Kenya is the country to visit if one wants to experience truly African landscape. This beautiful land of rich topography is the home of thousands of species of wild animals, most of which living in freedom, that is not fenced anyhow. Vast golden savannas, rocky mountains covered by jungle, even pine forests resembling our Polish ‘Bory Tucholskie’. When traversing the country from the bumpy dusty main national road, every kilometer or so there are big herds of cattle, sheep and goats. Among them one tiny, bright red dot is moving. This is the masai shepherd.
Wild side of Tanzania
The mainland of this vast county differs hugely from the slow and sleepy Zanzibar. We narrowed our choice to the Ngorongoro crater and Tarangire National Park. We decided to skip the famous Serengeti National Park, because the great Wildebeest migration had already wondered off (although all the Tanzania’s safari agencies claimed otherwise). We decided to catch up with them Kenia’s Masai Mara.
Hakuna Matata
… one will hear this very often while strolling through the white and windy streets of Stone Town, the heart of Zanzibar. This relaxed and friendly island became a marvelous rest-spot after the long sticky-smelly train journey Zambia-Tanzania. Smiling back colorful faces greet you on every corner with ‘karibu Zanzibar’ (Zanzibar is welcoming you), the reply ‘jumbo poa, mumbo poa’ (how are you? fine) is obligatory. Here the local hawkers are so relaxed, hassle-free and politely inviting, that they no longer seem to threaten as a ‘tourist trap’.
May 24, 2010
Koalas and Kangaroos in Adelaide
Next stop was Adelaide, where we were hosted by Hung and Tam in their house in the green suburbs. We were also greeted by 8 month old Bella, their small girl always curious about everything around her. With Bella, we had our crash course on how it might be being a parent. Did not so bad!
May 16, 2010
The land of Kiwis
New Zeeland welcomed us with a cold breeze. At least that’s how it felt after the warmth of Fijian beaches.
May 5, 2010
Fiji
Bula! is the Fijian greeting used all over the islands. However, instead of “Bula” we heard “Czesc!”from Kasia and Michal who were decided to drop by! Soon afterwards Ania and Lucien joined too, slightly delayed (by one week) by the volcano on Island. So in the end we were 6 happy travelers on Fiji. What a meeting on the other side of the globe! The world is getting really small and “flat”.
April 17, 2010
More Belize, please!
After a tiring day in Tikal, we fully deserved a relaxing week on a laidback Caribbean island (again). Read the rest of this entry »
April 7, 2010
Amazing Cascades and Scary Spiders
Somewhere in the middle of Guatemala, there is a beautiful place called Semuc Champey. It is surrounded by hills covered with thick forests, cut by clean and refreshing rivers, and drilled by mysterious caves inhabited by thousands of bats. There were also scary spider-like creatures in one of these caves, which made Marta stay at home, of course. But probably the most amazing place was the series of several calm cascades with pools of crystal clear water in between. Marta was exploring their underwater part (she is still addicted to diving). I was admiring the interesting engineering design of Nature – most of the river water was actually passing under the pools, forming a 300m long bridge!
February 16, 2010
Magic place
No wonder why Christopher Columbus who reached the wild coasts of Central America on his last voyage in 1503, before even stepping onto this land named it “Costa Rica”. This entire country is greener then I imagined, covered entirely with thick, rich, humid, vaporous jungle.
December 20, 2009
DJ-ing in Santiago
(photos)
Between Patagonia and Easter Island, we had a 3 days long stopover in Santiago, Chile. This vast city looks best from the peaks of the neighboring hills.