Our Journey Home!

Hello everyone!  Today is Feb.28^th and we are going to be getting on our series of planes back to Seattle today!  The past week has been full of anticipation to be back to Liberia and to come back home but we did some pretty cool things along the way.

We left Moshi on a shuttle bus to go to Nairobi, Kenya on Feb. 16^th.  The ride was supposed to take about 5 hours but ended up taking 9 hours due to several delays including a collapsed bridge along the way which was being filled with large rocks and dirt so vehicles could pass!  We also saw an excellent view of Mount Kilimanjaro which has just has a fresh dusting of snow and looked spectacular.

We stayed at a great campsite in Nairobi which felt like a little oasis away from the hustle and bustle of the city centre.  On the 18^th we decided to do a bit of sightseeing around Nairobi and went and saw Karen Blixen’s house who was the woman from the movie ‘Out of Africa’ played by Meryl Streep.  We also went and visited the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage which helps baby elephants orphans get reintegrated back into the wild.  The trainers brought out many small baby elephants and fed them with bottles right in front of us, so close that we could touch them!  Then the elephants rolled around and played in a huge mud pit which was really cute to see.  Kevin and I also went to a restaurant called ‘Carnivore’ which is inside the Nairobi National Park.  This restaurant used to have game meats that you could eat but now due to new conservation laws, they no longer serve zebra etc but they do have a lot of other meats. The waiters bring around soup, sauces for the meats, salad and then bring around endless supplies of different meats to the table which they carve up right there onto your plate as long as the flag on the table is raised; when you eventually are full you surrender and put the flag down.  We ate the regular meats of beef, chicken, turkey, lamb, pork, sausage, as well as chicken gizzards, crocodile, camel, ostrich, and ox balls!  We were stuffed but the experience was a lot of fun.

Next we took the night train to Mombasa which is an old train from the colonial era and we can attest that it has not had much of a face lift since then!  Its old colonial glory may be faded but it was a great way to travel being able to have dinner (though not a very good one!), sleep, watch the scenery in the morning with breakfast all while taking a 15 hour journey.  Mombasa was quite busy and hectic, although the old part of town was pretty neat being similar to Stone Town in Zanzibar.  We spent one night there and then headed to Diani beach in a Tuk Tuk (one of those three-wheeled rickshaws you see in India).  Diani beach was quite nice and was a nice way to relax during our last week in Africa. 

Kevy and I are now in Liberia which has actually been quite nice.  I spoke to Lamine today who I worked with in Bong and it was great to chat again.  We also have enjoyed hanging out with friends in Monrovia and we even went to a party in this big house thrown by the grandson of the former president William Tubman.  We are now just preparing ourselves for our 33 hour journey back to Seattle where friends will be picking us up!  We woke up this morning so excited that we will see everyone so soon!  Our flights, however, will not be very enjoyable as we go from Liberia – Ghana – Brussels – New York – Seattle and then drive to Vancouver!  This will be a LONG day!  But we figure the anticipation should make it go by quickly. 

Anyways we look forward to catching up with you all soon...very soon in fact!  Hooray!

Lots of love,

2 Weeks till Home!

Hi everyone and Happy Valentine’s Day!  Kevin and I are now in Moshi, Tanzania, which is the main town at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  We arrived on Feb 9^th after a long, ten-hour bus ride from Dar es Salaam, though it was considerably more comfortable this time as compared to the 14.5 hour ride we had on the way down to Dar (we made sure to take the right company this time!)   We are staying at a backpacker’s hostel which is fairly good and clean and most importantly for us right now, cheap!  Also, Moshi is much less expensive for food than Dar and Zanzibar and also has more fresh salads and sandwiches which is a nice change. 

Most of our time in Moshi so far has been quite relaxing, as we have mainly explored the town, read and perused the internet in coffee shops (with great Kilimanjaro coffee!)  We also found a great internet connection so we have been able to skype for the first time so far in Africa, which has been really great!  The last two days have been particularly lazy for Kevin and me as our legs are quite stiff from climbing to the base camp of Kilimanjaro!

On Saturday we took a dalla dalla (local mini-van transport here) with our guide to a town called Marangu where we then took a cab to the main gate of Kilimanjaro National Park.  We started the hike by walking down many steps (similar to those at Wreck Beach or the Grouse Grind) to a waterfall, which was really nice though slightly underwhelming as it is the dry season.  We then started our hike on the main trail up to the base camp.  The majority of the hike was through a thick rainforest with beautiful vegetation as well as blue monkeys and white colombus monkeys along with several waterfalls.  We started at 1000m above sea level and hiked up to 2700m where the base camp is, which was approximately 8km up, so about 16km round trip.  As we got higher the vegetation became less dense with smaller trees, more grasses and bushes.  After about 3.5 hours we reached the base camp where we ate lunch for about 15 minutes and then we hiked a little further up to see Maundi crater and some great views of the surrounding areas, including the border to Kenya.  By the time we were at the top my legs felt like jelly!  Even though the “climb” is really more of a hike, it is still ascending a long way for 4 hours straight which was exhausting, though completely worth it.  After we left the crater we continued straight back down the mountain which took about 2 hours and that was actually kind of difficult too as it takes a lot of control and is hard on your knees going down big steps!  All in all it took us 6 hours and we were told that our time was really good so we were happy with that and really enjoyed the trek.  Plus it is super cool to have climbed at least some of Kilimanjaro!  Unfortunately for us it is far too expensive to climb the whole thing, and frankly after feeling how sore our legs were after just the first climb, I’m not sure we are entirely ready to attempt the summit!  That will have to be another trip!

Apart from our Kilimanjaro adventure, we don’t have much else to report.  We had mentioned before that we were going to go to Lushoto, but unfortunately we decided to scrap that as the transport would have been a hassle and we aren’t in much of a mood for precarious travel right now as well as the place we were planning to stay was actually much more expensive than we thought (once again the Lonely Planet was way off!)  So we came straight here but have really enjoyed it as Moshi is quite nice, cleaner than most cities here, the people are friendly and things are cheap.  We have two more nights here and then we will head up to Nairobi, Kenya for a couple of nights and after that we are not quite sure.  We have about a week and have not decided what we will do but hopefully we will travel somewhere else in southern Kenya and maybe see some more animals!  Then we start our journey back to Canada via Liberia on Feb 26^th and then leave Liberia on Feb 28^th, getting into Seattle on March 1^st!  We are really excited to come home and can’t wait to see all of our friends and family!

We hope you are all well and we look forward to catching up with everyone when we are back!

The Last Week on Zanzibar!

Hi everyone, it’s Tiffany again!  I hope everyone is doing well!  Kevin and I are nearly finished our month on Zanzibar as we leave tomorrow, which we have really enjoyed.

After we left Kendwa beach in the north of Zanzibar we came back to Stone Town for two nights where we spent most of the days wandering around the streets that wind endlessly with no real rhyme or reason.  Stone Town is kind of like an Arabic-inspired and somewhat dirtier version of Venice but Kevin and I love it and every time we come back here it feels a little like coming home.  One of the nights we went out for dinner at this very “homey” little place called Sambusa Two Tables, and I say “homey” because it is literally inside someone’s home.  You walk up the stairs of the house and come into their living room where the kids are watching TV and then sit down at one of the two tables in the enclosed balcony area where we were served with 5 courses of traditional Zanzibari cuisine.  The meal consisted of: vegetable soup with chapatti, lentil curry with doughnut type bread, delicious and fresh beef samosas, vegetable fritters with coconut sauce, and finally beef masala with vegetable saffron rice all of which was really tasty.  Most of all it was a really cool experience to not know what we were going to be eating and how many courses were coming all the while sitting in someone’s house.  We also found this great father-son leather shop where we both got a pair of sandals that friends of ours from Zanzibar swear by and Kevin got an awesome leather shoulder bag for school, which was a bit of a splurge but well worth it. 

Soon we left Stone Town and headed to Jambiani beach on the south-east side of the island for one week.  We had reservations at this one place but when we arrived we quickly realized that it was certainly not worth the $35 per night.  We walked around and found another place which was an actual hotel with nice big, clean rooms, comfortable beds, an ensuite bathroom, a/c, wireless internet, an infinity pool overlooking the ocean, great full breakfasts, and use of a bunch of sporting equipment all for $45 a night because we went and talked to the owner and told him our price range and he decided to give us a great deal!  We were super excited so we moved the next day and spent six nights there.  On our first night at dinner Kevy ordered sea urchin pasta, which had the texture of a creamy ground beef.  It was a little strange and I think I liked it more than Kevy did but interesting to try nonetheless.   We also met a really nice couple from New York and had some great dinners and spent most of the time relaxing and reading along with lounging in the pool.  One of the greatest things was there was a TV and it had the Food Network!  I relished in a great episode of the Barefoot Contessa along with several other shows and even got to watch some Jamie Oliver! 

Jambiani beach was not as nice as Kendwa as the tides go out very far every six hours and we would have to walk quite a ways to get to the water.  Also there was a ton of seaweed there, but the cool thing was that many of the women from the community harvest the seaweed so we could walk out and see them with their seaweed farms all along the beach.  Kevin and I also went kayaking one day which was a lot of fun.  We really enjoyed our three weeks of being at the beaches on Zanzibar although we are definitely ready to move on and start doing something else too.

Yesterday we got back to Stone Town and again spent the day meandering in the streets.  Last night we went out for dinner at this place called Monsoon Restaurant where we had to take off our shoes to go into this nice room where we sat on cushions on the floor to eat dinner.  We had a great Swahili meal and best of all there was live Zanzibari Taurab music, which consisted of three guys playing a cool drum, this lap harp type instrument and a fat and curved guitar type instrument!  Obviously I have no idea what these were all called but they looked really neat, sounded great and the guys sang and Kevin and I enjoyed every second of it! 

Today we will wander around some more and poke about in curio shops, which are everywhere haggling over the prices of some souvenirs I’m sure.  We leave to go back to Dar es Salaam tomorrow, where we will stay for three nights and then we plan to head up to a town called Lushoto in the Usambara Mountain Range which is apparently lush and beautiful and great for hiking.  After that we will go to Moshi, which is the town at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro where we plan to do some hiking (though not the whole mountain as it costs $1500 each usually!), and then we will make our way up to Kenya!

We have just less than three weeks now until we fly back to Liberia and then back to Canada from there and we are really excited to come home even though we are enjoying our time here. 

We hope everyone is doing well and we miss you all.  We will keep you up to date on our travels!

Go Steelers!  (That one’s for you Roo!! Haha)