More Tales From the Dark Continent

Not sure where Africa picked up that name, but I have a feeling it's very race related. Let's see what wikipedia has to say on the matter... Well, it seems skin colour may not have been the reason but instead - "As little was known about the continent's interior geography, map-makers would often leave this region dark." Fascinating.

I'm out of Africa now, though not literally. While still part of Africa, Egypt seems to be considered much more middle eastern, as the population is Arabic and the Saharan divide seems enough to render this place much more closely akin to the mid east. But enough of that, let's type about the last few weeks.

I left off in Vic Falls, where Shannon, myself and a few others from our tour spent a day at the "Gorge Swing." It's been a few weeks, so I may be wrong on my numbers here, but I believe it was a 140 metre swing over an 80 metre gorge, with 3.2 seconds of free fall time and a whole lotta me yelling and gasping for air. For $75 we rappelled down the cliff, did a few flying foxes and then two of these swings across the gorge. They even threw in a beer at the end to help ease the frazzled nerves we all had, which was much appreciated. The swing itself (it's too bad I can't put up pictures right now) was pretty freakin' intense, and if you went off backwards, you had enough time to rotate around so that you were completely upsidedown and facing the other side of the gorge before the rope finally pulled tight and swung you back upright. Quite fun for sure.

The next few days were spent with a lot of driving. A cruise along a river whose name slips my mind, African drumming, dancing and singing by a bonfire, a village walk, then to Lake Malawi, which wikipedia informs me is "the third largest lake in Africa and the 9th larges in the world... The lake's tropical waters teem with more fish species than any other lake on Earth." Well, I didn't know all that until just now.

The lake was a pretty good time to relax, toss a frisbee, swim and spend way too much money buying bizzarro arts and crafts from the locals. Besides a Bao board (you'll have to look that up on your own), Shannon and I also picked up a kick-ass chess set. We found this one set that was probably the coolest chess set I've ever seen, but the dude started bartering at $120 US. Ugh. In hindsight I wish we'd bought it (probably for about $50) but we got one that was nearly as nice for $34. Plus some salt and pepper shakers.

Oh, and we picked up some worms too. Hookworms. The parasitic kind. Only in Shannon's feet though, but having them in your feet is certainly bad enough. We (she) didn't really notice them right away though, so more on that in a bit.

After Lake Malawi we drove. A lot. And after the drive, we drove some more. For three days, we would wake up early, drive all day, take lunch in heat so terribly bad that people were literally clinging to the truck to find any kind of shade from the midday sun, get to camp right at sundown, unpack, eat, sleep, then do it all over again. We did have a fun bin-bag (Aussie slang for garbage bag) party, but even that was kept mildly early for the sake of another long day's drive.

At the end of the mega-haul, we reached Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, the jumping off point for Zanzibar. Zanzibar is certainly one kick-ass place, and well worth the incredibly long drive to get there. Stone Town, the capital, is one of those historic towns where even if you know nothing of history and cultural significance, you can still sort of feel the importance of things oozing out of the walls. Indian and Arabic architechure are visible everywhere, there's a strange "colonial" feel to things even now, and learning a bit about the slave trade and seeing the former slave markets really helps you appreciate just what kind of place Stone Town used to be.

After Stone Town we stayed at Nungwi, a little beach town on the northern tip. And wow, I've never seen water so spotlessly clear, with nothing but white sand and coral reefs to compliment the crystal waters and blingingly bright sky. Okay, so I'm not sure if I'm doing so well on my paradise-esque metaphors here, but it was a pretty amazing spot. I went scuba diving, and while the sea-life was just so-so, it was well worth it to spend a day swimming in the waters.

There was also a booze-crooze we went on in Nungwi, which was pretty low on the cultural significance, but pretty high on the good-times and acting-silly charts. I think it was saying something when we had to return to shore after 10 minutes on the water to get more alcohol.

All right, I'm pretty spent for the moment. Internet here in Cairo is pretty plentiful and not too expensive, so I should be able to continue the African stories shortly. Maybe even some photos too. Till then...