When did the Goodboons come back to town ?

En francais plus bas...

Dear all,

It has been a long time since our last news...
A very long time...

Of course, a lot of you have heard from us since - most of you probably - but not all of you. So, please accept our apologies and let us bring you up to date.

Well, to start with, we are back in Cape Town !We got back on a sunny winter day, June 29th, after exactly 7 months on the road, and over 32000km on the clock.It has been a fantastic journey !

We have posted a map with our completed route under the "route" theme.

And we still plan to do posts on the rest of the trip since we left you in Uganda in May.
Some of the highlights were:

- Uganda's beautiful landscapes, friendly people, such variety in such a small country and such peaceful wild National Parks when compared to the rest of East Africa.

- Eastern Tanzania - the road down the length of Lake Tanganyika, bush camping in National Parks, and long bumpy days...

- Malawi and its wonderful Lake.Zambia : the Flat Dogs Camp, feeding hippo biscuits to the hippos, 2nd puncture of the trip (and 3rd, and 4th...), being recognized by Goodboons blog's fans in the street, misty Victoria Falls, and Tiger fishing in the Zambezi...

- In Botswana's we had floods in the desert, long sandy tracks and fantasic tarred roads and officials welcoming us home.

- We found South Africa as stunningly beautiful as ever, despite being so cold (we arrived for a freezing but sunny Johannesburg winter week) and, we had great pleasure in seeing friends and family again !
One of our reasons for the lack of news on the blog, is that we had something to hide - and it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide...

The secret was kept until we got back to Johannesburg: we are expecting a little boy for November!

Most of you know by now, but for those who don't we would like to share the happy news and let you know that we are overjoyed.

As a result, we have also decided to sell our 4x4, Scarlet. Three of us wont fit in the single cab.
Here is the link for anyone who may be interested: http://capetown.gumtree.co.za/c-Cars-Vehicles-Motorbikes-Parts-cars-R35K-Hilux-Raider-1991-2-2-petrol-4x4-W0QQAdIdZ158490978

Much love to all,

Caro, Steve, & "miniboon"

Cher tous,


Voila bien longtemps que nous n avons pas donne de nouvelles...
Tres longtemps...

Biensur, beaucoup d entre vous ont eu de nos nouvelles depuis - la plupart probablement - mais pas tous. Alors, s'il vous plait, acceptez nos excuses, et permettez-nous de vous raconter...

Eh bien, pour commencer, nous sommes de retour au Cap !
Nous sommes rentres sous un soleil hivernal, le 29 juin, 7 mois jour pour jour apres notre depart, et avec quelques 32000km de plus au compteur. Quelle aventure nous avons vecue !

Nous avons complete la carte de la route que nous avons suivie, et l avons postee sous le theme "route".

On a aussi l intention de rediger d autres "posts" pour vous raconter le reste du voyage depuis l Ouganda, ou nous vous avons laisse en mai.
En voici un avant-gout:

- Les paysages magnifiques de l Ouganda, la gentillesse des gens, petit pays mais grande variete, et des parcs nationaux tellement paisibles quand on les compare avec ceux d Afrique de l Est.

- L est de la Tanzanie - la route vers le sud le long du lac Tanganyika, le camping sauvage dans les parcs nationaux, et les longues journees cahoteuses...

- La Zambie : le Flat Dogs Camp, les "biscuits pour hippos", la deuxieme crevaison du voyage (et la 3e, et la 4e...), les fans du Goodboons'blog qui nous ont reconnus dans la rue, les brumes des chutes Victoria, et la peche au tigre dans le Zambeze...


- Le Malawi et son lac !

- Au Botswana : les inondations dans le desert, les longues pistes de sable et les fabuleuses routes goudronnees, ainsi que des douaniers qui nous ont souhaite "Welcome Home".

- Nous avons retrouve l Afrique du sud toujours aussi belle, malgre un froid tenace. Nous sommes rentres a Johannesburg pour une semaine hivernale glaciale mais ensoleillee ; et nous y avons retrouve famille et amis avec plaisir !


Si nous n avons pas beaucoup mis le blog a jour depuis Avril, c est que nous avions quelquechose a cacher - et que cela devenait de plus en plus difficile a cacher...

Le secret a ete garde jusqu a Johannesburg : nous attendons un petit garcon pour novembre !

La plupart d entre vous sont deja au courant, mais pour ceux qui ne l etaient pas nous souhaitons partager la bonne nouvelle et vous dire que nous sommes ravis.

Du coup, nous avons aussi decide de vendre Scarlet, notre 4x4. On n y tient pas a trois !
Voici le lien vers notre petite annonce, si vous connaissez quelqu un que ca interesse: http://capetown.gumtree.co.za/c-Cars-Vehicles-Motorbikes-Parts-cars-R35K-Hilux-Raider-1991-2-2-petrol-4x4-W0QQAdIdZ158490978

Bises a chacune et chacun,

Caro, Steve, & "miniboon"

Hilux Raider (1991) 2.2 petrol 4x4 - For sale.

Scarlet - our faithful Hilux Raider (1991) 2.2 petrol 4x4 - is for sale.
As you know from this blog, it has just returned from an Africa overland safari.

It was a fantastic vehicle to have.

Diff lock. Single cab.

320 000km.
Mechanics renewed before departure – good condition.

Includes custom aluminium canopy, fridge-freezer, battery system, roof-top tent, awning, 2nd fuel tank, water tank, shelving, steel boxes, spares, camping and recovery equipment.

ZAR 90,000

Call Steve : +27 84 447 5544

(See more pictures under the "Scarlet" theme, and generally on the whole blog ; and see the reason why we have to sell it on our "Home page").

We are back in Cape Town (South Africa) !

Hello there,

We left Cape Town on November 29, 2008. Exactly 7 months and over 32000km later, we are back at home. We arrived on June 29, 2009. It has been a fantastic adventure !

Hum... Let's see. We've left you in Uganda. I think it was around mid-May... Just give us a few weeks to settle back, see friends, go back to work, and sort out pictures... We'll update this blog as soon as possible. In the mean time you can browse through past posts by using the themes' key words in the right column or the monthly archives.

As an appetizer, here is the route we have been following. More details on where we have been can be found under the "Route" themes' key word.

Border crossing Kenya/Uganda in Malaba.

Arriving at the Malaba border post was quite an experience: in less time than it takes to write about it we were surrounded by a crowd of people, shouting to us not to speak to anyone, showing us badges and telling us to follow them… We eventually realised that these guys were “facilitating agents” and were there to guide us through the border’s formalities. It was rather amusing/annoying: we had been crossing borders for the past 5 months without any help. Eventually we realised that we wouldn’t have peace less we chose one of them to be our guide. And so, Moses became our “agent”. We weren’t to regret his help in parting the sea.

Exiting Kenya went quite easily, except that we almost got heavily fined for not having paid road tax (20 USD) when we entered the country. It took us some time to explain that we had come from Lake Turkana, where there is no border post, and that no-one had told us about road tax in Nairobi when we went to Times Tower to have our Carnet de Passage stamped. We were quite happy to pay the road tax but felt we shouldn’t pay the fine. Fortunately we remembered the name of the customs boss we had dealt with in Nairobi, and fortunately the border officials were nice to us and ended up letting us go. No doubt Moses’s polite patience in dealing with them helped a lot.

Knowing that we would have to pay the Ugandan road tax in Ugandan shillings, we changed the Kenyan shillings we still had. The exchange rate offered t us by the agents was fair . We got USh26 for KSh1.

Moses then took us to the Ugandan side of the border, where we easily got a 2 month visa for USD50 each.

Getting the carne stamped was another story: First we had to get to a copy machine to get a copy of an official form. Moses paid for the copy. Then we had to fill the form and take it to some official who was to confirm the amount entered on the form. The official wasn’t in his office, but Moses had his phone number and managed to find him at the front gate. With that we then had to go to the bank (there is one at the border) to pay the tax and get a receipt. It was a whole complex process, probably to prevent corruption. Without Moses we would have been lost. Eventually we went through Customs, passed the queue (again with Moses help) and had our CDP stamped. We were finally and officially in Uganda.

Moses had made it clear that he was working as an independent agent. We gave him USh10,000 for his help. He seemed happy with that.

First impressions of Uganda.

We were impressed by the quality of the roads. They are excellent, and where there is roadwork the diversions are clear and good.

What struck us when we arrived was how green, hilly, and productive the countryside looks.
But, what will stay with us the most is the people’s kindness, helpfulness, and their smiles. Uganda is diverse and beautiful: stunning National Parks, thrilling rapids, unique birds, mysterious Chimpanzees and Gorillas, snowy mountains (the Rwenzoris), and active volcanos, tree-climbing lions, crater lakes and Lake Victoria. It is no wonder that this is where Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip chose to spend their honeymoon 60 years ago.

There are a few cell phone networks available, but Zain, which we used in Kenya and Tanzania is also present in Uganda. We are thus still using the sim card we bought a few months ago.

On 05 May 2009, the exchange rate was more or less:
- Ksh 1 (one Kenyan shilling) to Ush 26 (26 Ugandan shilling)
- USD 1 to Ush 2000
- ZAR 1 to Ush 200

And here are some prices:
- Ush 1700 to 4000 for a beer (supermarket to bar)
- Ush 700 to 1500 for a bottle of Coca Cola (local to Mzungu)
- Ush 1000 for a mango (Mzungu price?)
- Ush 1500 for a dozen bananas
- Ush 2100 to 2400 for 1l of petrol depending on dist from Kampala.

The Source of the White Nile

Jinja, where the White Nile leaves Lake Victoria, was to be our first stop in Uganda. It sells itself as the “Adventure Capital of Africa” and apart from offering probably the best commercial white water rafting in the world, it also offers: quad biking, bungee jumping, horse riding and kayaking. But, we didn’t do any of that - we chilled in the shade and went bird watching instead… Man, am I kicking myself now!

The Source of the Nile

Bird watching is better than white-water (Murchison Falls)

From Jinja we went to Murchison Falls National Park, lower down on the White Nile. The park is a vibrant mix of forest, bush and grassland. Of course we visited the falls and then we spent a day chimpanzee tracking in the Budongo forest.

Murchison Falls

It was magical to experience these creatures in their own environment. We were amazed how they can disappear – we smelled them first when they were only 5m from us and all around us. Our guide, Cypriano, was very knowledgeable and has been working with this particular group of 87 individuals for the last seventeen years. We learned that they only pick fruit from the trees as it becomes ripe (whereas baboons pick everything and throw the unripe fruit down) and can feed off the same few trees for a few weeks. They also hunt monkeys and small antelope closing in on them from all sides. They also strip grass and use it to fish termites out of their nests; and they retreat to the wardens’ village when there is a lion/leopard threatening them.

Deep Thought

The good news is that this particular forest habitat and its chimp population have been expanding over the last few years.

Chimp Tracking in Budongo Forest

Scarlet's Anatomy

The Kitchen and Diningroom

Steve's side

Caro's side

The Recovery Compartment

What to pack?

Two lists of things we:

1. Should have left in the garage:

Surfboards – a good starting point for many conversations, but not worth the hassle of off-loading every time we stopped for the night, loading them on again the next morning and then having to stop every so often to re-tie them. Maybe it would have been different if we had found some waves…

Cooler box – we used it for storage where another black box would have been better.

Egg holder – doesn’t work unless eggs are hard boiled!

2. Found really useful:

Snatch-strap – the best thing since the hi-lift jack (if you are travelling as two vehicles).

Awning – lovely in the rain.

Vacuum cleaner – some sanity when the dust becomes too much!

Tools – often the know-how is there but the tools aren’t. Spares for Toyota seem to be available everywhere. Fortunately we haven’t had to replace anything other than a wheel bearing thus far.

Fridge – what a pleasure! To think that we had even discussed whether it was worth the money...

Fan - hanging in our tent as a ceiling fan. It saved our lives on many hot nights! (Thanks for the idea, Gideon)

Fire lighters – Good old, Blitz. Charcoal is more easily available that firewood in most places.

Wash basins – Two big plastic basins for washing food, clothes, dishes and bodies.

Potjie – Our cast iron cooking pot.

Bleach – we took 1 litre of 12% Sodium Hypochlorite (NaHOCL) which we used to clean all our drinking water and fruit & veg. We use 3 drops for 10 litres of drinking water.

Spot light and binoculars – for checking out all the creatures hanging around our camp,day and night (Thanks, Pat & B).

Our latest news...

We have just come back from 2 days in the Masai Mara National Park. We overheard someone saying that it is the best time of year to go: there has been a bit of rain, the grass is electric green and animals are numerous. So, we decided to postpone the Rift Valley lakes for a bit, and treated ourselves!

It was fantastic. There were very few safari vehicles in the park. The roads weren’t too muddy yet, and we saw many birds and animals roaming the seemingly endless plains.

Giraffes on the horizon

Mother and daughter

Simba wakes…

… getting up…

… Even the King of the Jungle needs to shit!

Sometimes watching the tourists is just as much fun

On the way back, we took a back road which had a lot of sharp rocks. We had our first puncture in 5 months!

Border crossing in Omorate (Ethiopia/Kenya)

Having entered Ethiopia through the main border of Moyale, we decided to go back down to Kenya through the Omo valley and Lake Turkana. It was a very worthwhile adventure, but it was not too straightforward…

There is a border post in Omorate on the Ethiopian side, but no customs office as yet. This means you can leave Ethiopia officially, but your car can’t. We had to go to the customs department in Awasa, on our way to Arba Minch, to have our Carnet de Passage stamped there.

From Omorate we had to backtrack a short distance before taking a sandy track south towards Banya Fort and the Kenyan border. There is a police checkpoint on the Ethiopian side to check your passports as you leave. From here, it was sandy, rocky and muddy tracks until Maralal, some 500km south. We were travelling with the Amazing Swiss (Marc and Roman) in Wolfi, their Mitsubishi minibus. We pulled each other out of the mud a few times, bush-camped a few more, and made it to Maralal without having felt threatened or having had any major problems with the cars. We were both carrying 180l of fuel when we left Jinka for Omorate. We found fuel “out of the barrel’ in Loiyangalani and Barsaloi, at exorbitant prices.

There is no border post on the Kenyan side. We had arranged our Kenyan visas in Addis before leaving. We reported to the Loiyangalani Police Station to announce our arrival in Kenya, where we learned that we were illegal immigrants and that you are not supposed to cross the border anywhere other that Moyale. The police officer was nice enough though, and didn’t send us back to Moyale, which would have been a real mission. After phoning his senior in Nairobi, he let us continue to Nairobi where we completed the Immigration and Customs formalities.

The immigration ran smoothly, but the CDP wasn’t as easy. We had to go to the Customs Department is located in the Times tower. We were sent to the 12th floor, then the 9th floor, then the 10th floor, then the 4th floor… Only to find out that the right person to stamp the CDP really was on the 10th floor. The problem was that the new official in charge had never heard of CDP. It took a bit of time to find his predecessor (who now works on the 1st floor) so he could explain to his colleague what was required. Patience prevailed and we eventually got our CDP stamped. After a morning of bureaucratic fun, we were finally legal - one week after crossing the border!

The road to Maralal

It was a scenic drive down the length of Lake Turkana, across the Chalbi Desert and then up to Maralal. The going was slow: Wolfi, the Mitsubishi bus, struggled a bit with her lower ground clearance…

Lake Turkana, also called The Jade Sea

The Swiss road building effort in Northern Kenya.

A leaking fuel tank

Crossing the Chalbi Desert

We spent one night bush-camping in the desert and another at Katanga community campsite.

Lunchstop before Maralal

Lone Tree Camp, Chalbi Desert

Katanga Community Campsite...

...with room service.

Caro at Thomson's Falls, our last stop before Nairobi.

Sibiloi National Park, Northern Kenya

This park situated on the north eastern side of Lake Turkana is the least visited of Kenya’s parks. It is remote and roads are rough…

A dry riverbed - not!

Stuck again.

Bushcamping back in Kenya

A few million years ago the water level in Lake Turkana was 100m higher than it is now. The climate was different too - a lush forest teaming with wildlife. Today, the exposed sediments at Sibiloi are a fossil hunter’s dream: giant tortoises, warthogs, crocodiles and wildebeest; early hominid ancestors; and petrified forests. The landscape is dry and uninhabited. We saw some wildlife: Generuk, Topi, Grant's Gazelle and crocs...

Shall we go for a swim?

We spent a night at Koobi Fora camp before tackling the road south…

Lake Turkana from Koobi Fora

Chilling

Makki Village and the Mursi, Mago National Park

The Mursi tribe live in what is now the Mago National Park, some two or three hours drive from Jinka. They are best known for their lip-plates which to women insert into an incision in their lower lips. They are nomadic pastoralists and have a fearsome reputation amongst the other tribes of the South Omo Valley.

Mursi herdsmen

River crossing to Maki Village

We had heard that there was tension between the Government, who charge visitors to enter the Mago National Park, and the Mursi who don’t receive any benefit from the revenue generated for the park. The result is that the Mursi will demand a payment from the visitor over and above the ‘official’ price paid at the park entrance. The Government and Mursi representatives were negotiating a settlement while we were there.

The Amazing Swiss with a Mursi woman and child

Young mothers

Curious but shy

Oli Seraili's first wife in her hut - each wife has her own

Her son..

Us

We spent one night at Makki Village before driving south to the park headquarters. We had intended to continue south through the park to Omorate, but a heavy storm came through and we were advised that the roads would be impassable. We decided instead to backtrack to Jinka and take the less adventurous road south…

Our camp under the trees at Makki Village

Scouting roads under water

Stuck

Made it back to the main road!