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The Night of the Spicy Pears
Posted by daveb on August 28th, 2008
Communications are often problematic in Africa. By communications, I mean both telecommunications and verbal exchanges too. Tonight, we mooched over to the locally-run vegetarian restaurant to give them a second chance to make amends after this morning’s tea-with-ants breakfast incident.
Squiffy ordered the Mexican wrap and I ordered the vegetable korma curry. As usual, the waitress looked completely bemused at our request and scanned the menu to confirm that such items existed. She pointed to ‘Spicy Pears with a Blue Cheese Salad’ and I corrected her finger towards the vegetable korma. After correctly noting down our orders in longhand on her jotter pad, she disappeared into the kitchen to inform the chef. (We had observed exactly the same bemusement at breakfast upon ordering poached eggs. There was only one egg dish on the menu and it was poached. Still, we got scrambled eggs. No biggie. We counted less than twenty food items on the menu. Honestly, the staff are so unsure of their own menu it’s like it’s everybody’s first day here.)
Squiffy’s Mexican wrap arrived and, in fairness, it looked good. Unfortunately, I accidentally put her off the last few bites when I mentioned that there was no running water in the building and the bathtub was full of yellowing water, from which the chef must have been drawing his cooking supply (sorry Squiffy!).
Then the bill arrived, with both meals correctly handwritten on the slip, followed shortly by our waitress and a request for money. I indicated that my vegetable korma had not yet arrived. Almost without the slightest surprise, she again disappeared into the kitchen.
Fifteen minutes later a male waiter appeared, carrying a plate of food which he presented to me. A plate of Spicy Pears with Blue Cheese Salad. It looked nice, for sure, but was not what I had ordered.
“I’m sorry, I think that there’s been a mistake”, I started, “I ordered the vegetable korma curry.”
“Ahh, no”, said the confused waiter looking around the otherwise empty restaurant.
“But, this looks great so I’m happy to have the spicy pears, if there is no vegetable korma coming and this dish is not for anyone else.”
It couldn’t be for anyone else, the restaurant was empty. The waiter disappeared back into the kitchen, presumably to ask the chef whether he was aware of my previous order for vegetable korma. He returned, indicated that there were no other dishes being prepared and apologised for the mistake. I double- and triple-checked that the spicy pears had not been made for anyone else before beginning to eat them. In fairness to the chef, they were really nice and the blue cheese salad really complemented the flavour.
Half way through my new dinner, our original waitress appeared with a vegetable korma! She saw me tucking into the plate of spicy pears and–confused–asked me whether I still wanted the korma. When I said no, she began to raise her voice at me and questioned why I was eating the spicy pears when I hadn’t ordered them. I tried to explain the series of events but she didn’t believe me and was quite angry that I was (a) clearly eating somebody else’s food and (b) now not going to pay for the vegetable korma (the spicy pears dish was cheaper in the menu).
After the meal, we paid-up [for what we had eaten] and made an embarrassed exit whilst the waitress, hands-on-hips, turned her body to track our leaving movements.
T.I.A. — This Is Africa.
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Livingstone Island: High falls, high tea
Posted by Squiffy on August 27th, 2008
Wanting to continue the trip in style after our visit to Islands of Siankaba, we opted to have high tea on Livingstone Island. This is the island at the very top of Victoria Falls from where David Livingstone first saw the waterfalls and was reported to have said that ‘scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight’. How could we miss that?
Our pick-up for the trip was from the Royal Livingstone Hotel, a beautiful lodge overlooking the falls. We snuck in early to make use of their sun loungers, pool and fluffy towels and caught a glimpse of high tea served in their lounge. I’ve never seen such an amazing array of cakes! I hoped this was a sneak preview of what was to come.
After a three minute speed boat ride to the island we were greeted by welcoming staff serving the local maize/banana drink before being guided one-by-one to the very edge of the top of the falls. It was slightly nerve-wracking given the 110m drop and slippery wet rocks, but apparently they’ve not lost anyone over the edge so far. After seeing the falls from the ground and a microlight, I feel like this completed my view. It was a great experience.
Over at the tented ‘restaurant’ we were served Pimms and lemonade, which our American friend Ang was amused to try – this was his first high tea and we had to guide him through the menu and etiquette (like putting milk in your tea). Drinks were followed by a tasty tea of savoury pastries and cakes, including great brownies, though I was slightly disappointed – it was nothing like the display over at the hotel (and we later learnt that we paid 4x the price for our tea). But I guess you can’t put a price on standing at the top of one of the natural wonders of the world.
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Siankaba Village and Nursery
Posted by Squiffy on August 26th, 2008
Our main reason for journeying to Siankaba was to visit the village nursery, which is supported by the charity I worked with. At the moment the nursery is run from a temporary structure, but the guys at The U Foundation and Islands of Siankaba lodge are working towards building a permenant school for the children.
The lodge staff introduced us to Malindi, the brave teacher who educates the sixty 2-6 year olds who attend his classes every morning. It’s clear that Malindi loves his job and the children, he’s very enthusiastic and looking forward to the new school which will have many more facilities than he has now. Through The U Foundation, schools in Leicestershire have donated furniture, books and games which have been shipped from the UK and are sitting in containers waiting to fulfil their destiny. Malindi can’t wait to put them to use. It shouldn’t be too long now, the chief of the village has agreed the location of the school and work has begun to clear the site.
It was Sunday when we visited but Malindi had called the children into school, in their uniforms, to greet us. As we walked into the ‘room’, fifty-five little faces peered at us, some smiling, some shy. They quickly overcame their shyness as they were instructed by their teacher to greet us, then stand for a performance of ‘head-shoulders-knees-and-toes’. Malindi explained that he teaches them English through songs and asked us if we could teach them something new. I wracked my head for nursery songs that they might understand but all I could come up with was ‘hokey-cokey’. At least it would teach them left leg, right arm etc. Well, you can imagine trying to get 55 children in a circle to hold hands! It took some explaining but we got there in the end and I think they enjoyed the new song, especially the running into the middle.
After the songs we gave them the stationery and balls/football that we’d bought in Lusaka and some cake and juice donated by the lodge. It was a lovely experience and we wish Malindi and the children well – I hope the building of their new school progresses smoothly and Malindi gets the office he deserves. He’s currently preparing lessons from a tiny room. Good luck with all those children!
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Livingstone: The Islands of Siankaba
Posted by daveb on August 25th, 2008
I recently wrote a post about how travelling is not a holiday. Here’s where I start to eat my words (and hopefully not make you, dear reader, too jealous!). We’ve just spent two nights in the most fabulous lodge accommodation, The Islands of Siankaba — voted Livingstone’s best lodge for two years running. So after spending the last week in a $5 tent, you’re quite right to ask, how did we get here? We’re lucky enough to have been invited by the kind owners, who are friends of ours.
Upon arrival at the lodge by private boat (private BOAT!) we were immediately greeted by our hosts who thrusted cocktails into our open hands. There was a miniature scuffle between the staff and ourselves when it came to carrying our bags off the boat. You see, as a backpacker your bags are our weakest link and bus station touts regularly try to run off with them to bundle them into a taxi for a fee, so when someone tries to ‘help us with our bags’, we bolt into action to defend our belongings. It turns out that in a luxury resort like this, there are staff to carry our bags to our room for us!
When you see the photos of our room, which is uber-luxurious by anyone’s standards, just imagine the feeling of elation you’d experience after spending over twelve months in dirty, budget hotels with grotty bathrooms and lately a broken, $5 tent, like we have. Elevated safari lodge cabin on stilts (our feet never touched the island floor!), his n’ hers washbasins, free-standing roll-top bathtub, American king-size bed–with individually pocket-sprung mattress, not standard-issue foam–with electrically heated sheets, a private balcony overlooking our own waterway (complete with resident crocodile), gourmet restaurant and finely-stocked bar.
After having high tea (high tea!) we, and other guests, were ushered onto one of the boats to be taken out for a relaxing sunset cruise in the Zambezi river. With wine and canopies, obviously.
The biggest thank you to our hosts in the UK and Lusaka for inviting us to stay and also to the staff at the lodge for ensuring that we forgot our budget backpacker lifestyle for a couple of days!
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Africa Insight: Sorry I’m late…
Posted by daveb on August 22nd, 2008
The other day, our driver was over an hour late and he apologised:
“Sorry I’m late, there were elephants on the road. Fifty of them.”
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Livingstone: Rafting the Mighty Zambezi
Posted by daveb on August 22nd, 2008
(Special Note: Happy Birthday Andrew!)
Ever since I met Squiffy, she has yapped on about her amazing experience rafting the Mighty Zambezi river back in November 2000 with her previous boyfriend. At this time of year, the water-level is a lot higher than in November which means two things:
1) Of the 25 rapids, it is only safe for us to attempt the last 15 or so.
2) Having more water flow through them, the rapids will be smaller than on Squiffy’s last attempt.
We had a fun day on the water, albeit it was rather tame compared to rafting previously undertaken by both of us. We did have one major moment where we capsized in between two rapids and had to clamber onto the upturned raft to ‘negotiate’ the imminently approaching white-water. Needless to say, that we lost two of our paddles at this early stage and so both the girls on our boat had a pleasure ride for the rest of the journey!
Much more scary than the water, was the walk down into the canyon to get to our boats. The scree path was reinforced with criss-crossed wood to form a makeshift ladder. Unfortunately, Squiffy fell, landing right on a rock and has a bruise the size of a saucer on her botty cheek. I tore a hole in the side of my foot near the top of the cliff, ignored it at the time, but had to stop to get it patched-up midway. (At time of writing, fives days on, Squiffy’s still got the bruise and I’m still limping.)
For DaveC and others with a fear of reptiles: There were crocodiles on the edge of the river, eagerly awaiting their lunch in the next human capsize. Seriously. (I knew that would scare you.)
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At the Zimbabwe border: A sad situation
Posted by Squiffy on August 21st, 2008
On our travels through Zambia, we’ve met several people from Zimbabwe. One was in exile, fearing for his life as he’d been accused of ‘committing journalism’, others are here to find food which is very hard to come by in Zimbabwe. Even if supplies are available, the economy in in such a state that any currency the people have is more-or-less worthless. We’ve come across a 50 billion dollar note, and are aware that Mugabe has just started printing 100 billion dollar notes. On the day they were printed, the latter could buy two loaves of bread. At the current rate of inflation at two million percent, a few days later it will be worth a lot less. As an indicator of this, the bills have a use-by date. After this they are actually worth nothing. Currently, the time between printing the note and expiry is about 6 months. As well as the big notes, we have a 20 dollar bill printed in 2006. Such an amount is laughable now.
A few days ago we experienced the sadness of the situation in Zimbabwe for ourselves. Livingstone is very close to the Zim border, and as we were walking around the town we were apporached by Martin, an old Zimbabwean guy, wanting to talk to us, and we presumed, sell us something. He showed us his birth certificate and stamped piece of paper, a substitute for a passport — I’m sure Mugabe won’t issue passports. He’d come into Zambia for the day to try and buy food for his family of five (luckily, Zambia are tolerant of such coming and going as they sympathise with the situation in Zim). Of course, we were sceptical at first and politely turned down the hand-crafted jewellery he gently tried to sell us. But as we walked with him and talked, our heart really went out to him. He showed us a pile of 50 000 000 dollar notes which together wouldn’t even buy him a drink. Our scepticism melting, we took him to a local store where we bought him a 25kg sack of mealie meal (the staple food here) which he told us would last his family 3 months if they were careful. For the price of one meal in a restaurant here we were able to buy him and his family enough for several weeks at least.
He thanked us and said he would pray for us. He insisted that I take one of the wooden necklaces that he’d made. I put it on and he nodded happliy, ‘It looks lovely’ he said. I had to turn away as tears were welling in my eyes. Here was an old guy, I don’t know what his profession was in the past, but now to survive he had to make wooden jewellery and try to sell them to the indifferent tourists, in an attempt to buy sacks of food that he could carry on his head back to his family in another country. On his arm we noticed he’d written ‘so long life’. How can Mugabe live with himself?
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Livingstone: Microlighting the Falls
Posted by daveb on August 20th, 2008
Rather than throw ourselves off the bungie bridge to get a good view of the falls, we took to the air in microlights. Squiffy was cool-as-a-cucumber before the flight and I was somewhat cacking myself (as is customary for me prior to undertaking an unnatural activity). Hilariously, once in the air, I relaxed into the flight an even had a go on the controls — meanwhile Squiffy was terrified that she was going to fall out and daren’t move a muscle!
As you’ll see from the photos, the views of the falls from a thousand feet were spectacular. From 300 feet, we also saw elephants crossing the river. We both thoroughly enjoyed the experience and I’d have another flight in a heartbeat, whilst Squiffy is perfectly happy to have done it once, thank-you-very-much.
(At the end of our gallery, I’ve included some aerial shots of the falls previously taken by our pilot.)
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Livingstone: Victoria Falls, the smoke that thunders
Posted by daveb on August 19th, 2008
Livingstone is Zambia’s premier tourist town due in no small part to the mighty Zambezi river spilling over a hundred metres to form the majestic Victoria Falls. Getting here has left us with sore bottoms as the roads are often terrible in this part of the country — albeit not as terrible as our journey for 4.5 hours at 15mph from Chipata to Mfuwe. It was worth it though.
We spent the next day walking along the edge of the falls taking photographs and gazing at the width of the water. As luck would have it we’ve arrived at the best time of year for taking photos. Any later and the flow of water would be reduced to a trickle, any earlier and the spray would be so dense that we would see nothing.
To walk across the famous bungie jump bridge, we had to temporarily cross the Zambian border into the ‘no mans land’ before Zimbabwe. Aside from admiring the kahunas of the bungie jumpers, we sniggered at the clever baboons who pinched food from the lorries waiting to cross the border. Presumably to sell down the monkey market…
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Twelve months into our travels
Posted by daveb on August 18th, 2008
Some people berate us, “You’re so lucky to be on such a long holiday.”
Which gets a little bit up my nose and I immediately retort, “It’s not a holiday, it’s a trip!”
What do I mean by this? First, we change locations on average at least every three days. So one day in three we spend on the road, the next day we spend familiarising ourselves with our new location: Where are we going to sleep? Where’s the supermarket? (Yerright, there’s rarely a supermarket…) Which streets are safe to walk in the light? What time does it get dark? Is there an Internet cafe from which we can upload some blog posts? What do you mean there’s no electricity! And so forth… On our third day in a new location, we generally have enough time to relax a do some touristy stuff before packing-up again in preparation for the next destination. Don’t read me the wrong way here: We’re still massively enjoying out tour, but I want people to understand that ‘travelling’ is very different from a two week all-inclusive holiday at a mid-range resort on a Greek Island.
And that’s before we get to the, “I wish I had the money to travel, I just bought a BMW, had a kid, took out a huge mortgage on a detached house in SW11 and now I’m really broke!” follow-up response.
Unbelievably, we’ve actually been on the road for a little over twelve months now. This came as a surprise to us too, as we completely missed our travel anniversary! So here’s a toast to us for spending twelve months professionally homeless and to you, our dear reader, for continuing to follow our sometimes crazy journey. (DaveB takes a sip from our UV-treated bottled water.)
Lord knows when, or indeed if, we’ll actually get around the globe at this rate. In twelve months we’ve only got from London to somewhere in southern Africa, which is a bit poor but kind of cool all the same time.
What have you been up to in the last 12 months? (Leave us a comment — or a flame!)
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