Longer posts
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Our guide bought a bunch of stuff from the grocery store stop to bring to the border patrol agents. Not the ones that were staffing the actual window, but the ones seated in patio chairs in the shade near the impromptu parking area. We noticed that in addition to some beverages and candy, they were also given a nudie magazine and cigarettes.
We asked our guide about it, and he said, yeah we just bring them things because they advertise our company on their window. But it was also clear that he knew everyone in both checkpoints and could just take our passports and usher us through quickly, even if we stood outside.
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Whew boy, the Sani Pass region of Lesotho seems like a tough place to live. While there was clearly sheepherding going on, we saw as many folks panhandling.
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It was windy af, and virtually every local wore their traditional blanket, many with head coverings roughly resembling ski masks, even in the summer.
- English was the primary language on most of the signs we saw in Dubai; Arabic was also included, but in smaller font below the English version.
- That’s probably not too surprising—nearly 90% of Dubai is foreigners.
- Each Emirate seemed a bit distinct
Adventure in the southern part of Mauritius
Our second day in Mauritius found us exploring the southern part of the island. -J 🇲🇺
First stop was the Black Gorges National Park and Biosphere Reserve.
Next, a Hindu temple with two prominent statues.
Then our favorite part, La Vallee Des Couleurs (23 Colored Earth) Nature Park.
We also visited a tea plantation in the morning (with a tea tasting), had a nice seaside lunch, and visited a rum plantation in the afternoon (with rum tasting).
Slavery and Indentured Servitude in Mauritius
When the Dutch colonized Mauritius in 1638, they began a long history of slavery and slavery-related practices on the island; kidnapping people from East Africa and bringing them to the island against their will. The French continued the practices when they took possession of the island in 1715. Slaves were primarily used to grow and harvest sugarcane, but they were also used to build the buildings in what is now Port Louis. The British captured Mauritius from the French in 1810 and abolished slavery in 1835.
Mauritius is still coming to grips with its slavery past and making restitution to the families of former slaves (as is the United States). There is a new little museum dedicated to showing the country’s slave past and working with various families and NGOs to gather artifacts, information, and documents regarding slavery and those involved (both masters and former slave families) and help the country move forward. We visited and they are working on a more permanent exhibit, and hopefully this interesting place continues to expand.
Once the British abolished slavery, they pivoted to a system of indentured servitude that lasted until 1910. Importantly, Mauritius was the birthplace of indentured servitude. While technically free people, the conditions for the workers were still harsh and the contracts still favored the plantation owners, but sometimes this life might have been better than they would have had back home. During this period, almost 2 million individuals came to Mauritius as indentured servants, mostly from India. The majority of Mauritians today are decedents from this Indian population.
The administrative buildings where many indentured servants first set foot in Mauritius and were processed for 2-3 days before being directed to their respective plantations is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. -J 🇲🇺
Short stops to break up the long days on the road
To break up the long days on the road, we had several short stops for tours: a rubber farm in Malawi; a coffee plantation in Tanzania; and in Zanzibar, a tour of Stone Town (the capital) and a spice farm. -J 🇲🇼🇹🇿
The Malawi rubber farm
The Tanzania coffee plantation
Tour of Stone Town, Zanzibar, and its markets
Zanzibar spice farm
More photos can be found at: www.icloud.com/sharedalb…
🎥 Recapping our 24-day overlanding safari of Africa
Here’s a video recap of what we thought about our 24-day overlanding safari tour of Africa. What did we like? Dislike? Would we do it again? Find out below.
And here’s a short montage video someone on our tour made for his students—focusing on the first few days of the East Africa portion of our tour—using a 360 camera.
And if you missed it, here’s more on the overlanding truck we used:
https://adventuresaroundthe.world/2025/01/07/a-little-bit-about-the.html
-S 🇿🇦🇧🇼🇿🇼🇿🇲🇲🇼🇹🇿
🎥 Recapping our wildlife experiences in Africa
A video discussion of our wildlife experiences in Africa. Did we see everything we wanted to? What were the game drives like? Find out in the video below. -S 🇿🇦🇧🇼🇿🇼🇿🇲🇲🇼🇹🇿
The monkeys of Jozani Forest
On our full day in Zanzibar, we visited the Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park and Biosphere Reserve. The park is famous for its monkeys, specifically the endangered and endemic Zanzibar Red Colombus Monkey, but also the Blue Monkey. It was an up close and intimate encounter…minus all the tourists, of course. -S🇹🇿
You can find other photos here: www.icloud.com/sharedalb…
Next Zoom Call - Sun, Jan 12, 2025
Join us for our next Zoom call! We will have finally finished our 24-day African Tour and we’d love to share our updates and impressions, tell some stories, and see all of you.
Scheduled for 10:00 am Arizona Time (12:00 pm EST) on Sunday January 12, 2025 (it will be 8 pm our time).
Here is the link:
In the meantime, we’ve included some fighting zebras to catch your interest 😁
-J 🇿🇲
Uncomfortable in Africa
The primary constant during our time in Africa has been the feeling of being uncomfortable. I’m referring to physical discomfort, not the discomfort that comes from traveling as a privileged person in a land that lacks it (we’ll write about that another time).
Humid beyond belief. Hot, intense sun. Omnipresent insects, especially at night in our tent or room. Bumpy roads. Long drives. Constant sweat. Frequent rain. Fleeting internet access. Sporadic electricity. Unnecessary delays. Cold showers. Warm beer. Unending stickiness. Long lines. Terrible toilets. Ubiquitous mud. Reliable unreliability.
Africa is a challenge because everything is a bit uncomfortable. Everything.
It’s an adventure, not a vacation, and so this was expected. But it also gives us a glimpse into daily life on this continent. We will eventually return to air conditioning, roads that don’t resemble minefields, and bug-free hotel rooms—while the locals continue with life as-is.
-S 🇹🇿🇲🇼🇿🇲
Entering East Africa
Victoria Falls serves as a turning point for our tour. We exit Southern Africa and cross into East Africa, which we expect to be the most challenging portion of our 100-day adventure.
We said goodbye to some members of our tour yesterday at Vic Falls, who had signed up for only the eight day Jo-burg to Vic Falls stretch.
Among them were Erik and Beathe from Norway, friends we happened to make at our hotel bar a number of days before this tour started. We became fast friends, trading emails after an hour or so and committing to visiting them on our to-be-rescheduled Norway trip.
Funny enough, we found ourselves sharing a city tour of Johannesburg a couple days later, and then again found them on this Nomad tour. Great people! We’re looking forward to seeing them again.
A new “family”
While we lost some folks at Vic Falls, we also gained a number of new ones. Most here are en route to Nairobi, Kenya, though we skip out a few days earlier at Dar-Es Salaam in Tanzania.
-S 🇿🇼🇿🇲
🎥 Updates from our tented camp
We spent two nights in a tented camp in Khwai Conservation Area, with our first “full day” of safari game drives—one in the early morning and another in the late afternoon and past sunset.
Here’s an update on our first morning game safari, which was very fun.
And another update after our sunset game safari, which also includes a bit more on our accommmodations here.
We recorded this second video from our subsequent tented camp near Chobe National Park, which overlooked an elephant watering hole.
Because elephants frequent the area, you also can only move between your tent and the facilities under escort after dark.
We’ll post some more photos of the tented camp facilities in the coming days.
Rainstorm in the Kalahari Desert
We’re off grid the next three nights, staying in a bush camp without electricity, near the Okavango Delta in Botswana. It might be awhile until the next update.
Here are some photos from yesterday, which was mostly a long drive thru the Kalahari Desert during a series of big rainstorms. During a lull, we randomly pulled off to cook lunch out of the truck.
We gave the leftovers to a local family who was very interested in our big vehicle and what the heck we were doing.
I also busted out some local lager, improbably named St Louis, which was among the lowest rated beer on untappd I’ve ever had, and shared with our adventure family. We’re having fun, but dang I miss happy hour at Wren Südhalle!
We ended the day at our hotel, which donates space for a local women-run program that recycles booze bottles from the hotel, melts down the glass, and makes jewelry. We got a little demonstration of the process.
Speaking of the hotel, we’ve been pleasantly surprised with the accommodations so far.
A Day Tour of Johannesburg
For our last full day in Johannesburg, we opted to do a day tour of some of the main historical parts of the city.
The first stop was at Constitution Hill, which is at a former prison complex/military fort built by Paul Kruger in 1898 to protect against British Invasion and then to house Boer prisoners from the Anglo-Boer war. Starting in the early 1900s, political activists opposed to apartheid were imprisoned here, including Mahatma Ghandi. As apartheid took hold, many thousands were imprisoned, including political activists like Nelson Mandela. But the prison held many who simply violated the “pass laws” - laws requiring blacks to have a pass to enter the city to work. White men were held separately, and in significantly better conditions than the black men, and women had their own block. Overcrowding, disease, humiliation, rape, torture, and starvation was the norm for the black men held there. The prison was closed in 1983. In 2004, Nelson Mandela oversaw its reopening as the country’s highest constitutional court (Similar to the US Supreme Court for constitutional issues, not civil).
The courtyard in the area holding black prisoners where the prisoners had to strip naked, were strip searched, had to do a dance and squat down where they were probed for contraband, and otherwise harmed and humiliated
These cells held black prisoners—60 to 80 prisoners per room
This cell was an isolation cell for black prisoners, but specifically held political prisoners
The barbed wire over the area where the isolation cells were for the black prisoners
The isolation cells for the white prisoners
The Constitutional Court
The doors leading into the court-they outline the 12 official languages of the court
A replica of the holding cells for prisoners awaiting “trial” during apartheid
Nelson Mandela’s cell
Nelson Mandela’s personal papers
The flame of democracy
An interesting statue
Ghandi’s bust
After that, we headed to Nelson Mandela’s home in Soweto. Mandela bought it in 1946 with his first wife, Evelyn. After their divorce in 1957, Mandela continued to live there, and welcomed his second wife, Winnie there. Mandela lived there until his arrest and imprisonment in 1962, but the house stayed in their name until the family donated it in 1996. Winnie was subjected to extreme harassment when Mandela was imprisoned, even subjecting her to a firebombing of the house, and eventually forced her to go into exile. Mandela returned to the home when he was finally released from prison in 1990.
Nelson Mandela’s home
Nelson Mandela’s actual chair
Nelson Mandela
We then went to the site of the 1976 Soweto uprising where black students began protesting the apartheid government’s mandate that they only learn and use the Afrikaans language. Eventually the police started using live ammunition and when everything was done, hundreds of children were dead. One such child was Hector Pieterson, who was not participating in the protest, but was innocently standing on a street corner waiting for his sister to come from school. A memorial in his name now stands to commemorate those who were killed.
Injustice
Then we were off to the Apartheid Museum, which was a great museum outlining the events leading to, during, and the downfall of Apartheid.
Here are some other photos of interesting things/stops along the tour:
Old coal chimneys
Stadium
A statue to represent the mining background of the area
Visiting Lesotho via the Sani Pass
We spent a few days in Durban primarily so we could do a daytrip over to Lesotho (pronounced “Luh-soo-too”). The tour is highlighted by driving the infamous Sani Pass 4WD route through the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park UNESCO World Heritage Site, culminating in a visit to the Highest Pub in Africa, and a short stop at a local village to learn more about local traditions.
Lesotho is an interesting country. It is the largest enclave country in the world (aka, completely surrounded by a single other country), and the only one outside of the Italian peninsula. That’s due to its history and geography.
The area was ruled by King Moshoeshoe I as Basutoland in the early 19th century. But as conflicts arose with Zulu expansion, as well as encroachment from the Boers (Dutch-descended settlers), the king appealed to Britain for help and became a British protectorate in 1868. It gained independence in 1966.
It’s also the only country entirely above 1000m, though it’s lowest point is 1400m (4593ft). It’s geography might be its most defining feature. Life isn’t easy here, with high levels of unemployment. It’s major industries are subsistence farming, remittances (especially from Basotho working in South African mines), textile exports (especially their famous blankets), and water (which is sold to South Africa).
Along the way from Durban, we stopped at the Mahatma Gandhi statue in Pietermaritzburg. This is near the spot where Gandhi, a lawyer en route from Durban via train to help a client, was forcibly evicted from his first-class seat to a third class one because of his race, in spite of holding a first class ticket. The episode was the catalyst for his campaign of passive resistance.
We didn’t spend much time here, unfortunately, as our guide noted that it wasn’t safe to remain there very long. He mentioned that he had noticed a number of individuals taking unusual interest in us. Bummer. So we took a few rushed photos and promptly left. The possibility of crime seems to be a theme for us in South Africa.
Sani Pass
The Sani Pass road was fun! Well, for Scott…not so much for Jen. You pass through South Africa immigration just prior to the rough portion of the road, entering a sort of “no man’s land” while you climb the river valley towards the plateau, where the immigration station for Lesotho is located. There are numerous switchbacks and we needed 4WD low to traverse a number of stretches. Somehow less capable vehicles often make the drive; not sure I would.
Once at the top, we entered Lesotho, then drove to the highest point. Apparently, this might be the highest point on a roadway on the continent. Then it was off to a local “village” to learn more about the local culture. After that, we popped over to the lodge, which sports the Highest Pub in Africa.
Observations
Looking down the river valley that we just drove up
The rim. The Lesotho border is up there somewhere!
Two locals as we drove by their village
At the highest (roadway) point in Africa
The Gandhi memorial
More of the Gandhi memorial
The Drakensbergs
Love this curving stretching of roadway
Little waterfall along the way.
View of a side canyon. Just sooo green.
A little view of the river
More mountainside, more river
4WD is highly recommended
One of the economic bases of the country
A few shots from the village
Getting some homemade bread from a resident
A view from inside the traditional hut
Learning about the famed Lesotho blankets
Welcome to the Mountain Kingdom in the Sky
The view from the pub’s patio
More scenery
And more scenery
Really fun little world map at the pub with currency from across the world
Hluhluwe-iMfolozi National Park, South Africa
Photos from our visit on Friday to the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi National Park, a 230,000-acre preserve about 3 hours north of Durban, South Africa. Established in 1895(!), it’s the oldest nature reserve in the country, the only state-run park in KwaZulu-Natal where each of the big five game animals can be found, and is home to one of the largest populations of white rhino in the world.
This was another private game drive (perhaps our last of the trip?) and we especially enjoyed seeing the monkeys and the watching the elephant browsing on the tree in front of us.
-S 🇿🇦
A young baboon attempts to climb, but doesn’t get too far.
Warthog through the brush
Being stared down by an elephant
This lonely tree just screams African safari, doesn’t it?
A matter of scale.
The elephant spotted above.
Views ahead.
On our Zoom update, Matt asked how close the animals were. It varies, of course, but here’s a good example. This shot is 130mm (for comparison, an iPhone’s 1x lens is 24mm, and its 3x lens is 77mm).
This tighter shot is 400mm, though I may have cropped further. So you can see that the lenses we brought really make a difference. By the way, these zebras are “hugging” as a way to keep an eye out for danger in both directions.
A water buck posing for us from the shade of a tree.
We had an excellent experience with this elephant, which spent quite a bit of time browsing from this acacia tree.
About halfway through his lunch, he casually crossed his back legs.
Here’s a short 94 second video clip from the encounter
Some young warthogs, wondering if we’re safe enough to allow them closer to the mudhole or not.
There’s a hippo in the middle of this river, though it’s a bit hard to tell.
A vervet monkey running away once I was spotted.
The “toilet seat” butt of a water buck
Loved this little pin-tailed whydah; it seemed to struggle to fly with its crazy tail feathers.
A warthog, looking guilty of something…
They have Pac-Man here! But they’re green instead of yellow, presumably for trademark purposes.
Some warthogs in situ
Baboons and a baby
Baboon marooned in a tree
Yet another kudu
View of a river valley. The rivers have been quite low, which made it much harder to find some of the wildlife we were looking for
Awww shit! …it’s a photo about dung beetles.
Some cape buffalo
A baboon carries a baby
Yet another impala. Look, these damn things are everywhere.
Our first nyala sighting
Young zebra nestling a parent
Just a shot of the landscape, for general context
Two elephants blocking the road
Elephant browsing on some grass
This baboon spread eagle as soon as he saw me.
Direct eye contact the whole time, trying to make it as weird as possible…
Another nyala
And another nyala, but this one was practicing his hurdles.
A whole mess of buffalo
Loved the mud on his horns
What might be around the bend?
An intense Samango monkey looks towards the visitor center
Additional photos on our public icloud album.
Tala Game Reserve, South Africa
Our first tour out of Durban was three-pronged. The first stop—and the reason we booked the tour—was a game drive in the Tala Preserve.
Up close with a journey of giraffe! This was our favorite moment of the day. Because we had a private tour, we were able to slowly exit the vehicle and walk a few feet out for a few photos. Pretty sure this is very much not allowed, but…well…
Reminds me of an African version of that famous The Beatles Abbey Road photo.
Up close with an elephant. More on this encounter below.
The giraffes as we first encountered them. This felt like such a quintessential setting for them!
This zebra was giving his younger brother the business for several minutes.
Our own private tour! Our guide proactively arranged this after we had arrived at the game reserve when he noticed that a number of kids were also going to be on our originally scheduled game drive. A pro move that really improved our experience—we were very grateful.
When we first discussed how to approach cameras for this trip, I told Jen that we needed long lenses so we could get a shot of a giraffe licking its own nostril, and well, mission accomplished!
Love the dried mud flaking off this white rhino.
Impala making a wild run for it.
Enjoyed seeing these two hippos, especially the youngin.
You spend a lot of time looking at animal butts during safaris, so here’s one of a zebra.
A silhouette of an impala
A flock of ostrich
We really enjoyed watching this browsing giraffe. Just chomped away for many minutes while we quietly snapped countless photos.
We very quickly got the attention of this group of water bucks.
It was brutally hot out, so most of our encounters were finding wildlife in the shade. This gorgeous tree spilled the shade out over the road, so that’s where this herd of impala spent their day.
A full body shot of a giraffe browsing an acacia tree.
A blesbok (heard of these before!) sporting some cool horns.
Natal Lion Park
The last two photos here, as well as the elephant one above, are from a tourist-trap called the Natal Lion Park. This was included in our tour, but…we wish it hadn’t been. Basically, it’s a zoo of sorts to ensure that tourists get their lion and elephant photos. The lions were in a very large (200+ acre) enclosure and you can drive your own vehicle around the roads looking for them. These were under the shade of a tree less than 50 meters from the entrance. They’re fed by park staff, and apparently get shifted between this park and various zoos.
The experience with this elephant felt especially tragic. You arrive on a hilltop elsewhere in the park, then a guy goes off over a hill and returns 15-20 minutes later leading an elephant over to you. Behind a wire fence, you hand a few carrots to the elephant and take some photos. Oy, no bueno. I can see why this place exists—tourists with just the day to explore off the cruise ship want to see a lion and elephant—but boy does it feel exploitative.
PheZulu Safari Park
The last stop on the tour was a visit to PheZulu for a “cultural experience” to watch some Zulu dancing. We weren’t especially interested in this—again, geared towards tourists—but sat through it anyway.
Pilanesberg National Park, South Africa
Our first safari game drive in Africa was in Pilanesberg National Park, 2.5 hours outside of Johannesburg. The park was formerly farmland located inside a large volcanic crater, but was rewilded as (mostly) natural habitat. -S 🇿🇦
An elephant drinking water, which is dripping off its trunk.
Our first giraffe sighting of the trip
We watched this guy spray himself with water for a bit, though it was hard to capture given our angle.
Two rhinos emerging from a shallow mud pit.
Zebra casually grazing
This doesn’t look like much, but it’s a dead impala in a tree—a recent leopard kill—though we could not locate the leopard, which was likely in the surrounding area, but bedded down and not visible from our various vantage points.
Wildebeest browsing
The two of these rhinos butted up against each other were challenging each other for seemingly the entire day.
Love the coloration on this elephant’s ears
We saw what seemed to be countless impala
The only warthog of the day
A hippo submerged in the water, with some impala nearby
A kudu surveys the landscape
An elephant in the bush
Hippos generally stay in the water during the day to keep their body temperature low, but this one in the distance seemed to enjoy just standing around for a bit.
Elephants browsing
A herd of wildebeast in the distance
Coming and going
My favorite elephant of the day
📷 You can find some more shots from the day on our public iCloud album.
🎥 Recapping United Arab Emirates
A short video recapping our time in the UAE.
Some other observations:
🎥 Recapping Hong Kong & Macau
Here’s a video recap of our time in Hong Kong and Macau. It was a short visit, especially after having to trim several days from our original itinerary, but we felt like we saw enough to call it done.
One of my favorite parts of our time in Hong Kong was simply sitting at the edge of two tap houses and watching everyone pass by; it’s a great city for people watching.
I also don’t think I’ll forget how much shopping there is. It seemed like countless tall buildings also contained vertical malls, sporting a range of shops from clothing, to high end designer, to pharmacies, to fast food. All somehow with a familiar “American mall” vibe.
-S 🇭🇰🇲🇴
Exploring around the UAE
We only had a short time in the UAE, so we found a way to get the most bang for our buck—a day tour to 5 of the 7 Emerites.
On December 2, 1971, the Sheiks of what are now 6 of the 7 Emerites (the 7th joined a year later) decided to unify and form one country—the United Arab Emerites. (However, each Sheik still controls their own Emerite.) Throughout the country, there are many references to “7”: murals depicting the 7 Sheiks, 7 pots, etc.
We had already explored Dubai a bit the day prior, so this tour focused on Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah, and Funairah. December 2nd is their “National day” of celebration, which just passed. So there were many UAE flags and decorations all over the country. Similar to the US for Fourth of July.
(Fun Fact—the Traveler’s Century Club (whose list we are currently using to count countries) counts each Emerite as a separate country/territory. While we are counting each Emerite separately in our personal total country counts, we are only counting the UAE as one country when we say we are planning on visiting 20 countries on this trip).
Here are some shots from the UAE! -J 🇦🇪
Some additions from Scott:
ZOOM CALL - Coffee and Mimosas with Jen and Scott in Durban, South Africa on Sat. 12/14
Wanting to find out the scoop from our trip so far? Come join us on our first group Zoom call with coffee, mimosas, or your favorite morning drink (and maybe a cinnamon roll or something else fun) on Saturday, December 14, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. (Arizona Time). We’ll do a recap of the places we’ve been so far–the good, bad, and the ugly :)
Here is the zoom link if you want to join: zoom.us/j/9515523…
And here’s the .ics invite to add to your calendar.
We look forward to seeing and chatting with everyone!