addis

Well i have now safely arrived in addis adaba and am quite settled, everthing here is so cheap a good coffee is 1.5 birr (16 birr to the pound). there is a lot of begging here though and alot of polio victims, but after dar it acctually fealls quite rellaxed and i don't feal the need to escape as much as i did in dar which incedentally provided me with a night mare of a last day woke up to find that i had misplaced my wallet and so had to cancell my credit cards which turned out to take about three hours thaen the flight i was due to take wasn't available which meant i would have to stay overnight in nirobbery.

but eventually i mannaged to get out, (the song my the animals "we've gotta get out o' this place" kept wizzing around my head). eathioppia is unlike any other part of africa i have been in to date it is far cooler and less hassel, and even 2 week old news papers have a value. another4 difference is that the local food is really good and flavoursome, deffinately the best yet.

on the dwn side though there is deffenately a more vissable divide between rich and poor, and the poor are much more visible than in other countries. when i wen't to get some money off of my one remaining credit card i had to go to the shererton hotel (which is the poshest hotel i have ever seen anywhere in the world) i was almost mugged on the way back, i was walking along when i felt some eyes on me and then a small gang of youths following me, so i did what i ussualy do when this occurs and i stop and move to the road side they walk passed me and then next thing i know there back behind me and one of them has a rock in his hand now i am a bit worried , so i start crossing the road and one of them grabs my ankles, (don't know why) just like little children somtimes do so i dragged him in to the road and so the traffic stopped and then he got up and left with all of his buddies, and without any of my possesions, looking back on it now it was all a bit sureal, but i am fine and no harm was done. i latter found out that it was a very dodgey part of town where that sort of thing often happens, but this was beffore i had a guide book so i did'nt know this, i have one now and so i should be ok.

Googling

You may not of heard of the phenomenon but it is basiclly where you type sombodys name in to google and see what comes out you have to suround it with quote marks so that you get the person you are after.

Incedentally type "douglas silverstone" in to google and you get some accuate sites to stat with but then you get some very inteesting ones further down the list.

pace of life

So i had a plan to go to zanzibar for maybe a week as it sounded like a pretty intersting place, but i had met a few tavvellers on the train from zambia and they wher all heading to zanzibar, the first port of call was stone town the tradional entry point to the spice island and imeadiately the pace of life slowed right down. any way it turned out the was a music festival there for the shirazi new year which was only a few days away, so we hung around there eating sea food (i dont even like sa food) and chilling, taking in the atmosphere, i did a spice tour and went to a rain forest where i came very close to a unique species of colobus monkeys so close in fact that one of them ran accross my feet, they were very interested in my miroed shades and kept sareing right at me. any way finally a week latter kate clayton and myself decide to head to the beach, at kendwa which is the main reason the blog has paused for a bit. you see my life over the last week has consisted of sitting on the beach diving reading amazing sun sets and cocktails. and i had no time for computers. i had hired a moped with the intention of seeing some more of the island but after the initial journey i dcided i may kill myself so went back to sitting on the beach, i never though it could be so tricky to ride a vespa, but at one stage i did almost drive it off of the road.

any way all good things come to an end and my self and kate are trying to sort out a flight to Eatheopia which highlighted one of te weird things about africa, despite the touts on the strets desperatly trying to get 10 pence outo you when you go and try and spend more money the people don't seem to care, a number of times we got oh we will be too expensive or there is a better travel agent around the corner, it seems that travel agents in tanzania dont sell flights eventually we found a flight with eathiopian airlines that kat coul take via addis and then back to the states great we thought but then they don't take credit cards and they wanted her to walk around with a sugnificant chunk of americain dollars (not locall currency) along the streets of dar. it was'nt so bad for me as i only have to get a return. But still what with travel agents that don't sell flights and beurux de changs that don't take dollors or euros say tuned to find out if i acctually make it out of this place..

well been in zanzibar for a couple of days now and i must say it is really nice and sucks time away planning at least another couple here. went in to a rainforest yesterday and got jumped on by some wild colubus monkeys they have absolutely no fear of humans and we where surrounded by a whole troupe, absolutely amazing.

there is a music festival here over the next couple of days but mostly the days are spent just chilling in the old town.

train jouney

Now on zanzibar after a 54 hour train jouney a 5 hour bus journey and a 2 hr boat ride. the train jouney was really cool if not a bit long actually got to meet some locals in a non tourist way. the train was delayed for about 5 hours though as there was a derailed train on the strech of track we were using.


and deffinately much nicer and safer than the equivelent bus jouney.

Irn Bru

I have found some in this very internet cafe, and its the good stuff too i take everthing back i said about lusak it is the greatest place in africa.


incedentally i had a bit of trouble getting at any money yesterday it seems that there is only one bank in the entirety of lusakas (probebly zambia) that is willing to give me money but i eventually found it, and now i can safley say that i know the streets of lusaka very well.

Lusaka

So i have now made my way to lusaka and have a train booked all the way to Dar es Salam on friday, so i have untill then to kill time in Lusaka, Now i have to say that it is not very much of a happening city and after i have got my visas sorted out there is little else to be done.

so i went to see Oceans 12 yesterday for the princely sum of 85p. Lusaka seems to be an opvernight stop between Livingstone and malawi, so my eveninggs have been spent greeting the latest person that i met in vic falls and spending the night telling them how to get to malawi, then the next day i get up wander to an embasy give collect my passport wander to another embasy, give them my passport and then wander around for a bit. go back to the hostel to await the arrival of my next friend from vic falls.

i did however meet a sweedish NGO who is relocating there office out of Zimbabwe because the situation has got worse over the past month!