Warriorbern on the Move

Lunches for the workshop participants are always arranged by the national node where ever the workshop is being held. It gives me an opportunity to eat what the local people eat and over the years has been mostly very enjoyable. Every now and again though I do regret this arrangement and yesterday was one such day. We get a list of options from which to choose and my choice was chicken and chips. I was a bit concerned when the order arrived as it looked a bit over-cooked and didn't smell quite right but I ate it anyway. Not such a good idea! The chicken tasted a bit like fish and I reckon the oil everything was fried in must have been really old. I felt okay in the afternoon but last night it took its revenge. I vomited most of it up but then spent the rest of the night feeling uneasy and when I did sleep I had terrible nightmares. So all in all I did not have a good night and that made for an exceptionally long day today! The work went well again today and now I have a night of d...

Just after I had hit the save button on the last blog entry Fatima arrived at the hotel and we went in search of a taxi to go to the airport. She got a couple of offers but rejected them because they wanted too much money. Eventually we found one that she thought was reasonable and in we scrambled. The driver was ridiculous as I have learnt that all taxi drivers the world over are. This time, however, was the closest I have come to being in an accident. The driver was going way too fast and didn’t anticipate another taxi stopping abruptly in the middle of the road, he hit the brakes but that patch of road was loose gravel so the car just carried on going forward. We stopped just centimetres from the car in front. Of course the driver did not learn anything from this and continued to drive recklessly fast, overtake on blind corners and rises and tailgate any other vehicle on the road. I was grateful when we got to the airport. Despite being at the airport extremely early, the check-in ...

Here I am back in Nairobi in transit to Zanzibar. As promised here is the blog from the last week spent on the islands of Grand Comoros and Moheli. It is a long one so you will be forgiven for just looking at the photos. Saturday, 05 March 2011  At least this morning I could sleep until a more reasonable hour – 5am. This is my usual wake up time so was no hardship. I got up and packed all my things away, showered, checked out of the hotel and was ready to go to the airport. My taxi driver was early too so we left. Jomo Kenyatta airport was chaos. There was a heck of a lot of people there, more than I have ever seen before. Luckily I had checked into my flight online so just had to drop off my suitcase and this was the shortest queue. It still took an hour to get to the front though. Once through that and immigration it was just the normal hang about and wait. I was a bit confused though because I couldn’t get find Moroni on the departures board. I did find my flight number and it ...

It is amazing how the night before I leave to go on these work trips always seem to be a little crazy. After work yesterday I had two hours of French lessons and then had to dash home and do laundry before I could pack. It meant late to bed which is not good when the alarm goes off at 03:45! I did have a little help packing my bag though so it wasn't all chaos. Wish I could have brought her with me! My parents, who had the unenviable task of taking me to the airport, decided that they would make the best of being up so early. The car was packed with fold up chairs and tables and all sorts of breakfast goodies to be had at Umdloti Beach after dropping me off. The flight to Jo'burg was uneventful but Jo'burg was a bit cool for my liking. It was a full 10 degrees cooler than when I left home - I'm so not used to 15 degrees. I was so glad that I had a jacket with me. I had debated on whether to take one at all but remembered how cold it always is on the aircraft so thankf...

Last night I was just too tired from driving all day to write the blog so here is yesterday's story. We decided that we would not set an alarm to wake up but would just get up after we had enough sleep in anticipation of the long drive home. As always though, when there is an opportunity to sleep late, it is wasted. We were up at 5 am, washed ourselves, packed the car, had breakfast and were on the road by 05:50. It was raining so I did not have not have too many hopes of seeing much. Along the road from Skukuza to Lower Sabie we saw some impala as usual, then a hyena on a mission down the road (it was not interested in having photos taken at all) and then we saw a huge herd of elephants cavorting in the fast flowing Sabie River. At first I thought the elephants were in trouble in the water but on watching them it was obvious that they were having a whale of a time in the current. After the fun of the elephants everything settled down again to quiet searching for animals. There...

Last night we went on the night drive. It had been my choice to go on the later drive instead of the sunset drive and I kicked myself after our drive as the early one had seen lions but that is how it goes. Our drive was in my estimation pretty good. We saw quite a few elephants, impala (of course), a giant eagle owl (sorry Mom no photo), a hyena, a white faced owl, a honey badger (!!!!!!) and the Easter bunny. It was a fairly quiet drive both on and off the truck. On the truck was the driver (called Lettuce), Charles and myself and another couple. Off the truck there was not too much going on but then how many game drives have we done that have been like this. For me the night drive is always great animals or no animals. It is just so wonderful to be out in the bush at a time when we are not normally allowed to wander around. Below are some photos (not good ones) from the drive. Every day we have headed off in a different direction and today was no exception. I was getting prett...