African Fish Eagle taking off in South Luangwa, Zambia
Category: africa
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Luangwa river
Luanga river. To get this as a print click on the image. Sandpipers in a pool at Luangwa River in South Luanga NP, Zambia
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How to Back up your Travel Photos.
How to back up your travel photos.
In the days of film, the only form of back up was to guard your film and slides as if you’re life depended on it. Nowadays with digital imaging there are many ways of backing up your photos.
So, follow me along as I give you some ideas on how to back up your travel photos.
History of Back up
The term back up only really became used when computers began to take over the world.
With paper you could make copies and file them off-site.
As we all switched from paper to digital, Business’s started to have tape, then floppy disks followed by CD’s for backups of the day’s work.
Now you have back up servers some of which are in the cloud.
Photography back up
Before digital, you were able to have extra copies made of photographic prints and file them somewhere else.
Not so with negatives and slides. Well that’s not strictly true, you could get copies, but it was expensive. It was not until digital came along that we began to realise that we had the option to back up all our precious photos.
We could even do it retrospectively, if we had plenty of time or money, by scanning film and slides.In those early days the floppy disk and then later the CD or DVD were the main back up mediums.
But as with film and slides we all ended up with boxes of DVD’s. Whilst smaller than boxes of Slides and Negatives they still took up some room.Let’s take a look at what options we have now.
Direct backup to a Laptop or Computer
The simplest and most convenient way is to connect directly to a Laptop or computer. This is done via the cable, now mostly a USB-C, that each camera manufacturer supplies to a laptop or computer. Once you have it on the computer you are free to copy it anywhere else.
All camera manufacturers give you that option. The main disadvantage is that some of the cables supplied are not usually off the shelf if you lose them. Additionally, some of the older camera ports tend to be non-standard or at best not common.Memory Cards
When you take an image with a digital camera it sits on the memory card that you have in the camera.
With a smartphone that image will generally sit on the phone’s internal drive. However, you can change it to sit on a microSD, if that’s available.Memory cards can also be used to back up your photos either via a computer or in some camera models.
How does that work?
Well you remove the memory card from the camera and insert into either a computer memory card port or a card reader that plugs into the computer.
Likewise, the same applies with a blank memory card. Once both cards are loaded you copy from one to the other.Backing up in camera is usually confined to some of the more high-end cameras. These now come with two memory card slots that you can use to either extend the memory or use the second slot as back up. When the latter is set, each time you take an image, it not only sits on the first memory card but also on the second.
Another option is to transfer it in camera periodically but that can be dangerous if you forget to do it.
The system of using memory cards as a backup medium is not used that often unless you are looking to immediately back up and that’s your only option.
One recommendation I would make is to use something similar with a smartphone.
Smartphone backup
With a smartphone, the potential to lose it or drop it is much higher than a camera. I would suggest a microSD if that’s easily removable (otherwise you will lose it with the Smartphone!)
Another option is a small flash drive that can be attached, usually through the charging port.
Why would we need to do that when we all rely on the cloud to backup our photos on a smartphone?
Services like Google Photos, or iCloud work well when you have connectivity. But what about when you don’t have connectivity?A few years ago I stayed a few days in a remote resort called Berkley River Lodge in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
There was no phone signal at all and WIFI was limited to 50m from the reception hut. We were on a helicopter trip heading back to the resort. One of the other guests was taking pictures of the sunset with an iPhone when he lost it out of the window. I might add that the phone wasn’t his, it was his partners!
We had also all been warned not to take your phone too close to the window during the flight as, you’ve guessed it, it could get sucked out.
Anyway, apart from looking like a Kangaroo in headlights, he lost the phone.
All the photos that they had taken in the last few days were only on that phone.
And as they had no way of backing them up other than using iCloud they were lost with the phone.
Berkley River Lodge from the air Lesson from that is not to rely on the cloud as back up for smartphones or indeed anything else.
If you have another device like a tablet, then you can set up a hotspot that will enable you to transfer or copy your files to the Tablet.
But if you are likely to be without the tablet and have no connectivity, then a Mobile flash drive is a no brainer.WIFI SD cards
An option to standard Memory Cards are WIFI cards. Even if your camera has Wi-Fi capability this still allows you to back up your images to another device.
If you have a fairly new camera, then chances are it will have WIFI capability anyway, so you can backup via WIFI without a special WIFI Memory Card.
However, in both these instances the issue is space.
Most Smartphones or tablets are around 128GB and if you are shooting RAW over a 2-3-week period it doesn’t take long to max out. For example, last year at a African Game Park I shot around 64GB of RAW and JPEG images.Physical back up devices
There are a lot of devices out there that you can use to back up your photos. Most of them are portable hard drives
There is the basic hard drive that you plug into a laptop or some tablets. You then copy the files to the hard drive via the Laptop or Tablet
Some hard drives have a SD Slot for your memory card. You insert the card and it automatically copies to the drive.
So, in theory you don’t need another device. Yet, unless you plug into another device you are not going to know whether it has backed up all your photos correctly.Another option is the wireless Hard Drive. This is like a hybrid. They have SD slots as well as having the option to wirelessly copy images via the hotspot I mentioned before.
This has the same disadvantage of not being able to see what images have been copied across. Although some do allow you to view the contents of the drive from a smartphone or tablet as well as a computer.Then there are hard drives that have a screen that lets you view the images even if they are RAW.
African Elephant in South Luangwa NP, Zambia. Click on the image to view a larger version and for other options Hard drive types
Lately hard drives come in two types, HDD mechanical Hard Disk Drives or SSD Solid State Drives.
The differences are basically that SSD’s are faster but more expensive.
In a computer or laptop then I would go to an SSD every time. With portable hard drives, where there is only data being stored, then it’s really a personal preference.For more on the difference read this article on PCMag.
Cloud Backup
How many cloud services are there now? There’s Apple’s iCloud, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Crashplan, Backblaze, Carbonite and there are the Photo Sharing Sites (more on that below).
Of course, all cloud backup services depend on the internet. So if you are travelling, you are relying upon there being an internet connection. That is often beyond your control.
There is much better connectivity than there was 5 years ago and I’m sure that there it will improve even more.
But as I mentioned earlier there is always somewhere that the internet is not connected.Even with an internet connection, the bandwidth or speed can be poor. Meaning that the time taken to upload your photos can be long and arduous, and therefore frustrating.
Using the cloud
Whether you use the cloud or not is dependent on a couple of things:
One is the Camera equipment.
For instance, a Smartphone has inbuilt cloud capability and relies heavily on there being an internet connection. That is either by the phone signal e.g. 5/4G or a wireless connection.
On the other hand, unless you have a 2-3-year-old camera, then there is every chance that the camera you have will not have Wi-Fi capability. Even a lot of the new ones only allow you to upload to a phone or tablet from which you then have upload to the cloud.The other reason is the interface and ease of use. I haven’t tried all these services, but of the ones I’ve used, iCloud and Dropbox seem to me to have the best interface and ease of use.
Cloud cost and security
There is one further reason and that is price. Prices vary so much with specials and add-ons that comparing them is likely to be totally inaccurate by the time you might read this.
The other thing to consider is security. I hesitate to say it but using the likes of the big guns like Microsoft, Apple or Google does give a sense of security, compared with the smaller players.
That may well be false.
But it’s worth asking a few questions. I.E. where are their servers? What happens to the data if a server goes down or heaven forbid the company disappears?What do I use? OneDrive. Why because Microsoft gives me 5TB with my Office 365 subscription.
Photo Sharing Sites
The other cloud-based storage systems are Photo Sharing sites. These are likes of Flickr, Smugmug, Google Photos, Pixbuf , Photobucket, 500PX, My Portfolio, Amazon Prime Photos plus a few others.
These add a bit more to the concept of back up.
Usually it’s a subscription service that allows you to view and share all your photos. Some even have their own social media interface meaning you can browse other user’s photos and comment or share.Flickr was the first of these and now has been gobbled up by the expanding Smugmug.
Take a look at my site on Smugmug to get an understanding.
Unlike the straight cloud backup services, some of these sites don’t support all file types.
So, if you are looking for a complete solution to house and view your RAW files for example, do your due diligence.
African Elephant in South Luangwa NP, Zambia. Click on the image to view a larger version and for other options How to back up your travel photos – at home
We’ve covered a broad summary of what there is out there to back up your travel photos whilst you are on the move.
What about when you get home?
All of the above apply to your home base as well.But you can also add in Desktop Drives
Desktop Hard drives
Desktop Drives used to be fixed to one certain location. But with the growth in portable hard drive storage, the fixed and portable are overlapping.
Most of us these days have Laptops instead of desktop computers which gives us freedom to work pretty much anywhere.
So, plugging in a portable hard drive as not only an expansion to the laptop storage, but also as a backup is easy.For the fixed you have three main types.
Standard hard drives that connect via USB or Apple’s Lightning and have their own power supply.
Cloud based drives that connect into a network also called NAS (Network Attached Storage)
This is different to the cloud services mentioned earlier. These are hard drives that are physically in your space but can be accessed remotely via an internet connection.
They also come with a power plug for an independent power supplyThe last type is called a RAID system (redundant array of inexpensive disks) that also have their own cloud. This is a trickier system to manage and install.
Basically, it is several hard drives usually in multiples of 2 that back each other up. Where it can be confusing is the many different set up combinations available.
It’s a way of ensuring that should one back up drive fail then there is always another one that has identical data, so that you can sleep easy.What I use
Now I think it’s time for me to give you my system.
On the road
Depending on the duration and the reason for the trip, I will carry either one or two SSD Drives, my surface pro and a memory card reader. I also now carry, since seeing the guy at Berkeley River lose an iPhone, a portable flash drive that fits my Samsung S10.
How do I use them?
I am fortunate that my Olympus OMD1 MKII has dual memory card slots, so I use one of these memory cards as back up. Additionally, every evening or at least every couple of evenings, I back up one of the memory cards to both SSD’s. If I have been diligent enough to clear the hard drive on my surface before travelling, I back up to my surface as well.
I back up my Samsung S10 to my surface if I am confident that I have good internet for the cloud back up to my OneDrive service. If I ‘m unsure of the connectivity, then I will back that up to my portable flash drive and later the surface.
I have used the iPad Pro as back up in the past. But due to the number of apps it has, it only has a small amount of spare storage compared to the surface.
How to back up your travel photos – Summary
Back up is a relatively new concept in the photographic world. It has only been around since the advent of Digital photography
There are many forms of back up for the travel photographer
Memory cards can be used for short term back up
Smartphone Cameras rely on cloud services, which can be unreliable when travelling.
A flash drive or microSD is a more reliable medium
New cameras can upload photos via different WI-FI systems to the cloud but only via another device
There are many different hard drives that can be used as back up devices.
They can be like small computers with their own screens and flexible connectivity.
Speaking of Cloud back up, the number of services available is huge. So, you need to select carefully before using one of these to ensure it meets your needs and security
Photo sharing sites like Flickr and Smugmug can also provide a level of back up for your photos
Then we get into the heavy duty physical hard drives. These use sophisticated software and multiple drives that you can create your own cloud with.
Any questions then please contact me here
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Standing African Elephant
African Elephant in South Luangwa NP Zambia. Click on the image for a larger view Share this:
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Another African Elephant
African Elephant in South Luangwa NP, Zambia. Click on the image for a larger view. Share this:
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African Elephant in South Luangwa NP, Zambia.
African Elephant in South Luangwa NP, Zambia. Click on the image to view a larger version and for other options Share this:
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African shoestrings – Tanzania Day One Hundred and Twelve the last day!
Our last full day was spent just aimlessly wondering down the alleys and streets of Stone town, stopping to browse the bazaars, have a coffee or something to eat. We finished off the day with a meal at the Stone town bistro in the old dispensary building. The old dispensary building was in fact a charming old building that was restored to its former glory in the mid 1990’s. Built for one of the richest Indian merchants in Zanzibar in the 1890’s it was donated as a medical dispensary by the same wealthy merchant at the end of the nineteenth century. It stands four stories tall with decorative balconies that give it a sort of colonial feel. We dined there twice and each time with the sort of feeling that you were dining in the same sort of atmosphere that the British Raj would have done at the height of their colonial power. We felt the urge to look around at any newcomers in case they had handlebar moustaches, belonged to the coldstream guards and said “what old boy” every other sentence.
As we left the restaurant I suddenly remembered (I’m ashamed to say that I forgot) the cricket world cup! Australia was playing South Africa in the semi. Immediately the search began for somewhere that a) had a TV and b) had it turned on and tuned into the cricket. We searched high and low and eventually found one at a hotel not far from our guesthouse and seeing that it was tuned into the wrong channel I cheekily asked the lone resident if she minded if I switched channels. We sat down ordered a drink (we thought we had better) and then proceeded to cheer like madman as the game seemed to ebb and flow from one side ‘s advantage to the other. The porter, the receptionist and a few other members of the hotel staff weren’t the slightest bit interested in the drama that was unfolding in front of our very eyes, they found our reaction much more entertaining. Not so the lady who we had hijacked the TV from. She disappeared quick smart.
Those of you who saw it will recall that South Africa needed 9 runs to win in the last 4 balls whilst Australia needed 1 wicket…………….. Lance Klusener hit 2 successive boundaries and we shook our heads discontentedly. The staff looked at us puzzingly……………. The next ball and Klusener panicked and ran out his partner, Alan Donald (to be fair to Klusener, Donald was not backing up enough).
It’s a draw and due to some rule or other Australia earned the right to go through to the final. Now we’re both up and jumping up and down, shouting and carrying on whilst the totally bemused hotel staff looked on even more puzzingly.
OK, you had to be there!
Our final few hours in Africa were spent pretty much the same way as the day before. Aimlessly wondering the alleys of Stonetown soaking in the atmosphere and feel of the place for the last time.
We checked out of the Malindi and caught a taxi to the airport. During the half an hour wait or so I totaled up our expenditure. We had failed to keep to the original daily budget and ended up spending, on average, $130. This meant we had spent $3300 more than we had budgeted and work would have to be found almost immediately we hit London. Oh well, we shrugged, we did have great time. “What’s three grand in the scheme of things!”
It took about 20 minutes to fly back to Dar es Salaam with great views of the some of the surrounding islands shimmering in the heat surrounded by the deep blue and turquoise water.
We were looking forward to being able to easily find our way to the international terminal and crash for a few hours before our flight. That plan disappeared very quickly.
The airport that we landed at was not the main Dar airport so we had to get a taxi the 1.5 kilometres to the international airport. We didn’t exactly have a choice as to which taxi we took. Once we hit the deck our bags were taken by the airline staff and deposited straight into a taxi waiting there. The driver must have thought we were rich tourists ripe for plucking. He wanted to charge us US$12 to take us. Eventually after much haggling we got him down to US$5.
At the international terminal we went to stroll into the building and were stopped. “Yoo a not aloud to go in de terminal until de chick in coonta is opan” a rather officious lady told us from her desk at the entrance. “yoo will ave to wait over der” she vaguely gestured towards a courtyard with two bench seats already filled with passengers waiting for their airline “chick in coonta” to open.
We had no choice, we had to admit defeat.
As Stephan would say, “Africa wins again”
But Africa is so spell binding, so beautiful, so rich in nature at its best that it won the day we first set foot on its fragile soil.
Footnote:
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The Old Dispensary in Zanzibar, Tanzania Share this:
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African shoestrings – Tanzania Day One Hundred and Eleven Zanzibar
After that sad little story (see the last post) we went further into depression and visited the Anglican Cathedral, site of the slave market. Apparently a group of missionaries came out to Africa to oppose the slave trade. They eventually found their way to Zanzibar and after its abolition of the slave trade, built a cathedral on the very site, removing almost any remnants of this ugly meat market. The altar stood at the same point as a post that was used for whipping the slaves stood. The floor was a symbolic red marble to depict the blood spilt to show potential buyers the strength or weaknesses of each slave and therefore justify the asking price.
Next door at the St Monica’s hostel we were shown the original holding cells for the slaves. About 1 metre tall and not that much wider they looked extremely cramped for one not to mention the dozens that were crammed in at any one time.
Wherever you go in the world there’s always evidence of man’s inhuman treatment of his brothers usually because of the colour of his skin, the religion he practices or the country he was born in. It seems to me that there is no end in sight and we are forever damned to be cruel to each other. The only species that has a consciousness of itself has been unable to capitalise on this gift. If anything it has used it to carry out barbaric acts in the name of intolerance of racial or religious difference. At least animals attack and kill in the name of survival.
But that’s enough of that!……………..The Busaidi Omani Arabs built the Arab fort in the seventeenth century as a defense against rival Omani Arabs, the Mazrui and the Portuguese, who they had recently kicked out.
Since then it’s been used as a prison, a railway depot and (only the Poms would think of this one) a ladies tennis club. Nowadays it’s been restored and used as an open air theatre and restaurant.
We went to one of the traditional dance shows held in the fort that evening. The ‘tucker’ was good but the dancing was at first interesting, then mildly entertaining and finally boring! I can only concentrate for so long when all there is on offer is a slightly different dance to the same tune, time and time again.
In the nineteenth century Zanzibar created for itself a niche market (to use modern marketing jargon) in the growing and exporting of spices. In the twentieth and twenty first centuries another market has grown from this industry, the spice tour. No, nothing to do with the good looking girls that prance around singing and dancing making squillions but the real spices.
We had read in a borrowed Lonely Planet guide, that Mr Mitu ran the best value spice tour. So taking that advice at face value we booked with his company and turned up at the prearranged meeting place only to be picked up by Mr. Sulaman tours. Apparently if one particular tour company doesn’t have enough paying customers to justify leaving they shunt them on onto a rival company. So there’s always a chance that the poor unsuspecting tourist will go with a tour company they haven’t booked with and may have not wanted to use. Somehow, though, I think that they are all pretty much of muchness. Certainly we had no complaints except for the weather. It literally hammered it down. Aswan, our guide, attempted to tell us how the different spices grow, when they are picked and what uses they have. Meantime we were getting soaked and struggling to hear his voice above the din created by the rain pitter-pattering on to the umbrellas and jungle vegetation. Nonetheless we were impressed by the number of spices grown. Cloves, Cardamom, Cumin, Turmeric, Ginger, Mint, Cinnamon, Lemongrass, Coconut and Nutmeg, the latter I learnt to my amusement, is used as an aphrodisiac as well as for cooking.
We were transported around in a dala-dala; a small converted covered in Ute, with wooden benches either side, to a government farm where all these spices are grown. From there we were herded on to other attractions like the Kidichi Persian baths built by the Sultan Said for his Persian wife, Sherazade, 150 years ago and now occupied by a colony of bats; the Mangapwani coral cave which was about as interesting as the bat shit left by the Kidichi bats and Mangapwani beach for an extremely pleasant swim in warm tropical waters beneath the now dry but stormy clouds. In between all that we somehow managed to try Jackfruit, a sort of fleshy pineapple and Pamillo, a giant grapefruit and chew on the addictive sugary Zanzibar doughnuts. Not to mention sitting crossed legged on the floor of an open sided enclosure surrounded by banana trees, eating pilau rice and veggies in coconut sauce for lunch.
Its funny the sort of fellow travelers you meet. Once again we met with two Poms Deb and Andy, who had spent a few months in Perth and whose eyes watered over at just the mere mention of where we lived. I suppose to the rest of the world, we live in paradise; to us it’s just home. They were with a kiwi couple who were travelling around Africa with an 18 month year old baby. Now I’m all in favour in dragging kids around the world. When we took our kids, at the ages of eight and ten, out of school for a few weeks to go to Europe many years ago their teacher was fully supportive. “They will learn a lot more in those few weeks travelling than they will back in school”. But what possible experience will a child that age remember and the potential risk for disease is far higher for an 18 month old baby than a 8 year old. Still that was their choice.
We chatted with a Norwegian couple as well and later had dinner with them at Pychi’s (pronounced peaches). Pychi’s is a casual sort of place overlooking a small beach and, as is pretty normal in this climate, was virtually all alfresco. I find the Scandinavians fascinating people. Those that travel of course, because having never been to that part of the world these are the only ones I ever meet. They are one of the few races who can relate to the Aussie ironic sense of humour (provided they speak English well enough, which almost invariable they do). Stephan the Swede actually started to act like an Aussie after his 3 year stay in Oz. These guys (the Norwegians in case you got lost) were not as well traveled as Stephan but seemed just as able to appreciate our sense of humour as we all guzzled Calzone and pizza. Of course they could have been just polite and probably said after we parted “That was pretty boring! Strange sense of humour these Aussies have!”
Footnote:
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One of the many small streets in Zanzibar town, Tanzania Share this:
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African shoestrings – Tanzania Day One Hundred and Ten Zanzibar
We awoke the next morning, still shell-shocked after the events of the last 24 hours; our next challenge to catch the boat to Zanzibar.
First however we had to change some money. The hotel didn’t accept travelers cheque’s or US$ or change money and the nearest bank didn’t change travelers cheque’s either. So leaving Sue behind (she was just about ‘Africared’ out) to relax at the hotel, I went off to find a Bureau De Change or a real bank.
What a place Dar es Salaam is! Every street was buzzing with people of all walks of life, market stalls and shops lined the streets and footpaths. This is where the Middle East meets Africa with a small remnant of European colonialism thrown in. The peddlers were remorseless as they called out to me from everywhere.
In Malawi we had struck up a conversation with a Kiwi (New Zealander) who had just traveled through Tanzania and he had nothing but scorn for the Tanzanians who he had said “hassled us from the time we had entered the country to the time we left”. We had already struck their continual harassing in Mbeya and on our previous visit here. But this seemed different. It was light hearted and a lot less intense and added to the feel of exhilaration as I walked through this city of life.
Eventually I found a small Indian bureau de change, who tried to interest me in his cousin’s trinket shop down the road. My usual answer is “sorry, no money” but when you’ve just changed a wad, it somehow didn’t seem so convincing. “Sorry I’m in a hurry,” I just said. Expected some persistence, I was saved by another customer and he muttered something about having a good day.With the aid of Namur a very protective taxi driver who picked us up at the hotel, we managed to purchase tickets for the next fast ‘cat’ to Zanzibar down at the wharf. As the boat wasn’t due for two hours we got Namur to drop us off at the Sheraton. We were in dire need of a bit of western culture. We were tired and just had enough of travelling in ‘local’ fashion and decide to book a flight back from Zanzibar to Dar and thus avoid the struggle across town to get to the airport.
Sitting relaxing at the café there restored some of our energy and by the time Namur picked us up we were once again ready to brave yet another challenge of travel.
As it happened there was no real challenge apart from hogging one of the seats next to us with our bags on quite a full boat.
The Sea Star was comfortable and we had a smooth journey across the Zanzibar channel. Of course it would be, after all it was built in Fremantle, Western Australia.
Zanzibar was already an important centre for trade between Africa, the Middle East, and India by the time it was visited by the Portuguese at the end of the fifteenth century. Seeing the opportunity for a trading post the Portuguese took control in 1503. Arabs from Oman ousted the Portuguese in 1698 and the island developed into a major slaving centre. After several years of political maneuverings between Britain, Germany and France plus a sustained effort to stop the slave trade that revolved around Zanzibar, the British made Zanzibar a protectorate in 1890. Some 83 years of British rule albeit through the Sultanate was ended when independence was granted. This was immediately followed by a violent revolution and the Sultan was overthrown and exiled. In 1964 Zanzibar was merged with the now also independent Tanganyika to form Tanzania.
With such a checkered history dominated by peoples from other parts of Africa and the Middle East it’s not surprising to find that the people of Zanzibar are of different stock. The largest population is that of the Swahili, which as with the rest of Tanzania is spoken widely. But these people have a Persian and Arab ancestry as well as black African. The rest of the population is made up of more recent Arab immigrants, descendants of African freed slaves, Indians, Pakistanis and the usual sprinkling of Europeans working mainly in the tourist industry or employed as teachers, doctors or engineers.
Maybe it’s because of its differences that, even though Zanzibar is part of Tanzania, we still had to pass through customs and immigration after disembarking. On the other side of customs are the hotel touts like lions waiting for their prey, they watch you carefully and when you are within striking distance they pounce.
” I know veely good hotel. Good price, good shower, big big room”
They all seem to say one after the other as we walked single mindedly through their group.
We already had our accommodation booked at the Malindi Guesthouse, just a short walk away. Oozing with character this white washed square building with dark wood shuttered windows had a pretty as a picture enclosed centre courtyard and a maze of passages leading to the rooms. Our first room was a large cool white room with a concrete floor, large wardrobe, colonial furnishings and to our surprise an en suite bathroom. I say first because after the first night they moved us to the room we should have had which was a smaller version with single beds and no bathroom. Apparently they had double booked the first night and that was the only room available.
In Zanzibar the main tourist activity apart from the obvious ones of eating and drinking is to wonder the tiny streets of stone town and find a new wonder around every corner.
Looking at a map of Stone Town you would think that it was a map of a maze. The bulk of it is hemmed in by a triangle of main roads that despite their narrow width supports road traffic. Leading from these main roads are a myriad of miniature streets some of which can only really be described as narrow paths that wind their way through tall buildings. Unlike a maze these alleyways lead somewhere and eventually any walker will find themselves back out of the tangled web of houses, restaurants and curio shops or in a square that houses a Mosque or Palace in the middle of an alleyway.
Like many of the other African towns of our travels, many of the buildings were derelict. Wooden balconies and shutters overhung the alleyways in a state of disrepair and stray cats played amongst rubble and rubbish at the rear of some of the buildings. But through it all, the place had charm and oozed character.
Of course it’s not all about exploring alleyways. The House of Wonders is one of the largest buildings in Zanzibar. A once proud ceremonial Palace is now just a run-down shadow of its former glory, housing the National Museum. Its marble floors, huge carved doors and two old Portuguese cannons are the only things worth going there for. Another museum is the Palace museum dedicated to the Zanzibar sultans and their history. Most of the exhibits were items of furniture including a few thrones, beds and even the sultan’s water closet.
What was fascinating was the room devoted to Princess Salme, daughter of the Sultan Said. Her remarkable story started in 1859 when as a fifteen-year-old, dominated by laws that prevented her from having contact with any males other than her father and brother, she helped one of her older brothers escape after an unsuccessful attempt at overthrowing his older brother Sultan Majid. Rejected by her family, she began, as she grew older to socialise with a lot of the Europeans in Zanzibar. One of them Heinrich Reute did the unspeakable and got her pregnant, necessitating in her fleeing Zanzibar to prevent bringing shame on her family. An immediate wave of anti-European feeling on the island brought a British warship to Zanzibar just in case of reprisals.
She married Heinrich soon after and they had three children before (and this is the rub) he was tragically killed in a tram accident. They had only been married three years.
Unwelcome in her home country, Salme stayed in Germany and after a brief stay in Syria she died in Germany in 1924.
Footnote:
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A typical wooden door in Zanzibar town, Tanzania Share this:
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African shoestrings – Tanzania Day One Hundred and Nine – Dar es Salaam
And so the events leading to bus ride from hell number three started to unfold. The bus wasn’t due to arrive until 11.30 pm but Leonard, who was not as friendly and as obliging now that we were leaving, would only give us a lift to Mzuzu at 12.30 in the afternoon and charged us for the privilege. So the three of us (Stephan and Lucy were also coming, except Lucy decided that she wasn’t ready to leave at that time and would get the bus later whilst Stephan obligingly took her bag with us) plus two other locals crammed into the back of this small Ute. After another bone jarring journey we were dropped off at the Mzuzu hotel where the porter helpfully checked in our bags whilst we killed time in the town. We had lunch at the Sombrero restaurant and wondered as aimlessly as possible around the markets. It was here that we found a tape of ‘Brenda’ the instigator of the song that had been buzzing around in our heads ever since that sleepless night in the Gross Barmen camp in Namibia. It must have finally brain washed us because we actually bought the damn thing!
Back at the hotel we settled down in the bar to watch the cricket world cup until the game got rained off and we decided that we might as well have a decent feed here at the hotel.
Stephan is a big bloke who, we had noticed, likes his tucker. So when our meals arrived first – all looking quite respectful in quality and quantity, his mouth was watering. However, the look on his face, when what can only be described as a sample of a mini pizza, was put in front of him was priceless. He shook his head in absolute disbelief and sent it back, replacing it with the curry hoping it that it came in the same or bigger portion as Lucy had. Fortunately for the rather confused waiter, it did.
We caught a taxi to the bus station with all our bags and waited there with three other tourists for three hours. At around 12.30 am the bus eventually turned up and then all hell let loose. From the shadows all the other passengers moved as one towards the bus. People on the bus were trying to get off to go to the toilet and stretch their legs whilst what seems like the population of Malawi was trying to get on. Stephan used his bulk to push his way through the madding crowd with us following in his wake and eventually we get on. But there was nowhere to sit! The bus had obviously been overbooked and we had a choice, stand and travel or get off and wait a couple of days for the next one like one of the other tourists was doing. Well we stayed on and I stood with our bags around my feet and only one of my feet actually on the floor, rubbing rear ends with a sizeable local woman and hanging on for dear life. Eventually the bus moved on and the journey for the next five and half hours will remain forever etched into my memory. The recent heavy rains and flooding had damaged a lot of the roads and once again the bus spent valuable time trying to avoid or simply running straight through potholes. At one time both Sue and I incredibly fell asleep whilst standing up for just a few seconds of escape from this nightmare. Its 36 hours to Dar and somehow the thought of travelling like this put us into denial. Surely people would get off on the way and we would end up sitting.
We reached the Tanzania border just after dawn and without much fuss we were allowed to pass into our last African country of the journey.
Even though we were assured by the driver and his sidekick that there would be seats for everyone from hereon as a lot were getting off; the thought of travelling another 30 hours standing up was too painful to contemplate and we looked for an alternative during the hour or so stop.
It was Stephan who came up trumps. A group of five preachers from Malawi were travelling to Dar for a conference. They would take us on condition that we pay some of the cost of fuel and change some local currency into US$, which they badly needed to pay the horrendous vehicle transit fees that Tanzania had imposed on them at the border. They had a four seater Toyota Hilux Ute and the only room for all of us was in the tray! We didn’t deliberate too long; at least we would be sitting down and would most likely get there well before the bus. We later found out that the bus got to Dar an hour later but had to sit on the outskirts of the city for five hours because of a midnight to dawn city curfew on large vehicles.
So we got in and somehow the four of us managed to cram amongst the preachers and our bags and we were off. It was a long trip. Lucy and Stephan jumped out at Mbeya from where they were making their way elsewhere and we continued on with another 880 kilometres to go. All in all it wasn’t too uncomfortable and we were out in the fresh air.
We soon came to realise why these guys had been so anxious to have us along…………. they had no money! The fees they had to pay at the border was an unbudgeted expense and had wiped them out, so we ended up having to pay for most of the fuel. At first I felt cheated but then I thought well we’re helping them as much as they’re helping us. Maybe their master will look after us a bit better next time we attempt to travel by local transport.
Watching the scenery and the towns and villages go past from the rear was an interesting experience for that length of time (we had our backs to the cab). It was typical African rural countryside. Dusty villages and towns were dotted along the road with crops of tobacco, coffee and various others dominated the terrain. At one stage the scenery changed to that of the high country, small streams, rainforest and mountains as we passed through the Rubeho and Ulunguru Mountains before ascending down towards the coast where Dar es Salaam sits. Just on the outskirts of the Dar we were diverted down what seemed to be an endless, very dark unsealed road that made us very nervous. Our apprehension was justified half way along when a skinny shadow suddenly appeared on the back of the Ute and was obviously looking to pinch one of the bags. The speed of my reaction surprised me as much as it did him. I lunged with my foot and made enough contact and noise to frighten him off. The old heart was pumping well at that moment.
Eventually at 1 am we reached the city and then spent the next half an hour trying to find a hotel we had booked. These guys really didn’t know Dar at all and eventually we gave up and settled for any hotel. The Starlight Hotel was not the best value for money. It was tired and grotty and for US$50 it was a rip-off but by that time we really didn’t care and just wanted to find a safe bed.
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Lake Malawi’s eastern shore Share this:
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African shoestrings – Malawi Day One Hundred and Seven/Nine – Nkhata Bay Malawi
So the very next day we went into Mzuzu to find out for sure. The information we were getting in Nkhata bay was unreliable and sketchy.
Stephan had a saying “Africa wins again” well that’s exactly how you could describe the sum result of the next eight hours in Mzuzu.
We were getting a lift in the back of Leonard’s Ute but due to the remarkable fact that it had run out of petrol before it had even moved we were delayed for a while. Eventually we were dropped off at the main Post Office in Mzuzu. Nearby there was a bus depot where we asked for directions to the bus station where the office of TVC, the Dar es Salaam bus operator, was located. The guy offered us a lift in his bus that was about to start its journey. Half an hour later we were still sitting there and decided to get out and walk the 500 metres (he had said that it was a least two or three kilometres).
At TVC’s office, which incidentally was also a hairdressers and beauticians, we found out from the couple of guys in there that they were sure there was a bus Thursday but to ring later to confirm.
We were still toying with the idea of flying to Dar so off we went to the Air Malawi office in the Hotel Mzuzu, the closest premises Mzuzu has to a three star hotel let alone a five star. There the rather impatient ‘customer service officer’ told us that flights to Mbeya (at a mere 500 kilometres away and the first major town in Tanzania) had been discontinued LAST WEEK! But we could take either a flight back down to Lilongwe and up to Mbeya for US$225 each, which he was happy to tell us had just gone up or a flight to the town of Karonga (180 kilometres away but still in Malawi) for US$53 each. Neither of these options were really much good as we would still have to get some form of land transport to Dar or pay another few hundred dollars to fly. Thanks for nothing!
Whilst we were at the hotel we thought we may as well change some money. This was also a waste of time, as they didn’t have any cash, so we had to walk back to the bank and queue for half an hour.
One of the reasons that we needed money was to help bail out the resort. We had been approached the day before to pay some of our bill so that the resort could afford to stock up on beer and food. As we mostly ate and drank there it seemed like this was in our best interests.
Despondent we caught a minibus that as well as looking like it should be condemned and probably not good enough to be wrecked for parts, packed us in like sardines and took one and half hours.
Back in Nkhata Bay we phoned TVC from the travel agents. No there was no bus on Thursday after all but there was definitely a bus on Saturday night.
Thoroughly depressed we drowned our sorrows at Njaya, watching the Aussies beat Zimbabwe and reflected on Stephan’s “Africa wins Again!”
We spent the next two days strolling into town, eating, drinking and just lazing around on the beach. On one day we watched our laundry being washed in the lake and dried flat on the sand by Fraser an entrepreneurial young man, who on reflection charged a lot more than a coin operated washing machine.
The only chore we did was to visit the local doctor to obtain some ‘cleansing’ tablets for Bilharzia. Apparently you can take these pills that make you feel like shit for a day or so but cleanse your body of any of these little worms that carry the disease. We never actually used them but visiting a local doctor’s surgery was certainly an eye opener. The surgery itself was tucked away behind some houses and the main supermarket. So get to it we had to follow a small footpath through several private gardens. The doctor’s rooms consisted of two rooms, the consultation room equipped with a basic examination, table desk and a chair and the pharmacy equipped with just a table. All the medication was sealed in bags and small containers sitting on this table. The doctor was helpful and did say that Nkhata Bay was Bilharzia free but we decided to err on the side of caution. It cost us nothing for the doctor’s consultation and very little for the tablets we required. We felt that we had somehow denied the locals medication simply to save a few dollars. (The same service and tablets in London would have cost a small fortune).
We did mix a little with the others but it became fairly clear that Stephan and ourselves were no longer part of the ‘inner circle’. The problem seemed to stem from my comments about some ‘friends’ of Lucy’s who in between bouts of dope induced blankness told us of their far-fetched plans to build a lodge around another bay. I innocently said after they wobbled away that they didn’t know what the hell they were doing (I’m easily irritated by anyone who loses control of their faculties due to excessive drugs or alcohol). Lucy obviously took offence and contradicted me and I left it there. What Stephan’s crime was I don’t know nor did I care much.
We spent our final day mooching around town and attempting to pick up two shirts and two sarongs that we were having made. I say attempt because we had been unable to get these items made by the same tailor as the first one (he was too busy) and we had to settle for Kenny. It became clear to us that Kenny liked a drink or two. The day before we had checked on his progress and the smell of stale alcohol was everywhere, even so he had promised us that they would be ready on time and at that stage in the game it was too late to change tailors…………. Well, we went to pick them up and he had a made a real mess of it. He hadn’t finished for a start and had stitched the shirts with the wrong colour cotton, one of Sue’s sarongs had not been even started and the material for the other had been turned into a shirt! The sum result was that Kenny (again smelling of alcohol) paid us for the shirt material and replaced the material for the sarongs from another market stall but we had no shirts or sarongs. For some strange reason I actually felt sorry for him and until stopped by Sue and Stephan I was quite prepared to just walk away and leave him the material. After all it had cost very little. But as they said it was the principle.
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Small cluster of huts on Lake Malawi’s eastern shore Share this:
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African shoestrings – Malawi Day One Hundred and Five-Six – Nkhata Bay Malawi
No sooner than had we settled in and despite our fatigue, we were out exploring. We came across a couple that we had met in Chimanimani, Patricia and Jonathan. Patricia was a short attractive French girl who liked to talk whilst Jonathon was her antithesis, tall, balding, quiet and English. They too were staying here and told us that the Njaya resort next door was probably nicer but a lot noisier.
We went to see for ourselves. Run by an English couple, it had a sort of up market backpacker hostel feel to it. But it did have a great bar high on the hill overlooking Lake Malawi and it had a satellite TV. By now the world cup cricket was well under way and as we going to crash here for a few days, we could allow ourselves the luxury of being couch potatoes for periods of time.
Lake Malawi is an awesome sight……….. Taking up one fifth of Malawi its located in the Great Rift Valley and forms a natural border with Tanzania in the north and Mozambique in the south. It is about 500 kilometres long and an average of about 48 kilometres wide. The area of the lake has been estimated at 27,785 square kilometres and its surface is a surprising 472 metres above sea level. Looking at it from the shore or even from the Bar of the Njaya resort it seems to have that slight concave surface of a large body of an ocean as if it were hugging the contour of the earth (which it is of course). It looked so tempting in the hot humidity of the afternoon. But there was one thing holding us back. Bilharzia!
Bilharzia is a disgusting disease. It’s not the disease itself that is so bad, although it’s pretty serious, but the way it’s caught! Its carried in freshwater by minute worms that initially live in a certain type of snail and then after an increase in numbers hit the water ready for any poor unsuspecting humans.
It will then enter through the skin and find its way to the intestines and bladder and from then on it’s all downhill. It’s found in slow moving bodies of water like the shallows of rivers and streams and lakes. There has been a long debate as to whether it exists in Lake Malawi and the bottom line is that it does in some parts. However, we decided to risk it on the basis that we were assured that the area around Nkhata Bay was clear of these horrible little bleeders. It did actually make sense. One look at the small swell and waves that seemed to continuously wash the beach meant that water was moving and the absence of reeds where the host snails were found was also comforting. So I took the plunge!
That night at the restaurant we met the other two residents. Stephan, a Swede who had been travelling all over the world for around five years (three in Australia) and Lucy another Pom. The six of us were the only guests in the resort and for the next few days we saw a lot of each other.
Nkhata Bay was a smaller quieter lakeside version of Blantyre. Ramshackle building and stalls lined the dusty streets that became small paths in and out of small pockets of more ramshackle buildings and stalls. Banana sellers were everywhere offering their produce for almost next to nothing in western currency.
As the others had been there longer they had already acquainted themselves with some of the more extrovert individuals of the tourist curio trail. We meet Chester, Comfort and Shosho amongst countless other sellers. Shosho to his credit showed us how to play the local game of Boa a game similar to checkers played on an indented board with Mahogany seeds. Later in the day he found us on the beach and chatted with us all the time hoping, we would buy some of his wares.
We also met Happy, Happy and Fraser, three young boys who were selling home made postcards. That’s the key to these people they wanted to learn about you and practice their English but most of all they wanted to sell you something.
I arranged to have a shirt made for the ridiculous price of US$2.
And that’s all there was to do in this tranquil place. Browse, eat, drink and swim.
The next day (Tuesday) we decided that whilst this might be a little bit of paradise it was time to move on and get to Zanzibar. We found out that there was a bus leaving to go to Dar es Salaam that night from Mzuzu. So after another eventful day of doing nothing, we said our good byes to the others in our regular lunch spot, the beautifully located Safari Restaurant and headed back to pack and leave. By the time we had walked back we had changed our minds at least four times. I felt that we were acting out that song that goes “should I stay or should I go”. In the end we decided to stay and would see if there was a bus any earlier than Saturday. We were just not ready to face yet another bus ride especially a much longer one than the last two.
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That link againLake Malawi’s eastern shore Share this:
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African shoestrings – Malawi Day One Hundred and Three/Four – Nkhata Bay Malawi
So hang on tight, Bus ride from hell two starts now!
We arrived at the bus station at 5 pm for a 5.30 pm departure. This dusty, grimy, polluted bus station was not quite as threatening as Harare. There were lots of people floating around, and almost as many security guards. Music blared from the PA system and even at that time of day the market stalls that surrounded the station were doing a roaring trade.
At 7.30 pm the bus finally arrives and then all hell let loose. No orderly queue here just chaos as everyone attempts to get onto the bus at the same time with bags, pillows, blankets, box’s, small children and heaven forbid, babies. Any thoughts of having a reserved seat are blown out of the water. Another bus turned up, so thinking we were smart we attempted to board that one but were turned back by the bureaucratic driver who unconvincingly pointed out that our tickets said we should be on the other bus.
“But there’s no room on that bus” we countered.
He just repeated the fact that his bus was not our bus.
That was the final straw for Sue. She marched onto the first bus, cleared all the staff belongings from the front seat and shouting at anyone in the way that this was where we were going to sit. The rest of the passengers and staff were stunned into submission as we chucked our bags on the floor in front of us and sat down.
They had never seen a wild white woman before……….. usually we were so polite and accepting.That’s not to say that we now had the best seats in the bus. We had to sit with our legs elevated on top of our bags, resting on the handrail in front, not the most comfortable position for a long bus ride but at least we had seats away from the congestion of the rest of the bus (the isle was crammed full of bags, boxes and other belongings). Plus we had full possession and sight of our bags. The doubt in our minds about the security of having bags stowed away in the luggage hold or on the roof were confirmed by the rest of the passengers.
Not one of them had their belongings where they couldn’t keep an eye on them.At around 8.30 pm the bus took off and we had been going for just over an hour we were stopped at the first of five police roadblocks that we were to pass through before reaching our final destination.
Two police officers carrying AK 47’s over their shoulders, ordered us all off and went to search the bus and our bags. The reaction to this was not cooperative.
After a lot of arguing and discussion we eventually had no choice and an hour later we resumed our travels. The rest of the journey was an ongoing frustration at the speed at which we were going. Either the bus was heavily overloaded or it wasn’t man enough for the job, because it just about crawled up every hill (and in Malawi there’s nothing but hills). On some stretches we could have walked faster!Eventually we got to the bus station at Mzuzu at around 9.30 am, some four hours late and managed to meet our next challenge finding a bus to take us to Nkhata Bay.
We found what’s known to travelers to third world countries as the chicken run bus. It was exactly like the local buses you see portrayed in the movies. Full with locals carrying on just about anything you could imagine. Bags of seed, wood, fruit, ordinary luggage and yes, of course, chickens. We sat with our bags on our laps and watched our knuckles turn white from gripping tightly anything we could hang onto as the bus weaved its way at a speed that was just a wee bit fast down the winding potholed road to Nkhata Bay.
As it sped past banana plants and maize fields, I did manage to notice that every inch of land appeared to be cultivated. Even the steep hillsides were terraced with various crops. In between there were small clusters of straw huts with their chimneys masquerading as a hole in the roof smoking. It was a cold morning in the highlands of Mzuzu.
It was a lot warmer in Nkhata Bay and we were thankful to get there in one piece. We now had to find our way to Chikale Beach Resort a couple of kilometres south. When we got off the bus a young local approached to see if we wanted a lift. Thinking that he wanted to take us to another hotel or resort we declined and with our backpacks on we summoned up some energy and marched in the general direction of Chikale Beach. A few moments later he was back.
“Where are yoou gooing?” he asked
“Chikale beach resort”
“I am Leenard, de manager. I will take yoou dar.”
This guy had to be no older than 21 but despite this and our initial concern that this was a potential mugging we jumped into the back of his Ute, too tired to really care. We had to share the Ute with a couple of crates of beer and a couple more passengers but it sure beat walking with all our belongings on our back.
The resort was pretty basic with thatched cottages grouped around a tree-lined beach and the bar/restaurant right on the beach. Each cottage had double bed and its own bathroom, which as far as we concerned after the experience of the last few days was heaven! All this for 600 kwacha (US$10) per night.
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Nkhata Bay on Lake Malawi. Share this:
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African shoestrings – Malawi Day One Hundred and Two Blantyre
An hour later we got our bags and decided that enough was enough, it was time to jump ship! We had already learnt that the Bus Company in an amazing piece of logic had decided to fix the clutch by sacking the bus driver and a replacement driver had already miraculously arrived. This was the last straw and with the other two we cleared immigration and customs and walked into Malawi.
A minibus heading for Blantyre was waiting down the road. After the usual fare negotiations and once again watching our bags being loaded onto the roof, we got going and apart from being tightly packed in and being stopped by the police, we had an uneventful two-hour journey.
The police in Malawi have quite a number of roadblocks. We were told that they were looking for drugs, guns and illegal immigrants but in this case they weren’t exactly pedantic choosing only to talk to the driver and have a quick look at the bags on the roof.
The bus dropped us off at the very pleasant Doogles Backpacker hostel, which as it happens was next door to the bus station, a place we would have to brave if we were to follow our plan. We were shell shocked and tired and all we could think about was how the hell were we going to face another bus ride again.
In fact so frazzled were we that we spent most of that day looking at alternatives.
And guess what? There weren’t any! We went to the British Airways office and got a price for a flight to Dar es Salaam. At US$195.00 each it was out of the question although such was our reluctance to catch another bus that we were tempted. But realising that we were not in the right frame of mind to make that decision we wisely decided to stay the night at Doogles and worry about it tomorrow.Blantyre itself is one of these colourful and vibrant African towns and although we should have been in Lilongwe some 250 kilometres north, we still enjoyed its feel. The buildings were as usual rundown and dilapidated, the streets were dusty and dirty but the people were happy and smiling and seemed to spend their days in and around the many food stalls and street vendors that thronged the streets. There was a sort of musical beat about the place, as if everyone was listening to it and swaying as they went about their business.
How could these people be so happy when they have to travel on such appalling transport? Don’t they realise how stressed out we were? What right did they have to be happy and smiling when we had to brave death to move on?
As you can see we were becoming paranoid. Our paranoia subsided somewhat as we too began to feel the imaginary beat of Blantyre and then spent the evening back at Doogles watching the Aussies play India in one of the world cup cricket games.Malawi is without doubt a beautiful country and despite our experiences on the bus has a warm, friendly and happy population. But like Mozambique, Lesotho and Zambia it’s poor. That night we met Martha an Irish nurse who had come to Malawi 10 years ago for a two year stint as a voluntary AIDS education worker. After that she had stayed on and was one of the people responsible for managing the AIDS education program for the whole country. I was touched by her willingness to give up her own life to help the people of Malawi, a task that seemed to me to be almost a lost cause.
As she said “These people are not worried about a disease that will eventually kill them in 10-15 years. They are more worried about how they can put food on the table now!”
Malawi like most of its ex colonial neighbours has a lot of growing pains since independence and has only recently become a democracy. An increasing number of the Malawi’s population doesn’t think that this has improved their lot. Dr. Banda was Malawi’s first President and held office as a dictator for 34 years and whilst freedom of speech and other common liberties that we take for granted were missing, generally the standard of living was better than it is today. As we were told; freedom of speech doesn’t put food on the table. With its main source of income being tobacco the government is hoping that tourism will bolster its ailing economy. From what we had seen and were later to see, it’s got a long way to go.
After a good night’s sleep everything looked better especially after everyone assured us that we had just unlucky and so we bought reserved seats for the bus to Mzuzu some 600 kilometres north. We had realised that time was getting away from us and Malawi was going to be the casualty. We had a little over two weeks to get to Dar es Salaam to catch our flight to London. In that time we had at least another three days of travel and wanted to spend at least five days on the island of Zanzibar off the coast of Dar. So a lot of what we had planned to see in Malawi was not going to happen especially as we had effectively lost a day and half and around 250 kilometres thanks to the bus ride from hell number one.
Our new plan therefore was to get to Nkhata Bay, a small town on the edge of Lake Malawi, chill out for a couple of days and then continue on to Dar. To get to Nkhata Bay we had to go via Mzuzu and pick up a local bus there.
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The main street in Blantyre, Malawi Share this:
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