some good travel tips for Malawi and learning that it probably won't be possible to go through Mozambique in the time that I have (it's at least 5 days of solid travel).  The next morning, I went to the US embassy and spent 30 minutes standing in line before seeing another American walk up to the guard, flash a US passport, and go right through.  Ended up being very easy to get the extra pages for my passport, involving filling out my address three times on one form and then waiting 20 minutes.

After the embassy, I stopped at Westgate Mall to use the wifi and confirm through travel.state.gov that I can get border visas for all the countries it's possible that I'll be passing through (Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, South Africa).  Next was a visit to the National Museum, which had beautiful gardens and architecture, but I didn't enjoy the museum itself all that much.  The 9,100+ birds on display were pretty cool though and I want to remember to send photos of them to my 4-5th grade teacher, Liz Saplin, who loved birds and took her classes on bird watching expeditions.

I wasn't in the mood for more museums and the idea of going to one of the animal sanctuaries didn't seem appealing in comparison to the safaris I'm planning to go on at Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti, so I just sat and read the Economist and went to see the new Robin Hood with Russell Crowe and Kate Blanchett (should have trusted my instincts and avoided that one).  After the movie, I realized that if I was already resorting to movies, there was absolutely no reason to stay in Nairobi another day, so I called to book a seat on an overnight bus to Mombasa, then went back to the hostel to pack up, have a quick dinner, and check out.

My 9pm bus got me into Mombasa a bit after 6am.  Discovering that there weren't any overnight buses to Lamu and not wanting to deal with trying to check into a hotel or find a place to drop my bag at that early hour, I boarded a 7am bus bound for Makinde.  One painful bus ride and a short ferry ride later, I found myself on Lamu, a small but beautiful Muslim island town, with two new friends: Andre, a recent graduate from outside of Philly, and Jans, a vacationer from Norway.  After visiting a few hotels with a tout, we eventually settled on the first place he had showed us, which had breezy rooms and, we discovered later, a rooftop view of the ocean and a clear, starry sky.  We encountered some persistent salesmen trying to get us to book a dhow ride or come for a traditional Swahili dinner in their homes (at vastly inflated prices), but shook them off and enjoyed some beer at one of the four places you can buy it on Lamu (and one of two where you can buy it cold) and then dinner at a nice seaside restaurant, eventually retiring to our hotel for some stargazing and an early evening.

We spent the morning exploring Lamu's narrow streets and avoiding stepping in the donkey dung produced by the island's ubiquitous inhabitants.  The town is like a labyrinth, with narrow, irregular passages between buildings that served to protect the town from invaders in centuries past.  This afternoon: more chilling and booking a dhow trip for tomorrow to drift through the mangroves and explore the Takwa ruins on nearby Manda Island.

Wednesday, June 2

7:00am: In retrospect, taking the ferry from Nkata Bay to Monkey Bay wasn’t such a hot idea.  It has managed to turn a 10-12 hour bus ride into what now appears to be three cold nights and two scenery-less days as the ferry zig-zags between the Malawian and Mozambiquen shores.  Most of the passengers at the start were just getting off at one of the islands, so there hasn’t even been much chance to make friends.  At least the stars and sunrises have been beautiful.  Anyway, as we’ve been sitting in the same place for the past three hours, loading and unloading passengers and cargo via small wooden boats, and don’t seem likely to move for at least another couple hours, I figured this would be a good time to write a quick catch up.

My three days and nights in Lamu were quite relaxing and totally worth the three days (total) of travel required to get there from Nairobi and then over to Arusha.  Upon arrival in Arusha, I checked my email and saw a note from one of my good friends, Martha, that her sister, Sam, was currently in Arusha and had just recovered from a bout of malaria and could I please check in on her if I happened to pass through.  Text messages were exchanged and I ended up hanging out with Sam and her friends, Kate and Aiofe, the next couple nights.  They’re all fun, down-to-earth people and I really enjoyed their company (and home cooking).

After a day spent tracking down the cheapest, most reliable safari with Alberto, a Spaniard I met at the hostel where I was staying, I departed on Monday morning to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater.  Although frequently frustrated with the quality of the photos taken by my Nikon Coolpix (especially compared to the ones I got out of my comparably priced Panasonic Lumix earlier in my trip), I did manage to get some quality shots of the cheetahs, tree-climbing lions, rhinos, giraffes, zebras, hyenas, wildebeests, ostriches, and other assorted animals we encountered over our three-day safari.  The trip was the perfect length, with quality company and surprisingly delicious meals making the whole experience even more enjoyable.

After the safari, I spent one evening in Dar, playing with Bodie for an hour, having dinner with Alfred, and catching up with Sarah over drinks.  It was so good to see them all again and I was sorry to be departing so quickly, but alas, the twice-weekly train to Mbeya departed the next afternoon, so it was back on the road for me.  Lonely Planet warned that tickets for the train should be booked a few days in advance, but as I discovered at the station, this is just the result of a scam being perpetrated by the booking agents in collusion with touts: asking for a ticket at the window will result in being informed that the train is sold out, but if you go talk to one of the touts outside, they will charge you about $6 more than the ticket price, walk you to the ticket window, and nod at the agent, who will then erase one of the passenger names on her list and issue you a ticket.  This was by far my most blatant encounter with corruption to date and considering the many horror stories I’ve heard, I’m counting myself lucky to have gotten off so easy (knock on wood for my final two weeks!).

Traveling by train is infinitely nicer than traveling by bus.  Instead of being stuck in a single cramped seat, bouncing along Tanzania’s poorly maintained roads, I spent my 24-hour ride either sleeping soundly on a reasonably comfortable bed or having animated conversations in the dining car with other travelers.  I ended up making friends with a boatload (or trainload) of people, including one guy, Josh, another New York Jew, heading to visit his girlfriend in Zambia, where he had just finished his Peace Corps service.  I convinced Josh and Rooney, a Kiwi on his gap year, to take a detour with me and a Japanese traveler, Sugi, to Nkhata Bay, a little backpacker paradise in Malawi.  Despite falling prey to a scammer at our lodging in Mbeya who sold us bus tickets “all the way to Nkhata Bay” which did not pick up again after the Malawian border, we had a nice, relaxing evening and day in Nkhata Bay, after which Josh resumed his journey to Zambia (with plans to come meet me in Jo’burg for the World Cup) and I embarked on this ill-advised ferry ride.  At least Cape Maclear, another renowned backpacker beach hangout, looms in my future and I plan to spend at least three or four days there doing some heavy-duty chillaaaaaxin’.

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The response to my request for help in my last post (and on Facebook and gchat) with World Cup tickets and accommodations was overwhelming.  I received email introductions to multiple friends-of-friends who will be in Jo’burg at the same time, a ticket to the US-England match, and possibly even an apartment to crash in.  Between those connections, the many cool people I’ve encountered along the way (especially on the Dar-Mbeya train), and the heaps of additional people I’m sure I’ll meet when I get to Jo’burg, my five or so days of World Cup madness are shaping up to be a blast.

Despite the good times I’m having on the road and expecting to have at the World Cup, I find myself increasingly daydreaming about my return to the states and seeing all my friends and family.  It feels like I’ve been on hiatus from “real life” and I’m increasingly torn between on one hand the desire to achieve “real” goals like advancing my career, finding a life partner, and deepening relationships with people who I hope will be close life-long friends, and on the other hand a longing to see more of the world and just stay on the road for as long as humanly possible.  I’ve met a number of people on my travels who have been more or less on the road, living and working in developing countries, since finishing “uni” (college).  While they’re generally warm, fun, interesting people, I’m horrified of the prospect of waking up one day and finding myself in my early 30s, single, passing my time with people I’ve known for less than a year, a string of teaching and tourism gigs behind me, no real impact on the world, measuring time by how much longer I can stretch my meager savings while making sure I have enough left over to by a plane ticket home.

I know that’s not a very charitable view of the roving ex-pat life and I suspect the people I’m describing would respond by questioning why I would want to wake up one day in my early 30s, having spent most of my youth in offices and classrooms, climbing an unconquerable career ladder, living in only one or two cities, seeing the same people day-in and day-out, the rough course of the next 30-odd years (marriage, house, kids) already laid out before me, measuring time by how much longer it will take to save enough money to retire and spend the twilight of my life rekindling the carefree spirit whose brief flare inspired this quarter-life crisis.  The truth is, both those characterizations fail to capture the benefits and joy that can accompany either lifestyle, and really, trying to project how I’ll evaluate my life 5-8 years from now is both foolish and short-sighted.  For now, I’m just going to focus on making the most of my final two weeks (of this stint) in Africa…