Micronomicon's Index

(3 Jan 2008- 18 Feb 2010)

Nights away : 777
Places slept : 288
Nights unpaid accommodation : 240

Days in India : 278
Cheapest Room (Mille, Ethiopia) : $0.77
Most expensive room (Swakopmund, Namibia) :$338

New Countries : 18
Countries : 23
Countries traveled (all time) : 58
Cape Town to Cairo : 10 months

Books Read : 144
Number of days I didn't write : 0
Postcards and letters sent : 171
Financial entries : about 8000
Approximate expenses unaccounted for : 0.001% (less than $20)

Most expensive visa & fees (Sudan) : $350
Longest visa (India, obtained in USA) : 10 years

Backpack : 15 pounds
Pairs of pants : 2
Pairs of shoes : 1

Incidents where I involved police : 5
(Egypt 2, Oman 1, India 1, Bangladesh 1)
Harassment case settlement, Oman : $971

1 Day quad-biking adventure, Swaziland : $71
1 hour internet, Sudan : $0.80
Single application Pantene shampoo packet, Egypt : $0.045
2 pairs complete eyeglasses, Egypt : $62
Overnight 1st class ferry cabin for 2, Bangladesh : $22
Visit to fancy cafe, India - latte, chocolate cake, tip : $2.50
Lalibela (rock-hewn churches) multiple-day ticket, Ethiopia : $23

Vegetables and chapati, India : $0.30
Tea, Bangladesh : $0.06
Macchiato, Ethiopia : $0.25
Fried street snack, Malawi : $0.03
Street falafel sandwich, Egypt : $0.18
Fast food, Lesotho : $2.50
Rice and beans, Tanzania : $1.25
Kenyan "pizza" : $0.67
Apple bottled soda, Sudan : $0.20
Huge Lebanese Meat Feast, Oman : $5.50

East Africa

I was happy to leave Mozambique and even happier to find a painless hitch! At a small hostel on lha de Moçambique I met a couple and small baby in traveling all the way up the coast and into Tanzania...

The prospect of three solid and difficult travel days dissipated and I spent two comfortable days in the front seat of a 4WD. We overnighted right before the river border, expecting an easy crossover... However, once we saw the dirt ridge that dropped off several meters into the Ruvoma River, it seemed unlikely that the ferry ran at all. Had I been crossing alone, I would have climbed down and taken a canoe. They paid a hefty fee (over $200 US, though his NGO would cover it) to have local men rope together three boats and take us across...



In Tanzania I was all over the place- tiny towns up the cost; Mafia Island (I visited for the name alone); Dar Es Salaam, the dirty and semi-modern, crumpled and terrible cramped non-capital; buses and more buses; on safari (see below!); and Zanzibar...

This is the Ngorongoro crater,

After a while, the lions got a little commonplace while on Safari:


This was one of my favorite moments, if not apex of the safari- it was exilerating to see so many different animals around each other.


Excited Zebra:

Maasai Woman:


Maasai merchants crowding the Land Rover:


The others in my small group didn't want to see Olduvai Gorge, but for me, it was mecca.


Northern Tanzania:


Zanzibar Monkeys:



When things start to get easy, I start to get uneasy, and it was soon time to make my way into Kenya. The highlights: Maasai, safaris, coastal beauty were covered in Tanzania for me, so I made it a quick trip. Soon I headed for Ethiopia on the awful, long and quite dangerous road. I went in a truck- sitting in the cab with 4 others for 25 hours! We left the town of Isiolo at 9pm and arrived the next night in Moyale at 10pm. The day we were traveling, we heard of three bandit attacks. One merchant with a small shop in Archer's Post was stabbed just 1 hour before we arrived.





Ethiopia

Ethiopia is a world away. I had been getting into swahili culture and language (hakuna matata! asante sana!) after nearly two months in Tanzania and Kenya, and again, all of a sudden, everything changed. The faces, the food, the language, the script and customs. Most of all, I never got used to the fact that most Ethiopians believe breathing outside air while in a moving vehicle will make you sick. This meant that bearable -if uncomfortable- transport on long bumpy roads in crowded quarters became insufferable. I always tried to sit near a working window, but the sneaky moments of pushing windows open centimeter by centimeter were met with complaints as if arctic winds had covercome us.

I've taken more than 25,000 photos on this trip (yet to be verified). Some have been deleted and entire cards erased by mistake. There are always themes- jumping children, street stalls and vendors, countryside, dirty hotels, and the people that ask for their photo to be taken:


The staple food of Ethiopia is injera, a sour, cool and damp pancake made from teff and wheat, served with meat, lentils, vegetable or just spices. Below is a photo of the rainbow food ye som mehgib, also known as fasting food, eaten by Christian Ethiopians on Wednesdays and Fridays.


On a side trip from Addis Ababa I visited the spectacular crater near Ambo, Lake Wanchi.

22 Months!

670 nights
250 places slept
2.68 nights per place average

Dorms...................................148 nights..........22%

Transport................................52 nights...........8%

Private Rm w/ bath................146 nights..........22%
Private Rm w/ shared bath.....251 nights..........37%

Shared Rm w/ bath................39 nights............6%
Shared Rm w/ shared bath.....34 nights............5%

Free Nights: 146
-- hosted in Peace Corps Regional homes, Peace Corps
volunteer's residences, with families I met on the street,
with friends of friends, in a dozen countries

Nights with Television............47 nights............7%

Most different places in one month: 18

Longest stretch in one place: 26 nights

Most transport nights in one month: 6
-- buses, trains, airports, trucks, train station floors!

Most places slept in one weeks time: 7

Longest stretch of one night per place: 6

Most dorm nights in one month: 25

Cheapest paid accommodation: $1.60 Private Room with bath; India

Most expensive paid accommodation: $215; Namibia (not paid by me)

Nights Camping: 4 (Botswana and Tanzania; classified as shared rooms

Southern Africa

It has been strange, new, tiring. Alternately, I feel invigorated and disenchanted. Like nowhere else I see wasted resources, corruption and suffering without recourse. The beauty of travel is becoming connected to places on maps. When they become alive in 11 dimensions, multiple senses and emotions, they become difficult to ignore.

Landing in Johannesburg in April was a shock. It had been over a year since I regularly saw white people! Everyone spoke Afrikaans to me, and I usually nodded in ignorant agreement. Warming to the country proved impossible for me. I felt near-constant stress. Many of the white South Africans I met made statements that were outright racist. I'm under no impression that race relations in my own country, the United States, are healthy and happy, but I feel that people usually think about the company they are in before making such remarks. Whites that I met told me how dangerous it was, that blacks would stab you for a phone or wallet, reach into a car window with a club, knife or gun. My fear became palpable and a source of shame. I felt nervous much of the time, and found myself at places with almost no black people. I wondered if I was in Africa.

The goal is making it from Cape Town to Cairo. This is a view of Cape Town:


South African Train:


Hitchhiking to Lesotho:


I spent a couple weeks in Lesotho, which is entirely surrounded by South Africa. It was breathtaking. The country has the world's highest low point, at 1400 meters.



I also spent a short while in Swaziland which was more similar to SA and quite developed.

Since I was so close I decided to go to Botswana. I visited the capital of Gaberone and then heading north to Maun, the base for visiting the Okavango Delta. I took a speed boad trip into the Delta which included a traditional mokoro (dugout canoe) tour and also a walking safari:



From Botswana I headed to Namibia. Near the Tropic of Capricorn on the Atlantic Ocean I saw these flamingos. I also saw the hospital where Angelina Jolie gave birth. An inordinate number of locals I met told me about her visit and how much Namibians don't care about celebrities...


From Namibia I headed to Zambia and Zimbabwe, where I saw Victoria Falls. I made three visits, one during the day on each side and one full moon visit on the Zambian side.





In Zimbabwe I took an elephant Safari:



Zambia:




On of the highlights of Livingstone, Zambia, is the adventure activities. These are all me:






I spent some time in Malawi, which I loved, and I finally started to really feel like I was in AFRICA! I'm not sure why I don't have any photos! Here are some from Mozambique... It was an odd place: fully African, Portugese-speaking, and predominantly Muslim.









Soon to come: bits and pieces of East Africa!