Sanur, Indonesia

We're back in Sanur after a couple nights on the island of Nusa Lembongan.

We stayed at Waka Nusa Resort which was our splurge on this trip. Our room was a round thatch-roofed bungalow, creatively decorated (and a full mosquito net). The grounds were impeccable, with all the beach sports available. (We played a short game of bocce ball (which was interrupted for complimentary tea and cakes - it was almost like cricket), and some pingpong).

The resort was on Mushroom Bay, which is a nice secluded little beach. It's small enough that there's only about eight hotels (each hotel having maybe ten rooms) lined end-to-end over the whole beach, but large enough that it had a couple restaurants (to provide variety from the resort). In busy season we were told that you need to book at least a month in advance! We booked the day before. There's nice views across the water of Bali (nicer in dry season :) ) & Gunung Agung (the tallest peak in Bali), a cool ocean breeze and not so many tourists.

Yesterday I went diving with Lembongan Dive, arranged through the hotel. It was pretty cheap (only $30 / tank!). Heather joined along and went snorkelling while I dived. I dived at a couple sites, SD and Lembongan Point. Both were fast drift dives, which I'm relatively inexperienced at (previously I've only done drift dives when I did my Advanced Open Water). It was pretty cool. My previous dive was three years ago, so it took me my first dive to get my feet wet (pun intended), and on the 2nd dive I was able to look around at the coral and fishies. The water was only 24C so we wore a full wet suit and boots. Didn't see any manta rays or sunfish.

In the afternoon Heather and I walked about 15 minutes from our hotel through the island to Dream Beach. It was like a beach in a movie scene. Most of the time we had the beach to ourselves (technically we were in the restaurant overlooking the beach). It reminded Heather of PEI, except for the colour of the sand. We had lunch and a couple Bintangs, and then walked back to our hotel.

We had dinner at Winda Sari Warung, right beside our hotel. We both had grilled squid, which was really good, and shared a banana crepe with palm syrup and cocoa shavings, the best dessert we've had so far. I've been having grilled squid at every occasion on ocean-side towns, trying to find a place as good as the place in Zanzibar. So far at places here it's been really good to great.

This morning we had plans to wake up at 6am to see the fisherman come in; but at 6am those plans didn't seem like a great idea. So we slept in till 8am. Had breakfast, read a bit, caught the ferry back to Sanur, checked back into Tamukami Hotel. Most likely we'll be staying here until Friday when we fly back to Jakarta, although if we get bored we may spend a night in Kuta. Tonight we're going to eat at the fish market in Jimbaran. There's rows of places serving fresh fish with garlic, lime and chili marinade, grilled over coconut husks. I'm hungry already just thinking about it. It's about 15km from Sanur on the west side of Bali, so if it wasn't rainy season we'd also get a nice sunset. We've arranged for a driver to take us there and back for about $10 -- not sure if that's the going rate but it seemed good to us.

Sanur, Indonesia

We're finally in a beach town in Bali, after five days in Ubud.

Yesterday we had a day trip through some of the sites north of Ubud. We hired a driver, and visited Tampaksiring, Penelokan and Sukowati. This is a very common thing to do, and the day was filled with tourist traps, although still worth it.

Tampaksiring contains both Tirta Empul (holy springs) and Gunung Kawi (10 rock-cut shrines). We only wanted to see Gunung Kawi, but our driver first dropped us at Tirta Empul. We spent about 10 minutes wandering around Tirta Empul, asking for Gunung Kawi, before we realized we were in the wrong spot.

Gunung Kawi is quite cool. We descended around 350 steps down from the parking lot to the river valley. The path at one point is cut through solid rock. At the bottom are 10 shrines, about 7m tall, also cut from solid rock. There were no other tourists there when we arrived, which was nice.

Next was Penelokan for a view of Lake Batur, between the two peaks of Gunung Batur and Gunung Agung. It was okay, not any more spectacular than any lake back home.

We skipped Pura Besakih, a very big tourist trap according the Lonely Planet, and instead went shopping around Sukawati.

There are a million shops around Sukawati, all selling rather high-quality crafts from wood and stone, and oil-on-canvas paintings. We bought five paintings, the largest 1m x 2m, plus some other crafts. It was a busy day of bargaining.

We arrived back at the hotel around 5pm and cleaned up, and then headed to our favourite restaurant (Sura's Warung) for dinner. (Oh yah, the duck last night was excellent, very tender and rich).

This morning we shopped for more souvenirs at the local market in Ubud; and then took a private transport to Sanur. We're staying at the Tamukami Hotel, another nice boutique hotel (it's not in the LP -- Heather found on the web). We've been waiting to get back ocean-side for some seafood; and found a place for lunch (Made's Pub) near the hotel that had very good grilled squid (mmm yummy).

Tomorrow we take a sailboat across the Selat Badung to stay for a couple nights on Nusa Lembongan (Nusa means island); the island is supposed to be relatively untouched but maybe by now they'll have internet access. I'm planning to go for a dive, and relax on Mushroom Bay beach with Heather.

I forgot to bring my SDcard-to-USB thingy so I'll upload some more pics next time. Unfortunately I had some more problems trying to eject my SD card the other day in Ubud (stupid Windows again wouldn't let go of it), so now I'm carrying around two corrupted SD cards. I'm hoping there's a place back home that will be able to restore the pics for me.

Sanur, Indonesia

Today we arrived in Sanur from Ubud. We spent the last 5 days or so in Ubud, so we were ready for a change of scenery. Our time in Ubud was very relaxing. I took in a few different treatments at the health spa down the street from our hotel (deep tissue massage, facial, and, just out of curiosity, an assessment with a elder spiritual healer from the community). The latter didn't really offer much insight to me, but the session was very interesting, nonetheless.

Ubud was a very tranquil town - once you managed to get away from the major tourist centre of Monkey Forest Rd, that is. Luckily, we were staying in a hotel off the main drag, so we were quite fortunate not to have to contend with the constant barrage (kind of a cross between Cavendish in the summer in PEI and the Beach in Toronto on the weekend). Our hotel was quite peaceful, and was very much Balinese in architecture and design. The room was basic, but the exterior was quite lovely, especially for breakfast. We found a neat little restaurant up the road (close to my spa), so spent a few days enjoying the food, street traffic, and surroundings that the restaurant had to offer.

Yesterday, Eric and I hired a driver for the day to take us to some of the surrounding areas around Ubud. We saw the highest peak on Bali (Gunung Agung (3142m)) and a couple of Hindu temples along the way. Eric was able to stop at a number of rice fields to take some pics - a few excellent ones, I might add, which I'm sure he'll soon post.

To finish the day, we stopped at a village called Sukowati to shop for artwork. There is a large, bustling bazaar in the centre of the town. We were on the hunt for abstract art, and our visit did not disappoint :) Ubud (and its surrounding environs) has a high concentration of very talented artists (painters, wood carvers, stone carvers, musicians, and so on). We were so impressed with what we were seeing in town that Eric and I decided we wanted to buy a few pieces at the market - if we could find, and, most importantly, agree on something to buy. In the end, we purchased 2 large pieces at the Sukowati market, and a couple of others back in the Ubud local market when we arrived home that evening. All were very reasonably priced, so we were very happy with the day's outcome!

Right now, we're in Sanur, a beachfront town in the south of Bali. We'll spend tonight here, and then we'll take a boat of some sort over to a small island off Bali called Nusa Lembongan for a bit of diving and snorkeling for a couple of days. It's supposedly very tranquil here, so it'll be nice to relax by the ocean.
Our hotel on this island is a bit of a 'splurge' hotel for the trip (comparatively speaking, compared to the relative affordability of the rest of Indonesia), so it'll be nice to be close to the water again for a few days. After this jaunt, we'll return to Sanur for a couple of days, and then fly out to Jakarta.

Now that we're on the coast again, we're really looking forward to indulging in seafood!!! We're been holding off ordering it on the menu when we've been more inland on the trip...but, now that we're on the water, we can enjoy!

Overall, we're having a great time. Bali has been very relaxing, and we're looking forward to checking out more of the island.

Ubud, Indonesia

We've spent the past few days relaxing in Ubud. Despite all the tourists, the town has maintained its authenticity once you get off the main streets. There's a very nice spa at the end of our street at which we've had almost daily appointments. When you get a massage, there's sounds of a bumbling stream, gentle raindrops in leaves, birds chirping... Except it's not a CD playing -- these are real sounds you hear in the massage rooms which are open on one side to the natural surroundings.

Yesterday we went for a walk along a ridge between two rivers, with views of rice terraces cut into the hillsides. Back in town, we had lunch in a small little cafe on our street. It started raining after we ate, so we decided to have a beer and wait out the rain. Fortunately it's rainy season and the rain continued for a few hours. "A beer" turned into many. There was a break in the rain later in the afternoon, which gave us enough time to get to another little cafe and have a beer. Later we had dinner at Cafe Lotus, a restaurant on the grounds of Pura Taman Saraswati, one of the major temples in Ubud.

This morning I took a Balinese cooking class at Casa Luna. It was more of a cooking show; but still worth the time. Unlike cooking classes I've taken in other countries, the instructor did most of the cooking while we watched. I did get to grind spices into a paste, and chop up some eggplant, but that was it. I also got a nice souvenir apron, and a recipe book. The recipe book gives good descriptions of the ingredients used in Balinese cooking, as well as suggesting alternatives.

Tonight we're having bebek betutu. It's a balinese specialty of duck stuffed with spices, wrapped in banana leaves and coconut husks and cooked in embers all day. You have to order 24 hours in advance -- yesterday's lunch was really tasty so we booked it at that same restaurant.

Tomorrow we've arranged for a driver to take us to some of the sights in northern and eastern Ubud. The last stop is the craft market at Sukawati, where we'll load up on souvenirs.

Ubud, Indonesia

We're now in Bali, after seeing some beautiful natural wonders in east Java.

We ended up keeping our driver for three days, seeing Gunung Bromo, staying on a coffee plantation, doing the Kawah Ijen hike, and finally getting dropped off in Ubud, Bali. There were quite a few other couples who we bumped into along the trip that were doing similar itineraries, also with a hired car and driver.

First was a long eleven hour drive from Yogyakarta to Cemoro Lawang, a town on the edge of the ancient Tengger caldera. Inside the 10km crater are three volcanoes, including Gunung Bromo (2392m).

We woke up at 3:15am to get to a viewpoint well above Tengger. We arrived just before the break of dawn, and found maybe 300 other tourists (half Indonesian, half foreigners) also at the viewpoint. It was a cloudy morning, and we waited for an hour to see if the clouds would break. We jostled with the other tourists for photo ops. There were occasional great views of Gunung Semeru (3676m) in the background, which spewed up dark clouds of smoke every few minutes. We did manage to get a big picture view through the clouds, but nothing picture-worthy.

Next we drove down a very steep (45*) "road" to the foot of Bromo. The enterprising locals have set up a fence about 500m from the base; and offer horse rides across the short distance. We chose to walk :)

Due to the altitude, it was a tiring climb up 253 stairs to get to the rim of Bromo. The smell of sulphur didn't help. About half way up, we sat down on some rocks to rest. We were soon surrounded by teenage kids wanting to take my picture. I felt I had to uphold the reputation of my doppelganger, the Bollywood star, so posed for a few pics, signed an autograph etc. We resumed our climb after a few minutes. Once at the top, there were great views into the crater, with smoke billowing out. Very smelly, though.

Back at the hotel we had breakfast (it was only 7:30am!) and then settled in for the drive to the Ijen Plateau. About six hours later we arrived at Catimore Homestay on the Balawan coffee plantation. It was a great setting, in a big old Dutch house. We relaxed, had some tea by the garden, and read a bit. Later in the evening we had dinner and a couple beers, and then went to bed around 9pm.

We were up early yet again to visit the coffee factory at 6am. There was a noisy room where dozens of women graded the coffee beans, tossing them into the air with large trays. We also saw a large heated warehouse where the beans are dried. It was pretty cool. I had no idea what a coffee plant even looked like before this trip.

I had to have coffee with breakfast on the plantation (I'm more of a tea drinker). It was excellent. If there was coffee like this in Toronto, I may even become a coffee drinker.

It was a short 30-minute drive from the plantation to Kawah Ijen, which is a beautiful turquoise lake. Sulphur is collected inside the crater by workers who carry 80kg loads along a difficult trek. It was tiring for us and we weren't carrying anything. The path is 3km up the crater, pretty steep for parts; and the smell of sulphur was overpowering towards the crater rim. We stepped aside every few minutes to allow the sulphur collectors to pass going downhill with their loads. Along the path were loads of sulphur waiting to be carried; the yellow sulphur made a nice subject for pics.

We finally reached the lookout point on the rim of the crater. The smoke from the crater obscured views of the turquoise lake and so we waited, breathing through our clothing, hoping for the wind to shift the smoke and give us a view. After about 20 minutes, we were rewarded with a partial view. We started trekking back, and just before we left the rim, the smoke cleared completely! Another 10 seconds and we would been downhill and missed the view. It was gorgeous and well worth the journey. It's off the beaten path, and the lack of tourists was nice compared to Bromo.



We trekked back to our vehicle, and were off to Bali. It was a short one hour drive to the ferry, about an hour across to Bali, and then a four hour drive to Ubud, in the middle of Bali. We said goodbye to Eko (sp?), who had been our excellent driver and guide over the last four days, and checked into the Pradha Guesthouse.

The Pradha Guesthouse is in a beautiful Balinese setting. There grounds are enormous, with intricate carved pillars and roofs, ponds, lots of seating, and a view into the Pura Desa Ubud temple next door. Last night we were pretty tired from the past couple days of travel; and we also had a bit of culture shock with so many tourists (it's like in the movie The Beach when they come back to the partying on the mainland). However, our guesthouse is a bit off the main drag, and there's many walks through rice paddy fields that start from our front door. We'll be relaxing here in Ubud for the next few days, doing walks, maybe hiring a driver for a day trip to surrounding sights, buying souvenirs, (and getting back to a civilized sleep schedule!)

Ubud, Indonesia

After a few exhausting days, we finally arrived on the island of Bali late yesterday afternoon (with a 1-hr time change from Java - so, now it's a 13-hr time difference for us...not that it really makes much of a difference at this point :))

(Eric and I are both typing our posts at the same time, so there may be a slight bit of overlap).

Over the past few days, we've been in a very mountainous region of Java province (north/central). We hired the same driver (Eko) to take us to the last few spots: Mount Bromo, to see a couple of active volcanoes in the region; and, Kawah Ijen (Ijen Crater), to see a turquoise lake located inside a volcano. The latter was situated in a heavily forested area, so the roads were VERY rugged. Luckily, it wasn't raining, so we were able to drive up the mountain.

I really liked Bromo and Ijen. At Bromo, we woke up around 3.30am to get to a wonderful look-out point to catch a view of 3 rather large volcanoes. They are still active, so when the clouds cleared, and the sun rose, we were actually able to see the smoke and ash billowing out (no lava, though). From here, we drove to Mount Bromo (one of the mountains) to hike to the rim of the volcano. This was an interesting climb. Unfortunately, there were quite a few tourists here and at the lookout, but that was okay. We are traveling in the "low season" in Indonesia (and at the beginning of rainy season), so I can't imagine what "high season" numbers must be like!! Java is the most heavily populated island of Indonesia, with over 120 million people alone.

After Mount Bromo and region, we traveled to the Ijen Plateau area of Java (central/east). This was about a 6-hr drive from Bromo. Ijen is full of coffee plantations, and the hotel we stayed actually bordered on one. We had the chance to tour the plantation yesterday morning, which was very cool. So, needless to say, the coffee for our breakfast that morning was awesome! The accomodations were a bit rough (I kind of felt like we were sleeping outdoors with the animals and insects rather than indoors!), but it was worth it given the scenery and proximity to the Ijen Crater and Bromo. Next time, we're packing a mosquito net (we're in a part of Indonesia where malaria isn't a real threat, so we didn't bring one with us).

Once we left our hotel, we headed for the Kawah Ijen. It was about a 1.5 hr trek up the mountain (probably about 5-6 kms in total). It was incredible! Luckily, the clouds broke a few times at the peak (around the crater rim) so we could view the surreal turquoise lake and sulfur mine. The fumes from the sulfur pit were, at times, overwhelming, tho. At this altitude, breathing was a bit difficult with the fumes. Eric will likely post some pics of the sulfur and the miners. It was well worth the journey!

After Ijen, we headed for Bali. We'll likely spend the next few days in the town of Ubud (according to the Lonely Planet, it's the cultural apex of Bali). The rice fields surrounding the town look amazing! Our hotel is close to the centre of town, so it's convenient for doing walking tours around the town. The hotel is very Balinese in architecture and in furnishings. It'll be relaxing to hang out here for a few days. So far, our trip has been quite active, so both Eric and I feel that we haven't had a chance to get caught up on our rest or relaxation yet (as a lot of mornings have been 3am or 4am starts). Today, we'll likely do a bit of reading by the pool, maybe walk down to a local market and buy some fruit, and rest my back...it's a little tired after all the mountain hiking!

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Today we saw the Hindu temples around the Prambanan plain. We had hired a private car and driver for the day to get to all the ruins, and it was well worth the $22.

We were up at 5am, our internal clocks still a bit messed up. Breakfast at the Ministry of Coffee didn't start until 8am, but we couldn't fall back asleep so just stayed up. Breakfast was great, the best on the trip so far (although still short of breakfasts we had in Morocco). Our driver arrived at 9am and we started our day.

First we stopped at Candi Sambisari (Candi translates as temple), about 10km outside of town. This is a ruin 6m below ground level that was discovered by a farmer. It now sits fully uncovered, surrounded by farms in the village. We didn't even see until we were right upon it. I went to take a pic and realized that my memory card was corrupted, most likely when I uploaded pics yesterday (stupid Windows). So we were now on a SD card hunt as well as ruins.

Next we saw Candi Kalasan and Candi Sari. These are also in the middle of farms and villages, which continue on with life as if nothing's extraordinary about a temple sitting next to your house. There were no other tourists at any of these ruins.

Before getting to the Prambanan complex we headed to a market and found a camera store, and picked up a 1GB card for $12. Yippee!

Just east of the main complex is the Plaosan group of temples. This was our favourite site, (maybe even better than Borobudur). Again, it's set surrounded by farmer's fields. Most of the site is an archaeological work in progress, with big mounds of rocks waiting to be arranged into temples and shrines and stupas. Two of the main temples are restored; the rest just a jumble. It was quite beautiful and peaceful.

Finally we headed to the Prambanan complex. Most of the temples (the highest reaching 47m) were damaged by the earthquake in 2006; and so access is very restricted. However they're still amazing to see.

We had a quick stop at Kraton Ratu Boko, primarily to see Prambanan from a lookout spot in the hills surrounding the plain. You need a pretty good zoom to get a decent pic -- my five-year-old camera with a 3x zoom just didn't cut it. Boko also has some basic ruins to see, which we glanced at.



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A couple days ago while I was about town, I was stopped by a few groups of girls so they could take their picture with me. Heather and I figure I must look like some Bollywood star or the other.

...

We're now finished with ruins for the trip. Next up are a couple of natural wonders: Gunung Bromo volcano and Kawah Ijen (a turquoise sulphur lake). We've booked the same driver to take us for the next two days. The driver was great, and the car has good lower lumbar support (it's a couple of long days in the car for Heather's back). After that we're off to Bali for the remainder of the trip.

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

So we saw Borobudur today! It is a very impressive ruin; it's amongst my top-five favourite ruins in the world. First on my list is Machu Picchu; followed by Angkor Wat and Tikal; and then Palenque and Borobudur.

We left yesterday around noon from our hotel in Yogyakarta. We took a private car & driver to the ruins, ($20 for the 90 minute drive). I had reserved a room at the only hotel on the grounds, Hotel Manohara. The service was excellent -- when we arrived, we were served javanese tea and a snack, and then showed to our room. Hotel guests get unlimited access to Borobudur; so we headed over (about a five minute walk). We walked around the ruin(clockwise, as is the Bhuddist custom), and then up to the top. It was later in the day but still pretty hot (30C+), so we didn't stay long.

Back at the hotel, we figured on a nice dinner at the outdoor hotel restaurant which overlooks the ruins. We ordered a large beer to share and settled in for dusk. Unfortunately we forgot that open air + rainy season + dusk = mosquitoes and bugs. (We didn't actually forget, as we had brought bug spray, but didn't think about it when we were thinking of a nice dinner). Being city folk we didn't much care for the bugs, so quickly ate and retired to our room for the night.

We had to be up at 4:00am to catch the sunrise from the top of Borobudur. Our internal clocks are still messed up, so getting up early wasn't a problem (we had fallen asleep at 7pm). Sunrise access is only available to hotel guests (the main reason I wanted to stay at Manohara) (for an extra $11). The "Sunrise Tour" ticket is a nice souvenir; we also received complementary flashlights :)

There were less than 15 of us on the sunrise tour, which was nice as the ruins are more mysterious when there aren't hundreds of other tourists. We all settled in at various vantage points at the top to watch the sunrise. It's hazy this time of year, so we didn't get the colours of a sunrise, but it was beautiful with the mist and haze. The mist was slowly burnt away by the sun, finally exposing the countryside. Busloads of tourist arrived shortly after 6am which broke the spell. I spent a couple hours taking pictures, and then Heather and I headed back to the hotel for breakfast.



After breakfast, we went back to our room and took an unplanned two-hour nap. Woke up and went to see a video in the "audio-visual room". The video was filmed in the 70s, but did a great job of explaining some of the bas-reliefs that surround the first few layers of Borobudur.

Around noon we took a private car back to Yogyakarta, and checked into the Ministry of Coffee (I had reserved the room prior to going to Borobudur). It's one of the nicest hotels I've stayed at while traveling.

We had lunch at our favourite restaurant (Deja Vu), then ran some errands (dropped off laundry, booked the trip to Prambanan for tomorrow, picked up our plane tickets from Denpasar to Jakarta, bought some water).

Tomorrow we're off to see Prambanan, which is a complex of Hindu temples (Borobudur is Bhuddist) (both built around 1200 years ago). We've once again booked a private car & driver ($25 for five hours).

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Just a quick post, as Eric has run out to the local market to see what he can pick up to aid in the recovery of my lower back spasm from yesterday. I think the hot, humid heat of Java is the best medicine. It's already morning, and I'm very mobile compared to previous times my back has "gone out" on me. I actually just finished a series of stretches by the pool, and am able to do almost all of the "normal" exercises assigned by my chiropractor and physiotherapist -- so I'm overjoyed, to say the least :) (usually it takes 2-3 days to get this point). I've been so impressed with how the locals have accommodated my back problem...they've really, really gone out of their way to help me.

As Eric mentioned, today we're heading to Borobudur (one of the major reasons why we picked Indonesia for our trip). Eric's a huge ancient ruin fanatic, so I'm sure it will be an impressive sight! Then, we'll likely head back to Yogya (as the city here is commonly known) and plan a day trip to see another ancient ruin (a large Hindu temple about 30 mins from here called Prambanan (sp?)).

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

We've been in Indonesia for a little over two days, but it seems much longer with the jetlag.

Heather's back survived the 24 hours from Toronto to Djakarta, and then the eight hour train ride to Yogjakarta. Heather's chiropractor had given her stretches for her back and hip, and so every couple hours she got up and stretched on the plane and train. Every time she did so, it prompted a number of older asian folks to get up and start doing their own stretches.

Yesterday was our first real day of travel, and after being cooped up in trains and planes and becaks, we set out to see Yogyakarta. (Becaks is the local term for a three-wheeled pedal-powered transport. The driver sits on a raised seat at the back, and you're in the front zipping and cutting through motorbikes, scooters, bikes and cars.) I think we both let our guard down about Heather's back (figuring the flight was the hardest part), and overdid it on Tuesday morning.

We spent the rest of the day in the hotel, allowing her back to recover. Heather wasn't too mobile, so I asked the restaurant next door for take out (we ate there on Monday night). Instead, they delivered the food right to our room in the hotel! I took back the plates after we ate.

Heather's feeling much better today. We have a reservation at the only hotel in Borobudur for tonight, which we'll be heading to later this afternoon. Tomorrow hopefully we'll be seeing Borobudur!

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Just a quick post to say we arrived here in one piece. The flights went by surprisingly quick. The food on the 2nd flight (the Cathay Pacific one) was really good.

We arrived in Djakarta around 8pm. It was straightforward to get through immigration and customs. The visa is really nice-looking -- a full page sticker. Took a taxi to the Marco Polo hotel, which I had reserved earlier from home. We had a bite to eat, and then fell fast asleep.

Five hours later we were wide awake (it's a 12 hour time difference from Toronto), so we decided to get the train to Yogyakarta today. There's not much to see in Djakarta, and we'll have a day to sightsee on the way home.

It was very easy to purchase a ticket for the executive class train to Yogyakarta (about $23 each for the eight hour trip). We tried to book into the Lonely Planet recommended "Ministy of Coffee". It was full, but they suggested a nice boutique hotel (Duta Guest House) just down the street which we are now staying at for a couple nights.

Tomorrow we'll tourist around (there's plenty to see here). It's the start of rainy season, but it looks like it just rains before sunset for an hour or so.

I haven't taken any pictures yet (we're still getting situated after the journey). Anyways were off to have some large Bintang beers (and dinner later on).

Toronto, Canada

Eric has signed me on as a blog contributor, so I'll be posting here periodically on the trip (...I think he was getting a little tired of me saying, "Eric, don't forget to post this, that, and the other thing")

We're really looking forward to our trip to Indonesia. The trip was kind of "up in the air" with my lower back trouble over the past couple of months, but I'm officially on the mend - haven't had a lower back spasm in over 2 weeks and have been feeling great!

We arrive in Jakarta late Sunday night, so we'll likely post again early next week.

Toronto, Canada

We're getting excited about the trip! We leave Saturday morning -- fifteen hours to Hong Kong, a two hour layover, and then five hours to Jakarta. We're flying Cathay Pacific, which I've heard good things about.

The Indonesian government has said they'll be executing the Bali bombers around the middle of November, unfortunately also in the middle of our trip. It's a big story in the local media. We'll be careful as usual, but don't think it's any more risk than Leslieville lately. See comments on the Lonely Planet travel forum.

In our three weeks we're planning to see Borobudur (the last major ruins on my list), dive in Bali, and maybe see the Komodo dragons and Kelimutu. For those keeping count (Gerry), Indonesia will be country number 61 in my lifelong quest to travel to 100 countries.

Toronto, Canada

We arrived back in Toronto a couple days ago and have started to get back into life over here.

I took 951 pictures over the four weeks. I've posted some of them on Picasa in three albums. Click on the pictures below to see the album.

[Editor's note: Picasa no longer exists. The photo albums can be found in Google Photos]

Casablanca, Morocco

Rabat was a nice city to spend a few days relaxing. We saw most of the major attractions: Le Tour Hassan, the masoleum of Mohammed V, Chellah & Sala Colonia, the medina, kasbah des Oudaias and the Archaeology Museum.

Chellah and Sala Colonia are ruins in the south end of the city. Sala Colonia are Roman ruins, upon which the Merenid necropolis of Chellah was built in the 14th century. The whole site is overgrown with wild flowers and plants, and there are hundreds of nesting storks. It's a great ruin to wander around and sit and wonder. I liked it much better than Lixus, and about the same as Volubilis.

The medina in Rabat is different from other medinas, in that there's listed prices, and not much haggling. It's a good place to pick up souvenirs, because you know you're getting a fair price. Unfortunately most of the things we liked are difficult to transport, and it's easier just to buy it at Pier 1 when we get home.

The kasbah was okay to wander through; it's dusty and not as impressive as the kasbahs we saw in the High Atlas. The only nice part was the Andalusian gardens in the kasbah.

We also visited the Archaeology Museum. There's quite a few artefacts from the Roman ruins that we've visited. I've also just finished reading The Rubicon, which is a narrative history of the Roman empire, and so I recognized some of the names on the statues.

Aside from the tourist attractions, Rabat's a nice city. The ville nouvelle has large boulevards with pedestrian-only paths, which were filled every evening with strolling locals. There are plenty of restaurants, and we found an english bookstore that had second-hand classics. We spent our mornings sightseeing; the afternoons reading and sipping Moroccan wine from our terrace; and then having a nice dinner.

Our terrace overlooked a park, as well as a mosque. On Friday we were fortunate to witness the Friday noon prayers -- the attendees overflowed from the mosque into the surrounding streets! It was busier than a Catholic church on Christmas or Easter. The prayers are broadcast from loudspeakers atop the mosque, and so we could hear (although not understand the arabic), and see the men pray.

On our last night in Rabat we ate at an italian restaurant that had excellent pizza. It's the 2nd best pizza I've had (nothing comes close to the pizza at Fortino's in Vaughan).

We took the train from Rabat to Casablanca, staying at the Ibis hotel because it's right beside the train station (we'll be taking the train to the airport as well). Tomorrow we're off to see the Hassan II mosque (one of the few open to non-Muslims), and the next day we fly home.

Rabat, Morocco

We've reached Rabat, which is our last stop on this trip before returning to Casablanca to fly home. There's quite a lot to see in Rabat. We're planning to spend four days here, which is the longest we'll spend in one spot.

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Asilah was a nice place to relax. On Saturday we took a little trek along the coastline to get to Paradise Beach, about 4km south of Asilah. There were great views of the Atlantic Ocean as we walked. Paradise Beach was a wide, long beach with fine sand, which we had almost all to ourselves. There was another person off in the distance, and oddly, a cow. We looked around for a few minutes, and then headed back to town. The round trip trek took us about four hours, and we were glad we left in the cool early morning hours (9am).

Dinners were hit-and-miss in Asilah. The first night we were very disappointed with the fish we ordered (swordfish and calamari). The next night, (at a different restaurant), the fish was excellent! (merlan and loup)

From Asilah we took a quick (30 minutes) grand taxi ride to Larache. We had reservations at La Maison Haute, and it was a short walk to the hotel with our packs. Larache is not as touristy as other northern towns, and we were pretty much ignored as we walked through town.

We were initially really impressed with La Maison Haute. It's a restored Hispanic-Moorish house, with 15' ceilings and large common rooms. The view from the rooftop of the city and beach was one of the best we've had in a hotel. However, our room was musty (and hot without a/c), and the manager was very overbearing, and so we cut our stay short, for only one night. It was our least favourite hotel this trip.

In the morning before we took off from Larache, we had a quick trip to the roman ruins at Lixus. These aren't restored at all, and not worth more than the 30 minutes we spent at the ruins.

A very comfortable CTM bus ride brought us to Rabat. We're staying at the Hotel Royal, beside the French embassy. Our balcony overlooks Jardin Triangle de Vue, a large park in the Ville Nouvelle. Last night we ate at a fancy french restaurant (I had braised lamb shank, Heather had half rack of lamb), for less than $30 CDN!

This morning visited Le Tour Hassan, and the mausoleum of Mohammed V. The rest of the day we're just going to relax...

(GoogleMaps was giving me trouble so I haven't updated the map)

Asilah, Morocco

We're now back on the Atlantic coast after taking a couple grand taxis from Tetouan to Asilah (where we are now) via Tanger.

Chefchaouen was a nice place to relax. We ate dinner at the same restaurant (La Lampe Magique) for three nights in a row. The restaurant was right on the main plaza, and from the rooftop terrace there was a great 360 degree view of Plaza Uta el-Hammam, the restored kasbah, the mountains and houses in the distance, and of the full moon. It was one of the best settings for a restaurant that I've ever seen. The food was great, and each night we stuffed ourselves full.

From Chefchaouen we took a grand-taxi to Tetouan. Originally we were going to take the CTM bus at 12:30pm, but we were packed up and ready to go by 10am. Rather than wait around for a bus, we took a grand-taxi. It was a good move as we were in Tetouan by noon.

Both of us felt good to be back in an urban setting. So far on this trip, we have stayed in the touristy parts of Morocco -- riads, kasbahs, medinas. However, most places also have a "nouvelle-ville", which are more cosmopolitan and modern.

There's a large spanish influence in Tetouan. As we walked through the pedestrian-only streets, we felt that we could have been in any city in Europe. I guess that's why most Europeans avoid the nouvelle-villes and head straight to the medinas -- they can get european at home.

In Tetouan we walked briefly through the medina but we both felt out-medina'd. We visited the archaeology museum, which was quite good. It had a number of artefacts from the roman ruins of Volubilis (which we've visited), and Lixus (which we're going to in a couple days).

There was not much else to Tetouan, and so this morning we took a couple grand taxis to get to Asilah (via Tanger as there's no direct grand taxi).

Asilah is a resort town on the Atlantic. The medina is heavily gentrified. It's nice to walk through, and does not have the hustle and bustle of souqs in other medinas. We walked around the medina for a bit.

We're staying at the Hotel Patio de la Luna, which looks like a nice place to have a bottle of wine after dinner tonight.

As you may guess from the name of the hotel, spanish is more prevalent as a 2nd language as we've travelled through northern Morocco. Between Heather's french, and my spanish, we've been able to travel quite easily throughout our trip.

Morocco is the only country I've visited that it has been difficult and expensive to have a beer (and I've been to other predominantly Muslim countries). Most cities / towns have only a handful of licensed restaurants, where a 200ml bottle of Flag costs Dh20 (about $3 CDN). On occasion we've been buying a bottle of wine in alcohol stores, if our hotel room had a nice terrace to have a drink. The alcohol store in Asilah is right beside the hotel, so we're thinking of having a cold beer before dinner!

Chefchaouen, Morocco

We're now relaxing in Chefchaouen, a little vacation within our trip. Chefchaouen (the 'ou' is pronounced as a 'w') is a little town in the Rif mountains. Most of the buildings are painted a sky-blue on the ground floor. The main square, Plaza Uta el-Hammam, contains a beautifully restored kasbah. The streets are all narrow cobblestone, climbing steeply up and down. The men here wear gowns with pointed hoods, and pointed shoes, which adds to the fairytale-like atmosphere. The only downside is that one of the main sources of income is from kif (aka marijuana). It's annoying to walk about town when every second step you have someone whisper to you if you'd like to buy some kif.

We've spent most of the time eating in nice restaurants overlooking the plaza, and reading / relaxing on the terrace in our hotel. Today we scrounged up enough energy to visit the kasbah and museum.

The weather has been a bit cooler since we left the desert. In the Todra Gorge and Meknes it was about mid-20s, and here it's been about the same. Today it feels a bit warmer.

Meknes, Morocco

We've spent the last three days in Meknes, which is the longest we've been in one spot so far this trip.

We arrived very early in the morning in Meknes (5:30am!). Fortunately our hotel let us check in early as well, without charging us for the extra day. After showering, we headed out to the medina and souq. The souq wasn't that impressive. However, lunch was great. We had brochettes at an open-air restaurant in the main plaza, Place el-Hedim, watching the scene.

The next day we had a day trip, visiting both the Roman ruins at Volubilis, and the pilgrimage village of Moulay Idriss. We hired a driver for the half-day (Dh300), who of course drove a Mercedes.

I love visiting ruins and Volubilis did not disappoint. It was cool to see the expanse of ruins, spread over 40 hectares!! There were a few houses with cool mosaics still preserved.

Next we headed to Moulay Indriss. We were fortunate to be there on a Saturday, market day. It was nice to wander around the market without being hassled (there were very few tourists). Had lunch from a market stall, a brochette sandwich. Meat (usually beef) is barbecued, and stuffed into a pita-type bread, along with tomatoes, olives, some spices, and sometimes french fries. The breads are amazing here, as well as the olives and tomatoes and ..., generally all the ingredients are amazing. (We'll be on a bread and olive hunt when we get back to Toronto).

After lunch we hopped into our Mercedes and asked our driver to take us home. (Okay, so the Mercedes was circa 1975).

Today we had a day trip to Fes, about an hour east of Meknes. Most people head to Fes on a trip to Morocco; but we decided to stay in the less touristy Meknes, and see Fes on a day trip.

The souq in Fes is one of the better ones we've visited, topped only by Essaouira. We were trying to find the tanneries (where leather is cured and dyed), and were able to wind our way through the souq all on our ownsome! The occasional maps on the wall (similar to the PATH maps in the Toronto downtown underground) helped.

The leather shops have figured out that tourists want to see the tanneries, and so the only access to view them is from the roofs of leather shops. After, you may purchase an item or two if you so wish...

The smell was a bit intense (the leather is cured with pigeon dung and cow urine). However, it was a photographer's dream. You cannot take a bad picture here. Thank goodness for digital photography, because I took about 50 pictures.

After, Heather bought a purse from the co-operative. She had wanted to buy one from Fes, so the whole leather-shop-with-a-view-deal worked out.

While in Fes we had some b'sara. This is a local specialty, a soup made with chick peas and garlic, and other spices, served from little carts in the middle of the souq. It was really really tasty.

We made our way back to Meknes. The previous day we had seen a small butcher that made sandwiches that was extremely busy. So we checked it out for lunch. It was one of the best brochette sandwiches I've had. The place was a California Sandwiches of Meknes (California Sandwiches is an italian sandwich shop in Toronto that has huge line-ups of locals for the food).

This afternoon we saw a bit more of the medina in Meknes, including the masoleum of Moulay Ismail, and Heri es-Souani.

The masoleum was very beautiful. Its calmness was broken by numerous busloads of tourists following their guides. We waited about fifteen minutes to get a tourist-less picture of the fountain in the masoleum. Unfortnately the picture didn't look as good as I hoped.

Heri es-Souani is a huge granary that once held grain for 12,000 horses. It fell into disrepair, and is now being restored. It is massive. We wandered about, mostly on our own (very few other tourists made it here).

Tomorrow we're on a train/bus journey to Chefchaouen.

Er-Rachidia, Morocco

We spent the last two days in the Todra Gorge, trekking and relaxing at one of our favourite hotels so far on this trip.

We took a CTM bus from Ouarzazat to Tinerhir, and then a grand taxi (a shared taxi -- six of us in a car for four) to our hotel, Auberge-Camping Le Festival, in the middle of the gorge. The road from Tinerhir travels along the bottom of the gorge, and in places is only 20m wide with 300m walls on both sides. It's really cool to see.

Our hotel was built out of stone from the surrounding area. The people who worked at the hotel were really friendly. After dinner, they handed out instruments (percussions for us and the other two travellers, sitar and guitar for them) and we played traditional Berber songs. It was really relaxing.

Yesterday we did a little trek through the High Atlas. It was supposed to be four hours through the mountains to a berber town called Tamtattouchte, and then two hours back along the road to our hotel.

We started from the hotel (1600m) at 8am, and followed the occasionally marked trail up a dry river bed. We picked out trail markings every 10-15 minutes, a small pile of stones here, or a red paint mark there. After two hours, we didn't see any more markings; however, we had a general idea of the geography and so weren't too bad off. We had to crest the range at 2400m, and then walk down the other side towards the main river (which the road followed). It was a beautiful walk, with only the two of us and the High Atlas. We ran into a couple of nomadic Berbers, but that was it.

A friendly dog from the hotel had followed us, and we hoped he would turn around at some point. But he kept with us, and so we had to share our water, with Heather cupping her hands for the dog to drink from.

It took us four hours to crest the range, at which point we could see the main river in the distance. We found a feeder river (dry at this time of year), and followed the river bed down. It was a bit difficult, and it took us two hours to descend to the main river (which did have water), and then to the village.

At this point the dog took off in Tamtattouchte. We were worried about the dog finding its way back home, and so ran all over the village trying to chase it down. He was scared of the local kids, and didn't have a collar, so when I found him, I had to carry him through the village back to Heather. We must have looked quite the sight, two tourists running about the village yelling for a dog. We attracted a merry bunch of about 20 kids, all eager to be part of the adventure.

We had lunch at a restaurant, and then debated walking back to our hotel. It was 15km down the road, and it was already 3pm so we decided to take a grand-taxi back (with the dog).

We got back to the hotel, at which point we found out that the dog was stray, and had showed up at the hotel about two weeks ago! He was well-behaved and looked to be well taken care of, so we're not sure where he came from.

This morning we took a much more leisurely two-hour walk, down the road through the gorge. It's amazing to see the 300m walls rise up beside the road. Unfortunately there are plenty of makeshift stalls selling souvenirs, which mar the pictures. I guess they give scale...

Right now, we're in the middle of bus rides to get to Meknes. It was a short bus ride (two hours) from Tinerhir to Er-Rachidia, where we're waiting for our overnight bus to Meknes. CTM only runs buses overnight between the cities. There are other private bus lines with dayside buses but they're not as clean or punctual as CTM.

Ouarzazat, Morocco

We've just come back from a two-day trip into the Sahara, including a night in a berber tent in the Sahara.

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The cooking course was excellent! We made the two standard dishes of Morocco: couscous and tajine. The couscous is made in multiple steps, steaming it slightly, adding a bit of water and oil, mixing by hand, and then repeating three times. Our couscous actually came out quite light and fluffy! Tajine is basically a stew, cooked in an earthern pot slowly over coals. The locals all have a place that they take their pot to slow-cook. Ours was a few doors down from the riad, in the basement where they had a firepit for the hotwater for the hammam. Many people already had their tajine cooking, and so we had to mark our names to identify our pot. Unfortunately we had to walk through the streets in white aprons that screamed tourist!

We ate our meal with a bottle of Moroccan red on the rooftop of the riad, by candlelight with the sounds of the market off in the distance. It was really nice.

From Marrakesh we took a long bus ride through the Tizi'n'Tichka pass, with many hairpin turns. Many people got sick from the journey, including Heather. She was happy to finally get to Ouarzazat.

Ouarzazat relies heavily on the movie industry. That also means that there are not many places catering to backpackers. We stayed in a kasbah, just for the experience. In other countries, these would be called crumbling adobe buildings. However, in Morocco they're called kasbahs, The Clash wrote a song about them, and now they're expensive places to stay.

The kasbah actually contains many buildings in a fort, all linked by tunnels under the main floors. This provided protection in the old days, and the system also kept the living floors quite cool during the day. (It was 42C outside when we stayed here).

Our room was really nice, with dark pise walls and crimson upholstery, giving it an oriental feel. Plus, it had a/c!

Aside from the nice room, though, we didn't get a good feel from the town. The next few days promised more heat, long bus rides on winding roads, and so-so accommodation, in order to reach the dunes of the Sahara outside M'Hamid. So, we dropped into a travel agency, and signed up for an organized tour.

It's low season, so there was just Heather and I in a large Toyota SUV, along with a driver and a go-fer. Instead of taking a couple days by public bus, we were able to hit all the highlights in the Draa Valley in one day, reaching the dunes by mid-afternoon. It was another hot day, reaching over 40C. (A dry heat, which supposedly makes it feel better). There were some great views along the drive, of kasbahs and palm groves and Berber villages. Our driver (also the guide) was excellent.

We reached the Erg Lehoudi dunes around 6pm. There was a strong wind, and it was not pleasant to be outside the SUV, facing the blowing sand which gets into everything. We climbed the tallest dune (I was surprised at the lack of footprints from other tourists, as even in a strong wind, footprints take a while to be erased). We quickly ran down (the wind had packed the sand into a hard surface, so it wasn't a fun run down loose sand that I was expecting).

Dinner was couscous and tasted quite good, with a little bit of grit (did I mention the sand gets everywhere?)

Into the night, the wind died down and the desert became quite pleasant. The stars were amazing.

We woke up at 5am in order to catch the sunrise. It's not the actual sun that's impressive, but rather the lighting on the sand dunes. It was well worth the early rise -- the untouched sand dunes were really impressive. The only other time I've seen sand dunes without footprints was in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. It was really a treat to see untouched dunes again.

The drive back to Ouarzazat was much more pleasant, because it was in the (cooler) morning hours. A couple of seemingly mandatory stops at carpet shops and the inevitable cup of sugary mint tea later, and we were finally back in Ouarzazat. Our first priority was a shower, but first we had to have more tea with the tour operator and look at fine Berber artefacts. Finally we checked into a hotel, showered and cleaned up.

Tonight we're relaxing, and having dinner out. The first night here (before the Sahara tour), we ate at an Italian restaurant (which caters to the many Italian film types here). We had gnocchi in a gorgonzola sauce, and spaghetti in pesto sauce. It was a nice break from Moroccan (I generally like the food of the country I'm in, but it's nice to have some variety now and then). Tonight we are looking at a French restaurant.

Tomorrow we're off to the Todra Gorge for some trekking.

Marrakesh, Morocco

We're now into the heat that I was expecting in Morocco. Along the coast the temperature was mild (we were wearing our fleeces at night), but here in Marrakesh it's stinking hot (35C).

Even getting here by bus was hot. CTM only had one bus, late in the afternoon, so we took another line. There was no air conditioning, but I figured that if we sat on the shady side (going east this was on the left) and by a window, we'd be fine. I had bought some pistachios to share with the locals on the bus (as the Lonely Planet had suggested). Heather had a knot in her back which I was trying to massage, when an old lady (who looked like the old lady in Babel) in the seat behind took over and rubbed Heather's back quickly, stretched Heather's arms behind her back, and presto, knot gone. We shared some pistachios, and she offered some mint in return (which you nibble on). The bus ride was nice, until the old lady motioned to us to close the window (maybe she was cold?) Neither of us were going to suggest that maybe we could keep the window open, so the bus gradually became hotter as the journey continued.

I have a good sense of direction and figured I could find our way to the riad when we arrived in Marrakesh, despite the Lonely Planet warnings that it is difficult to find anything in the souq. I hit all my landmarks on the way to the riad, but then we just couldn't find the place. We asked a few people in the souq, and it was always around a corner, juste là. Finally we had to pay a kid Dh10 to lead us. It was down at the end of a twisty alley, without any markings or signage on the door (as is normal). It was Dh10 well spent.

The riad is really nice, although a bit of a splurge (Dh1050). It's even nicer than the previous place in Essaouira.

Last night we ate dinner in Djemaa el-Fna, a huge open air food market. The food was actually quite bland :( There's a lot of tourists here (even a Club Med right on the square), so I think the food is westernized-down a bit. After eating couscous and tajine, we tried another stall, which had cow's tongue, camel hump and some part of lamb. The camel hump was spongy like tofu. The tongue and lamb were quite good.

This morning we visited Ali ben Yousef Medersa (a theological college), Koubba Ba'adiyn (a sanctuary) and Musée de Marrakech. This afternoon we're taking a cooking class in our riad!

We're not that impressed with Marrakech, although it is interesting to visit.

Essaouira, Morocco

We've stayed in three places so far in Morocco, and each place has been better than the previous. Here in Essaouira (esa-wera), we're at the Riad Emeraude. (A riad is a traditonal town house set around an internal garden). We have a cosy room on the top floor. The bathroom is more modern than ours at home, straight out of a interior design magazine. The bed has curtains all around. Outside our room are a number of little tables to sit and read or eat or sip mint tea.

We took a grand taxi from Oualidia to Safi. A grand taxi is a car, normally (over)shared here with six passengers. We split it four ways with a french couple we met in our hotel in Oualidia, to be in comfort. The car itself was a Mercedes circa 1984, (there are a lot of old Mercedes here). From Safi, we took a CTM bus to Oualidia. The bus station is just outside the medina (old walled city), and we walked to our reserved room at the riad. We were both amazed at the beauty of the riad and room (and for Dh400!)

We cleaned up (one of the nicest showers I've had travelling), and then went out for dinner. There is an outdoor fish grill near the harbour, and that's where we headed. Along the way we sampled escargot from a street vendor -- ladled from a hot peppery broth into a tin cup (you also sip the broth) (for Dh10!). We watched a beautiful sunset from the harbour, and then made our way to the fish stalls. We picked out some seafood -- red snapper, calamari, prawns, and whiting, which were then perfectly grilled, and served with khoobz (the artisan bread), and tomatoes and onion. Mmmm. On the walk back to the hotel, we bought some Moroccan slippers for use inside the riad. They're both in traditional funky colours.

Morocco is mostly Muslim, and drinking alcohol in public is frowned upon. However, there are wine stores (mostly catering to tourists), and so we picked up a bottle of Moroccan red. Heather and I drank it on the roof-top terrace of our riad, and chatted the night away under the stars.

This morning we had breakfast on said terrace -- freshly-squeezed orange juice, french pastries, and tea (Heather had a cafe au lait). We then walked along the boardwalk to Borj el-Berod, a ruin half-buried in sand, about 4km outside the medina. It's really windy in this town, and we were blasted by sand at a few points.

The PCs in this internet cafe don't have available USB slots so I can't upload any pics. Otherwise you could check out our new shoes!

Oualidia, Morocco

We're in the fishing village of Oualidia, population 4,000. It's on a beautiful little lagoon, which feeds the neighbouring oyster farms. Yesterday the village and beach were bustling, filled with locals on weekend trips. Today it's much quieter, although very windy and not very comfortable beach weather.

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Dinner in Casablanca was excellent. I had lamb tanjine, and Heather had the seven-vegetable couscous (a Casablanca specialty). The Lonely Planet describes couscous as "you know the yellow stuff that comes in a box that you boil for 3 minutes and let sit? well that's not couscous". And they're right. The stuff we make at home nowhere resembles how good the couscous is here. It's light, fluffy, tasty... We shared a 50cl bottle of Moroccan wine (also quite good), and tried a Flag beer (not so good - reminded me of Bud Light).

The next morning we caught a CTM bus (the national bus company) to Oualidia. (The "Ou" is a "w", as in the french "Oui"). The CTM buses are very efficient, with computerized seat reservations and tagged luggage. No worries about my pack getting stolen here. I slept for most of the trip, still a bit jet-lagged.

Oualidia is small enough that it doesn't warrant a map in the Lonely Planet. We walked down the road leading to the beach, and found the hotel. Heather had called the day before to reserve a room at the Hotel L'Initiale. It's a quaint little place with six rooms, about 50m from the beach, for 400Dh.

We explored around the beach and the village. We had dinner at the restaurant in our hotel, but we were still hungry, so went to another place that was filled with locals. This place was much better, (they even gave us a half-dozen oysters on the house!) We both liked the oysters here in Oualidia, very distinctive from other places.

A very common sight here is people sitting in cafès having a mint tea. We have had a few so far, although I can't pace my sipping and usually end up drinking half of Heather's as well. The mint tea is some sort of tea leaf, with a lot of mint leaves and some sweetener (maybe honey). It's really good.

Today for lunch we had sardines freshly-caught from the ocean and grilled streetside, with artisan bread. It was very tasty. We had to be shown how to eat the sardines, first peeling away the skin, and then creating a sardine sandwich. Mmmm good. Very cheap too -- about 30Dh for the two of us.

Casablanca, Morocco

We arrived safely in Casablanca none worse for the wear. The biggest adjustment is to this french keyboard, which is not labelled correctly on the keys. It took a bit of experimentation to find the period so I could log into a website.

So far today we have had a sandwich at a popular little local bistro; bought bus tickets to Oualidia for tomorrow; walked around a few pedestrian only streets; sipped a mint tea at a sidewalk cafe; and explored the medina. The medina is packed with little stores and has great photo ops.

I have been pleasantly surprised at the lack of hassling; we have seen very few other tourists, perhaps because it is early in the season. (I cannot find the apostrophe on the keyboard and so feel like Data from Star Trek). The weather is very comfortable, mid 20s with a slight breeze.

Tonight we are having dinner in the hotel restaurant, which is supposed to be quite good.

Toronto, Canada

We called today to reserve a room at Hôtel Guynemer in Casablanca, the "Author's choice" in the Lonely Planet. (I like to reserve ahead for the first night on a trip, because I feel more of a target fresh off the plane.) The Hôtel Guynemer offers an airport pick-up service to boot! I conferenced in Heather to make the reservation (Heather used to be fluent in french), however their english was really good so we conversed in english. They did have problems with her name, so it will be interesting to see the sign (my guess is Hither).

Toronto, Canada

I found a cool tool, Atlas (which is based on GoogleMaps). I created a sample of my Thailand-Cambodia-Lao trip.

Toronto, Canada

I made it home in one piece, and so did all of my souvenirs. I've posted some pics up on kodakgallery.com:

Gorillas in Rwanda

Safari in Tanzania

Climbing Kili

Zanzibar

The site asks you to sign in, but there's a "View Photos without signing in" button that you can click on.

My favourites:

Nairobi, Kenya

JP, Susan and I returned from Zanzibar and are spending our last few hours in Nairobi before our flights home late tonight. (Quick background: JP and his friend Susan traveled together on safari, similar to Marissa and I. Then JP and I met up to climb Kili, went on to Zanzibar where we met Susan). The three of us are killing the afternoon, buying souvenirs, avoiding the intermittent short rains, surfing the web...

JP and Susan fly on BA and I'm on KLM so I won't see them on the flights (nor on the seven hour layover in Amsterdam), but I have my big fat Dostoyevsky book to tide the time.

Zanzibar was VERY relaxing. Mostly it was spent at laying around the Nyota bungalows, listening to the ocean, reading books, staying out of the sun, waiting for the next meal (the seafood was amazing).

We got out diving once (on Thurdsay, every other day was fully-booked). Went on a double dive. The first one was rather uneventful, not many fishes or coral to look at. The second dive was better, we saw three big turtles, including one swimming, which I've never seen while diving, it was pretty cool. Overall I thought there was more to see in the Caribbean (plus the water's warmer there -- about 28C vs only 25C here). We did wear full wetsuits which was a first for me. But it was fun to be out diving again. I'd like to go on a diving vacation at some point, because the first dive is mostly wasted on getting my feet wet again (pardon the pun).

I'll be home shortly, and I'll post pictures from my trip. See you soon if you're in Toronto!

Stone Town, Zanzibar Island, Tanzania

JP and I are now on the "relaxing" part of our trips. We flew into Zanzibar Island yesterday, and got a hotel on Matemwe Beach, about an hour from Stone Town on the northeast side of the island.

We wanted to stay at a resort that is affiliated with a 5-star PADI Dive Centre, but the hotel was full. However, they recommended a new place (not even in the Lonely Planet yet), and it's really nice. It's the nicest bed I've slept in on this trip, and the food is the best I've had in east Africa. It's run by Patricia, an italian ex-pat, and it's very well done. Everything is quite simple, but it all works. Yesterday for lunch, JP had the best calamari I've ever tasted (I'm going to have that today). We're sticking with seafood for the rest of the trip here.

Unfortunately the Dive Centre is booked up today and possibly tomorrow, so we may only get diving in on Thursday.

The place we're staying at is very nice to relax and read. I traded one of the books I finished for a Dostoevsky (sp?) book, which will be some nice light reading for the long trip back.

Today we took a day trip into Stone Town, bought some souvenirs, took lotsa pictures, and have access to the web. The place we're at is so remote, the taxi driver had to continually ask people where it was, and there's no real roads around the place, just random sand roads.

The beach is amazing, very very fine white sand. The water's only 25C (lower than the 28C I'm used to diving in in the Caribbean). But there should be lots of little fishies to see.

Moshi, Tanzania

We made it! was all I could say to a group of amused Germans after JP and I returned to the Kibo huts from Uhuru, the peak of Kili.

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We started the climb on Tuesday. We drove from Moshi to the Marangu gate, our guide (Emmanuel) went through the paperwork, and we were off by noon.

The first day we climbed from 1800m to 2700m, to the Mandara huts. The walk was first through rainforest, abruptly changing to heathers around 2300m (JP has a GPS, a neat little toy for a trip such as this). It took us 3.5 hours to cover the 8km.

The second day we climbed to Homboro, at 3700m, about 11km from Mandara. This took us about 4 hours, and we had now cleared the treeline and the walk was through beautiful moorlands. I felt quite sick that evening, with headaches, and was worried about altitude sickness. A couple Tylenol cleared that up, and I now suspect it was caused by sun exposure rather than altitude, because I did not have any problems the rest of the way.

The third day was a planned rest day, in order to help acclimatization. We had a short day-trip to about 4100m, (it's better to sleep below the high point of the day), from which we had an excellent view of the remaining walk.

The fourth day we walked to the Kibo huts, at 4700m. The normal 6-day Marangu climb involves walking to Kibo on Day 4, and then getting up at 11pm to ascend to the summit by 6am and returning back to Horombo on Day 5, and then back to the gate on Day 6. However, we covered the 9km to the Kibo huts in 3.5 hours, and our guide asked us if we wanted to climb to the summit that afternoon! -- the benefit being that it was about 10C at the summit dayside, and -15C nightside. We got all excited, and quickly had some lunch, and by 12:15 pm we were off! (JP and I, plus Emmanuel and a assistant guide -- so that there was one guide per climber).

The climb from Kibo huts to Gilman's point is a 1000m ascent, at about a 45* incline. We covered the first 500m quite quickly, and then took a break. I had a Snickers bar (packed with peanuts, I found it really satisfying), and an "energy tablet" from Emmanuel, which I think was just a citrus candy. That gave me a boost, and we started on the remaining 500m to Gilman's. The terrain was now steeper and just loose gravel and sand. Not the easiest thing to walk up.

We made it to 200m remaining and took another break. I didn't have a headache, which surprised me, but at over 5000m it was tough going. My heart was beating as fast as I have ever heard it, and I just couldn't get a full breath of air because it was so thin. We psyched ourselves up, thinking only 200m to go, we can do that! But I kept on looking up every couple minutes and it wasn't getting much closer.

Finally we reached the top of Gilman's, at roughly 5700m, after 3.5 hours. Almost there! From Gilman's there was a great view into the crater, and it was cool to see clouds wisping up the mountain, breaking into streaks that dove into the crater and then up the other side.

I had another Snickers bar and Emmanuel's energy tablet.

Our true goal was another 200m up, around the rim of the crater, to Uhuru. Fortunately, this was an easier walk, although we started by going down 10m, and all I could think was that we'd pay for that by having to ascend 10m later on.

The walk to Uhuru took about 1 hour, and this was the only part that was really cold. Finally in the approachable distance, we could see the signs announcing Uhuru!

JP reached the peak first with his guide, and shortly after (local time 5pm, Toronto time 10am Friday), I reached there. The guides hugged us and congratulated us.

(This next part is slightly fuzzy, and mostly is recounted from stories JP and I told over beers back down at the hotel. The lack of oxygen at that height 5896m, affected our thinking, in that we weren't really thinking at all)

I looked around, not clear on what to do next. Our guide took pictures of us with our cameras. I had enough wits to take a 360 panaroma. I don't remember feeling elated or happy or anything. I was just on autopilot.

We walked back to Gilman's (about 30 minutes), and then began descending the gravel. This was fun, although really exhausting. We took giant moonsteps down, each foot sinking and sliding about 5m before stopping. It was like skiing moguls, and JP and I could only keep it going for 10 seconds at a time, before our legs gave up. The descent down to Kibo huts took about an hour, finishing just as darkness fell on the mountain. That's when I entered the hut, and showed up in front of the Germans in the dining room, telling them that we had made it.

I was drenched in sweat, and took off most of the layers of clothing. We could only have soup for dinner, solid food seemed like too much work. I tried to sleep, but my body was too pumped from the last 11 hours of walking up 2200m and back down 1200m, over 18km. My brain still wasn't really thinking.

Everyone else at Kibo woke up at 11pm to begin their night ascent, and JP and I both wished everyone luck. Finally around midnight I fell asleep.

on Day 5, we walked all the way back from Kibo to the Marangu gates, a drop of 3000m over 30km. This was the most physically exhausting part of the climb. Passing down through 4000m, I was surprised that I was thinking again, and realized that I hadn't had much thoughts over the last little while. Amazing what oxygen does for the brain. The air became gradually thicker, and it was very noticeable.

We got back to the hotel by 5pm, and showered for the first time in 5 days. Over that time, I had had no alcohol or caffeine (to help prevent altitude sickness), the cook was good but had some kind of aversion to salt, walking 10km a day in clean air -- in short, it's probably the healthiest my body has been in a while.

A few beers at the hotel fixed that problem, with JP, and Gary and Ricky, two other guys we had met on the climb (Gary was also on my safari). It was then that much of the stories of the ascent to Uhuru were pieced together. I hadn't realized the effect of thin oxygen on thinking until that point!

Many people say it's the hardest thing they've done in their lives. For me, it was physically exhausting, but no more so than say playing hockey with only 2 guys on the bench. Mentally, I find it harder to wake up for my early morning meetings on Wednesdays. It was physically and mentally exhausting, but not that bad. (For the record, I found learning to roll a kayak the hardest thing I've done. I was on a kayak course in Nepal, and didn't have to learn to roll -- but I wanted to, and spent many extra hours in the glacial (ie darned cold) waters of the Kali Gandaki before I finally got it. Climbing Kili, I had to reach the peak, or there was no point to it.)

JP and I are relaxing today (getting our laundry done, sending emails, etc), and tomorrow we fly to Zanzibar.

Later!

Moshi, Tanzania

The last couple days of the safari were uneventful, as there were no more game drives. We were able to upgrade to lodges the last two nights, and so finished the safari in relative comfort.

Overall the safari was much what I had hoped for, my favourite game drive was the last morning in the Serengeti, the scale of the view just blew me away. The animals were very close to us, which was also really nice (for those of us without huge zooms on our cameras!). The group of people were really fun to be with, and our guides and cook were excellent. Overall two thumbs up!

I'm now in Moshi waiting to start the Kili climb tomorrow morning. I was dropped off by the safari at the Springlands Hotel yesterday early morning. Said goodbye to everyone on the safari, including Marissa who carried on back to Nairobi to fly home. Having traveled a bit, it wasn't that weird for me to become really close to people and then say goodbye, but I think for other people it would be odd. Usually this happens every couple of days when backpacking!

The Springlands Hotel is a resort-type place that you don't really need to leave. They did all my laundry at reasonable prices (60 cents for a pair of pants!), they sell water, have internet access, and will cash traveller's cheques. The hotel is on the outskirts of Moshi, and they have a shuttle to and from the town every 30 minutes.

I relaxed yesterday, catching up on my reading and keying in my safari blog entries.

This morning, JP arrived at the hotel (JP is my friend from Toronto, who is in east Africa at the same time, and we're doing the climb together). JP booked the trip over here, and thanks to the internet we were able to organize meeting etc, even though we were on separate safaris. That still amazes me.

This morning we booked a flight to Zanzibar, returning to Nairobi. It was also very painless to my surprise. We walked into the travel agency, and walked out 10 minutes later with tickets in hand!

Tomorrow JP and I start walking up Kili. We're doing the Marangu route, which has huts the whole way. If all goes well, I'll be at the top (5896m) on Friday night just before midnight Toronto-time. I'm not expecting internet access along the way, so this may be it for another week.

I was expecting more internet places to cut CDs from digital camera cards. However, I've only seen them in Nairobi. My card was full, and yesterday I walked all around Moshi looking for a place to cut a CD, but got only blank stares. However, JP rescued me because he was able to download my pics to his iPod, and lent me an extra 1GB card. Thank goodness, or else I would have had to delete some more pictures. I bought the largest card at the time (256MB) when I bought my camera, but I definitely need to upgrade that to a 1GB card.

Well, I'm off to have an afternoon nap!

Karatu, Tanzania

We were up and packed by 6:30am for breakfast, and headed into the crater by 7am. It was quite a drive to get to the bottom (almost an hour!) and looked nothing like I had envisioned. I had pictured jungles with barely enough room to drive the Land Rover, with trees all around us as in Lake Manyara NP. Instead it was mostly a big grassland plain, with occasional trees at the edges and salt pans. At first I thought we could see all the animals from the entry point. But as I found, there were little crevices and water holes where different animals hid or stayed. As well, the crater is 22km in diameter, so it's quite difficult to see animals across the entire crater.

I was disappointed near the end of the drive, because this was our last game drive and best opportunity to see a rhino, the last of the Big Five for me. But, as we were at the toilet facilities just near the exit drive from the crater, one of our guides spotted a rhino in the distance! It wasn't possible to take a picture at that distance, but still, it was a rhino!!!

Saw: Guinea fowl, Thomspon gazelle, ostrich, maribou, spotted hyena, buffalo, monkey, elephant, baboon, waterbuck, zebra, hartebeest, warthog, Grant's gazelle, blackstriped jackal, goldenbacked jackal, hippo, flamingo, cheetah, rhino

We also had stopped at a hippo pool where there were maybe 30 hippos, and got a picture of one yawning! As well, there were hundreds (maybe thousands?) of flamingos in one of the bigger salt lakes, and they were flying around in formation, turning pink or black or white depending on the angle they were flying.

We drove back to camp for lunch, packed the Land Rovers, and headed for our next campsite.

I forgot to mention, our guide had amazing eyesight, and was constantly impressing us with spotting animals. There were six tourists in the LandRover, and all we had to do was look for animals. He had to watch the road for potholes, watch the sides for overhanging acacia branches that might hit us on the roof, and look for animals. He still found most of the animals well before we did.

At this campsite (outside of Karatu), it was possible to upgrade to a lodge for $20 per person. Marissa and I did, and it was one of the nicer places we have stayed at so far, (not including the Kivu Sun!) I had a hot shower and shaved, and then caught up in my diary (I was keeping notes on paper, to be typed into my blog when I got access to the web), sitting at a nice wooden desk in the room.

I was surprised at how tanned my face was. This was the first time in six days that I'd seen myself in a mirror!

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

We were on the road again by 6am for our 5th and last game drive in the Serengeti. We saw huge herds of zebra and wildebeest, with all sorts of other ungulates thrown in here and there. We were near the top of a giant sloping plain, and could see thousands of animals all about. We even saw a pride of lions, 7 in total, that looked like they were on a hunt, but just walked from tree shade to tree shade. It was a very relaxing ride, I just sat up on top of the Land Rover the whole time and enjoyed it. We didn't see any more animals to tick off our list, but it was very scenic.

Saw: giraffes, spotted hyenas, impalas, black-crested eagle, topi, gazelles, wildebeest, zebras, cheetah, lions, buffalos, guinea fowl, warthogs, hartebeest, ostrich, dik diks

Back to camp for brunch, and then we packed up and headed for the Ngorongoro crater. (I had washed my tshirt before brunch, and 45 minutes later, it was dry!) It was a bit of a drive (4 1/2 hours), although we did make a number of stops.

Saw a few more lions along the way, including a large male (we'd seen mostly female). Got to the campsite on the lip of the crater with about 30 minutes of daylight remaining. We quickly pitched our tents, and I took a (cold) shower at the camp facilities. (The Serengeti campsite also had showers, but no water at this time of year). We had stopped to pick up firewood along the drive, and again had a nice campfire. We had dinner by the fire, and then sat drinking wine until the fire burnt out (10pm).

Serengeti NP, Tanzania

This campsite was much more what I had thought the trip would be like. Right in the Serengeti, no fences around the perimeter... Up and on the road for the morning game drive by 6am. The Serengeti is pretty much a big plain, so there wasn't the same surprises as Lake Manyara NP.

Saw: giraffes, lions (male and female), cheetah, ground sqirrel, hyraxes, zebras, spotted hyenas, hippos, crocodiles, egyptian geese, maribou, egrets, vultures.

Back for breakfast, then back out for the mid-day game drive. Saw a leopard! (#4 of the Big 5 list), and a migration of zebra and wildebeest (which are led by zebras!). An ostrich appeared to lead at points as well. We spent about two hours in the one spot, watching the leopard on one side, and the migration on the other.

Saw: leopards, zebras, wildebeest, ostriches, springbok, bustard, red-backed deer, hippos, lilac-breasted roller.

Returned for lunch, then lounged about in the shade. The 3rd game drive started at 4pm. It started out innocuously enough, until a lone zebra keeled over as we drove by. Jennifer got all excited, asking Is it giving pregnant? which the rest of us heard as Is it getting pregnant which obviously it was not, all alone. It turned out it was giving birth! A few minutes later, out came a baby zebra! Luckily no predators were around. Another zebra, (we think the father), came in from the distance, said something and then took off. We watched the baby try to stand on its own, a few minutes later helped by the mother who was now back on her feet. Within 15 minutes the baby was standing! We left to continue on safari. On the way back (about an hour later), we saw the mother and baby zebra again. The baby had now learned how to nurse. A couple of jackals and a vulture circled around for the placenta and there was a brief tussle over it. Eventually the mother and baby zebra walked off, and left for camp.

Saw: starlets, guinea fowl, impalas, topi, buffalo, vervet monkeys, zebras, maribous, baboons, dik diks, wildebeest, ostrich, Thompson gazelles, secretary birds, silver-backed jackals, waterbucks

Earlier in the afternoon we had gathered up loose dead wood for a fire, and after dinner we had a nice camp fire in the Serengeti listening to the animals all around us.

Serengeti NP, Tanzania

Woke up at 5:45am to have a shower, pack up, and ready for breakfast by 7am. Long day of driving with many stops. I had been taking Tylenol 3-4 times a day for the last few days, and every time I stopped I felt worse. Felt progressively worse through the day. Stopped at viewpoint of Ngorongoro crater, (caused by volcano, not meteorite as I had always thought). It was also rather sparse, mostly grasslands, to my surprise. Made it to Serengeti NP by 4pm, and spent a bit of the drive to our campsite as a "game drive".

Saw: Thompson gazelles, Grant gazelles, topi, giraffes, widlebeest, zebras, elephants, lions.

I was pretty sick so decided to start taking antibiotics. Slept till dinner, ate, and then went straight back to bed.

Lake Manyara NP, Tanzania

Woke up at 6am feeling pretty good. Went to wash up and realized the showers were available, so back to the tent, grabbed soap/shampoo/towel, and showered. Not bad for a campsite. Breakfast was scrambled eggs & beans. I ate quite a bit, the most I've had in a few days. Packed up (actually the guides and cook did most of that). Lucky so far that it hasn't rained.

Drove to our next campsite just outside Lake Manyara NP. At first we looked like the only tourists, but then lots of overlanders showed up. Towards the evening we went on our first game drive. It was excellent -- saw all three of the Big 5 that were in this park (elephant, lion, buffalo), up really close! The safari trail was through big trees most of the time, occasionally at water holes.

Saw: lions, giraffes, elephants, baboons, buffalo, zebras, hyenas, jackals, guinea fowl, dik diks, impalas.

Back to the campsite, dinner, then saw a live performance. I bought a CD from them for $5.

Arusha, Tanzania

Our flight from Kigali arrived in Nairobi without any problems. We got our luggage, and cashed a bunch of travellers cheques to USD (losing about 10% in the process). (We needed $200 per person for the local payment for the safari tour (used for park fees etc), plus money for extras along the way). Went to a different hotel in Nairobi, to the hotel where the tour was starting the next morning.

Was up at 6am to be ready for the briefing at 7am in the hotel. It was rather dragging, an they had two different groups in the same meeting, so there was no sense in remembering names. There were 6 on our tour, and we joined up with 6 who had done the Kenyan safari first, and were now doing the Tanzanian safari. After much waiting and organizing, we were on our way by 9:30am. In our van were Carey (US), Jennifer (US), Emmeline & Paul (UK), and Marissa and I; in the other van were Yvonne & Vegar (Norway), Tom & Jean (US), Gary (UK) and Mariam (Australian).

It took us 2 1/2 hours to reach the border, and we went through the Kenyan exit and Tanzanian entry without much fanfare. I was disappointed with the lack of stamping by the Tanzanian official (just a single stamp over the visa), seeing as they requested three blank pages just to get the visa. We also transferred to our safari vehicles (Land Rovers), and met our guides/drivers (Revocatus) and cook (Alfa). Two hours to Arusha, then errand hopping (ATM, money exchange, grocery store -- bought 15L of water for myself). We were told we wouldn't have access to electricity (no recharging of camera batteries), no showers and no stores for six days! (This turned out to be incorrect).

Got to our campsite (Snake Park) on the outskirts of Arusha by 4pm, sorted out tents. I was feeling sick still, and a couple Tylenol fixed that (I'm whipping through my bottle...) Our group is mostly older, 30s - 40s. We went to a Snake Zoo, the irony of going all the way to Africa on safari and then going to a zoo was not lost on us.

There were five other large groups at the campsite in huge overlanders -- they looked like the big snow landers in the Empire Strikes Back. It made the campsite pretty crowded.

Dinner was at 7pm, beef and macaroni, and peppery soup. I still didn't have much of an appetite from being sick. After went to the bar so Marissa could charge her camera battery. Five Kili beers later, (500ml, 5%, 1500Tsh) called it a night.

Kigali, Rwanda

We're just about to catch our plane back to Nairobi, and tomorrow we'll start the GAP Adventure safari through Tanzania, so I may not be able to update my blog for a while.

I got a bit of a cold in Gisenyi, I think the same thing everyone had in Toronto before I left. I thought I had had it in Toronto too, and beaten it, but maybe the lack of sleep from the jetlag let it come back. Anyways, slept most of the last day in Gisenyi while Marissa hung out on the beach.

Yesterday we took a three-hour bus ride back to Kigali. We got here early enough to go see the Genocide Memorial. It was very well done, it's shocking how many people died, and how many people were complicit.

Last night was Friday night, and our hotel's bar is quite the hopping place on Fridays. They had live music, and lots of (mostly) men came by to have drinks. We think it's an upscale place because most people were drinking imported beer (Heineken). Marissa and I split a large Primus (the local beer) (the beer here comes in large bottles, shared the same way as pitchers in Canada) (72cl, 5%, $3US). Marissa had most of it, I just had a little bit so she wasn't drinking alone.

I crashed early, trying to sleep away this cold. I'm still not 100%, but should be okay for the safari.

We really liked Rwanda, the people here are really friendly. I don't think there's a flat spot in the country, there are hills everywhere. Because it's rainy season, everything is really green too. There aren't very many tourists here (I think because of the reputation leftover from the genocide), but that will probably change as more people hear about how nice it is now.

Gisenyi, Rwanda

Today is our first day to relax on the trip. I finally am over my jetlag and slept through the night, getting up in time for the buffet breakfast. It's off-season, so we have almost the whole resort to ourselves.

The bus ride from Ruhengeri to Gisenyi was quite interesting. First, we had to get a taxi ride from the Gorilla Nest resort to the bus station in Ruhengeri. As we were driving into town, the driver saw a bus (which are actually minivans converted to hold four rows of passengers, holding three people comfortably per row, or four if you squish in) on its way to Gisenyi. So he flagged it down, u-turned and dropped us off. The bus was already full, but the bus ticket guy (there's usually a driver and a money guy on each bus) reorganized all the passengers so that Marissa and I could sit together.

The other passengers on the bus spoke only Swahili, so our english and limited french weren't very good. The other passengers all talked to each other, even if they were strangers (it reminded me of taking the T in Boston, where random people would just start talking about how the Red Sox were doing). Sometimes they were talking about us and then the whole bus would laugh.

...

There really isn't much to Gisenyi except for the beach. Marissa and I walked around this morning looking for bottled water (it's $2 in the resort for a 500ml bottle), and walked quite a bit before finally finding a little store ($1 for a 1.5L bottle). Otherwise the town is full of schools and offices. I think the only internet place is in the hotel too (at least it's cheap, $1 per hour).

We're just off to the beach...

Gisenyi, Rwanda

Today we saw the mountain gorillas, and it was pretty amazing! There's only 700 or so left in the world, between Uganda and Rwanda. The mountain gorillas are the main attraction in Rwanda, and the reason Marissa and I came here.

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Yesterday from Kigali, we took a short two-hour bus ride north to Ruhengeri. To my surprise, the bus left and arrived on time and only took on as many passengers as seats! (This is not normal in developing countries). I'd heard about a nice hotel called Mountain Gorillas Nest, not listed in the Lonely Planet, so we asked around. It turned out to be in a nearby town, Kinigi Village, about 10 km north. We took a taxi, but the road was one of the worst I've been on in all my travels, and it took about 45 minutes to get there! (I've been amazed over the last few trips at how paved roads to tourist destination are now the norm, compared to say 10 years ago).

Gorillas Nest is a beautiful resort. The rooms all had decks facing the wilderness, the grounds were really well-kept with flowers and birds all around. We booked a driver for the visit to the gorillas, and then took a nap (still slightly jetlagged).

Today we got up early, in order to be at the ORTPN office in Parque National Volcans by 7am. We checked in with the permits we had purchased in Kigali. We were then assigned into groups of 6 to 8 with the 20 other tourists seeing the gorillas, to see specific groups of gorillas.

We took an hour to drive over more bad roads to get to the starting point for the trek. The trek was really cool, through bamboo forests and then directly up a hill, at a 60* incline! I've never walked through such dense growth! We were accompanied by a guide, a lead (with a machete to clear the way), and two armed guards (in case of poachers). After 90 minutes, we were close to the group of gorillas. We were given more instructions on how to behave (no closer than 7 metres, no direct eye contact with the silverback (the head of the group), no pointing, no flash photography). Then we cut through more undergrowth, and the gorillas were right there! This particular group had 13 members, including an 8-month old that was recently named, although I forget the name. We spent an hour watching the group go about their normal life, eating bamboo shoots, playing, sitting around. The silverback was enormous, about 6' tall and 400 pounds.

I took a lot of pictures, and when I find an internet place where I can upload pictures I'll put some up.

Overall it was a pretty cool experience. It was pretty expensive (the permit itself is $375 US, plus the flight from Nairobi to Kigali put the side trip at about $1000), but worth it. Ranked against other side trips in the same price range, I'd say it's in 3rd, behind Easter Island and the Galapagos Island.

After the trek, we returned to the hotel, and then caught a bus to Gisenyi.

Gisenyi is a resort town on the beaches of Lake Kivu. We ended up in a very nice hotel, Kivu Sun, (again, not found in the Lonely Planet). We had dinner and then crashed, tired from the trek and the early start to the day.

We plan to stay here for 2-3 nights, just relaxing before heading back to Nairobi to begin the safari. There's also a free tour of the local brewery (Primus) nearby that we want to check out.

I've found Rwanda to be a very friendly country, without much of the hassling that is normal in poorer countries. Definitely my favourite country in Africa so far.

That's it for now!

Kigali, Rwanda

We've spent the last 48 hours or so mostly in airports and on planes. First was a seven-hour flight to Amsterdam, and shortly after an eight-hour flight to Nairobi, on KLM. We arrived around 8pm in Nairobi (seven hours ahead of Toronto), and quickly made our way through customs and immigration and to a hotel near the centre.

We had to be back at the airport at 8am for our flight to Kigali the next morning, so this Nairobi experience was rather brief -- a taxi ride, dinner, a night in the hotel and then a taxi ride back to the airport.

I remembered this time to take a large empty suitcase to pack souvenirs for the return trip. Every time I travel, I end up buying a large cheap suitcase for this purpose, and I now have more cheap suitcases than one person needs. I left the suitcase in the hotel in Nairobi, and I'll pick it up on my last day before returning home.

(The Kenyan passport control people asked Marissa Did you enjoy your stay?, out of habit, which Marissa found funny).

The flight to Kigali was short (only 75 minutes), but we still got served breakfast! That was surprising. We had good views of Lake Victoria as we flew over it, the source of the Nile. There were no problems through customs, and Canadians receive visas free-of-charge in Rwanda!

Our only objective today was to pick up the permits at the ORTPN office to see the gorillas (Office Rwanda of Tourism and Park National, which grammatically makes more sense in french). The gorilla tourism is strictly regulated, in order to control human exposure. Only a limited number of people (40?) are allowed to see the gorillas every day, so I had called a couple weeks ago to reserve the permit.

Permits in hand, we thought about seeing some of Kigali, but jetlag took over and we napped away the rest of the afternoon. There is a memorial to the genocide here that I would like to see.

Kigali itself is in a contruction boom. The Lonely Planet says that's due to the rest of the world feeling guiltly about not intervening in the genocide, and has thrown plenty of aid money at the country. Oddly, I don't feel a sense in people here, say compared to the sense I got in San Salvador or Siem Reap, of a sadness in people's faces. Although we've only been here less than a day.

The weather has been very temperate. Mid 20s in the day, and cool at night, (Nairobi and Kigali are both at a slight altitude, around 1500m) I probably won't get hot and humid weather until I get to Zanzibar. Thank goodness!

Anyways Marissa and I are off to have dinner and a local beer or two.

Toronto, Canada

As you can see from the nifty little sidebar, this trip is to east Africa. I'll be crossing a couple items off my list: climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, and going on safari through the Serengeti. Usually I try to have only one goal per trip, and spend the rest winging it; however, everything is pretty close and this trip has four (Mt Kilimanajaro and the safari, plus seeing the gorillas and diving off Zanzibar Island).

According to the Lonely Planet, there's plenty of internet cafes in east Africa, so I should be able to post updates frequently (except of course when I'm on safari or half way up Mt Kilimanjaro).