Sana’a, pearl of the Middle East

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or so my tour guide tells me. It is a pretty special city and I’m sitting here stuffing my face with mezza, samboush and an exquisitely marinated mixed grill of goat and chicken, while uploading today’s photos. Another lazy gallery

Contrary to expectations, internet here is fine so at least the beginning and end of my Yemen stay will see me well connected.

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Cape Maclear photos for old hands

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This post is for those of you who have been to Cape Maclear before and is a bunch of photos I took to show how things have changed, particularly at Fat Monkeys. I will be taking more of these kinds of photos to show you how much the Cape has changed and it has changed a lot. First Fat Monkeys
The old bar has changed shape
They have a couple of boats

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Lake of Stars Festival – Nkopola Lodge, Malawi

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I spent my afternoon in Lilongwe sorting out a sim card and buying a towel, stopping at Ali Baba’s for a kebab before falling asleep on my hotel bed at about 5pm. Something about the four flights that morning I guess. I woke up and packed my stuff then headed out to get the bus to Nkopola. It was laid on for all the timid first-time in Malawi festival goers but I opted for the luxury over the local bus.
A lot of the punters were having trouble adapting to Malawi time and were getting particularly frustrated with not getting a straight answer on how long it would take to get down to the lake. I did lots of quiet chuckling to myself when I heard “But you said it was an hour away two hours ago”. After stopping at Sun ‘n’ Sand and Boadzulu on the way, we finally made it to Nkopola about 9 at night and I threw on my pack and trudged the 2km down the beach to the campsite. There weren’t many people there so I pitched my tent down towards the beach. Time spent practising putting up the tent came in handy and I was impressed with how it looked in the morning.

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Wadi Rum – Lawrence of Arabia country

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After a quiet night spent watching bad action movies in my hotel (shout out to the Edom Hotel in Petra, a great budget hotel) I set out again the next morning for my second day in Jordan at Wadi Rum and Aqaba. First stop was back up the hill for a scenic shot looking down at the beginning of the Petra Suq.
then back in the car for the drive to Wadi Rum where I swapped the air-conditioned Landcruiser for a covered pickup for the drive out into the Wadi. Leaving the town behind we quickly found the desert.
The Wadi is huge and I only had time to explore a small section. It’s a stark but beautiful lanscape of sanstone cliffs rising high above the wadi floor.

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Nabatean Monkey Men of Petra

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The day is done and the beers are in so it’s time for an update from my few days in Dahab and Jordan. At Mayfair the evening after the pyramid jaunt I ran into Ahmed who I met last year. He showed me some of Cairo’s more interesting nightlife last year so I returned the favour by booking my Dahab travel through his fledgling agency.

So the next night I flew to Sharm el Sheikh on the Sinai Coast and was picked up by Hassan, the insanely grinning qat-chewing taxi driver for the 80km drive up the coast to Dahab. Apart from giving a cat a bit of a scare the drive was uneventful and swift and within an hour I was happily sleeping in my room in Dahab. And apart from occasionally shifting from my bed to the piles of cushions by the Red Sea, that’s where I stayed for the next day.

Thoroughly rested, I set out at 4 the next morning to catch the bus to Taba to catch the ferry to Aqaba in Jordan. Border formalities out of the way I got on the bus to Petra. On the way we passed many Bedouin settlements. While they mostly have a couple of pickups hanging around, each camp had a healthy herd of camels grazing nearby.

We stopped at a fancy hotel for lunch, after which I wandered outside to check the scenery and the hotel’s “Bedouin Camp” outside.

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Snofru’s Red and Bent Pyramids

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Snofru* was a guy who liked to start a job. He built three pyramids, each of which had one problem or another which caused him to abandon them just before they were ready to use. Rumour’s that his third pyramid was called Gandalf are completely unfounded.

* Everything in Egypt has hundreds of different spellings. Snofru was also known as Snephru, Snefru and Sneferu. In deeply scientific fashion, I choose the spellings that appeal to me.

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