Fade Out

Single Digit Days

Back to Accra from Cape Coast. Cape Coast invlovled Elmina Castle, Cape Coast Castle, Global Mamas and our good driver friend Kwame. All in all the Cape Coast vibe was a bit different from any of the other places in Ghana, Accra included.

Kumasi was/is the epitome of large city Africa. Over a million people trying to move about on an infrastructure base that maybe, maybe, could actually support 200,000 people well. Good times, gotta love it. The market however was "fun."

See you soon. :)

Aargh. For no apparent reason.

Good times in Ghana. Spent a night in the "bush" on a broken bus. I must still be in Africa... Though to be honest I am not really sure where I am anymore after so much country hopping...
Going to Kumasi then to the Coast then Accra then that little old place called home. See you soon. :)

Last Stop --> Ghana

Made it into Accra :) Nothing like some visa success to put a smile on your face, though only after you actually have the visa... But anyway I am in and I have a three week visa. The man asked me why I had not gotten my visa in Dar, as I told him that I was coming from there.

"How would I get a visa for Ghana in Dar Es Salaam?"
"We are there."
"No you aren't."
"Oh, ok."

We arrived in Accra after a five hour flight that included a brief layover in Abijan and an extra 30 minutes in Nairobi waiting for a VIP landing that did not make everyone on the plane real excited about life. All in all it was fine, thought the Queen Latifah movie was not the high point.
Oh well. Have a good one.

Asante Baba

Well we have returned to fair Dar Es Salaam after a beautiful time in Zanzibar. We spent the past two nights in Nungwi at Flame Tree Cottages and the night before that Marion and I had the wonderful opportunity to spend the evening on Chumbe Island.
The coconut crabs alone are worth the trip and the beach isn't half bad to boot.

Yesterday we joined Chuck at Flame Tree and had our collective ears talked off by the proprietor, Seif. The weather cooperated in the morning and in the evening, making the rainy low-season risk well worth it.

Today we are back in Dar at the Peacock Hotel and in the morning we head out for the big plane ride to Ghana. Luck will certainly be needed.

Thank you Chuck for dealing with us in Zanzibar, though admittedly there are worse places. :)

I'll order it from Zanzibar

Greetings from Zanzibar good people of Earth. Drama on top of drama involving Ghana and the fact that the powers that be have decided that I should not have a visa, nor should I know whether or not I can have one...

We are staying at the Tembo House Hotel in Stone Town. Good stuff. The World Cup match last night drained us. Of course that is how it ended and of course it took 120 minutes to get to that ending.
Tomorrow Chumbe Island :) Then we rejoin Chuck in the north of Zanzibar at Nungwi for some serious beach time.

Is it hakuna matata acceptable now or is it still directly associated with Lion King? Still trying to decide about that one.

Kigoma --> Dar

Our flight left yesterday from Kigoma after an amazing 14 minute turn around time for the plane. It landed, the passengers disembarked, we got on and we left, with about five minutes allotted for each.

Of course before that we took the boat back from Gombe Stream to Kigoma in some serious refugee style. Our intial trip,to Gombe, went exactly as they said, taking two hours and because we were able to get "seats" it was too terrible. However on the way back we got on in media res and found ourselves getting into a boat that already had 180 people in it, keep in mind that this boat is made to carry maybe 90 tops. So I spent the next three hours perched on a crossbeam fighting an old man for a foot hold on a tire. He would fall asleep and slowly push my foot off, then he would wake up, reset his feet and our dance would start over. While I did not attempt to take out my camera,this guy did and this is prettymuch what things looked like (on the way there, the trip back was much more full than this, with those crossbars you can see also packed with people). All in all it was quite the experience travelling about 14km with 200 odd people in 3.5 hours. It was however very cheap and I think that the people in the boat were very proud of us for being troopers.

The actual experience at Gombe Streams Park was interesting. We paid a lot of dollars to walk take two guided trips and we saw one chimpanzee. Feel free to ask me about that one in person.

So after we made it back to land in Kigoma on Firday we ate some lunch and boarded our Precision Air flight to Dar Es Salaam. And so we now find ourselves in the Peacock Hotel enjoying the World Cup once again.