THE LAST POST
Thanks to our family at home for keeping the farm running so well and for looking after our parents, houses and pets and thanks to all our friends for their support.
Nev’s summary:
My African Dream is over. My first objective was to see the pyramids from the Landy. My second was to complete Africa and enter Europe and reach London.
My six highlights in Africa in order are:
1 Sudan: People, country, heat, desert, Wadi Halfa
2 Uganda: Rafting down the Nile
3 Kenya: Lake Turkana
4 Ethiopia: (believe it or not) The different people, the churches which drove me mad, Axum, the farming (and potential), the mountains
5 Egypt: So different from the rest of Africa, (like SA is so different)
6 Libya: so controlled, the poor women who are treated worse than dogs.
My highlights in Europe:
Slovenia: People, caves, subsistence farming.
My lows were
Loosing the camera and video in Tunis
putsy flies in Uganda
The mad men in The DRC
Sitting on the ferry in the heat for four hours in Aswan
not having spent more time in Tiwi beach (Kenya), Zanzibar, the South Omo (Ethiopia), Libian Desert, Sudan’s desert and coast, and the Egyptian Black and White deserts.
Would I do it again? YES
Would I do it differently? YES:
OBSERVATIONS:
1 Africa is not for sissies.
2 Take less stuff, one can always buy on the way. Clothes, food, Toilet rolls, even fuel
3 Be independent of others, Africa can be done in one vehicle as you meet up with people all along.
4 Go slower, spend more time getting to know the people.
5 We should have gone through the Serengetti into Kenya, and along Lake Turkana, north into the South Omo in Ethiopia.
Advice:
1 Do not alter your basic vehicle.
2 Don’t put in electronic switches when you can use manual.
3 Start with new batteries
4 Do not weld your side shafts (all the welded ones broke)
5 Take good tyres and don’t hit potholes in the tar. (Coopers STT only 2 punctures in 43000Km)
6 Load the heavy things in the middle at the bottom, not at the back or up top.
7 From Ethiopia north, the vehicles are ‘left-hand drive’, and ‘right-hand drive’ vehicle spares are not always available.
8 Speed is less important than the right gear ratios as most African road are not in ‘speed’ condition and you use far less fuel.
9 Do not take a doxycycline prophylactic for malaria. At least five of the eight of us has adverse skin reactions and we do not know what other long term conditions like loss of eye sight and bad teeth we are still going to experience.
10 Pack so that daily requisites are easily available, and the other stuff is accessible.
11 Fuel is generally available, fuel capacity for 1000Km is more than enough. Fuel consumption is important as fuel is expensive south of the Egypt. Diesel is much cheaper than petrol.
12 Choose your traveling companions with great care, and if you think you should part company, do so sooner rather than later. They should have the similar interests, time available and financial constraints as you have.
13 Eastern Africa is much safer than you think, and in preparation, far more scary than in actuality.
14 Follow the weather patterns carefully. Preferably leave in September to avoid the rainy seasons and the heat of Sudan.
15 We love our Landy!!!! She did us well.
Lorraine’s summary
1 SOUTH AFRICA
My home, always where the heart is.
2. BOTSWANA
The country is stable and un-corrupt. However it has one of the best wild animal experiences to offer. This trip we just zipped through in transit.
3. ZAMBIA
We got here in March and it was still too wet to go to the places not explored on previous trips, or places we really enjoyed previously. The tsetse flies in Kafui were horrific, as they were last time we tried the reserve.
Zambia is still one of my favourite countries.
4. MALAWE
We only went to the northern area and experienced the snorkeling in Lake Malawe, the scenery around Livingstonia and the Nyika Plateau.
5. TANZANIA
Interesting (terrible) roads, fertile and well developed agriculture. Dar es Salaam. Fantastic beaches, Serengetti, Ngorogoro Crater, Mt Kiliminjaro, the Masaai people, the artistic carvings and creative abilities are the things that stand out in my memories. Bicycles are the main transport mechanism and they use them to transport everything, literally. Zanzibar and Stone Town.
6. UGANDA
White water rafting down the White Nile at Jinja near Lake Victoria. Kampala. The delicious fruit. The Murchison Falls. Queen Elizabeth Park. Chimp tracking in the Kibale Forest and the terrible putsy flies. Shoebill and the airport at Enthebe.
7. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
My experience is limited to the gorilla tracking in the Varunga mountains and in getting through the border. My impression from the bad state of the vehicles and the wooden scooters with wooden wheels, which appeared to be the main method of agricultural transport was that the country is a very poor one.
From the armed guards which were required to accompany us everywhere makes me wonder about the general safety in the country.
From the strange and aggressive behaviour of two of the men at the border makes me think that the ongoing wars have had a bad psychological effect on some of the people.
From the fact that we had to go twice through the border, as the first time was not properly organized, makes me wonder about their organizational abilities.
The country around the border with Uganda appears tropical and fertile and very highly populated.
Although it was a wonderful experience to get so close to the gorillas, the overall impression I got of the country was not good.
8. RWANDA
Three days is really not enough to form a complete idea. However I get the impression that the people are slowly healing, although the history of the Hutu vs Tutsi genocide is still very real and present in their minds. They are way over populated, and they looked at me with almost fear and suspicion until I caught their eye and smiled, at which the lights were switched on in their eyes and the friendliness and contact was very moving.
The country is litter-less, full of flowers and the people trying to unite to heal the past.
Every single square inch of ground is under the plough.
9. KENYA
The Rift Valley Lakes of Borgoria, Magadi. The culturally rich and fertile area around Mt Elgon. Masai Mara. Mt Kenya. Lake Turkana. Fossils of …. near Lake Magadi and Lake Turkana. Nairobi. The fantastic beaches (Tiwi). Lamu Island.
10. ETHIOPIA
A totally unique country in Africa from the time you enter across the border to the time you step over the border again. They have their own unique language, alphabet, food, religion, time and calendar. They have many different and totally unique cultures, especially in the South Omo Valley. They have a rich archeological heritage which they are proud of, and is fascinating. They have a scenically spectacular and diverse country ranging from steep, moist and cold mountains to flat, hot and dry desert to fertile, flat and agriculturally perfect midlands. The potential of the fertile volcanic soil is being wasted in inefficient agriculture and loss of soil by erosion. The universal culture of begging, and the resultant receiving of donations of food from the outside world has made them lazy and dependant on these donations. Any development is done by foreign governments or companies. Their time is spent either involved in religious activities, having coffee ceremonies, or ‘chat’ parties. The basic populace has no concept of respect for general privacy, nor of basic hygienic toilet facilities. Agriculturally it is like stepping back 2000 years where the subsistence farmers plough with oxen, sew, weed, and reap (mostly the very low-yielding crop of teff) by hand.
11. SUDAN
Although a Muslem and policed state, in a state of war in places, and although we entered at the end of summer and the heat was at times quite a challenge, the general safety and the open and kind hospitality of the people were outstanding highlights of my trip. The ability to drive off into the desert and camp behind a dune in safety and privacy contrasted hugely with the ‘Ethiopian’ experience.
Wadi Halfa: The name conjures up the sprawling, hot, dry, dusty but loveable laid-back town which is a meeting place of travelers from Egypt in the north and Sudan from the south.
12. EGYPT
Money seems to run everything. They expect to be paid even just for pointing you in the right direction, which they more often don’t do. They hassle you to part with your money, but respect a person who shows them a bit of respect by trying to speak Arabic, and listening to them for a second. They treated us from South Africa differently from those tourists in ‘group tours’. Bustling, vibrant, cosmopolitan but friendly. Cairo is unique. Sinai and the west coast of Dahab, diving/snorkeling. Oil wells. Tourist resorts up the west coast. The Red Sea and the gulf of Aqaba. Siwa Oasis.
13. LIBYA
Libya is a land of untapped potential. It is a rich land due to the abundance of the desirable oils fields which is its wealth at present, but could also be its downfall. Inasmuch as the wealth it has created, as well as its restrictive and controlled police and Muslem culture seems to be stifling creativity and growth is all other areas eg manufacturing, research and development. Compared with its immediate neighbours, Egypt to the east and Tunisia to the west, which are both very effectively selling their culture, desert scenery, coastal activities and marine life, Libya is very much behind. Not only that, the cheap products of oil, viz plastic, in the shape of disposable bags and bottles, combined with the lack of policy regarding disposal of waste and litter causes unsightly mess. The mandatory traveling with an escort is expensive, claustrophobic and restrictive. It prevents contact with the general populace, so one cannot get to know the people, but it does make traveling in a country where you cannot speak the language much easier.
14. TUNISIA
Lack of information with respect to books on the country made me feel that we were wasting our time and not seeing the parts that we should have seen. Also we were really only had a transit visa, so did not have enough time to get to know the country. Tunis is still the most beautiful city in its bright white buildings set around the lakes. Matmata and its troglodyte community of 500 years. Chott el Jira, salt lake. Dates in Nefta. Camping in the desert with the flies. Green mountains full of olives. The cork and oak forests. Biserte and the old city with the saunas in action. Tabarka and the yacht club.
Map of Africa
Our route
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Europe
Friday 9th November 2007 Daphne, Edinburgh
We woke up early to a clear sky and stars. We packed u in the dark, and it was so cold the zip on the tent wouldn’t close and our hands wouldn’t work. It took us half an hour of warming the zip with water to get to close. By then it had started to sleet. We traveled towards Calais and the Channel Tunnel as we wanted to experience it rather than go over another ferry. The procedure was very slick and smoothe and we drove straight onto the train into linked coaches and along the train till we were told to stop. As we went through the tunnel our ears clicked from the pressure, and the trip was quite bumpy as they had not had time to pump up the stabilizers (they apologized). At Dover we drove off with no stopping as our passports had been checked in Calais. All this time in Europe we went through borders with no border posts. Not once did anyone ask for or require the carnet or any car papers or insurance.
We drove towards London and met with Sam of Easy Shipping Limited. We parted with our Landy at Southampton which had done us so well, being our home and transport, with so little trouble and only two punctures, and so ended our trip of eight months through Africa and Europe. We now go to Daphne in Scotland and then fly home to our family.
Thursday 8th November 2007 Farm camping, France
We left the hotel very early in the dark (it got light after 8am), having decided we have seen enough of Europe for now as the weather is not favourable. We traveled past Baden-Baden (Kargs origin) and Heidelberg (Laue origin). Lots of vineyards around Baden-Baden. The country in south Germany is very industrialized, so we are glad our ancestors emigrated to SA. As we entered Luxembourg the land was flatter, there were less forests and farms looked larger. Luxembourg was similar to Belgium except the price of fuel was R10/l whereas in Germany and Belgium was R14/l.In Belgium the farming changed to neat, fenced-off larger farms. The cattle were mainly Charolais crosses, shorthorns and frieslands. The cattle were very fat. Belgium seemed far less populated than Germany. The animals were grazing whereas before they were housed, with no fences in the fields. (Bearing in mind that these opinions were formed from the view of the Landy on freeways, and we haven’t really given these countries much time, and our impressions are open to review.) Belgium looks a nice peaceful place to farm. Then we went into France with large farms, big tractors (100KWatt+), lots of implements, big barns, large herds of cattle grazing. No wonder Germany wanted France. We didn’t find that the vehicle drivers were impatient or aggressive.
We found a farm camp to sleep. We knew after an hour that we had made the wrong decision to camp as it started to rain bitterly cold rain (dropped down to 4deg) and the wind blew hard, but by then we had cooked and eaten our last meat (camel from Libya), we were back in our own little home in bed in the tent and had one of the best nights sleep for long time.
Wednesday 7th November 2007 Hotel Rezidenz, Pforzheim, Germany
We spoke to the 80 year old father on the farm and he very proudly told us that 40yrs ago he exported a Pinzgaur bull to South Africa. It had snowed during the night and Landy had 6cm of snow on her. On the way to Germany it rained. Yesterday the scenery changed magically from green and gold to white and geys. Today as we dropped in altitude it changed again, back to green and gold.
At first there were mountains similar to Austria, but Germany isn’t as neat and tidy or as pretty as Austria. As we neared Munich, the land flattened out and the fantastically flat farmland was planted to maize, wheat, ryegrass, and sugarbeet. Germany’s small villages are big towns and cities. The highways are absolutely packed with cars and there were at least 3 traffic jams of more than 10Km long on the east-bound 3-laned double autobahn. We were traveling westwards, and there were certain sections with no speed restrictions and some cars passed us going over 160Km/hr. Drivers here seem tense and Landy got hooted at quite often (and quite unnecessarily) in an aggressive manner, quite unlike the hooting in Africa, which was more informative than derisive. When we first arrived in Germany, there were so many signs off the Autobahns directing us to Ausfahrt, that we thought “All roads lead to Ausfahrt”, until we realized that Ausfahrt meant exit!
Tuesday 6th November 2007, Holts Farm B&B near Salzburg, Austria
We left the apartment in Slovenia and traveled towards Austria. At the border we went through a tunnel under the Alps from Slovenia to Austria of 8.4Km. Still no problems with going from one country to another, they just look at the passports and let us through. Austria is just like the postcards you always see. Can it get any more beautiful? Austria is similar to Slovenia but better. Our journey has been like taking little steps up from third world to first world, every country a bit more organized, a bit cleaner, farmed a bit better. We climbed towards the Alps at nearly 2000m, it got to -4deg, snowing and the snow was lying 30cm in places. We jumped out and had a snow ball fight for two snowballs and then jumped back inside the Landy. Having been through places like Sudan at over 50 deg, we weren’t really equipped or dressed to play in -4deg. All the hotels and apartments were closed as the season hadn’t started so we couldn’t get a place to stay up there in the mountains. The snow machines were switched on and were making extra snow for the ski runs.
We found a B&B on a dairy farm near Salzburg where all (40 Siementalers) of his cattle are housed for 7 months of the year, and he is considered one of the biggest dairy farmers in Austria. The farmer and his son are the only workers and milk with 4 machines. They get R4/l for their milk. Diesel costs R12/l.
We woke up early to a clear sky and stars. We packed u in the dark, and it was so cold the zip on the tent wouldn’t close and our hands wouldn’t work. It took us half an hour of warming the zip with water to get to close. By then it had started to sleet. We traveled towards Calais and the Channel Tunnel as we wanted to experience it rather than go over another ferry. The procedure was very slick and smoothe and we drove straight onto the train into linked coaches and along the train till we were told to stop. As we went through the tunnel our ears clicked from the pressure, and the trip was quite bumpy as they had not had time to pump up the stabilizers (they apologized). At Dover we drove off with no stopping as our passports had been checked in Calais. All this time in Europe we went through borders with no border posts. Not once did anyone ask for or require the carnet or any car papers or insurance.
We drove towards London and met with Sam of Easy Shipping Limited. We parted with our Landy at Southampton which had done us so well, being our home and transport, with so little trouble and only two punctures, and so ended our trip of eight months through Africa and Europe. We now go to Daphne in Scotland and then fly home to our family.
Thursday 8th November 2007 Farm camping, France
We left the hotel very early in the dark (it got light after 8am), having decided we have seen enough of Europe for now as the weather is not favourable. We traveled past Baden-Baden (Kargs origin) and Heidelberg (Laue origin). Lots of vineyards around Baden-Baden. The country in south Germany is very industrialized, so we are glad our ancestors emigrated to SA. As we entered Luxembourg the land was flatter, there were less forests and farms looked larger. Luxembourg was similar to Belgium except the price of fuel was R10/l whereas in Germany and Belgium was R14/l.In Belgium the farming changed to neat, fenced-off larger farms. The cattle were mainly Charolais crosses, shorthorns and frieslands. The cattle were very fat. Belgium seemed far less populated than Germany. The animals were grazing whereas before they were housed, with no fences in the fields. (Bearing in mind that these opinions were formed from the view of the Landy on freeways, and we haven’t really given these countries much time, and our impressions are open to review.) Belgium looks a nice peaceful place to farm. Then we went into France with large farms, big tractors (100KWatt+), lots of implements, big barns, large herds of cattle grazing. No wonder Germany wanted France. We didn’t find that the vehicle drivers were impatient or aggressive.
We found a farm camp to sleep. We knew after an hour that we had made the wrong decision to camp as it started to rain bitterly cold rain (dropped down to 4deg) and the wind blew hard, but by then we had cooked and eaten our last meat (camel from Libya), we were back in our own little home in bed in the tent and had one of the best nights sleep for long time.
Wednesday 7th November 2007 Hotel Rezidenz, Pforzheim, Germany
We spoke to the 80 year old father on the farm and he very proudly told us that 40yrs ago he exported a Pinzgaur bull to South Africa. It had snowed during the night and Landy had 6cm of snow on her. On the way to Germany it rained. Yesterday the scenery changed magically from green and gold to white and geys. Today as we dropped in altitude it changed again, back to green and gold.
At first there were mountains similar to Austria, but Germany isn’t as neat and tidy or as pretty as Austria. As we neared Munich, the land flattened out and the fantastically flat farmland was planted to maize, wheat, ryegrass, and sugarbeet. Germany’s small villages are big towns and cities. The highways are absolutely packed with cars and there were at least 3 traffic jams of more than 10Km long on the east-bound 3-laned double autobahn. We were traveling westwards, and there were certain sections with no speed restrictions and some cars passed us going over 160Km/hr. Drivers here seem tense and Landy got hooted at quite often (and quite unnecessarily) in an aggressive manner, quite unlike the hooting in Africa, which was more informative than derisive. When we first arrived in Germany, there were so many signs off the Autobahns directing us to Ausfahrt, that we thought “All roads lead to Ausfahrt”, until we realized that Ausfahrt meant exit!
Tuesday 6th November 2007, Holts Farm B&B near Salzburg, Austria
We left the apartment in Slovenia and traveled towards Austria. At the border we went through a tunnel under the Alps from Slovenia to Austria of 8.4Km. Still no problems with going from one country to another, they just look at the passports and let us through. Austria is just like the postcards you always see. Can it get any more beautiful? Austria is similar to Slovenia but better. Our journey has been like taking little steps up from third world to first world, every country a bit more organized, a bit cleaner, farmed a bit better. We climbed towards the Alps at nearly 2000m, it got to -4deg, snowing and the snow was lying 30cm in places. We jumped out and had a snow ball fight for two snowballs and then jumped back inside the Landy. Having been through places like Sudan at over 50 deg, we weren’t really equipped or dressed to play in -4deg. All the hotels and apartments were closed as the season hadn’t started so we couldn’t get a place to stay up there in the mountains. The snow machines were switched on and were making extra snow for the ski runs.
We found a B&B on a dairy farm near Salzburg where all (40 Siementalers) of his cattle are housed for 7 months of the year, and he is considered one of the biggest dairy farmers in Austria. The farmer and his son are the only workers and milk with 4 machines. They get R4/l for their milk. Diesel costs R12/l.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Slovenia
Monday 5th November 2007 An apartment in hotel in Bled, Slovenia
We left the B&B having chatted with Ivanka, the owner about Slovenia. She said one of the biggest problems is the subsistence farming. People have between 3Ha and 56Ha of land, but the area could be in 10 different blocks varying from 1/3Ha upwards, and no-one will sell their land for sentimental reasons as it has been in the family for generations. We encountered a similar thing in Holland when we were there. So driving along we see little patches of maize 8m wide by 100m, which is one of the sections. So nothing can be farmed on a commercial scale. They have small tractors, mostly old like Massey Fergusson 35. The crops we have seen is mainly maize, rye grass, vineyards and orchards and many, many little vegetable gardens. She said there is very strict control of everything. The cows all have to be numbered, and if they don't have a number the owner is heavily fined. The villages are double-storied, free standing, quaint, clean, old but well maintained with geranium flowers in pots on the balconies. There are no fences or walls between the houses, the dogs are caged and the cattle are in small barns. A group of farmers form a co-op and milk their two cows each and pool their milk. She says the co-ops don't work too well as some farmers don't care about quality so they all get a lower price averaging R5/l. The farmers are poor, most leaving the land to try to find jobs.
A nice house, double storied with central heating for R400,000. She says half the population of Slovenia work outside the country.
We skirted the capital, Ljubljana, which is smaller than Pietermaritzburg, where there were lots of blocks of flats for residents. We went into a giant 4-story furniture/electronic/home store, where things cost a bit more than in SA.
Diesel costs R10/l and long-life milk R8 to R10/l. Meat is about 50% more than in SA. We are struck by the picturesque beauty of the place with little villages in green valleys set against the backdrop of distant snow covered mountains.
Sunday 4th November 2007 Logar B&B, Cercnika, Slovenia
Woke up, looked at the map and we had to decide whether to go to Amsterdam via France, Switzerland or Austria so we chose Slovenia.
The rest of Italy was flat agricultural land with mainly grapes, fruit trees and a bit of maize, wheat and lucerne. The Alps were on the left of us all the way with snow in the distance, we were only 300m above sea level.
At the border the officials didn't quite know what to do with us because the Schengen visa didn't cover Slovenia and Africans don't go through that border. Eventually they just gave us our passports back and let us pass without stamping them. We were surprised that he could speak English as hardly any Italians outside the tourist area could.
The country became more hilly with smaller valleys and the farms looked very 'bitty' like subsistence farmers, small patches of maize or rye grass or vineyards etc. All the hillsides were covered in beautiful trees full with their Autumn colour. We came across a toll in the freeway and worried about the currency, luckily it is Euro so we proceeded without problems. We have never entered a country so blindly and un-researched. We are now exploring again and are much happier than being a tourist.
The pretty little villages dotted around, some consisting of only ten houses, with colourful flowers outside in the yards, a bit like Scotland, but less inhabited.
After 100Km we came across a sign to Postjana Caves so we impulsively decided to investigate. They were like Cango X50!!! We went via a little electric train for 2Km into the mountain, walked around for 2Km and then went out by train again. We just kept saying Wow round every corner at the magnificent stalagmites and stalactites. The lighting lit up the formations to perfection. We always explore caves, and they are by far the best we have seen. The river (size of the Mooi) that made the caves is now running 50m underground underneath the existing caves which run 20Km into the mountain.
So far this country has good roads, the houses are more free standing than in Italy, and people can speak English! In Italy the women are very fashion conscious and all dressed the same, and if you look different from them, they look you up and down quite blatantly. They lack smile muscles, and we joked that anyone we saw smiling could not have been Italian. Here they are far more down-to-earth.
We found this B&B as it is getting too cold to camp comfortably.
We left the B&B having chatted with Ivanka, the owner about Slovenia. She said one of the biggest problems is the subsistence farming. People have between 3Ha and 56Ha of land, but the area could be in 10 different blocks varying from 1/3Ha upwards, and no-one will sell their land for sentimental reasons as it has been in the family for generations. We encountered a similar thing in Holland when we were there. So driving along we see little patches of maize 8m wide by 100m, which is one of the sections. So nothing can be farmed on a commercial scale. They have small tractors, mostly old like Massey Fergusson 35. The crops we have seen is mainly maize, rye grass, vineyards and orchards and many, many little vegetable gardens. She said there is very strict control of everything. The cows all have to be numbered, and if they don't have a number the owner is heavily fined. The villages are double-storied, free standing, quaint, clean, old but well maintained with geranium flowers in pots on the balconies. There are no fences or walls between the houses, the dogs are caged and the cattle are in small barns. A group of farmers form a co-op and milk their two cows each and pool their milk. She says the co-ops don't work too well as some farmers don't care about quality so they all get a lower price averaging R5/l. The farmers are poor, most leaving the land to try to find jobs.
A nice house, double storied with central heating for R400,000. She says half the population of Slovenia work outside the country.
We skirted the capital, Ljubljana, which is smaller than Pietermaritzburg, where there were lots of blocks of flats for residents. We went into a giant 4-story furniture/electronic/home store, where things cost a bit more than in SA.
Diesel costs R10/l and long-life milk R8 to R10/l. Meat is about 50% more than in SA. We are struck by the picturesque beauty of the place with little villages in green valleys set against the backdrop of distant snow covered mountains.
Sunday 4th November 2007 Logar B&B, Cercnika, Slovenia
Woke up, looked at the map and we had to decide whether to go to Amsterdam via France, Switzerland or Austria so we chose Slovenia.
The rest of Italy was flat agricultural land with mainly grapes, fruit trees and a bit of maize, wheat and lucerne. The Alps were on the left of us all the way with snow in the distance, we were only 300m above sea level.
At the border the officials didn't quite know what to do with us because the Schengen visa didn't cover Slovenia and Africans don't go through that border. Eventually they just gave us our passports back and let us pass without stamping them. We were surprised that he could speak English as hardly any Italians outside the tourist area could.
The country became more hilly with smaller valleys and the farms looked very 'bitty' like subsistence farmers, small patches of maize or rye grass or vineyards etc. All the hillsides were covered in beautiful trees full with their Autumn colour. We came across a toll in the freeway and worried about the currency, luckily it is Euro so we proceeded without problems. We have never entered a country so blindly and un-researched. We are now exploring again and are much happier than being a tourist.
The pretty little villages dotted around, some consisting of only ten houses, with colourful flowers outside in the yards, a bit like Scotland, but less inhabited.
After 100Km we came across a sign to Postjana Caves so we impulsively decided to investigate. They were like Cango X50!!! We went via a little electric train for 2Km into the mountain, walked around for 2Km and then went out by train again. We just kept saying Wow round every corner at the magnificent stalagmites and stalactites. The lighting lit up the formations to perfection. We always explore caves, and they are by far the best we have seen. The river (size of the Mooi) that made the caves is now running 50m underground underneath the existing caves which run 20Km into the mountain.
So far this country has good roads, the houses are more free standing than in Italy, and people can speak English! In Italy the women are very fashion conscious and all dressed the same, and if you look different from them, they look you up and down quite blatantly. They lack smile muscles, and we joked that anyone we saw smiling could not have been Italian. Here they are far more down-to-earth.
We found this B&B as it is getting too cold to camp comfortably.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Venice, Italy
Saturday 3rd November 2007 International Camping, Venice
We watched from our tent as an obviously new camper van was being leveled by a husband watched by a critical wife. We couldn't hear anything, but the body language was obvious. He had stabilized the front, but too high, while she kept checking to see if it was level (it must have had a level inside on the cupboard) while he cranked and cranked the back higher and higher. Eventually she took over the cranking, then suddenly limped off rubbing her knee the crank handle having come off and knocked her knee. They got a big hammer and knocked bocks underneath the wheels, which attracted a bigger audience, and just served to push the blocks into the ground while not raising the camper at all, amid much Italian arm-gesticulations. We laughed for ages.
Nev did the washing this morning (as he usually does), he hung it up to dry and we prepared to leave to catch the ferry to Venice again. He couldn't find the tickets and eventually, muttering and swearing, came around the Landy with little pieces of soggy paper in his hand. We had to buy new tickets.
Nev said "when in Venice do as the Venezuelans do", so we wondered around Venice, soaking up the atmosphere and getting lost and taking it easy trying to decide whether to send the Landy home or leave it here. Internets are very expensive R100/hr, in Tunisia R5/hr.
Everyone is walled in either for security or privacy and they all have burglar guards on the windows which surprises us as crime does not seem to be a problem. There are HUGE mozzies here, although there is snow on the mountains in the distance, and they are still nipping us.
Today we are off to Slovinia.
Friday 2nd November 2007 International Camping Venice
We traveled towards Venice over the Po River and although we are 100Km from the sea, we are only 2m above sea level. The area is flat flat flat, and they grow maize, wheat, lots of orchards and vines and the lands extend for kilometers. The rivers are above land level and are canalized, with dykes to prevent flooding. There were signs of flood irrigation.
In the afternoon we went from the campsite via a ferry to Venice. 20m from our Landy huge ships pass up and down a deepened canal at the edge of the bay to the harbour. We can see the skyline and buildings of Venice over the bay from our campsite.
Venice is similar to Zanzibar with its narrow, windy streets and lots of little shops and hotels. The difference is that Venice is first world, (and has canals) whereas Zanzibar is 3rd (or 8th). There were 1000s of tourists. We gazed at all the artistic glassware, artwork, masks, chocolates, clothing, and gaped at the prices. It cost R10 to go to the loo.
We arrived back to a chilly cloudless camp, like May weather at home.
Thursday 1st November 2007 AND Wednesday 31st October 2007
International Camping, Firenze (Florence)
We traveled to Florence from Rome through hilly, Autumn coloured forests with very little agriculture and we wondered where the Italians were growing their food. Just before Florence the land flattened out. The soil is full of clay and the farmers battle with the hard lumps when ploughing. We arrived at Florence in the afternoon and had a violent thunderstorm and it poured with rain, but the next morning was cold and clear and we did the Florence thing. By this time we had seen enough of churches, having seen the best at the Vatican.
The statues of course were stunning, especially the bronzes and the marbles. Somehow we missed seeing 'David', but saw a monestary with parchment (calf-skin) books from 1200 years ago. Anything beautiful or lasting has some connection with religion, whether Christian here, or Muslem in Egypt, or ancient tombs in North Africa.
Florence is a very beautiful city, not as good as Rome though, with clean, cobbled streets. We had to catch a bus into Florence and back and nearly froze to death waiting for it on the return journey. We had decided to start walking home when it came, luckily because the campsite was 6Km away. We bought a book about the Medici family to acquaint ourselves with the history of banking there.
Tuesday 30th October 2007 AND Monday 29th October 2007
Happy Campers, Rome
We did the 'tourist in Rome' thing. Nev really battled. Up to now he has been a traveler, now he feels like a tourist. We feel we did the trip from the right direction because Rome is the pinnacle of the ancient civilization, although many ruins in Egypt and Libya are in better condition.
The campsite provides a shuttle service every half hour to the train which gets you to the underground, which takes you nearly everywhere in Rome, and from there you can take busses. Very easy, but we walked and walked and came back to nurse blisters. The Colosseum is awe-inspiring in its enormity, still being restored. Then we stopped looking at ruins as we were all ruined-out by this time. We paid R50 each for huge delicious ice creams and ate them watching the Trevi fountain, which had been cleaned of the red paint by then.
Even Nev agrees that in the Vatican the decoration and architecture in St Paul's Basilica is truly awesome, and the paintings of Raphael and Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel are worth the wait in the two-hour long queues. All the tour groups were walking through the long corridor called 'Raphael's Logge' looking up at the ceiling and looking at the paintings on the walls, not noticing that if they stopped and turned around, all the paintings would make sense and not appear upside down. We met two New Zealanders there whom we had met before, Paula and John McClean who agreed that we should be walking in the opposite direction.
Rome Centre is quite compact and every piazza has a beautiful water feature. The streets are cobbled and the alleys narrow. You can walk across the heavily trafficked road at any zebra crossing and the cars all stop to let you pass. Luckily Nev didn't drive in Rome, he would have forgotten to stop.
In Italy now, the fashion is to wear black, no colour, and when it rained all the old colourful raincoats, umbrellas etc were hauled out, although when we passed all the fashion houses at the Piazza de Spagna, colour for the coming winter was again being displayed
Sunday 28th October 2007 Happy Campers, Rome
The Italians had the last laugh. They went to Ethiopia and taught them how to make bathrooms with toilets and showers and a drainage point in the middle of the floor. Then the Ethiopians drove them out before they told them their secret, and the Italians left them to wallow in their own sh.. and sewerage. The secret: a little water trap in the drains to prevent the smells coming up from the sewerage pipes.
We drove up the long windy road to near the top of Vesuvius and had to walk up the last kilometer. There is no crater lake although the crater is very steep and deep, 460m across, but there are 'fumeroles', (smouldering whisps of sulpherous gas). Before it erupted in 79AD there were earthquakes and the Pompei-ans used to run into the street, put their hands up and ask the gods for forgiveness, and of course the earthquakes would stop after 45 seconds. When the fatal eruption occurred they thought the gods were very angry and so it caught them unexpectedly.
Then we found out that the saying is correct. All roads do lead to Rome, even from Sudan's Wadi Halfa which felt like the end of the world.
Happy Campers is one of the best serviced campsite since Warmbaths in SA.
We watched from our tent as an obviously new camper van was being leveled by a husband watched by a critical wife. We couldn't hear anything, but the body language was obvious. He had stabilized the front, but too high, while she kept checking to see if it was level (it must have had a level inside on the cupboard) while he cranked and cranked the back higher and higher. Eventually she took over the cranking, then suddenly limped off rubbing her knee the crank handle having come off and knocked her knee. They got a big hammer and knocked bocks underneath the wheels, which attracted a bigger audience, and just served to push the blocks into the ground while not raising the camper at all, amid much Italian arm-gesticulations. We laughed for ages.
Nev did the washing this morning (as he usually does), he hung it up to dry and we prepared to leave to catch the ferry to Venice again. He couldn't find the tickets and eventually, muttering and swearing, came around the Landy with little pieces of soggy paper in his hand. We had to buy new tickets.
Nev said "when in Venice do as the Venezuelans do", so we wondered around Venice, soaking up the atmosphere and getting lost and taking it easy trying to decide whether to send the Landy home or leave it here. Internets are very expensive R100/hr, in Tunisia R5/hr.
Everyone is walled in either for security or privacy and they all have burglar guards on the windows which surprises us as crime does not seem to be a problem. There are HUGE mozzies here, although there is snow on the mountains in the distance, and they are still nipping us.
Today we are off to Slovinia.
Friday 2nd November 2007 International Camping Venice
We traveled towards Venice over the Po River and although we are 100Km from the sea, we are only 2m above sea level. The area is flat flat flat, and they grow maize, wheat, lots of orchards and vines and the lands extend for kilometers. The rivers are above land level and are canalized, with dykes to prevent flooding. There were signs of flood irrigation.
In the afternoon we went from the campsite via a ferry to Venice. 20m from our Landy huge ships pass up and down a deepened canal at the edge of the bay to the harbour. We can see the skyline and buildings of Venice over the bay from our campsite.
Venice is similar to Zanzibar with its narrow, windy streets and lots of little shops and hotels. The difference is that Venice is first world, (and has canals) whereas Zanzibar is 3rd (or 8th). There were 1000s of tourists. We gazed at all the artistic glassware, artwork, masks, chocolates, clothing, and gaped at the prices. It cost R10 to go to the loo.
We arrived back to a chilly cloudless camp, like May weather at home.
Thursday 1st November 2007 AND Wednesday 31st October 2007
International Camping, Firenze (Florence)
We traveled to Florence from Rome through hilly, Autumn coloured forests with very little agriculture and we wondered where the Italians were growing their food. Just before Florence the land flattened out. The soil is full of clay and the farmers battle with the hard lumps when ploughing. We arrived at Florence in the afternoon and had a violent thunderstorm and it poured with rain, but the next morning was cold and clear and we did the Florence thing. By this time we had seen enough of churches, having seen the best at the Vatican.
The statues of course were stunning, especially the bronzes and the marbles. Somehow we missed seeing 'David', but saw a monestary with parchment (calf-skin) books from 1200 years ago. Anything beautiful or lasting has some connection with religion, whether Christian here, or Muslem in Egypt, or ancient tombs in North Africa.
Florence is a very beautiful city, not as good as Rome though, with clean, cobbled streets. We had to catch a bus into Florence and back and nearly froze to death waiting for it on the return journey. We had decided to start walking home when it came, luckily because the campsite was 6Km away. We bought a book about the Medici family to acquaint ourselves with the history of banking there.
Tuesday 30th October 2007 AND Monday 29th October 2007
Happy Campers, Rome
We did the 'tourist in Rome' thing. Nev really battled. Up to now he has been a traveler, now he feels like a tourist. We feel we did the trip from the right direction because Rome is the pinnacle of the ancient civilization, although many ruins in Egypt and Libya are in better condition.
The campsite provides a shuttle service every half hour to the train which gets you to the underground, which takes you nearly everywhere in Rome, and from there you can take busses. Very easy, but we walked and walked and came back to nurse blisters. The Colosseum is awe-inspiring in its enormity, still being restored. Then we stopped looking at ruins as we were all ruined-out by this time. We paid R50 each for huge delicious ice creams and ate them watching the Trevi fountain, which had been cleaned of the red paint by then.
Even Nev agrees that in the Vatican the decoration and architecture in St Paul's Basilica is truly awesome, and the paintings of Raphael and Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel are worth the wait in the two-hour long queues. All the tour groups were walking through the long corridor called 'Raphael's Logge' looking up at the ceiling and looking at the paintings on the walls, not noticing that if they stopped and turned around, all the paintings would make sense and not appear upside down. We met two New Zealanders there whom we had met before, Paula and John McClean who agreed that we should be walking in the opposite direction.
Rome Centre is quite compact and every piazza has a beautiful water feature. The streets are cobbled and the alleys narrow. You can walk across the heavily trafficked road at any zebra crossing and the cars all stop to let you pass. Luckily Nev didn't drive in Rome, he would have forgotten to stop.
In Italy now, the fashion is to wear black, no colour, and when it rained all the old colourful raincoats, umbrellas etc were hauled out, although when we passed all the fashion houses at the Piazza de Spagna, colour for the coming winter was again being displayed
Sunday 28th October 2007 Happy Campers, Rome
The Italians had the last laugh. They went to Ethiopia and taught them how to make bathrooms with toilets and showers and a drainage point in the middle of the floor. Then the Ethiopians drove them out before they told them their secret, and the Italians left them to wallow in their own sh.. and sewerage. The secret: a little water trap in the drains to prevent the smells coming up from the sewerage pipes.
We drove up the long windy road to near the top of Vesuvius and had to walk up the last kilometer. There is no crater lake although the crater is very steep and deep, 460m across, but there are 'fumeroles', (smouldering whisps of sulpherous gas). Before it erupted in 79AD there were earthquakes and the Pompei-ans used to run into the street, put their hands up and ask the gods for forgiveness, and of course the earthquakes would stop after 45 seconds. When the fatal eruption occurred they thought the gods were very angry and so it caught them unexpectedly.
Then we found out that the saying is correct. All roads do lead to Rome, even from Sudan's Wadi Halfa which felt like the end of the world.
Happy Campers is one of the best serviced campsite since Warmbaths in SA.
Pompei, Italy
Saturday 27th October 2007 Certe Notti B&B Pompei
We went today using the train and metro to National Museum at Napoli to see the recovered treasures from Pompei. It taught us that nothing has changed over the last 2500 years, even the instruments found in the doctor's house are similar to today's. Axes, chisels, coins and Ethiopian ploughs are exactly the same as they were here in 200BC.
Some of the statues and frescoes (paintings on the walls) were like new. The floor mosaics were so delicate and intricate that leaving them on the floor would have ruined them, so they have been well restored and preserved in the museum.
We visited the little church of San Siviero where there are famous (well deserved fame) marble statues of "the Veiled Christ" and a fisherman wrapped in his fishing net. You would never say they had been chiseled out of marble, they were so delicate and well done. The best, however for me was a marble statue of a man climbing out of his coffin, looking, so deathly white and ghostly, I was sure the sculptor had a warped sense of humour.
There is graffiti everywhere, no wonder they have the reputation for being such good artists. It is on the train, on the stations, on the walls, just everywhere. Some is actually quite colourful. On our way home on the train we stopped at Erculano, (Herculaneum) the other city wiped out by Vesuvius in 79AD. It was a port town with narrower streets and smaller than Pompei, although the houses were probably more luxurious. They haven't even excavated ¼ yet as the old city lies underneath the new one. It wasn't as devastated as Pompei, although it was hit by all five 'surge clouds' Pompei was hit by three, and amazingly some of the buildings' roofs are still intact. Buried under 12m of ash and lava the city has been beautifully preserved. Every house had mosaic floors, magnificent wall paintings on every wall of every room, and most had a courtyard with a water feature and a garden enclosed in a roofed quadrangle. Scorched to charcoal by the heat, and thus preserved, are papyrus scrolls from one house and wooden beams in the houses all over. Walnuts in a dish here, a sandwich there, even wax writing tablets with the wax not melted were preserved by 'shock cocoons' when all else in the room was devastated. I enjoyed Erculano better than Pompei.
Friday 26th October 2007 Certe Notti B&B Pompei
I had just read a fascinating book about Pompei and Herculaneum, (Ghosts of Vesuvius by Charles Pellegrino) so today was really exciting for me to visit the old city of Pompei which was buried 12m under volcanic ash after Vesuvius erupted in 79AD. Pompei was a large Roman city from 500BC to 79AD. The Italians rediscovered it in the 1500s while digging an irrigation canal, but only started excavations in the 1800s and it is a work in progress, as we saw them injecting glue into walls, stabilizing the plaster, digging, erecting scaffolding and restoring.
The town is very similar to the old Roman towns we saw in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, but this one retained the obvious affluence of general populous. They had slave chambers, servants quarters, beautiful murals and intricate mosaic floors. They had been using pressurized tapped water from towers to the houses through lead pipes. The streets were paved with huge slabs of rocks with grooves worn down by the cart wheels. The streets had gutters, pavements, and the road was recessed half a meter down from the pavements with stepping stones at pavement level across the streets. Speed was already a problem, as there were speed bumps in the streets. Security for the shops was addressed by having sliding doors which slid along the grooves in the door step.
The hollows left by the decomposed bodies in the ash have been filled with plaster, and then excavated, resulting in plaster moulds of the people who died in the surge clouds. Sometimes whole families died together. A lone cast of a dog with its chain at the end of its tether died in agony by suffocation as it could no longer climb up the mounting ash. We spent six hours there, and could have spent days exploring. Many of the houses are closed to visitors because they are still being restored.
We are now exhausted because we are so unfit!!
At the restaurant a ham roll cost R50 and 500ml water R15 so although we bought the water, we didn't eat till we returned to the Landy.
Diesel fuel is R12.50/l, but milk is 'only' R9/l. Meat costs about R90/Kg, but then a cooked medium sized chicken costs R40.
Thursday 25th October 2007 Certe Notti B&B Pompei
We decided to proceed straight towards Pompei. We went through some nice farm land today in between the mountains, but not a large area.
We even saw one pivot and a lot of "I"&P. They had planted mainly fruit trees and vegetables under plastic tunnels and a bit of lucern.
We saw one large dairy farm. Most of beef cattle we have seen have been nice Charolais. Unusually, we can see more from the freeways here than the little byways (except in the tunnels) because of the trees next to the roads. The first tunnel we went into Nev was frantically looking for the light switch. I couldn't make out what the panic was because the lights were on. Then he realized he couldn't see because he had his dark glasses on. He said: "Shoo, what a relief to be able to see". I nearly wet myself!
The Italian's favourite hobby is making tunnels. Sometimes in a 10Km section of road we go through 10 tunnels of between 200m and 1Km long.
The roads are excellent and we are convinced that as soon as they have nothing to do they say: "Where can we build a tunnel?" Sometimes there are tunnels even where we wouldn't put a tunnel. The Italians are also the worst in the world at parking cars. Most of the roads are so narrow, there are 'no parking' and 'tow-away' signs all over. This is no problem, because they just park on the pavement and the people have to walk on the road. When there is parallel parking and there is no room to fit in, they think they have fitted the car in if they put the front between the parked cars and leave the backside sticking into the road. This causes huge congestion. Most of them also got new hooters for Christmas and hoot for any hold up (but not as bad as in Cairo).
Found a B&B in mid town Pompei and went for a walk around the town. We joined what we thought was a tour group and entered a cathedral at 6pm. We walked around admiring the beautiful paintings inside on the ceiling, when we looked down everyone was sitting and the priest had started the sermon. Luckily they hadn't locked the doors and we snuk out.
Nev's beard is causing us a lot of amusement. He was mobbed by four Italian women in the village, but they were talking Italian so fast we couldn't understand what they were saying, but we worked out they said Nev had a lovely beard. He stands out like a sore thumb as none of the Italians have a beard longer than stubble. In Tunisia they wanted to know if Nev was Russian.
Wednesday 24th October 2007 Largo Argo Camping
Traveling north and east into the mountains, I can see why the Italians liked Ethiopia and thought nothing of building roads there.
Here it is similar, but not as varied. The mountains are covered in chestnut trees in their golden autumn leaves. The little two and three-story clusters of houses snuggle into the sides and the bottom of the mountains rather than perched on the tops, as in Sicily. There is very little agriculture, mainly small vineyards, market gardens and a bit of siviculture. This campsite is in a glade of tall pines next to a half-full lake ready for the winter rains and snow. And it is freezing cold and raining, so we have taken a bungalow and are snug inside cooking our dinner.
Tuesday 23rd October 2007 Il Casale, Tropea near Vibo Valentia
The weather forecast says it will clear partially today, and this is such a nice place we are going to stay for two nights. So, since I am now able to communicate in Italian, as the Auzies very kindly gave me their phrase book, and with much help from the family here, we ventured out to buy a new thermostat for Landy. We haven't needed one up to now, but it is so cold, and the engine is cooling down when we descend a long downhill, that Nev decided to change the thermostat. It didn't help though.
I am always amazed at the reaction I get when I speak a foreign language. Either (in Swahili or Arabic) I get a reaction of surprise and pleasure that I can 'speak' their language, or with Italian, they start to speak back to me as if I am Italian, so fluently that I cannot follow them. Either way it gives me great pleasure and a sense of achievement to be able to communicate. I battled in Tunisia with no French phrase book, and their Arabic was totally different from that in Egypt. When I said shukran (thank you) to them, they took great pains to explain it was 'merci'. Oh well, I have been warned that in France they actually laugh in your face if you try to speak French.
Because of the cold weather we make coffee in the lay-byes on the side of the road. Today two Italian men stopped and came and spoke to us.
It is amazing that when they realize you cannot understand them, they speak louder and together and faster and gesticulate wider with their hands all at the same time. We stand open-mouthed in amazement, and when they stop I get out my phrase book. He was a citrus inspector and he had a Landrover like ours and we chatted for a long time.
Eventually he gave us armfuls of the samples he had collected from all his citrus farms, so our Landy is full of lovely oranges from Italy mixed with the ripening pomegranates from Tunisia.
The rest of the day was spent cleaning up, doing washing and relaxing.
One needs a day off from traveling now and again.
Monday 22nd October 2007 Il Casale, Tropea near Vibo Valentia
We chatted to Gunilla Grimlund and Olle Ostberg (from Visby, Gotland in Sweden) who were staying at the same B&B as we were and exchanged addresses in case we are in each other's countries.
The clouds parted as we were passing Mt Etna and we saw the snow covered summit for a few seconds, and it is bitterly cold today with a very strong wind blowing and squalls of rain and sleet. We made our way to Messina on the northern tip of Sicily and drove onto the ferry to Italy mainland with no problems. Once landed, we explored around the southern tip and found many places to stay had been closed for the winter. The beaches would look really inviting in summer, but this weather is like Cape Town in winter. We wasted time at a closed caravan park while the owner tried to find us somewhere to stay in vain. We tried a hotel, but refused to pay €135 for one night (R1350!!). At 7pm in the dark and wet and quite desperate by now to find a place to sleep we drove up a steep hill along a very dark and overgrown ally which had hotel signs and were very doubtful about finding accommodation as there were no sign of lights anywhere and I was sure the place would be closed too. When we arrived there was a man with a windbreaker in the rain, directing his vehicle's lights at a building and he welcomed us to his hotel saying the lightning had just put out the lights. He was so welcoming, and we couldn't believe we had somehow been led to this place.
Inside this candle- and torch-lit dining room were two Aussies (Hayden and Hein) who are here helping to get the local tuna-fish farm working properly. They had been requested by their Japanese buyers to come from their farms in Lincoln, South Auz to teach the Italians how to catch the fattened tuna in the 'feedlots'. The tuna-farming process is that tuna are caught in the open sea (2 months) and placed into huge cages and fed (6 months) until the fat content is acceptable to the Japanese market. Then divers (these two) get into the cages and catch the tuna, now up to 100Kg, by hand, cut their heads and tails off, pump water through their arteries to get rid of the blood, and freeze them to send to Japan. (2 months). They then have one month of maintenance work and one month holiday (this is when they come to Italy every year to teach Italians what to do). Very interesting chat we had with them. In Auz they catch the tuna, put them in the cages, feed them AD1mil worth of food and sell the fish for AD15mil to the Japanese.
We went today using the train and metro to National Museum at Napoli to see the recovered treasures from Pompei. It taught us that nothing has changed over the last 2500 years, even the instruments found in the doctor's house are similar to today's. Axes, chisels, coins and Ethiopian ploughs are exactly the same as they were here in 200BC.
Some of the statues and frescoes (paintings on the walls) were like new. The floor mosaics were so delicate and intricate that leaving them on the floor would have ruined them, so they have been well restored and preserved in the museum.
We visited the little church of San Siviero where there are famous (well deserved fame) marble statues of "the Veiled Christ" and a fisherman wrapped in his fishing net. You would never say they had been chiseled out of marble, they were so delicate and well done. The best, however for me was a marble statue of a man climbing out of his coffin, looking, so deathly white and ghostly, I was sure the sculptor had a warped sense of humour.
There is graffiti everywhere, no wonder they have the reputation for being such good artists. It is on the train, on the stations, on the walls, just everywhere. Some is actually quite colourful. On our way home on the train we stopped at Erculano, (Herculaneum) the other city wiped out by Vesuvius in 79AD. It was a port town with narrower streets and smaller than Pompei, although the houses were probably more luxurious. They haven't even excavated ¼ yet as the old city lies underneath the new one. It wasn't as devastated as Pompei, although it was hit by all five 'surge clouds' Pompei was hit by three, and amazingly some of the buildings' roofs are still intact. Buried under 12m of ash and lava the city has been beautifully preserved. Every house had mosaic floors, magnificent wall paintings on every wall of every room, and most had a courtyard with a water feature and a garden enclosed in a roofed quadrangle. Scorched to charcoal by the heat, and thus preserved, are papyrus scrolls from one house and wooden beams in the houses all over. Walnuts in a dish here, a sandwich there, even wax writing tablets with the wax not melted were preserved by 'shock cocoons' when all else in the room was devastated. I enjoyed Erculano better than Pompei.
Friday 26th October 2007 Certe Notti B&B Pompei
I had just read a fascinating book about Pompei and Herculaneum, (Ghosts of Vesuvius by Charles Pellegrino) so today was really exciting for me to visit the old city of Pompei which was buried 12m under volcanic ash after Vesuvius erupted in 79AD. Pompei was a large Roman city from 500BC to 79AD. The Italians rediscovered it in the 1500s while digging an irrigation canal, but only started excavations in the 1800s and it is a work in progress, as we saw them injecting glue into walls, stabilizing the plaster, digging, erecting scaffolding and restoring.
The town is very similar to the old Roman towns we saw in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, but this one retained the obvious affluence of general populous. They had slave chambers, servants quarters, beautiful murals and intricate mosaic floors. They had been using pressurized tapped water from towers to the houses through lead pipes. The streets were paved with huge slabs of rocks with grooves worn down by the cart wheels. The streets had gutters, pavements, and the road was recessed half a meter down from the pavements with stepping stones at pavement level across the streets. Speed was already a problem, as there were speed bumps in the streets. Security for the shops was addressed by having sliding doors which slid along the grooves in the door step.
The hollows left by the decomposed bodies in the ash have been filled with plaster, and then excavated, resulting in plaster moulds of the people who died in the surge clouds. Sometimes whole families died together. A lone cast of a dog with its chain at the end of its tether died in agony by suffocation as it could no longer climb up the mounting ash. We spent six hours there, and could have spent days exploring. Many of the houses are closed to visitors because they are still being restored.
We are now exhausted because we are so unfit!!
At the restaurant a ham roll cost R50 and 500ml water R15 so although we bought the water, we didn't eat till we returned to the Landy.
Diesel fuel is R12.50/l, but milk is 'only' R9/l. Meat costs about R90/Kg, but then a cooked medium sized chicken costs R40.
Thursday 25th October 2007 Certe Notti B&B Pompei
We decided to proceed straight towards Pompei. We went through some nice farm land today in between the mountains, but not a large area.
We even saw one pivot and a lot of "I"&P. They had planted mainly fruit trees and vegetables under plastic tunnels and a bit of lucern.
We saw one large dairy farm. Most of beef cattle we have seen have been nice Charolais. Unusually, we can see more from the freeways here than the little byways (except in the tunnels) because of the trees next to the roads. The first tunnel we went into Nev was frantically looking for the light switch. I couldn't make out what the panic was because the lights were on. Then he realized he couldn't see because he had his dark glasses on. He said: "Shoo, what a relief to be able to see". I nearly wet myself!
The Italian's favourite hobby is making tunnels. Sometimes in a 10Km section of road we go through 10 tunnels of between 200m and 1Km long.
The roads are excellent and we are convinced that as soon as they have nothing to do they say: "Where can we build a tunnel?" Sometimes there are tunnels even where we wouldn't put a tunnel. The Italians are also the worst in the world at parking cars. Most of the roads are so narrow, there are 'no parking' and 'tow-away' signs all over. This is no problem, because they just park on the pavement and the people have to walk on the road. When there is parallel parking and there is no room to fit in, they think they have fitted the car in if they put the front between the parked cars and leave the backside sticking into the road. This causes huge congestion. Most of them also got new hooters for Christmas and hoot for any hold up (but not as bad as in Cairo).
Found a B&B in mid town Pompei and went for a walk around the town. We joined what we thought was a tour group and entered a cathedral at 6pm. We walked around admiring the beautiful paintings inside on the ceiling, when we looked down everyone was sitting and the priest had started the sermon. Luckily they hadn't locked the doors and we snuk out.
Nev's beard is causing us a lot of amusement. He was mobbed by four Italian women in the village, but they were talking Italian so fast we couldn't understand what they were saying, but we worked out they said Nev had a lovely beard. He stands out like a sore thumb as none of the Italians have a beard longer than stubble. In Tunisia they wanted to know if Nev was Russian.
Wednesday 24th October 2007 Largo Argo Camping
Traveling north and east into the mountains, I can see why the Italians liked Ethiopia and thought nothing of building roads there.
Here it is similar, but not as varied. The mountains are covered in chestnut trees in their golden autumn leaves. The little two and three-story clusters of houses snuggle into the sides and the bottom of the mountains rather than perched on the tops, as in Sicily. There is very little agriculture, mainly small vineyards, market gardens and a bit of siviculture. This campsite is in a glade of tall pines next to a half-full lake ready for the winter rains and snow. And it is freezing cold and raining, so we have taken a bungalow and are snug inside cooking our dinner.
Tuesday 23rd October 2007 Il Casale, Tropea near Vibo Valentia
The weather forecast says it will clear partially today, and this is such a nice place we are going to stay for two nights. So, since I am now able to communicate in Italian, as the Auzies very kindly gave me their phrase book, and with much help from the family here, we ventured out to buy a new thermostat for Landy. We haven't needed one up to now, but it is so cold, and the engine is cooling down when we descend a long downhill, that Nev decided to change the thermostat. It didn't help though.
I am always amazed at the reaction I get when I speak a foreign language. Either (in Swahili or Arabic) I get a reaction of surprise and pleasure that I can 'speak' their language, or with Italian, they start to speak back to me as if I am Italian, so fluently that I cannot follow them. Either way it gives me great pleasure and a sense of achievement to be able to communicate. I battled in Tunisia with no French phrase book, and their Arabic was totally different from that in Egypt. When I said shukran (thank you) to them, they took great pains to explain it was 'merci'. Oh well, I have been warned that in France they actually laugh in your face if you try to speak French.
Because of the cold weather we make coffee in the lay-byes on the side of the road. Today two Italian men stopped and came and spoke to us.
It is amazing that when they realize you cannot understand them, they speak louder and together and faster and gesticulate wider with their hands all at the same time. We stand open-mouthed in amazement, and when they stop I get out my phrase book. He was a citrus inspector and he had a Landrover like ours and we chatted for a long time.
Eventually he gave us armfuls of the samples he had collected from all his citrus farms, so our Landy is full of lovely oranges from Italy mixed with the ripening pomegranates from Tunisia.
The rest of the day was spent cleaning up, doing washing and relaxing.
One needs a day off from traveling now and again.
Monday 22nd October 2007 Il Casale, Tropea near Vibo Valentia
We chatted to Gunilla Grimlund and Olle Ostberg (from Visby, Gotland in Sweden) who were staying at the same B&B as we were and exchanged addresses in case we are in each other's countries.
The clouds parted as we were passing Mt Etna and we saw the snow covered summit for a few seconds, and it is bitterly cold today with a very strong wind blowing and squalls of rain and sleet. We made our way to Messina on the northern tip of Sicily and drove onto the ferry to Italy mainland with no problems. Once landed, we explored around the southern tip and found many places to stay had been closed for the winter. The beaches would look really inviting in summer, but this weather is like Cape Town in winter. We wasted time at a closed caravan park while the owner tried to find us somewhere to stay in vain. We tried a hotel, but refused to pay €135 for one night (R1350!!). At 7pm in the dark and wet and quite desperate by now to find a place to sleep we drove up a steep hill along a very dark and overgrown ally which had hotel signs and were very doubtful about finding accommodation as there were no sign of lights anywhere and I was sure the place would be closed too. When we arrived there was a man with a windbreaker in the rain, directing his vehicle's lights at a building and he welcomed us to his hotel saying the lightning had just put out the lights. He was so welcoming, and we couldn't believe we had somehow been led to this place.
Inside this candle- and torch-lit dining room were two Aussies (Hayden and Hein) who are here helping to get the local tuna-fish farm working properly. They had been requested by their Japanese buyers to come from their farms in Lincoln, South Auz to teach the Italians how to catch the fattened tuna in the 'feedlots'. The tuna-farming process is that tuna are caught in the open sea (2 months) and placed into huge cages and fed (6 months) until the fat content is acceptable to the Japanese market. Then divers (these two) get into the cages and catch the tuna, now up to 100Kg, by hand, cut their heads and tails off, pump water through their arteries to get rid of the blood, and freeze them to send to Japan. (2 months). They then have one month of maintenance work and one month holiday (this is when they come to Italy every year to teach Italians what to do). Very interesting chat we had with them. In Auz they catch the tuna, put them in the cages, feed them AD1mil worth of food and sell the fish for AD15mil to the Japanese.
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