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Allgemeine Zeitung. Namibia’s oldest daily newspaper is still printed in German. One of the many German curiosities that Namibia surprised us with.
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Brandberg-West. The non-existent Weiterlesen
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julia & mario's trip around the world |
Allgemeine Zeitung. Namibia’s oldest daily newspaper is still printed in German. One of the many German curiosities that Namibia surprised us with.
Brandberg-West. The non-existent Weiterlesen
Unser Bus kommt in der Bahnhofstrasse an. Saitenwurst in der Auslage der Metzgerei. Fachwerkhäuser in der Fussgängerzone. In der Buchhandlung begrüßt uns Renate mit „Kann ich ihnen helfen?“. Man könnte denken, wir sind wieder zurück in Deutschland.
Nach Sambia ist die Ankunft in Windhoek, der Hauptstadt Namibias, fast schon ein Kulturschock. Eine Übernachtfahrt im Bus, und wir scheinen auf einem anderen Kontinent angekommen zu sein. Lektion Nr. 3972: Afrika ist nicht gleich Afrika. Dieser Kontinent hat an jeder Ecke eine andere Facette. Wir beißen zum Mittagessen in eine Bratwurst mit Wecken, und schauen uns verwundert um. Zwar wussten wir, dass Namibia vom späten 19. Jahrhundert bis zum ersten Weltkrieg deutsche Kolonie war, damals als ‚Deutsch-Südwestafrika‘ bezeichnet, aber wie stark der deutsche Einfluss mehr als ein Jahrhundert später noch zu spüren ist, hat uns doch sehr überrascht. Weiterlesen
31 Zambia, a set on Flickr.
Africa’s most spectacular waterfalls…
A big cloud of spray rises in the air like smoke, and our lunch box and us are sitting just a few centimeters from where the river thunders over 100 meters down into the vertical gorge. Locals call the falls „the smoke that thunders“ (Mosi-oa-Tunya) but to the rest of the world they are better known as Victoria Falls. Sitting right on the lip of the most impressive of Africa’s waterfalls is a monumental experience. Anything even remotely similar to the hike/balancing/jumping from stone to stone through the currents of the Zambezi river just above this gaping gorge would certainly be forbidden in Europe, but as they say: ‚This is Africa‘. Weiterlesen
30 Tanzania, a set on Flickr.
Unforgettable journey with a hundred-year-old German ship along Lake Tanganyika.
In the middle of Africa, there is an old German ship traveling up and down a lake. It is sailing on Lake Tanganyika, from Kigoma in Tanzania to the port of Mpulungu in Zambia. It’s history is rather peculiar. Built in Papenburg, Germany, in 1913, the ship was disassembled and transported to the Tanzanian port of Dar Salaam, back then a colony known as German East Africa. From there it was transported on the newly constructed railroad to the lakeshore in Kigoma. It then served under the name of Graf Goetzen as a battleship to control the strategically important lake, but after only two years – this is towards the end of World War I – it became clear to the Germans that they were losing there colonial territories to the British, and they wanted to prevent at all costs that the Graf Goetzen would fall into British hands. So they sank the ship by filling it with sand at the mouth of the Magrasi river, but not before greasing all moving parts and the engines in the hope to return her to the surface at some point.
As we have been told ‚there are no secrets in Africa‘, and Weiterlesen
The middle of nowhere – we’ve been here several times. However, getting there is often a logistical challenge. This time, the road first follows the main trade route from Kigali to Dar-es-Salaam and then road B8, notorious for armed robbery by desperate refugees from Burundi.
For us, it was the crucial link from fascinating Rwanda to Kigoma, Tanzania, where we planned to start our boat journey across Lake Tanganyika into Zambia. For others this stretch is a transportation nightmare – being the most expensive area in the world for cargo transportation and a headache for many travelers planning their road connections through East Africa. There is hardly any information about this route on the internet, which is why we put a bit more detail on travel arrangements into this blog post.
We had been to Tanzania before, back in 2009 when we Weiterlesen
29 Rwanda, a set on Flickr.
This small country may have been one of the biggest surprises on our journey – in the 18 years since the atrocious genocide, Rwanda has come a long way.
One of the biggest surprises on our trip so far was the little country of Rwanda. In the memory of most western people Rwanda is linked to a deathly conflict. We certainly had not heard much about the positive developments of the economy, fight against poverty, health and educational systems in the country during the last one and a half decades. When I suggested to Julia a little detour through Kigali, she first thought I was joking. I had not thought about it that much, I mainly saw it as being ‚en route‘ to Tanzania.
So this is the excerpt of our history lesson that we took while reading for days online and at our visit in the Kigali Genocide Memorial:
The Rwandan genocide in 1994 was the mass-murder of ethnic Tutsi by the then ruling Hutu. Since independence from Belgium in 1962 the Hutu government persecuted the traditionally ruling Tutsi minority and came up with ever more racist ideologies. Many Tutsi fled to
28 Uganda, a set on Flickr.
The greenest of all the African countries we visited.
Ursprünglich sind wir bewusst ohne Zelt im Gepäck aus Deutschland aufgebrochen. Campingausrüstung wiegt zuviel, um sie durch die Gegend zu tragen, wenn man sie nicht täglich verwendet. Inzwischen haben wir aber schon mehrere Zelte besessen. Zelt Nr.1 haben wir uns auf dem „Black Market“ in Ulanbaator, der Hauptstadt der Mongolei gekauft, um für unsere Streifzüge durch das Hinterland ohne touristische bzw. irgendeine Infrastruktur ausgerüstet zu sein. Leider haben wir damals am falschen Ende gespart, und das billigste einlagige Zelt gekauft. Die Lektion lernten wir, als der Regen irgendwo in der mongolischen Wildnis nachts auf uns niederprasselte, und wir versuchen mussten das Zelt mit unserer Rettungsdecke abzudichten, was nur mittelmäßig erfolgreich war. Als dann der Regen ins Zelt tropfte und langsam die Schlafsäcke durchnässte, war einer der wenigen Momente auf der Reise, auf denen ich mich einfach nur nach Hause in mein eigenes Bett wünschte.
Nicht verwunderlich dass wir es für unnötig befanden, dieses Zelt über die Landesgrenze der Mongolei hinaus mit uns zu transportieren.
Mit Zelt Nr.2 hatten wir schon mehr Glück. Wir kauften es Weiterlesen
In Europe, most birds seem to be the size of sparrows and are coloured in various shades of black, grey or brown, with the odd splash of rusty red, or dirty yellow. Even though we have come across quite a few cool birds along the way, I would not have described myself as a birdwatcher before we came to Africa. But here, we’ve seen pelicans sailing majestially between papyrus plants, a fisheagle flying off with a giant fish in its claws, weaver birds building their intricate nests, sunbirds sucking nectar with their needle-like bills, crowned plovers trying to distract a cheetah, kingfishers hunting on Lake Bunyonyi, turquoise starlings stealing our breakfast and giant Marabou storks wander the streets of Kampala. If you have the right specimens to observe, it is hard not to give in to the fascination that is birdwatching. Weiterlesen
„Und was machen sie beruflich?“ frage ich. „Ich bin Missionar“. Die unerwartete Antwort lässt mich für einen Moment stutzen. Missionar? Kommen denn noch immer Leute nach Afrika um hier arme Heidenkinder auf den rechten Weg zu bringen? Dabei scheint Kurt, so heisst der amerikanische Missionar, recht modern, und erzählt uns auch gleich von all den Projekten, die er weltweit betreut. Meine anfängliche Befremdung wandelt sich schnell in Staunen. Kurt wirkt eher wie ein Projektmanager, und Weiterlesen
Next up on our route across Africa was Uganda. If there was only one thing to say about it, it would be that Uganda is incredibly green compared to its Eastern neighbour countries. After a bumpy night on the bus from Nairobi to Kampala, which involved waiting forever in the dark at the Ugandan border crossing, we drove in the early morning hours through miles and miles of lush green plantations of sugar cane, plantanes and corn on the way from Jinja to Kampala. The country lies a bit higher, gets more rain and has the mighty river Nile running across its lands, from Lake Victoria to Sudan in the North. It’s a complete change in scenery from the dry savannah that we had experienced in the Masai Mara or Kenya’s Rift Valley.
Even though we had seen four of the Big Five already in the Masai Mara (only rhinos were missing) and despite a tight budget, we decided to do another safari in Murchison Fall National Park, Weiterlesen
Traveling the world isn’t particularly cheap, but we will talk about some of our personal expenses in another post. This is about what happens to money after you’ve spent it. We generally try to question any organisation that collects entrance fees for tourist attractions or national reserves about what actually happens to that money – especially in developing countries, where general price levels are exceptionally low and tourist fees exceptionally high.
It’s a fair assumption that tourist magnets like Macchu Picchu (Peru), Angkor Wat (Cambodia) or the Masai Mara (Kenya) are money making machines. Entrance fees for these examples range from Weiterlesen
27 Kenya, a set on Flickr.
Wildlife at its best!
Easycoach | Nairobi, Kenya > Kampala, Uganda | 660km, 12hrs | KES2300/person