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On 8th April we set off from Cotonou in Benin to Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. We had arranged to rejoin the overland tour in Kano in northern Nigeria. After considering our schedule carefully we decided that we would fly from Lagos up to Kano since the journey sounded boring and time consuming. On arrival at the domestic airport in Lagos we found that there was a flight to Kano leaving in twenty minutes. We frantically rushed around to change money on the black market and buy the tickets. A few minutes before the scheduled departure time Paula and I were running across the tarmac to get to the waiting jet before they pulled away the boarding stairs. Exhausted we rushed up the stairs, the crew closed the main door behind us and before we could find our seats the plane was taxiing to the runway - only in Africa!
1992 Diary - Africa (Part 2)
Gjcmcclurg2005-12-23 14:25:40
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a rusty bucket of bolts, but it set sail dead on time at 7.00am! It was a beautiful trip sailing down the entire length of Lake Kivu and stopping in at small villages on the way. The villagers would paddle out in their pirogues selling their wares. Part of our cargo was a prisoner in chains, but then we seemed to be carrying just about everything!
We spent a few days in Bukavu and ended up befriending a local teacher who invited us to speak at a local private school. The teacher explained how the government hadn't paid the teachers for 5 months and thus all the state schools were closed! We met up with the truck only to find that yet another person had contracted malaria - six now! On 28th May despite the border being officially closed we crossed from Zaire into Burundi and drove to the capital Bujumbura. It was here that Paula and I decided to leave the tour and do the rest of the trip across Tanzania and into Kenya on ourselves. We spent a few days in the capital enjoying a few of the better hotels and getting ready for the next stage of our journey.
The first exciting stage was to take the historic MV Liemba steamer down Lake Tanganyika to Kigoma in Tanzania. The ship, built in 1914, had been scuttled by the Germans in the Second World War and then raised from the lake floor by the British and put back into service! We had a nice little cabin and a memorable time sailing down Lake Tanganyika with a star studded sky. From Kigoma we caught the train for the 1,300km, 48 hour trip, across Tanzania to Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean. The train journey was another truly African experience!
We arrived in Dar es Salaam on 8th June and were rather disappointed by the run down and dirty city. After a day of rest we caught the ferry out to the exotic island of Zanzibar. Zanzibar was a retreat for the Sultan of Oman and became the center of trade, wealth and cultural life. Slavery and
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See photographs from:
Zambia Gallery
,
Tanzania Gallery
,
Malawi Gallery
,
Kenya Gallery
,
Zimbabwe Gallery
,
Cameroon Gallery
,
Burundi Gallery
,
Botswana Gallery
,
Nigeria Gallery
