Our Final Blog

Welcome to our 100^th and final blog.

Amazingly we’ve had nearly 10,000 ‘hits’ so thank you to everyone who’s read any of our blogs and a massive thank you to anyone who’s read all 100. We’ve attempted to relay our experiences both good and bad whilst making it entertaining yet still capturing the spirit of adventure.

After all the months of planning, research and saving our only objectives were to stay safe plus keep fit and healthy. We knew that if we could accomplish these then our 9 months away would be a total success. We did and it was.

In fact we feel so well that if someone could send us a wedge of money we’d carry on for another 9 months without hesitation. Unfortunately we’re not ready to come home but our time is up and we’re excited about catching up with everybody again. We realise how hard it’s going to be but no matter how difficult it is, its been worth it.

Secretly we’re very proud of our achievement and despite it being a ‘holiday’ its not as easy as it may sound when reading the blog.

A special thank you to Vanessa’s mum and Gary for using their valuable time off to fly to Bolivia and meet up with us for what was one of the highlights of our whole trip.

With mixed feelings its time to sign off and return to an English summer.
 

TRIP SUMMARY

TIME SPENT AWAY:  9 months

CONTINENTS VISITED:   4 - The Americas (6 months), Asia (10 weeks), Africa (25 days), Australasia (3 days)

COUNTRIES VISITED:  15 – Thailand (7 weeks), Bolivia (4 weeks), Namibia (25 days), USA (25 days), Guatemala (24 days), Burma (16 days), Nicaragua (14 days), Panama (14 days),  Peru (14 days), Argentina (14 days), Colombia (11 days), Chile (11 days), Belize (8 days), Costa Rica (8 days), Australia (3 days).

LONGEST STAY IN ONE PLACE:  11 nights at Haad Salad Villa on Koh Pha-Ngan (Thailand)

FAVOURITE COUNTRIES:   Guatemala, Peru, Burma and Namibia (although Thailand and the USA never disappoint)

MOST DISAPPOINTING COUNTRY:  Panama

MOST DISAPPOINTING PLACES:  Panama City (Panama), Koh Phayam (Thailand), Mendoza (Argentina), Granada (Nicaragua)

INDIVIDUAL HIGHLIGHTS:   pools and caves at Semuc Champey (Guatemala), Macchu Picchu (Peru), Santa Catalina Monastery (Arequipa, Peru), riding on the back of a Harley Davidson (South Carolina, USA), Uyuni salt flats with Vanessa’s mum and Gary (Bolivia), Inle Lake (Burma), earthquake in Antigua (Guatemala), flooding in The Atacama Desert (Chile), driving a red Ford Mustang (USA), snorkelling with sharks and stingrays (Belize), flying over the Nazca lines (Peru), eating Thai curries on the beach (Thailand), Koh Kham beach (Thailand), Panama Canal (Panama), Angthong National Park (Thailand), The Spotted Cat jazz bar (New Orleans), watching hummingbirds in Minca (Colombia), Vanessa’s Sydney Harbour Bridge climb (Australia), Vanessa performing with street artist (New Orleans), staying with Al and Cathi (Charleston, USA), the thousands of temples in Bagan (Burma), floating in the bath-like sea whilst listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Koh Pha-Ngan, Thailand), self-drive safari in Etosha National Park (Namibia), the towering sand dunes in Sossusvlei (Namibia), the ghost town of Kolmanskop (Namibia)

BEST FOOD:  Green curry in Thailand, Jambalaya in New Orleans, sticky rice with mango in Thailand, oryx steak with monkey gland sauce in Namibia

WORST FOOD:  Everything in Panama City

BEST PLACE NAMES:  Ollaytaytambo (Peru), Bat Cave (USA), Lake Titicaca (Bolivia), Duck (USA), Ai-Ais (Namibia)

HOTTEST PLACE:  Bagan (Myanmar)

COLDEST PLACE:  Copacabana (Bolivia)

MOST EXPENSIVE COUNTRIES: Chile and Australia

CHEAPEST COUNTRIES: Thailand and Bolivia

 

 

Namibia....Reflections

Our Toyota after covering 3500 miles of Namibian roads!

What a fantastic way to end our nine month trip. We had high hopes for Namibia but we wondered if the pending return to an English summer would spoil things but it completely exceeded all our expectations and we barely gave home a thought. Until now.

Our little Toyota Corolla barely stayed in one piece as we covered more than 3500 miles, two thirds of it on un-tarred gravel roads which at times was more than a little hairy. The last leg was from the Atlantic town of Luderitz to Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world. We stayed one night there in the wonderfully named town of Ai-Ais in a bungalow about twice the size of our house!

In fact all the accommodation here has been extraordinarily good. A far cry from some of the hovels we’ve endured since our trip began. The food too has been way above what we expected, especially the meat.  In particular the poor little oryx which Vanessa wasn’t overly pleased about me sampling but Namibia does have marmite and some cheap South African red wine so everyone was happy!

Back in the capital, Windhoek for our last few days to collect our thoughts, our clean washing and to catch the last of the warm African sunshine before returning home.

Namibia has undoubtedly been one of the highlights of our whole trip. With deserted roads, great food and accommodation, wall to wall  sunshine and some of the most spectacular scenery and game viewing, we just couldn’t go wrong. All this in a country that remains very poor, struggles with high unemployment and where life expectancy is around 50 due to their continuing battle with AIDS, TB and malaria. Somehow it remains stable and a safe place to visit with the friendliest of people.

TIME SPENT:   25 days

TRANSPORT:  1 flight, 6 taxis, 1 hire car

NUMBER OF PLACES WE STAYED:  10 (2 guest houses, 7 lodges, 1 hotel)

FAVOURITE EATERY:  Barrells in Luderitz

WILDLIFE SPOTTED:  monkeys, warthogs, babboons, mongooses, oryx, black rhinos, elephants, giraffes, leopard, impalas, kudu, ostriches, zebras, wildebeasts (gnu), hartebeests, lion, springboks, seals, flamingos, penguins and the tiny antelope…..the dimara dik-dik

TOURS TAKEN:  20 day self drive

BEST VALUE FOR MONEY:  South African red wine

 

Namibia Images

Aaaahhhh!!

Rhino tries the new kudu toothpick!

Eric & Ernie in Etosha

Nelly.....

Oryx aghast at excited elephant!!

Sunrise in Etosha

Family from the Himba tribe

Cape Cross seal colony

Vanessa at Dead Pan, Sossusvlei

Sossusvlei

Ghost town of Kolmanskop

Our desert lodge at Sossusvlei

Quiver tree found only in Southern Namibia

The massive Fish Canyon

The ghost town of Kolmanskop

Sossusvlei

The towering sand dunes of Sossusvlei

 As we left Swakopmund on Namibia's west coast, the cold grey mist continued to engulf the town until we thankfully reached the desert once again. Our next stop was the spectacular scenery of Sossusvlei which no amount of reading or research can prepare you for.

 Dune 45, more spectacular than its name.

Our accommodation was in a stunning location, isolated in a beautiful valley surrounded by rugged mountains but it’s the sand dunes that are the big attraction and sunrise is the time to witness their splendour when the colours are at their most vivid. It has to be one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever seen as these towering orange dunes rise 350m from the valley floor. Climbing what looks like a razor edge from the base is a fantastic experience and running down the steep sides is even better. Throw in some white dried up lakes and some old twisted  trees with the dunes as a backdrop and you’ve got yourself a surreal landscape which we stared at for hours and ran the camera batteries out.

Reluctantly we had to leave this wonderful place and it was a spectacular but long six hour drive south to the German coastal town of Luderitz, our base for the next two nights. Not only does it sound like a concentration camp, it was back in the cold grey cloud and our hotel, despite being a 4 star was clinical and cold. There was a certain irony that just a few hours previous our breath had been taken away by Sossusvlei’s scenery and now our breath was being taken away by the life draining out of us.

The ghost town of Kolmanskop

However, Luderitz does have a trump card. It’s the surreal ghost town nearby called Kolmanskop. A former diamond mining town which had a hospital, swimming pool and even a theatre but by the mid 1950’s with the discovery of more diamonds further south it began to lose its importance and eventually it was abandoned to the shifting desert sands. Today it’s a ghostly and bleak setting but fascinating to see such a prominent place slowly being eroded away and engulfed by the wind ravaged desert.

Zebra Crossing

It was a case of true love as Vanessa came down with the same toe infection as me so it was another visit to the doctor before we could finally leave Windhoek and head off into the Namibian sunset in our Toyota Corolla.



 

Always check your mirror!

A three hour journey north on the excellent and virtually traffic-free roads to our first stop, Waterberg Plateau. We made the 200m climb to the top of the plateau look like a couple of geriatrics carrying two bags of heavy shopping as we hobbled up and limped back down whilst avoiding the warthogs and babboons along the way.

Next stop was the magnificent Etosha game reserve, one of the largest in Africa covering a massive 25,000 square miles. Our home for four nights, sleeping with the wildlife and uniquely being able to complete your own self drive safari with just one instruction, ‘do not get out of your  car!

Just a few kilometres inside the park Vanessa yelled, ‘giraffes’ and from that moment we were hooked. We set off the next day at 6am in the early morning chill and immediately spotted a black rhino and then a family of elephants that crossed the road in front of us after we backed the car up a little. From then on we saw countless kudu, zebra, ostrich, impala, hyena, hartebeast, oryx, giraffe and elephant herds of 60 or more.

The original zebra crossing

As well as the hot and sunny days, the real beauty of Etosha is the floodlit waterholes near the lodges which after dark you can just sit and watch more wildlife come to you. It was on the first evening that we got the cream as a leopard suddenly appeared and strolled down for a nightcap but the lions continued to elude us.

If there’s a lull at the waterhole then it’s a case of simply sliding down on your seat and look up at the clearest of skies and stare in amazement at the staggering number of brilliant stars and the milky way. It’s a magical place.

We took our customary walk down to the waterhole on our final morning before our 5.30am breakfast and to our astonishment, matching us stride for stride was a lion just a few hundreds from our front door.

Content, and with all our limbs intact, we drove south for hours across the seemingly never ending Namib Desert until it dramatically meets the Atlantic Ocean at the town of Swakopmund. With our whole trip nearly complete we suddenly ended up in the strangest and most luxurious accommodation to date, a guest house called ‘The Alternative Space’. Our room was a space, 60 foot long with with white curved walls covered in nude pictures which we suddenly realised was the German owner!

The town itself was a baffling place. The weather had changed to misty, grey, and about 14C and as we sat on the seafront drinking tea and eating chips we felt like we’d been transported home early to Weymouth. It couldn’t have been more British and it was difficult to believe that we were still in Africa.

We had just enough time to drive along the coast to visit a colossal colony of more than 100,000 seals. Their continous cacophony of throaty sounds reminded us of the plane full of Chinese on our flight from Bangkok. Luckily we left with a free souvenir, the overwhelming odour of seal that stuck beautifully to our already soiled clothes.

A Taste of Africa

Thailand...signing off

It was already a massive wrench for us to leave our paradise in Thailand but it was made worse by the thought of enduring our longest period of travelling so far. From Bangkok we had 30 hours ahead of us including three international flights. Firstly three hours to Hong Kong and then a 13 hour overnight flight with a plane full of disgusting throat clearing Chinese to Johannesburg and finally two hours to Namibia situated on the south west coast of Africa. Despite this still being a massive part of our trip its tinged with mixed feelings as sadly it means we are on our final leg, our final country and the final few weeks of our nine month trip.

Thailand had been a wonderful experience from start to finish but it did have a sting in its tail or more like a sting in its toes. Our first taste of Africa was the inside of a doctor’s surgery! We emerged a mere £60 lighter but armed with magic potions and a course of antibiotics for a pathetic and painful toe infection which must have come from a bite whilst wallowing for hours in the bath-like sea for the past few weeks. So, fully deserved I suppose.

Even limping around the city of Windhoek didn’t take very long as its not the sort of African capital you would probably envisage. Its small and quiet but very clean and modern with excellent traffic free roads plus a good choice of cafes and restaurants.

Luckily we’re staying in a gorgeous little guest house with a pool, ideal for putting your feet up which spookily enough was just was what the doctor ordered. It’s winter here now which means the days are dry, hot and sunny but with chilly desert nights.

In a day or so we collect our hire car and venture off for a couple of weeks to explore the country’s deserts, dramatic Atlantic coastline, monumental sand dunes, bizarre German towns from its colonnial past and one of Africa’s greatest wildlife reserves, Etosha National Park.

 

Thailand Images

Haad Yao, Koh Pha-Ngan

Local fishermen, Koh Pha-Ngan

Life in Thailand

Tonight's fish curry

Down to the beach for sunset

Marsh gecko

Red snapper supper

Nice hats!

Sunset on Koh Pha-Ngan

Vanessa with some spare time

Not a bad view from our beach bungalow

Squid drying in the sun