Warriorbern on the Move

I like Zanzibar and always have since my first visit here in the late 1990s. It definitely has a certain charm and the sunsets every evening are unbelievably beautiful. The only downside for me is the constant hassling on the streets by touts trying to sell me a spice tour or a trip to Prison Island or a taxi. The constant "Hello", Jambo", "Mambo", "Habari", "Hakuna matata" all get rather irksome after a while too. Nowhere else in the world do I get greeted by so many strangers. Fortunately I don't really have to deal with this for long because, since I am working here, the only time I am on the streets is when I walk to work and back and, when I am sitting in my favourite restaurant, Livingstone's, there is very minimal harassment. What really helps to make my stay in Stonetown so relaxing is that I stay in a fantastic little locally owned hotel called Abuso Inn . It has huge bedrooms which are safe and clean, hot water and fr

It is incredible how quickly the time disappears when you are busy. I find it hard to believe that I am almost ready to leave Grand Comoros, it almost feels like I just got here. The flight over here was really uneventful but it was long and having left the hotel at 3:30 in the morning, I was finished by the time I arrived just after midday. At least on the way I got one of the best views of Mount Kilimanjaro ever. It really was amazing! On arrival, I had to get a visa. It is a little bit of a back to front method here. I got stamped into the country and then applied for the visa. Fortunately I was getting a diplomatic visa (the perks of working with the government) so there wasn't much chance of the visa not being approved. My friend and helper here in Grand Comoros, Fatouma, was also there to smooth the way for me. I got the visa and the next stop was Customs but there wasn't any trouble there either. After finding out why I was in the Comoros and that I didn&#

My time in Kenya is rapidly approaching an end for this trip. Tomorrow morning, before the crack of dawn, I will be on my way to the Comoros. Despite having 24 hours of not feeling very well in the week, I have enjoyed the stay here and it has been capped off with a very relaxing weekend. Yesterday, after breakfast, I took a walk to the local shopping mall. It is about a 30 minute brisk walk from the hotel along a flat road. The walk was really good except for all the taxis stopping to see if I wanted a ride and some men sitting on the sides of the road trying to start up conversations with me. I spent some time wondering around the mall looking at all that is on offer and then purchased a few things to get through the weekend (mainly water). The walk back was a bit better because no taxis offered me any rides but one strange guy (not a taxi) did want me to get a lift with him. I just laughed and said no thanks and he zoomed off, music blaring, down the road. I got back the h

It isn't often that I get sick and since I started travelling in East Africa in 2005 I had only been sick once (a small case of food poisoning) but now I can say I have been sick twice. On Tuesday evening my entire alimentary canal staged a protest. Somewhere I had picked up a bug. The trouble with these trips is that there really is no time to be ill. So despite having had a very uncomfortable night and getting absolutely no sleep, the work had to go on. Wednesday was a very long day. Fortunately by the time I went to work there was nothing left in me eject and I could get through the day with my dignity intact. The work went very well yesterday and we are left with only six fisheries to review today. This means that the workshop will finish a day early. It will be good to have a day to work on other projects and not have to go anywhere in a taxi. These trips to and from KMFRI have been quite interesting because the taxi drivers, in their efforts to avoid the traffic, ha

Here I am on the road again after a good but busy week at home. My flights to Mombasa were pretty good but just really long. A direct flight from Durban to Mombasa (if there was such a thing) would be in the region of about four and a half hours but with the routing through Johannesburg and then Nairobi, I spent about 10 hours getting there. I was so disappointed because I didn't get to see Kilimanjaro en route. There was just too much cloud cover that was high enough to blanket Africa's highest mountain. I have a few more opportunities on this trip to see it in flyby so hopefully the weather will be in my favour on at least one of the flights. The final flight of the day landed in Mombasa at around six thirty in the evening, just in time to catch the "rush hour" traffic. There was nothing rushing about it but I shouldn't complain because traffic going in the opposite direction was at a complete standstill for kilometres and kilometres! It took over an hour