GoonanismA Sporadic mix of the personal, political and programming

Dear readers, my apologies for the tardiness of this post, it has been a while and a lot has happened since we last spoke.

If you recall, last we spoke, I was in France and heading down to Spain for about 3 weeks. Our first stop was the irrepressible Barcelona. An old friend that never fails to disappoint. Although this time around I was considerably more sober and existing beyond the subsistence level of 3 euro Dönar Kebabs for every meal – a welcome change from my last visit about 5 years ago.

Our four days there consisted of long walks on the beach and through parks, a day of Gaudi, lots of great food and a trip to the Picasso Museum which would have to be one of the best curated museums around. I adore his interpretation of Diego Velázquez’s Les Meninas.

From Barcelona, we flew south to Granada – the first stop on our tour of Andalucía. Andalucía is Spain’s southern most region and without wanting to offend my German brothers, Andalucía is to Spain, what Bavaria is to Germany – when you conjure up an image of Spain Andalucía is what comes to mind.

Of course we stuffed our selves silly on free tapas in Granada and started tasting a few different Sherries from the region. However the highlight came from one of the two Flamenco shows we attended in Granada. We had a hunt around online for some less tourist orientated shows and found a venue that exhibited modern Flamenco, described as ‘Flamenco with a touch of David Lynch’.

We were not disappointed. The music was haunting, half the singing was essentially spoken work by a woman with a deep husky voice, but most importantly the dancing was spectacular.

Listening to the chromatic scales of the male singer I was also reminded of the influence Islam and Arabic/Northern African culture has had on the region and, indeed, the rest of the Mediterranean – a theme I continue to be fascinated by (surely communism is the only other idea that has spread so quickly and had such a world changing impact.)

Our next stop was Rhonda, somewhere I hadn’t been before. It turns out that the Rain in Spain falls mainly in Rhonda. The place damn near flooded whilst we were there. However there is a spectacular bridge (we have pictures of it being rained on) and the bars have barrels of Sherry behind the counter which they poor from liberally. It’s a stunning town that was once the capital of the region and is the home of modern bull fighting – if bull fighting can be modern that is.

Our next stop was the current capital of Andalucía – Seville. It was the first sunny weather we had enjoyed in a few weeks and we hired an apartment which meant cooking at home. I quickly rushed to the super market to buy a bottle of Fino Sherry which turned out to be cooking Sherry – no wonder it was only 1.50 euros. I drank it regardless.

From Seville, it was just a quick hop to Cordoba which was probably my favourite town in Spain. Again, the skyline is dominated by a Mosque come Church (always curious structures) and small winding streets riddled with little bars which I could drink Sherry in. Blissful.

Our last stop in Spain was Madrid. It was a’s birthday so we went to a fancy hotel and booked a fancy restaurant. On the day of her birthday we took a picnic full of local produce to the park then I rowed her around the lake in an act of unbridled chivalry. The next day we dined at a place called Asiana: Next Door which we both agreed was one of the best meals of our lives. The chef had been trained by someone famous and he produced a 12 course Asian fusion degustation to die for.

During our time in Madrid we also spent quite a few hours wandering around the very impressive Museo del Prado which contained Velázquez’s original Les Meninas. It is a painting I could stare at for hours. I also finally got to see Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights whose image I have been wearing on a T-Shirt for a couple of years now.

From Madrid we flew to Tiranë, the capital of Albania, via Milan where we had a 6 hour stop over.

Whilst sitting in the transit lounge in Milan a voice came over the loud speaker, in Italian, to remind people that smoking was not permitted in the terminal, followed by a voice with the same message speaking English with a thick South London accent. Someone at that airport has a sense of humour.

Albania. A lot of people have asked my ‘why Albania’ at which point I launch into a brief history of Albania in the 20th century. It’s the only European country that split from the USSR to formally align itself with China. Then, after the death of Mao they simply went it alone. In all of my readings of the history of Eastern Europe during the 20th Century Albania is always the exception. Of course the real reason for heading to Albania was that it was on the Mediterranean coast so a bit warmer than the rest of Europe and was cheap to fly to from Madrid. Moreover, it was an attempt to get back to something vaguely resembling the holiday we were meant to be on.

It’s also an incredibly beautiful country with a mountain range running down it’s spine.

We spent 3 nights in the capital which included many conversations that resembled something out of Everything is Illuminated and a trip on a cable car to the top of the mountain that Tiranë sits in the valley of. At the top was a rotating restaurant which was empty and didn’t serve food although they did get it rotating for us which made us both a little motion sick.

Albania can be a confusing place. In Albanian ‘yes’ is ‘po’ and they shake their head for yes and nod their head for no. So when I asked the shop keep for a beer they had a tendency to shake their head, say ‘Po’ then pour you a beer.

From there we headed north west to Skhodra near the border with Montenegro. It was on our first day here that we got the news that a very close friend had died in a sudden and tragic canoeing accident. All of a sudden Skhodra seemed like the arse end of the world and the furthest we could possibly be from where we wanted to be.

Thankfully we had a good wifi connection at the hotel we were staying at and could stay in regular contact with home and other friends abroad feeling the similarly isolated but in a more suitable timezone for our calls.

We immediately started exploring the possibilities for getting home, booked flights to Athens and then a return flight from Athens to Melbourne so we could be where we most needed to be. Within 48 hours we were home and with our loving friends and family.

…and 12 days later we were back in Athens.

I take back anything negative I may have said about Athens in our time in Melbourne. As second time round it struck us as a very ‘liveable’ city (despite the traffic congestion) which is honestly about the highest complement I can pay a city.

We spent 3 days wondering around, seeing ruins, eating Gyros and having a wonderful time – albeit with moments of profound sadness interspersed.

I started operating on the ‘Gyros’, rather than the Euro (it’s about 2 Gyros to the Euro) just so that I knew exactly how many Gyros I could buy at any one time.

The Acropolis is amazing, and the Acropolis Museum was also impressive as well as being an amazing piece of architecture and a superbly curated.

Now we find ourselves in Cyprus with a’s Family with whom I get along with famously… but we’ll save that story for another post.

Sorry about the lack of photos – but the alternative is further delays to this post.

After London, we flew to Toulouse for just under two weeks in France. It was more time in the company of extraordinarily generous friends combined with healthy dose of indulgence in good food and wine.

We spent about 5 nights at our friend’s apartment in the heart of Toulouse’s old town. Toulouse is known as the Ville Rose (The Pink City) for its red brick buildings that give the city a pink hue. Its two main industries are the local University and the Airbus A380 which employs 30,000 of the city’s 1.1 million residents. It was school holidays while we were there so things were pretty quiet and we spent most of our time wandering around eating and drinking which isn’t such a bad thing when you’re in France.

We spent a lot of time in markets pointing to yummy cheeses that we wanted to buy and fumbling our way through the French language. I became quite proficient with the phrase Je ne parle pas Français – so much so that I thought I might be starting to sound like a local that was just being rude (a rude Frenchman, imagine!). Perhaps the best example of my language deficiencies was illustrated by the time I tried to order the fish of the day and received a dozen oysters.

A few days later we caught the train to Auch, where we were met by the same friends who took us to Condom (nothing funny about that name if you ask the French) where they had just bough a beautiful old farm house about 5 mins drive from town. Once there, we finally got a bit of the sunshine we had so desperately been seeking since landing in a snow covered Frankfurt a bit over a month ago.

Our time in Condom was fairly lazy. A few excursions out into the French country side, but nothing too strenuous. A couple of years ago my brother worked a vintage at Château de Malle, just outside Bordeaux. He was good enough to tee up a tour of the winery and the Château itself with their head wine maker who is a good friend of his. We had a fabulous day being shown around both, trying a wide range of vintages, primarily Sauternes which would have to be one of my favourite wine appellations.

And speaking of wine appellations, Sommelier.net.au got a real work out while I was there. Here’s a quick rundown of the various appellations I got to drink while in France:

• Jurançon
• Sauternes
• Corbières
• Saint-Emilion
• Graves
• Armagnacs (the king of Brandies and France’s first distilled drink)
• Bourgogne Aligote
• Gaillac
• Floc de Gascogne
• Alsace

In addition, I think I ate duck about 7 different ways and even tried Steak Tartare which was surprisingly good.

I left a couple of bottles of wine in the cellar at the farmhouse in Condom which guarantees a return in the not too distant future; although the allure of Condom is as much for the company as it is for the wine.

It must be said that our last three weeks have been characterised by the extraordinary generosity of our friends.

We arrived in Frankfurt, having been evacuated from Egypt by the Australian Government. We made a b-line for the train station and got on an overnight train to Berlin. Dressed for the warm Egyptian climate, we found snow on the train tracks. We were certainly not supposed to be here.

In Berlin and were greeted by our good friend who had spent the previous night clashing with the police over a forced eviction of a Squat – something we found quite comforting having come from the unrest in Egypt.

However, we were made to feel particularly safe, secure and welcome by our squat-eviction-fighting-friend who put us up without a fuss.

We spent the next week in Berlin pottering around, taking it very easy and basically eating a lot. We never walked anywhere without a traveller (0.80 €!) and our destination was, for the most part, a restaurant.

To understand Berlin is to understand the 20th Century. It has been the focal point of Fascism and Communism, was the key aggressor in both the First and Second World Wars, as well as a key battle ground during the Cold War. Germany is now the focal point of European capitalism but Berlin still suffers from very high unemployment levels.

We spent a day doing the free Brewers Walking Tour which was fabulous, but probably the highlight for me was our last day where we visited the Sowjetisches Ehrenmal (Soviet War Memorial) at Treptower Park.

It’s an incredible monument to the Soviet soldiers that lost their lives in one of the Second World Wars decisive battles, the ‘Battle of Berlin’, where the Red Army lost an estimated 20,000 soldiers but effectively ended the European war. The centre piece is a massive statue of a Soviet Soldier carrying a sword in one hand, a rescued/liberated child in the other, as he stomps on a swastika. The whole area is lined with empty sarcophagi, each with a quote from Stalin on the side in both Russian and German.

Devoid of subtly, full of grandeur and glorification, yet somber and awe-inspiring.

The next stop was Old London Town where the generosity continued. We stayed with another friend who lives with 3 others – all of whom A and I instantly adored. We were made to feel right at home and there was absolutely no fuss about us occupying their living room for just shy of two weeks.

On our second night in town we caught up with another good friend for dinner who offered to lend us his motorbike for a couple of days. We gratefully accepted his offer and hooned off down the A23 to Stonehenge. That night, Valentine’s Day, was spent in a rather cold and wind swept Brighton where we had a lovely meal and spent the next day wondering around before taking a really beautiful back road home to London.

The next week and a bit was spent wondering around London, visiting markets, seeing a few sites and catching-up with the various people we know in London.

One particularly enjoyable afternoon we met up with my uncle, who also happens to be a priest currently on sabbatical for a year in London. Fittingly, he took us to see Karl Marx’s grave at Highgate Cemetery along with the graves of the more recently departed, Malcolm McLaren (whose grave reads ‘Malcolm Was Here’) and Douglas Adams (taken from us far too early) – two figures dear to my heart.

We’ll be back in London, to live for a year or so, in just a few months. This visit served as a great little taste for what is to come. I’d been there before but A had not but I think we both have a feeling that we’re going to like living there.

But for now, we’ve retreated to Toulouse in Southern France.

Before the ‘wild’ excitement of Egypt, we were in Kenya with my family.

Given what has happened in the mean time, it seems like an eternity ago, but I can’t help feeling it deserves at least a small mention on this blog.

After a lovely time in Tanzania, we got on a bus and headed up to Mombassa.

Tanzania is one of the African success stories. It has a reasonably stable government, strong economic growth and doesn’t seem to have suffered from the same levels of corruption that other African nations have. Kenya is not one of these success stories (although it is considerably better than many).

The wealth disparity between the two countries is immediately obvious when you cross the boarder. You go from a reasonably well maintained bitchumen road to a terribly corrugated and pot-holed dirt road… which the bus driver didn’t seem to feel the need to slow down for at all.

When we finally arrived in Mombassa, it felt like we had finally got to a city that was really alive, particularly when you compare it to Dar Es Salaam. Lots of noise, traffic and energy.

So we spent a couple of days exploring Mombassa, wandering around the beautiful old town and even spending an afternoon at a Bowling Alley where I cracked 100 for the first time, racking up a nice personal best of 120 (lame, I know, but I’ve never been much good at bowling).

Then it was up to Lamu, the town and island off the northern coast of Kenya.

As you step off the boat (which in our case bore a striking resemblance to a shower) you are greeted with people saying ‘welcome to paradise’. I couldn’t help feeling that it would be more apt to say ‘welcome to Donkey Land’.

The streets in Lamu are all very narrow corridors so cars are right out of the question. Instead, everyone has a Donkey or two who do the grunt work around the place.

We stayed in a beautiful 300 year old mansion which we had all to ourselves as well as our own private cook who was happy to cook anything for you but we largely left to his own devices. The result was a huge plate of fresh swahili style seafood every night. And every night after dinner, I’d waddle off to bed nursing a very full stomach and suffering from seafood reflux. Note to self: never overeat lobster.

But the lasting memory of Lamu is the Donkeys, whose honk and wheeze could be heard all through the night. Every time the call to prayer went out it would trigger the Donkeys who would all compete with it for volume and attention.

In fact, right outside our bedroom window was a particularly vocal Donkey who spent most of his day in a fairly small enclosure and was going stark raving mad. I took the liberty of recording him for you so you can get an idea of what it was like:
Donkey

… all night long.

After our Lamu adventure it was time to head back to Mombassa for our last few nights with my family. The next two nights we stayed at one of Mombassa’s finest hotels where we spent most of the day by the pool. It was a suitably relaxing and luxurious end to our time with my family who we eventually said a teary goodbye to. They were off to get on a bus back down to Dar Es Salaam in order to fly home and we moved to more modest accommodation in the old town where we spent a couple more nights.

To be honest we probably didn’t need those extra few days but and most of the time was spent in our hotel room trying to escape the heat and watching an entire series of True Blood. But we did get out for a few nice walks. On one occasion we came across a chai wallah on the water front so we sat down with the locals to enjoy a cup of tea with them. When one asked why I wasn’t having any I patted my stomach and said that I wasn’t feeling well.

‘The Mombassa Express?’ Couldn’t have put it better myself.

From Zanzibar we went over to Dar Es Salaam. It’s not a city I disliked at all, just not one I’ll rush back to. It’s just another big city which failed to provide the night life we were hoping for to celebrate the bring in of the New Year.

Our NYE celebrations consisted of dinner at a fancy hotel then back to the roof of the place we were staying at for a beer and to watch the fireworks down on the water front below.

Perhaps the highlight of Dar was the Bus station which was bustling and huge. We eventually located the bus that we were told was “semi luxury” when we bought the tickets a few days earlier, with the help of some of the many friendly locals. The bus was a small 20 seater that had be decked out to seat about 50 and was probably carrying closer to 80 and at least one chicken. But we were the only Mzungu (white people) on the bus which certainly made for a more genuine African experience.

After a long bus ride to Lushoto and then a two hour car ride we made it to Mambo View Point – our accommodation for the next two nights – and Oh My God! About two years prior a Dutch couple literally bough the top of a mountain and built a little eco village on top, employing development ideas to provide a valuable source of work for the locals, as well as a stunning retreat for people such as ourselves.

The view was simply spectacular. It’s a pretty unique environment where mountains jut out of the savannah below to create these awe inspiring, free-standing mountains. We’re told that on a very clear day you can see Mount Kilimanjaro from our cabin and even into Kenya.

That night was a moonless night and the stars were so bright they were twinkling.

I woke early the next morning to watch the sun come up over the valley below and probably could have stayed there looking at the view for the rest of the day. But we only had two nights at the Mambo View Point so we went down into the village below.

As soon as we got near the cries from the kids started to ring out – ‘MZUNGU!!!’ When the Dutch couple arrived two years ago most of the kids in Mambo Village had never seen a white person so mazungus walking through the village is a cause for great excitement.

The village has a population of 5000, 2000 of which are of primary school age. We were mobbed by these kids who started off shy but became quite extroverted and desperate for their photo to be taken.

A village with no tourist industry and no hotels etc is a vary rare thing to come by as a western traveller in Africa. So it was a rare privileged to see this village and have a hilariously good time with these very excitable kids.

Unfortunately this little detour on our trip was far too short (if only we had known just how incredible it was going to be) and we hurried off to Moshi the next day. We took the back road to get there which was incredible (albeit quite a bit longer that it should have been due to two flat tyres). It was a full-on 4WD only road down the back of the mountain and then through the savannah, littered with Snake Eagles, Harriers and Falcons.

We stayed about 7 km out of the Moshi town centre because we knew this particular hotel had a great view of Kilimanjaro (Moshi is at its foot), which was a pity because Moshi looked like a really lovely little town and when we arrived the summit of Kilimanjaro was obscured by clouds. But then as the sun set and the clouds dropped the summit was revealed – complete with snow cap.

The next day we made our way to Arusha – our launchpad for Safari!

What can you say about Safari? It was just mind blowing. Roughly, our schedule was one day in the Tarangire National Park, three days in the Serengeti and then the final day in the Ngorongoro Crater.

Serengeti means ‘Endless Plain’ in Maasai and it’s a pretty apt description. Whist it is actually fairly geographically diverse with some more wooded parts, some grasslands and some savannah, it is all just one giant plain and every day in the late afternoon rolling electrical storms would work their way across it.

And we were really fortunate to see as much as we did. The big five – Elephants, Lion, Leopard, Buffalo and Rhinos – as well as Cheetahs, Hippos and Giraffe and some pretty stunning birdlife, including African Fish Eagle, and the Secretary Bird (Google it).

On our last day in the Serengeti we got an early start and headed off to a more remote part of the National Park where where had got word that the Wildebeest were migrating. As we came over a crest a string of black dots appeared on the horizon and the binoculars confirmed that we’d found the Wildebeest migrating over 2000km across the park – complete with a smattering of Zebras. It was truly breathtaking as we watched the lines of Wildebeest wondering across the plains for as far as the eye could see.

Plus, our accommodation was really great. In particular, the Ikoma Bush Camp where you stay in really nicely kitted out tents, complete with en suite and the sound of Hyenas around the campsite to lull you to sleep.

The key for the tent had a whistle on it incase you got into trouble and every night a security guard would escort you back to your tent from the restaurant armed with a bow and arrow. It wasn’t the Hyenas they were worried about – Elephants are a much bigger threat.

I must mention that one of the smaller Safari Companies, Access 2 Tanzania, took us and did a spectacular job. I’m highly recommend them to anyone and our guide, Maningo, was the best guide we could have hoped for – far exceeding our already inflated expectations.

So now I’m in Mombassa, Kenya (but we’ll save that for another post). We don’t have the internet here so I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to put this post up. But I’ll leave you with one last anecdote.

The Bus to Mombassa from Arusha stopped in Moshi. As we waited there a pretty alternative-looking local in his early 30s came over to the bus to say hi. ‘Where you from?’ he asked. ‘Australia’. ‘Ah,’ he replied, ‘like Julian Assange. Cool.’

Indeed.

Tomorrow we head to the Tanzanian mainland after about 10 days on Zanzibar – an island off the coast of Dar Es Salaam which was it’s own country until the 60s when it ran out of money and decided to join forces with Tanganyika to become Tanzania.

Our first 5 nights were spent in Stone Town – an old colonial relic that has a huge amount of life. The people are lovely and life moves at a pretty relaxed pace. We spent a day out at ‘Prison Island’ just off the coast where we snorkelled and then fed a 185 year old Giant Tortoise, one of about 100 on the island. Think about that, born in 1825!

Another day we hired a car and drive the entire length of Zanzibar. The highlight was a nature reserve we went to which was littered with Red Columbus Monkeys. The drive back took us into night time which proved to be much more stressful than I’d like it to be (I was driving and it was very hard to see!).

Christmas was a blast with lots of eating and drinking in nice hotels, Swahili Carols and an endless supply of buffets.

On Boxing day we moved to a resort in Matemwe. It’s a little place right on the beech with a swimming pool and really good food. The last 5 days here could not have been more relaxing.

From tomorrow we’re well and truly on the go for the first time. Dar Es Salaam for New Years then up to Lushoto and Moshi (at the foot of Kilamanjaro). From there it is up to Arusha to begin our Safari which will take us into the Serengeti and surrounds.

Until then.

Prepare your selves, dear readers. This blog is about to become a travel blog.

See you in Zanzibar!