Every trip seems to have one section that doesn’t quite go according to plan, and I think this section is it. After my Simien Mountains tour I was supposed to go straight to Aksum, but was told instead that I would have to spend the night in Debark and go to Aksum in the morning. Morning came and my ride didn’t show up. I then spent the whole morning trying to arrange a ride in a town with no local…
Continuing on my way north through Ethiopia, I made a long day trip into the Simien Mountains. Doing a three day trek is an option, but due to time constraints, I settled for the day trip and it turned out to be just right. Any excursion into the Simiens has to start in the little town of Debark, where the park headquarters are located and where you sign in and get an armed ranger. Why we need an armed ranger…
I woke up early one last time in Dar es Salaam and made my way through the busy city center, this time to the ferry port and boarded the very nice Kilimanjaro 3 bound for the island of Zanzibar. The Indian Ocean water around these parts, by the way, is just the most crystal clear blue you can imagine. You can almost see all the way to the bottom. After a two hour ride I reach the port of Stone…
After a good nights sleep in the city center of Dar es Salaam again, I arose with the sun and made my way to the airport for a flight to Kigoma, clear on the opposite side of the country. Kigoma is a large, but relatively underdeveloped city, situated on the gorgeous shores of Lake Tanganyika, the second largest lake in Africa, and the deepest. On the other side of the lake sits the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My hotel…
After climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, getting a long shower, a good nights sleep, and wishing my good friend Rachel a safe journey back home, I caught a short flight to Dar es Salaam on the beautiful Tanzanian coast. Dar es Salaam is not the capital of Tanzania, though it probably should be. It’s the biggest city in Tanzania and it’s where all the embassies are, while the government sits in the center of the country in Dodoma. There really isn’t a…
Greetings, everyone, and welcome to the inaugural blog post of my new website. Even though I’ve been traveling quite a while, this is my first trip to Africa and I’m really excited about it so let’s dive in… There’s really not much to Arusha itself other than being a jumping off point for the famous northern safari circuit. It’s a bustling market town with some hotels and restaurants and LOTS of safari companies. The parking lot at the Kilimanjaro airport…