New years eve here, big party at the camp tonight.
We are back in Arusha having had a few ride outs and spending some time (2 nights) in the mountains west of Arusha, the national parks guards make it so difficult for anybody travelling independant of a tour company.
I don,t expect to be able to ride in any of the wildlife parks(meals on wheels) but we cant even ride through the roads all the way up the mountains without coming across official roadblocks that want excessive fees just to ride along a road outside the wildlife parks.
I do realise that this area exists by its tourist income but its $200us to get into some of them, ouch!!!!
We have contributed greatly to the local brewing industry and I think we should be given a free pass at the very least, ho hum
we will try our luck further east when we leave for Dar es slam on the 2nd of Jan.
I have found a trail on the map that is just outside the Kilimanjaro national park that takes you up to 3600mtrs so I,ll have a go at doing that and see if we can avoid the AK47 brigade.
Nice to see a few coments from Friends in the UK and spain, also friends we have met along the way, happy new year to you all. Buon natale to our new found italian friends, Hi olivier and Danielle, and theres no skiing here mates!!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
continued
We are having thunderstorms at the moment so I have to post and continue as the computer may crash.
Christmas eve at the camp was a really lively affair, party till 5 am!!!
Boxing day night was the same
We have had a couple of rides out up into the hills around here and its all very lush and tropical,
We leave tomorrow heading west to explore the hills and to find a active volcano we have been told about, shouldn,t be that hard to find.
We have not a clue what we are going to do for new year, no plan so nothing to go wrong, right?
Thats about it for now, Pete n Bruce
Christmas eve at the camp was a really lively affair, party till 5 am!!!
Boxing day night was the same
We have had a couple of rides out up into the hills around here and its all very lush and tropical,
We leave tomorrow heading west to explore the hills and to find a active volcano we have been told about, shouldn,t be that hard to find.
We have not a clue what we are going to do for new year, no plan so nothing to go wrong, right?
Thats about it for now, Pete n Bruce
Continued
Set off from Nairobi to head for Tanzania, the road is supposed to be tarmac all the way , yeh right!!!!
Out of 300km about 100km of it is trail and a very dusty trail at that, if a truck was heading towards you it was really bad after it passed, visibility zero.
Cleared Kenyan customs into Tanzania with a minimum of fuss and headed off to Arusha which is right next to Kilimanjaro, the countryside you pass through to get here is spectacular, starts with rolling hills with the really big mountains behind them, Zebras munching away at the side of the road, a great days ride!!
we got to Arusha and found our campsite, its called Masai camp, run by a great guy called Darrel from new york ,once again great food, cold beers and a huge bar area that was very quiet when we arrived, we booked in to camp and we were the only tent on site, very peaceful. how wrong I was to assume this.
It seemed very strange putting a tent up on the 22nd of Dec, we are usually skiing in Italy by now and here we were in 90deg heat, it just seemed all wrong, but hey ho.
The same night 3 overland parties arrived, about 100 people all in, 2 massive pink buses, called the pink caravan adventures full of Swedes, driven by Andreas and Johanus and assisted by the quite lovely Anjelica, sorry about the spellings if they are wrong mates.
These are really nice people who we spent a few hours drinking with as they seemed to like our company and us theirs.
Thanks for the stickers folks(they must of crept up to our tents in the morning and put pink stickers on the back boxes) crept up because they left at 6am.
Top people, they do this route often and gave us valuable info for our next destination
Out of 300km about 100km of it is trail and a very dusty trail at that, if a truck was heading towards you it was really bad after it passed, visibility zero.
Cleared Kenyan customs into Tanzania with a minimum of fuss and headed off to Arusha which is right next to Kilimanjaro, the countryside you pass through to get here is spectacular, starts with rolling hills with the really big mountains behind them, Zebras munching away at the side of the road, a great days ride!!
we got to Arusha and found our campsite, its called Masai camp, run by a great guy called Darrel from new york ,once again great food, cold beers and a huge bar area that was very quiet when we arrived, we booked in to camp and we were the only tent on site, very peaceful. how wrong I was to assume this.
It seemed very strange putting a tent up on the 22nd of Dec, we are usually skiing in Italy by now and here we were in 90deg heat, it just seemed all wrong, but hey ho.
The same night 3 overland parties arrived, about 100 people all in, 2 massive pink buses, called the pink caravan adventures full of Swedes, driven by Andreas and Johanus and assisted by the quite lovely Anjelica, sorry about the spellings if they are wrong mates.
These are really nice people who we spent a few hours drinking with as they seemed to like our company and us theirs.
Thanks for the stickers folks(they must of crept up to our tents in the morning and put pink stickers on the back boxes) crept up because they left at 6am.
Top people, they do this route often and gave us valuable info for our next destination
Nairobi and beyond
Nairobi,well we finally got there only to find the bikes were in Jo,burg,
we had a complete nightmare getting the bikes to Kenya and then clearing them through customs, it seemed to take forever butwas in fact just over a week.
We had been recomended a campsite in Nairobi called upper hill campsite run by a guy from Preston of all places called Rich, top food, cold beers and friendly staff.
Rich arranged a truck which we took to the airport to pick the crate up that had the bikes in it, we then took the bikes back to the campsite so I could build them up again in peace, it was great to get my hands dirty again and as soon as I had built them up it was off to the gas station for 10ltrs of petrol to put in the bikes,(you have to drain them before they go on a plane)
I asked to borrow a set of jump leads as I assumed the batteries would be flat but decided to try them whilst they were looking for a set. Crikey they both started first time, I love yamahas, both bikes had been in a crate for over 5 weeks and the batteries were still charged .
I couldn,t resist throwing my helmet on and going straight out for a ride, he he!
we had a complete nightmare getting the bikes to Kenya and then clearing them through customs, it seemed to take forever butwas in fact just over a week.
We had been recomended a campsite in Nairobi called upper hill campsite run by a guy from Preston of all places called Rich, top food, cold beers and friendly staff.
Rich arranged a truck which we took to the airport to pick the crate up that had the bikes in it, we then took the bikes back to the campsite so I could build them up again in peace, it was great to get my hands dirty again and as soon as I had built them up it was off to the gas station for 10ltrs of petrol to put in the bikes,(you have to drain them before they go on a plane)
I asked to borrow a set of jump leads as I assumed the batteries would be flat but decided to try them whilst they were looking for a set. Crikey they both started first time, I love yamahas, both bikes had been in a crate for over 5 weeks and the batteries were still charged .
I couldn,t resist throwing my helmet on and going straight out for a ride, he he!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
funerals, electricity and the lack of it!!!
Ghanayan funerals are the pits if you are recovering from malaria, what happens is they erect this huge sound system on the street and play crap music at unbelievable volume for 36 hrs non stop.
Where is the usual power cut when you need it?
Electricity is sporadic to say the least but they always seem to have it for funerals, sometimes you get a cut for just 10min,, enough thaat you just get off to sleep, then you are thrown out of bed by the bass throbbing and the windows vibrating,
fair enough people should have a good time at a funeral thought I,
so at 3 am unable to sleep I ventured out on the street to see what kind of a party was going on, what party!!!!!! the streets were deserted apart from a DJ asleep on top of the bass speakers.
It was at this point I considered getting blacked up and full camofluage and launching a commando raid on the electric supply.
Hopefully ouur next post will be from Kenya, we will see
Where is the usual power cut when you need it?
Electricity is sporadic to say the least but they always seem to have it for funerals, sometimes you get a cut for just 10min,, enough thaat you just get off to sleep, then you are thrown out of bed by the bass throbbing and the windows vibrating,
fair enough people should have a good time at a funeral thought I,
so at 3 am unable to sleep I ventured out on the street to see what kind of a party was going on, what party!!!!!! the streets were deserted apart from a DJ asleep on top of the bass speakers.
It was at this point I considered getting blacked up and full camofluage and launching a commando raid on the electric supply.
Hopefully ouur next post will be from Kenya, we will see
Busua inn and hospital at dixcove
Ghana is a great place to be stuck though, the guest house we are in Busua inn is run by a great French couple, Olivier and Danielle, food is great and they are good company.
When I was in hospital Olivier brought me food and drinks, thanks mate.
Bruce was invaluable at this stage as I had to have somebody to wipe my arse and clean up the vomit and change the sweat soaked sheets, whilst the staff and doctors were great and the needles and drips clean it is really difficult to run a hospital without running water and toilets!!!
When I was in hospital Olivier brought me food and drinks, thanks mate.
Bruce was invaluable at this stage as I had to have somebody to wipe my arse and clean up the vomit and change the sweat soaked sheets, whilst the staff and doctors were great and the needles and drips clean it is really difficult to run a hospital without running water and toilets!!!
Er, Um, trying to leave Ghana
Well, well,well. ok our bikes are in Nairobi and we are stuck here, after re-crating the bikes and lots of being messed about,
our friends here put us onto a travel agent in Takeradi that se emed to be reasonably effecient, I remain unconvinced as when the young lady was trying to do our booking said what time would you like to fly?
there is only one flight a day!!!!
Its as if she was trying to book a cab!
Great I thought we will fly at 11 am and if we are a little late please ask the pilot to hang about a bit ..
We are supposed to fly on Saturdaay 6th Dec, we will see
I have been in hospital here for 3 days with malaria, what a crap illness, 3days of hell and another month to get bettter, I,ve lost a lot of wieght
our friends here put us onto a travel agent in Takeradi that se emed to be reasonably effecient, I remain unconvinced as when the young lady was trying to do our booking said what time would you like to fly?
there is only one flight a day!!!!
Its as if she was trying to book a cab!
Great I thought we will fly at 11 am and if we are a little late please ask the pilot to hang about a bit ..
We are supposed to fly on Saturdaay 6th Dec, we will see
I have been in hospital here for 3 days with malaria, what a crap illness, 3days of hell and another month to get bettter, I,ve lost a lot of wieght
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