Chrimbo and New Years, the final post...

MOSSEL BAY

After getting the jeep fixed and finally making it down to Mossel Bay, we spent Christmas with Paul and Linda in their house at Pinnacle Point.

Podge, Janer, Me, Linda and Paul

Check out the awesome view from the balcony...

We had an absolutely amazing Chrimbo with them with shit loads of pressies including knives, shambocks and pepper spray. TIA. Look at the sheer joy in Janer's eyes as she opened her $1,000,000,000,000,000 Zimbabwian Dollar Mr. Price voucher.

To say we were spoiled rotten by Paul and Linda is an understatement. Linda's up there with Nigella Lawson in the kitchen and Paul pours the wine and whiskey with a heavy hand so we had to be pretty much rolled out of there after the week. Christmas dinner was unreal. Here we all are on the big day...

Chriimmmmbbooooooooo......


CAPETOWN

Our final stop on the long trip down was the beautiful city of Capetown...



We stayed in Maxie and Collette's apartment beside Century City. Gorgeous place with a bird sanctuary out the back...

and a class view of Table Mountain...

As well as us, Podge's brother Ro with Nessa and Fia were down there with Nessa's sister Emer, her husband Alan and Nessa and Emer's mum Maureen.

Amile and Alan

Janer, Nessa, Ro, Fia (in the pram) and Podge

Myself, Amile, Janer and Podge

One of the days we went to some place where there's wild penguins. After a lot of searching, we found two of the little guys hiding in a bush beside a restaurant. Not exactly their natural habitat I'm guessing? I'll have to send David Attenborough an email to be sure.

They're the little black and white things beside the crisp packet. Crisps are indigenous to this region of South Africa and a natural bedding material used by penguins for centuries.


We all brought in the new year back at the apartment and watched the fireworks in the distance down by the waterfront. Great craic and very messy :). Myself and Podge were up till 5.30 finishing off all the black label.

Alan, Ro, Nessa, Emer, Me, Janer and Podge.

BACK TO REALITY

Sooo, after an amazing trip all the way down to South Africa, I finally had to returned home to the Emerald Isle where I was met with the beautiful sights of Dublin. Isn't she just glorious, and not at all depressing looking...


The last few months in Africa have shown me how to behave around dangerous wild animals so at least if I come across one of Ireland's deadliest predators I think I should be OK. Look at the blood lust in this little critter's eyes, scary...

- EPILOGUE -

All good things must come to an end, even Synno's Awesomeo Africa Trip...

Throughout our time in Africa, I can't say we didn't see malnourished, starving and very sick people all living in dismal conditions. TIA. However, it's not all as bad as Bob Geldof says. We had a great time, saw some unbelievable things and met some really amazing people. I'd definitely recommend the trip to anyone who doesn't mind sweaty car seats, greedy mossies and the odd night in a tent. DOOO IT!!!!!

THE END :)

Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining...

...LEAVING TANZANIA

After an amazing week in Dar with Wookie and Marty we headed on our way south. Taking a leaf out of Janer's book, I got stopped for speeding on the way to the border. After a quick chat about the fine, the policeman said what has to be the quote of the trip…

“TZS 10,000 for forgiveness, TZS 20,000 for a receipt”

...TIA!

So, we paid the man and we were back in business. After that we adopted to using our manual speed trap detector...

(Podge finally got a haircut)

We still managed to get in some wildlife on our way to the border at the side of the road like elephants, giraffes, water buffalo and... a new kind of monkey, the yellow baboon just sitting there havin' an afternoon snack…

ZAMBIA

Anyway, we finally made it into Zambia, a gorgeous country with green everywhere and hardly any people. For such a big country, there are only 11 million people (who mainly live in the cities). The life expectancy here is only 33 because of AIDS. There's loads of billboards with this clever little caption (makes a difference from speed kills back in Ireland…

SEX THRILLS, AIDS KILLS!

We’d heard northern Zambia is pretty boring from people we met, they weren’t completely wrong. We drove for about 1000 kilometers with pretty much trees to look at…

Zambia has pretty good roadsin general. But in the north, when they’re bad, they’re really bad…

One thing that is true about Zambia is they have really corrupt cops at so many checkpoints throughout the country. We were stopped by one guy who got us for not having white reflective stickers on the front and red on the rear of the jeep. They wanted to charge us 10 Euro for each missing sticker even though the lights have reflective strips in them at the back and the front has a pretty reflective chrome bumper and bull bars. They tried to give us a receipt on a scrap of A4 paper. We ended up after about half an hour settling it for about 6,000 TZS (3.50 Euro). The guy was a complete douche.

We were also stopped at an army checkpoint where your man says... “so what have you got for me”. Got through that one with a ten cent coin. At least in Tanzania they were honest about bribes and were saving you money.

LIVINGSTONE

We went on down to Livingstone spending one night in Lusaka (the capital city) where we even went to the cinema!!!

After arriving at the Jollyboys campsite in Livingstone we met a load of guys we’ve met previously along the way… Pete (SA), Neil (UK), Cam and Craig (NZ). We had a few drinks with them and a load of others staying here from America and Brazil.

After one day on the couch, we headed the following day to see the awesometastic Victoria Falls, one of the seven wonders of the world I'm told.

When we got to the falls we found that there was hardly any water. It's not the rainy season yet but it meant we could walk across the falls towards Zimbabwe. On our way we met two S. African girls staying at our campsite who joined us on the falls. Absolutely class place...

That night after a few to many drinks we all decided to go white water rafting on the Zambezi River. One of the most amazing experiences we've had so far on the trip...

BOTSWANA

The next day we headed for Botswana and only 5 minutes into the place we saw a herd of elephants on the side of the road. There's so many wild elephants there, we must have seen 50 in a couple of hours...

We only spent three nights in Botswana on our way to the final stop...

SOUTH AFRICACACACACA!!!!!!

Oh what a glorious site...

...we had reached the promised land, we were finally on our holidays.

First stop was Camp Africa in the small town of Louis Trichardt in the north to visit Dave Van Graan who we met in Egypt and Sudan. Camp Africa, Dave's bar...

The evening we arrived, they were having a fancy dress party for Lani birthday who works for Dave. Great craic and a very messy night. Here's myself and Podge's last minute attempts at dressing up...

A Masai Warrior and a Doctor... the tube's for colonics

We had an absolutely amazing few days with Dave, his wife Jacqui and Davey Junior. Here's us outside Dave's house just before we unfortunately had to leave...

Janer, Podge, Me, Jacqui, Midnight (the dog), Jacqui, Dave and Lani.

After having to drag ourselves away from Louis Trichardt, we headed for the coast to Richards Bay to visit Frans and Carlie. They were traveling with Dave around Africa.

We stayed with them in their gorgeous house on the river right beside the Richards Bay Sailing Club...

The next day Frans and Carlie took us out deep sea fishing on his monster Catamaran to catch Marlyn. Martin and Charles helped us with the rods, cos lets face it, when it comes to fishing, I don't know my arsienda from my elbow (that's a sailing joke by the way)...

Martin and Charles

And here's Frans kickin ass on the back...

Poor auld Podge and Janer were feeling a bit sea sick on the boat, but we had such a great time.

After hearing about my steermaster experience in Dar, Frans let me man the wheel and do a spot of steering, Arrrrrgghh...

After a day on the open sea with 2m high swells, I managed to get a Blue Dorado (rainbow dolphin) on the line for about 30 secs. Here's what it would have looked like if I caught actually caught it, but more real looking...

We had an awesomeo time with Frans and Carlie in Richards Bay,, thanks guys! Alas, we had to leave and head south to Mossel Bay.

DISASTER STRIKES... BUT EVERY COULD HAS A SILVER LINING, THE JOUBERTS...

On our way down, disaster happened. The poor little auld Hilux overheated, the radiator burst open at the top, the head gasket blew and cracked the cylinder head. Oh the humanity. Really puts breaking your flippy floppies in perspective!

After hitching a life with a detective to a guy with a tow truck and coming back, he told us the jeep was too heavy and had to call in a flatbed truck from 50 k away. Again, Oh the humanity...

The view from the back of the flatbed

When we arrived at the garage, Diesel & Industrial Engineering, we were greeted by Phil, our saviour. Phil and his wife Tracy took us in for a week and treated us like family...

He ordered in our new cylinder head from Durban and arranged everything to get the jeep fixed down the road by a mechanic called John. They let us stay up with them on their farm and even brought us up to their holiday challet in Underberg at the weekend with their daughters Jess and Mel...

Tracy, Jess, Phil and Mel

We were honest to God blessed to meet them and will hopefully see them again. Thanks guys!

So we left Kokstad and finally headed south about 1000 km to Pinnacle Point in Mossel Bay with Paul (Podge's uncle) and Linda for Christmas

...come on Santa, do your worst :)

Tanzania - "Boats 'N Hoes, Arrrrggh!!!"

TANZANIA

After our few weeks with Maxie & Collette, we finally left Kenya and headed for Tanzania. After being pretty much mugged by Tanzanian immigration (US$100 each for visas and $130 for the jeep), we were in!!!

Only a few miles in and we came across our first bit of wildlife, a massive hyena…

…I have to say though; he was looking a bit under the weather and the bang of death off him, my God!

NGORONGORO CRATER

Anyway, we ventured on and camped for one night in Arusha. We made the big decision the next day to head to the Ngorongora Crater, a wildlife reserve. It’s an unbelievable looking place, a huge open plain around 600 m below the rim of the crater. It’s the big field behind us…

We were there before the gates even opened at the crack of dawn, first in line. In the words of Marc (Holland); “if you’re not first, you’re last”… those Dutch, sorry Marc ;)!

Before we even reached the bottom of the crater we’d already seen an elephant and loads of water buffalo. Not long after we came across a pride of lions eating the shit out of a Wildebeest. Poor auld Mr. Wildebeest seems to always get the short end of the stick…

We were only about 2m away from them with the windows down when one of the females hopped up and growled at another. It scared the living daylights out of us. Luckily they were more interested in their dinner than us.

Anyway, we spent the whole day driving around the crater looking for this and that when we finally spotted number four of the big five, the black rhino…

In the Masai Mara, you can do what you pretty much want and drive off the tracks. Unfortunately, you actually have to stick to the roads in the Ngorongora Crater so we couldn’t get any closer. Having just gotten given out to by a Ranger a few minutes before hand for going off the main route, we couldn’t really do it again. Instead we had to settle for looking at it through binoculars, or squinting eyes. Probably better off seeing as we blatantly would have driven right up to it.

Even rarer than the elusive black rhino, the mysterious leopard, or even the obscure dodo, we may have spotted one of Ireland’s most famous exports! Non other than the main man himself, one of Ireland’s big five, Mr. Briano McWestlife-McFadden (and his big fancy camera)...

…I’m still waiting for my 20,000 Euro from the Sun for this exclusive snap.

Anyway, we also saw a few other things in the crater…

Mr. Masai Warrior herding his cattle (walking around where there’s loads of lions)…

Mr. Eland Hidin’ behind a tree…

Mr. Hippopotamus chillaxin’ with his homies in the mud…

Mr. Zebra doing some “stretching” exercises. Jaysus, he’s a big fella…

Mr. Wildebeest eatin’ some grass…

Mr. Elemephant also eatin’ some grass …

Mr. Eagle hangin’ out up in the sky…

And last but not least, Mr. Blue Balls himself, just doin’ his monkey thing…

To coin a phrase from Tony the Tiger... "Monkies, they’rrre great!"

Anyway, the next day we headed south towards Dar es Salaam. We camped one night on the way in a complete dump with three overlanders on motorbikes we saw in the Ngorongoro Crater the day before, sound lads.

We continued on to Dar making great time. Then, the unthinkable happened… Janer got caught speeding. Yes, speeding!

We kept telling her, “Janer, it’s better to arrive 5 minutes late in this life than 5 minutes early in the next”, but she just wouldn’t listen. TZS 10,000*... Oh the humanity. (*5 Euro).

DARRRRRR - "That's good, now say Arrrgh"...Eric Cartman

We finally arrived in Dar es Salaam (known as Dar) after a long days driving. It’s HOT, soooo HOT and humid! We stayed the first night on South Beach camping on the sand, beautiful place…

We met up with Simon "Wookie" Wall, an old friend of Janers from home and his friend Marty 'Shamrock" O'Leary who just moved over last week. They’re both sailing instructors in Dar es Salaam Yacht Club, Arrgh, it’s a tough life.

Here's the yacht club from the water...

This is what the bar looks like, great craic...

Everybody, in your best pirate accent - "Arrrrgh, and a round of glug for me maties"

We spent the night drinking triple Konyagi, “the spirit of the nation” (very very cheap Tanzanian gin), and fizzy bubblach. I’ve no memory of getting back to my tent, but I must have passed right out and forgot to close the zip or do my routine mosquito check. Woke up the next morning with about 20 mossies flying over me resulting in just over 100 bites, I even got one on my eye lid! I f@?&*$g HATE mossies, they’re such greedy little bastards! Here’s an example of some on my left arm. Pure torture.

The following day we left South Beach and moved to the Dar es Salaam Yacht Club (as you do). Wookie and Marty took us under their wing and really looked after us. They took us sailing on a yacht (The True Mist; she's a fine vessel) with a big cooler box of Kilimanjaro, great day. My first time on a yacht too, and they even let me park at the mooring (it's a big orange thingameebob thing that stops the boat from floating away, genius). Isn't she GLOORIUS...

Janer, Wookie, Marty, Podge and Me

In the words of the Lonely Island Crew & T-Pain… “I’m on a boat. I’m on a boat. Everybody look at me cause I’m sailing on a boat.” (This is a family show so I won’t continue).

Interesting fact about Dar, Roald Dahl lived here years ago and across the bay in the distance is the cement factory that inspired him to write Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Suppose it does have a mysterious aura about it in the distance...

We went out that evening to an Ethiopian restaurant called 'Addis In Dar' for Wookie’s friend, Seb’s birthday. Great craic and another messy night which ended up with Podge picking up and hugging two Masai Warriors outside the bar. What are they doing there you might ask. There was a drought that killed a lot of their cattle so they came down here to do security. Who’s going to mess with a man with a spear (and two mobile phones)?

We spent the next day chilling in the pool and watching the rugby matches up in the bar. Mike, one of the members offered to bring us out sailing and fishing the next day on his massive catamaran. Arrrggh!

Mike's catamaran, the Oscar Charlie is another glorious vessel...

and here's the main man himself...

I could definitely get used to this...

Later on the infamous Cap'n Marty arrived with Cam and tried to take over the ship, Arrrggh. These are the most pirate infested seas in the world, and a lot of the boats moored at the yacht club can't leave the area because of them. Arrrrggh, tis a pity!

Just before sunset, Wookie arrived in a dingy and treated us to an evening of jazz flute, honest to God it was absolutely amazing...

Ron Burgundy ain't got shit on him. Pibbidy boo bo bibbidy bo booo booooo (that's what a jazz flute sounds like). Arrrrggh!

We were also treated to a little Irish dancing from Janer on the Arsehienda (arse end) of the boat, a first for the Ocean Cruiser...

On our last day in Dar, we all went on a big adventure on the swashbuckling high seas to Bongyo Island (or something like that)...

We had Cap'n "Man the Jib" Marty batten down the hatches on the True Mist, pulling out the main sheet and drinking cans of Kili. He loves his beer does our Marty!

We also met up with Wookie & Marty's friends Ian and Byron near the island; two really really cool guys. Here they are trying to catch some fishes...

They brought us all from the True Mist to the beach on Boyngo Island in their speed boat where we had a bit of an auld wander. No buried treasure to report, but we didn't exactly do any digging.

So much sailing over the past few days I don't know myself, I'm now a qualified steer master according to Marty (means I can steer the boat, AND park it)...

Seriously though, there's nothing to it. It's all a piece of piss ;). Just man the jib and steer the rudder, pull the tiller, way anchor and you're set... it's that easy (and yes, sail boats actually have rudders, I know. I found it hard to believe too).

Anyway, we had to bid farwell to Wookie and Marty and head further on south towards S. Africa. Dar, what a place. Thanks a million guys for making Tanzania a great and memorable experience :). We'll see yis back in Ireland, ARRRRRRRRGGH!!!