Cairo to Cape Town

I made it to Cape Town! It’s been three quick months across Africa, but I’m happy to have finally arrived. Just before Cape Town, I made a quick stop in Stellenbosch, the wine capital of Africa. Of course, I toured multiple wineries. Several offered fantastic countryside views.  Cape Town is a world apart from the […]

I’ve had a fantastic time in Namibia. I meant to split this fantastic country into several blog posts, but it’s been hard to find time to write. My first few days in Namibia’s capital, Windhoek, were spent enjoying some of the best food I’ve had so far on this trip. Then it was time to […]

The next leg of my trip – intended to be from Victoria Falls to Mozambique – encountered several unexpected problems and quickly became a haphazard string of bus routes that left me in Namibia, on the opposite coast of Africa. From Bulawayo I caught a series of busses and combis (minibuses) to Great Zimbabwe, the […]

My journey across Tanzania and Zamia was far too eventful – from railway strikes to crazy taxi drivers – but I made it to Victoria Falls.  It’s truly one of the natural wonders of the world.  The Zambezi River plunges over 300 feet into a deep gorge along a huge fissure. The mists can be […]

My four relaxing days on Zanzibar passed quickly – made faster by the relaxed atmosphere and plenty of sleep. The island’s historical core is Stone Town, a veritable maze of winding alleyways and narrow streets not navigable by car, though motorbikes still whip around blind corners at astonishing speed.  My first stop was the old […]

I’m now in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania. The nine-day journey from Hargesia, when I last posted here, was long and difficult. On my first day (19 June), a taxi and two minibuses brought me from Somaliland to Harar in eastern Ethiopia. After the first of several nights with no hot water, […]

For the past four days, I’ve been in Hargeisa, the capital of the Republic of Somaliland. Somaliland is a self-declared independent state in the northern part of Somalia. The world’s governments and the UN have refused to recognise Somaliland’s declaration of and referendum on independence, because doing so requires admission that the former Somalia is […]

From my last stop in Lalibela, I went to Bahir Dar for four days of relaxation after a fast-paced trip. My next travel section was a marathon – a 12 hour bus ride to Addis Ababa, a few hours for dinner, then ten hours of flying back to London via Istanbul, a connection that I […]

In the weeks since I left Egypt, there have been two terrorist attacks at places I visited – a shooting at the Pyramids on June 3 that killed two guards and a suicide bombing at the temple of Karnak today in which two of the three perpetrators were killed. The intent of the perpetrators seems […]

While in Lalibela, I ate twice at a restaurant called Ben Abeba that I think deserves its own post. It is the coolest place to eat in Ethiopia, and the food is excellent as well. The restaurant is located at the end of a ridge, giving it panoramic views of the valley below on all […]