Odyssey goes back to Africa

Swaziland and South Africa

2009-08-30T00:41:00.000-07:00

We had an early start the next day as we were heading into South Africa via Swaziland so would have to cross two borders in a day. But we shouldn’t have worried as the borders were again a pleasure, and apart from a customs official who is now the proud owner of a broom which he had seen in the back of the truck and rather fancied, we had no trouble at all getting through the borders.

The Kingdom of Swaziland is one of the smallest countries in Africa and one of only three remaining monarchies in Africa. It is a beautiful country of rolling hills, great game parks, friendly people and excellent roads which were very welcome after our experiences in parts of Mozambique! Unfortunately due to the time constraints on this trip we were only able to visit the country for about three hours! But on our Trans-Africa expeditions we will do the country a bit more justice and explore what it has to offer.

A Swazi valley:

Crossing into Swaziland we noticed a significant increase in the cultivated fields:

The roads are nice and straight and well maintained!

Friendly waves as we drive past:

Swazi village:

From Swaziland we headed into South Africa. The most accessible of the countries in southern Africa, this country has something for everyone! On a Trans-Africa expedition many of the other operators only spend a couple of days here before heading up into Namibia. However we believe that South Africa is such a beautiful and diverse country that it is worth exploring properly, so on our Trans-Africa expeditions we will be spending nearly three weeks here travelling along the coast, through the mountains and into the game parks.

Our entry point into South Africa took us into the province of KwaZuluNatal where our first stop was the iSimangaliso National Park. Formerly known as the Greater St Lucia Wetlands National Park, this is a hidden gem of a national park and was one of the highlights of our whole trip. The park has excellent facilities including a lovely campsite where we set up camp for two nights.

The monkeys are cute to begin with, but then they open up your tents to find food and it all gets a bit out of hand!

Cheeky monkey:

The park warden was absolutely fantastic, very knowledgeable about the park and incredibly helpful and welcoming (and he upgraded us to the luxury lodge on the last night which was a real treat!). He told us that the park was “thick with leopard and rhino” which is quite a claim, but one he makes justifiably as the game viewing was superb.

We did several game drives during our stay, and the truck really comes into its own as the height allows you to see more than you would see in a car or even a game viewing 4x4. Having seen elephant, buffalo and lion in Ruaha National Park we were able to finish off the Big Five with sightings of rhino and the elusive leopard. We also saw huge herds of buffalo, zebra, eland and kudu, as well as a large variety of other animals including hippos and crocodiles and amazing birdlife. One of the things that makes this park so special is the variety of terrain which mean that you can wander up over a dune from the campsite and be on a beautiful sandy beach with great snorkelling and lovely warm water and then go game driving in the afternoon. There really is something for everyone at this national park and it is sure to be one of the highlights of Odyssey’s Trans-Africa expeditions.

Buffalo:

Zebra:

A wandering hippo:

Fish eagle in flight:

Magnificent Kudu:

Warthogs - hilarious when they run through the grass with their tails held high:

Mother and baby (!) white rhino, unfortunately no sightings of the elusive black rhino... maybe next time:

Leopard - so difficult to see in the grass, this one hung around for a while as we watched, so probably had a cub in the grass somewhere:

Huge flocks of pelicans flew overhead:

The beach in the national park is stunning, and has great snorkelling:

A wilder section of park coastline:

From St Lucia we crossed into the Eastern Cape province and headed along the coast towards Port Edward (where we stayed at another lovely campsite and enjoyed another great meal cooked on the truck) and the start of the Wild Coast. Named after the spectacular storms that can come through, it is perhaps misnamed in one way, as almost immediately the road diverts inland for several kilometres before returning to the coast. Formerly known as the Transkei, this area is famous as being the area where Nelson Mandela grew up, the landscape changes from the sharp cliffs of the coast and becomes rolling hills dotted with brightly coloured houses.

A bit of a shock to find ourselves on massive motorways after all the quiet wilderness we had been enjoying!

Informal settlements alongside the main road:

But we did manage to find some more peace and quiet and more beautiful deserted beaches:

The rolling hills of the Transkei:

Colourful Transkei houses. Apparently the missionaries from years ago told the locals that painting the houses would defend them from infectious diseases. Not sure whether it works, but the painting of houses has continued!

Roadside stalls selling fruit and veg:

Doing the washing:

We stopped off at Port St Johns for a couple of nights. This town has the reputation of being the place that you for one day and stay for months as it has lovely beaches (although you are advised not to swim due to sharks!) and a really chilled atmosphere. It is quite touristy though, and we are not planning to stay there on our Trans-Africa expeditions, rather to visit one of the smaller towns along the coast which offer incredible campsites on the beachfront.

The stunning Silaka Nature Reserve near Port St Johns:

Beautiful wildflowers and birds abound:

From Port St Johns we continued along the coast, with a stop off at Umtata (or Mthatha) to visit the Nelson Mandela Museum, a great photographic exhibition showing Mandela’s struggles and triumphs.

Due to the time constraints of the people on the trip, we unfortunately had to do the final section quite quickly so our next stop was a tiny hamlet called Hamburg. We were lucky enough to be able to stay at a guesthouse run by a very enthusiastic German lady with a love of overlanding! In fact, the next day, she was heading off on her 16th overland trip! The town is bordered by the river and the beach, and is a lovely spot to spend an afternoon, go for a wander and watch the sun go down.

Pelican on the jetty in Hamburg:

Sunset over the river:

The river meets the sea:

Apparently we were on the Sunshine Coast! Unfortunately it decided to rain on us instead, the first rain they had seen for weeks!

The coastline of South Africa is undeniably stunning. We drove through many lovely towns on the coast, admiring many of the beautiful beach houses and fancy boats in the marinas! As we got closer to Cape Town, we were driving along with huge mountains on one side, and coast on the other. Absolutely beautiful.

The busy port and city of Port Elizabeth, with a crazy seawall that doubles as art!

Stunning countryside (and a bridge that goes nowhere anymore):

We made a couple of stops along the way, including a stop at the Bloukrans Bridge Bungy Jump, the highest bridge jump in the world at 216m. It is quite literally breathtaking to see! I have done the jump many times before, but seeing it again made me keen to jump again! Others in the group were not so enthusiastic!

Plettenberg Bay:

Informal settlements along the main roads:

Our final night was spent at a lovely riverside campsite in Wilderness, and we went into the town for a final dinner at a great Italian restaurant.

More stunning wildlife at Wilderness Campsite:

And so, all too soon, we were back home! It was a great expedition (albeit too short of course!) and confirmed to me that Africa is an incredible overlanding destination with so much to offer. We have been further inspired to head away from the beaten tourist trail as there are so many places that have not yet been spoiled by mass tourism and we were lucky to find a lot of these as we went along that will become regulars on the Odyssey Trans-Africa expeditions.

Whales! The coast near Hermanus is the world's best land-based whale watching location. At times the bay in Hermanus can have up to 30 whales including mothers with calves, and you can sit on the beach and watch whales breaching and diving behind the breakers. Absolutely incredible:

Stunning Western Cape scenery:

Mozambique

2009-08-29T12:54:00.001-07:00

From Malawi we crossed into Mozambique. Apart from our small altercation on the border of Tanzania, the borders we crossed on the trip were a pleasure! Friendly border guards, very little paperwork and we were generally able to get from country to country in about an hour! So much easier and less stressful than the borders in Central Asia which the London to Australia trip pass through!

In my younger years I spent a lot of time diving in Mozambique and I have very fond memories of the friendly locals and spectacular beaches and inland scenery and it is one of the places I was most looking forward to returning to.

The section of Mozambique from the Malawi border at Zobue to the coast is underdeveloped in terms of tourism, and so we decided to bush camp for a couple of nights. The truck is self-contained for a couple of days as we carry several hundred litres of water as well as all the cooking equipment (and a fridge to keep food and drinks cold), and this is one of the greatest things about overlanding as it allows us to head off and set up camp wherever we want (after asking permission from the landowner of course!). Our first bushcamp was right at the edge of a village which meant that we had an audience while we set up camp and cooked our meal. I am pretty sure they had never seen the likes of us before! The next night our bushcamp was a nice flat section of land over a hill which allowed me to really try out the off-road capabilities of the still unnamed new truck. And she was awesome!

Up and over we go!

Coming down:

It looked steeper in real life:

Our bush camp for the night:

Our first couple of days in Mozambique as we headed towards the coast involved quite long drives, although the distances were not that great, the roads were often in quite poor condition. It seemed to vary from province to province (perhaps in an inverse relationship to whether the head man in the province is driving a big car and living in a big house?) Huge potholes were everywhere (really proper potholes, not like the little ones on UK or South African roads) although sometimes attempts to fix them only seemed to make them worse, and the road ended up looking like a patchwork quilt! Fortunately the size of the tyres on the truck means that we have a much more comfortable ride than people in 4x4s or cars, but a couple of hours of swerving all over the road and trying to find the best line through the potholes is pretty tiring stuff! You will be happy to know that this road is not on the itinerary for our Trans-Africa trips!

Happiest at the wheel:

A good road:

A more typical road! Oh, and the truck in front has a bumper sticker that says "Never trust woman". Nice.

Mozambiquan villages:

More villages in the shadow of a mountain. On the other side of the mountain is Zimbabwe, a spectacular country that we will be going through on our Trans-Africa expeditions:

The coast in Mozambique is stunning, picture postcard stuff. Crystal clear azure water, white sand, palm trees, the works! We chose to stay at a campsite about 7km outside of Vilanculos. That is, 7km of a road that consists entirely of deep sand! Again the truck performed admirably, and although we did have to use the sandmats once when we got a little bit stuck in deep sand, there is no doubting that this truck is perfect for a Trans-Africa trips where we will be doing a lot of driving through sandy deserts in the northern sections through Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.

Only a bit stuck, but nothing that sandmats couldn't fix. You can see the door into the truck - it is basically a ladder, and along with replacing the canvas sides with proper hard sides and big windows, this will be one of the other major changes to the truck as we will put a proper staircase in to make it easier to get in and out of the truck:

The campsite was lovely, with a fabulous infinity pool (very posh!) and a nice restaurant, so we parked off for a couple of days which gave everyone the chance to do some laundry (or have it done for them!), enjoy the hot showers and chill. Oh, and enjoy the amazing seafood that is on offer, particularly the crabs! From the pool we could watch the fishing boats come in and unload their catch for the waiting crowd on the beach. Overfishing has been a problem in Mozambique as in so many places, and certainly there were fewer fish on offer than I remembered from previous visits, but there seems to be no lack of prawns and particularly crabs!

The beach:

Buying dinner - beats going to Tesco!

The boys were playing golf again, somewhat unsuccessfully trying to hit across the swimming pool...

Traditional boats. The water is very shallow at high tide so people are able to walk alongside the boats!

Happy faces on the beach:

Meeting the fishing boats when they come into the beach:

Taking home the catch:

Our lovely infinity pool and the most comfortable sunloungers ever!

On a day trip across to Bazaruto Island for unspoilt beaches and great snorkelling:

Preparing dinner:

After a couple of days of relaxing and chilling by the pool we were keen to get on the road again to continue exploring! We said goodbye to two of our group who were flying back to Cape Town and their offices, and headed off along the coast. We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn as we headed south towards our next stop, Tofo Beach. Tofo is another lovely spot along the coast and we found a nice lodge to stay in, right on the beach. We were hoping to do some diving as it is some of the best diving I have ever done, however the weather decided not to play along and so we ended up spending a couple of days chilling on the balcony overlooking the beach, shopping at the fantastic craft market (much better than anything we had seen previously on the trip) and eating more amazing prawns and fish.

Kitesurfing at Tofo:

Sunset over Tofo Beach:

We had spent nearly a week on the coast of Mozambique enjoying the beaches and seafood and relaxed atmosphere, so it was time for a change of pace! We headed south to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. On the way we stopped at Inharrime, a tiny village renowned for its Piri Piri sauce. All along the main road as it passes through the village are stalls with old whiskey bottles filled with the fiery red sauce for which the village is famous. Throughout countries such as Mozambique and Malawi the roadsides are littered with stalls from which you can buy all manner of things, from fruit and vegetables to clay pots or reed mats. The stall owners really get a thrill when the truck pulls up and they see all the people in the back that they can haggle with!

A very nervous looking goat! It is not unusual to see them on the roofracks of cars:

Colourful shops along the road:

A typical hectic market:

Shopping, Mozambiquan style:

Clay pots anyone?

Hmmm... deep fried sugary goodness:

A cashew tree?

Maputo is a lively city, with a heavy Western influence. We stayed in a backpackers in the city centre, and took the opportunity of being in a city to find a bar which was showing the rugby (haven’t ever watched the rugby in a bar while sitting next to a missionary before, but guess there is a first time for everything!) Maputo also has a wide range of restaurants and bars and we had a good meal out (although the food we had been cooking on the truck was so good that our standards were pretty high!) and then headed to a nice cocktail bar for a couple of drinks and a bit of people watching. Maputo was our last stop in Mozambique and also where we said goodbye to another of our group who had to fly back home to Mauritius.

Maputo, quite a shock after the small villages and deserted coastline, but a great place to spend a night:

Malawi

2009-08-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

From Ruaha we headed back down to the flats, and across the border to Malawi which lived up to its reputation as the “friendly heart of Africa”. As we travelled along, marvelling at the good quality of the roads, countless children and adults smiled and waved at us – the closest we will get to celebrity status!

The kids love digital cameras!

Malawi is a great spot to take some time and relax. The lake is huge, over 75 kilometres wide in parts, and 560 kilometres long. It is home to hippos and crocodiles, but we found some places along the way where the most dangerous part was the bar tab! The water is crystal clear and home to amazing fish varieties, and we parked off for a couple of days enjoying the sunloungers and warm water and watching the local children rowing their traditional canoes and messing about in the water.

On the shores of Lake Malawi. Not a bad spot for a quiet drink!

Local boats:

Cabins available at the campsite. At many of the places we stay there is the option to upgrade to cabins rather than camping, however the way we do camping makes it a pleasure even if you haven't done a lot of camping before:

Crystal clear (fresh) water:

None of them will be on the pro tour any time soon, but they had lots of fun playing golf up and down the beach:

Sunset over Lake Malawi:

We found some great places to add to the itinerary for our trans-Africa expeditions, away from the traditional overland truck haunts which are great for the occasional party night, but otherwise not the types of places that we want to stay, and we are really looking forward to going back. Malawi really seems to have come along in leaps and bounds in recent years, with vastly improved roads and infrastructure, although the country is suffering (as so many countries in Africa are) with the AIDS epidemic which is destroying families and almost wiping out a whole generation.

Another lovely campsite:

Watching the sun set over the lake:

So much of the experience of travelling in the way that we do is about chatting to the local people, wandering through the markets experiencing the sights and smells and enjoying the scenery – from magnificent mountains, valleys of Baobab Trees or coconut trees, stacks of firewood and charcoal for sale by the side of the road, beautiful villages with elegant women carrying huge loads on their heads and babies on their backs, to convents high on the hill serving as reminders of the impact of the missionaries.

Would you invest with "High Classic Investment"?:

Roadside sellers:

Amazing fresh fruit and vegetables make all the difference in the meals we prepare along the way:

The African Odyssey begins!

2009-08-29T09:37:00.001-07:00

With Calypso running through China and south-east Asia with Tim and Cheryl at the helm, I have had the chance to do something that I have been wanting to for years – return to Africa. Having grown up in South Africa and spent many years overlanding, diving and rafting through Africa, including journeys from London to Cape Town through countries no longer accessible due to civil unrest, Africa holds a very special place in my heart.

Odyssey has another truck! We were offered the opportunity to buy a new truck, so we flew to Nairobi in Kenya to pick it up. On arriving into Kenyatta International Airport we were greeted by immigration staff all wearing masks to protect themselves against swine flu, however an hour or so later as we continued to stand in a seemingly motionless queue, the masks were pushed to one side as the discomfort of the heat took precedence over the potential infection risk!

Our first three days were spent in a haze of prop shafts, tyres, grease and oil changes and cleaning as we went over the new truck from top to bottom. We have bought an existing overland truck which has incredible off-road abilities and will be the perfect base for our trans-Africa expeditions in 2010/2011, however we needed to get the truck to Cape Town to do the modifications required to make it an Odyssey Overland truck.

The truck workshop in Nairobi. So many trucks! Ours is the blue and orange one being washed:

It seemed a shame just to drive straight from Nairobi to Cape Town, so instead we invited a group of friends and ex-clients to join us for the drive south. We also thought it would be a great chance to check out some new places to visit on our trans-Africa expeditions which aren’t on the itineraries of other overland companies who stick to the same well-worn paths. Unfortunately some of them could only take a couple of weeks off before having to head back to the office (we brought our office with us instead!), so we had to do the trip faster than we would have liked as we prefer to take our time to explore the countries we visit, which is one of the reasons that our Trans-Africa trips are about a month longer than other operators.

From Nairobi we headed south through Kenya to the Tanzania border (which we got through with only a slight altercation with a border guard of questionable integrity) and then we continued on past the magnificent Mt Kilimanjaro towards Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, where we were to pick up the group.

Tanzanian roads - don't worry, they aren't all dirt tracks:

Everywhere we went in Africa there are people walking or sitting by the side of the road:

Kilimanjaro - the beer:
Kilimanjaro - the mountain:

For most of the group, it was their first trip to Tanzania, and indeed their first trip to the wilder side of Africa, even though many of them have lived in South Africa for many years. Dar is a city whose colonial past is very visible, as it is in so many African cities, but it has a distinctly African feel. It is a city where you can shop at roadside markets or huge polished shopping malls, where you can catch an overcrowded bus or drive a gleaming Mercedes, and where traffic lights are indicative only, and are frequently overruled by rather brave policemen standing in the middle of four way intersections. Dar is also the gateway to the island of Zanzibar, and some of the group had spent a couple of days before the trip exploring the island, buying amazing spices and enjoying the white sand and azure sea beaches. For us, Dar was an opportunity to do a bit more work on the truck to get it ready for the group, many of whom had not overlanded before.

Our campsite in Dar:

Shimmering water in front of the campsite:

The group! And the truck in the background. As you can see it currently has canvas sides - that will be the first thing to change as we will put in proper windows and hard sides and roof:

Buying food in Dar:

Well, not so much buying food in the market, but posing in the market!

Along the road we pass through Mukumi National Park - have to watch for giraffe and elephant on the road!

We watched for them, and they watched us go past!

Lovely scenery as we drove through Tanzania:

The Valley of a Thousand Baobabs - an understatement!

A very happy firewood seller!

We set off early from Dar to head south towards Iringa, our jump off point to Ruaha National Park (“roo ah ha”). Ruaha is Tanzania’s second largest national, second only to Serengeti National Park, yet is one of the least visited due to the relatively difficult access roads, and is a place that I have wanted to visit for many years. Although Africa is home to many overland trucks, and has the potential to feel like a giant tourism conveyor belt if you stick to the same destinations as everyone else, at Odyssey we are firm believers in getting off the beaten track and away from the crowds, and really experiencing a country. And our new truck proved itself easily up to the challenge of the road to Ruaha! We went on two game drives through the park which gave us exactly what we wanted – lots of animals, and no other tourists. We came across a very vocal matriarch elephant who mock-charged the truck several times before ambling off into the bush with her herd. We saw four lions feasting on a buffalo carcass from a kill earlier in the day, and saw huge hippos wallowing in the water. Giraffes came down to the water to drink, awkward with their long limbs spread, and we saw countless zebra, eland, mongoose and baboons. It was a fantastic experience, and even impressed those on the trip who have been game viewing in Africa many times before!

Part of the fun of overlanding is finding unexpected things along the way. We were driving towards Ruaha National Park via the backroads when we stumbled upon a huge mission on the hill:

Hippos in Ruaha National Park - from our campsite you could hear them calling each other during the night:

Hippos may look slow and lazy, but they can get very aggressive when they want to! Fortunately here they were only taking out their aggression on each other not on us!

One of the many elephant we saw in Ruaha:

Getting the campfire ready:

More charcoal please! The wood locker comes in very handy for storing the firewood and charcoal that we buy along the way:

Comfy chairs and a campfire - what more can you ask for?

A tent with a view - there is actually a giraffe drinking in the river on the far side of the bank, and later a hippo wandered along the bank as well:

Sunset over the river in Ruaha:

The next morning's game drive - we found lion! This one was a bit lazy though and just sat down when it saw the truck and watched us while we watched him:

Sunrise through a hollow baobab:

One very angy elephant! This was the matriarch of the herd that we came across on our game drive. She wasn't happy that we were there, but we needed the herd to move before we could go past! She mock charged us a couple of times before ambling off:

The park is so full of giraffe and elephant that they become commonplace!

The highlight of the morning was to find these four lions (there are two hiding behind the bush) feasting on a buffalo they had killed earlier. They were very wary of us (and vice versa!) but posed nicely for some photographs!

Another elephant and a baby: