border crossing

Leaving Africa

June 8, 2010 By Jillian

Ever since arriving in Ethiopia we’ve been excited to get out of Africa, not that its been bad at all mind you, its just that Africa is difficult. Emotionally, physically and mentally Africa can take it all out of you without you even realizing it. It’s been a pleasure sharing the adventure with others along with way, but frankly we were just exhausted of being in the developing world. I know how that sounds and I realize how lucky we are to be able to leave those difficult situations, but it’s the truth, it was hard. We needed a long break, badly.

Needless to say it wasn’t with heavy hearts that we took the ferry to Jordan. In fact it was with shear excitement for the rest of the journey and perhaps even some anxiety at moving on to another continent that we boarded the much delayed boat. As they ferry motored away from Nuweiba and the Sinai Peninsula at sunset we sat comfortably in the air conditioned lounge playing cards and swapping stories neither of us looking back for one last glimpse.

A week and a half after leaving Africa for good I’m recovered and those dangerous rose colored glasses seem to be on my eyes. Of course we had an amazing time in Africa and I don’t regret going for one minute. More than South America though Africa tested us. It was physically challenging (Mt. Kilimanjaro), emotionally challenging (Ethiopia) and sometimes just downright frustrating (everywhere else), but it was an experience I’d never trade and will never regret.

Our ferry to Jordan left Egypt nearly 5 hours late and by the time we arrived in Aqaba it was well after the last bus to Petra. Some travelers might get annoyed or even angry, but Danny and I just looked at each other and shrugged much as we’ve been doing since arriving on the continent. It was our last chance to say the three letters which have been uttered nearly every day since December: “TIA, this is Africa.”

IF YOU GO: We took the “fast” ferry from Nuweiba to Aqaba. From what we gather delays like this are pretty normal, however there were tons of taxi’s willing to negotiate decent group rates to Wadi Musa (Petra) from the port, even at 11pm!

The Worst Road in Africa

April 19, 2010 By Danny

After waiting nearly a week we finally had our Ethiopian visas in hand and began the trip north to the border. The first few hours, going around Mt. Kenya are normal roads….with pavement. The next 300 miles or so, taking us back into the northern hemisphere (we’ve now crossed the equator 7 times in the past month) was another story.

Generally independent travelers like us have a few options on this path: 1) the dusty, dirty, once a week bus that runs to the border straight without breaks and usually has delays of around 12 hours or 2) the cattle truck, where upgrading to sit in the cab with the driver and his 10 best paying customers is half of what the bus costs. Did I mention its almost 300 miles and two days on this road? Weighing these two options, we considered flying to Addis Ababa.

Ultimately we were saved from the arduous journey by friends of ours. Now that we’ve survived a safari together, and almost been arrested together, the journey north couldn’t be too bad! Now that we didn’t need to worry about falling out of the cattle truck or suffocating from the smells of the most awful bus on Africa’s “most awful” road, we had only the bandits to be concerned with….ya’know, the ones who shoot at cars and trucks and all of that. 🙂 (no, I’m not joking)

In the end no bandits shot at us, but we did have to contend with a few spitting camels and some herdsmen. Local people, decorated in full beaded headdresses and feathers made interesting companions at the Marsabit Internet cafe. The road was long,dusty and in terrible condition, but we made it through and arrived without any major problems at the Ethiopian border.

We’re late, for a very important date

September 29, 2009 By Danny

Once we finished up with the Salt Flats, it was time to get a move on. The rest of Bolivia is a bit of a blur as all we really did was move, move, move. We’d won a trip to a lodge in the Pantanal of Brazil and we now had a very finite amount of time to get there. Our guidebook warns that transportation in Bolivia can be unpredictable at times and to make matters worse, we had no idea how long it would take us to travel east through Bolivia to Brazil. Some accounts put the final leg as 17 hours while others put it at 3 days.

Generally when we travel we do so without a time frame or any need to be in any one place at any specific date. When we started the trip we had nothing booked, not a single airline ticket. When we do stray from this method it is often very stressful for us as we have to cut things out and generally end up spending more money on lodging and transportation.

Leaving the Salt Flats we learned that the overnight bus we had planned to take to Sucre did not exist and we’d have to take a 9 hour bus the following day…oh fun. I’m not sure which was worse, this bus or the one we took to the Amazon a week prior. Although this road wasn’t so twisty and turny, it was still dirt and early in the journey a rock of some kind took out most of the windshield…oh fun. Add to that the several [very smelly] indigenous people who throughout the day decided that my body could be used as a seat, (this was done to no one else on the bus so I can only assume this was their way of harassing the gringo) and we were just happy to arrive in Sucre alive and without any new friends trailing us to a hotel.

In Sucre we visited the dino prints which we believed was the main attraction of Sucre. The prints are left over from the Cretacious period and were found in the nearby cement quarry. To be honest, we could have lived without the trip but we did fall in love with the city on our brief stay there. Sucre is the “white” city of bolivia (all the buildings are white) and used to the country’s capital. While there we felt as though we’d crossed some border into another city as the streets were clean and filled with people just enjoying town. It is also a great (and cheap) place to study Spanish and if we ever find ourselves in need of a Spanish school again we will likely give Sucre as shot because the city itself was so livable.

But we were on a time schedule to get to Brazil so we had to press on. Luckily we had some company for the ride to Santa Cruz, a group of 6 South Africans we’d met on our Salt Flats tour who took the opportunity to give us loads of advice for our upcoming journey to their country. We parted ways with them, I got myself a haircut, and we then boarded another bus to the border with Brazil. Looking to get our passports stamped in town we went from one immigration office to another before asking a police officer for help. The first officer told us there had to be people there, we said their weren’t, so he actually tried to send us to another office that was closed. Thanks @sshole. Another officer called a few numbers and confirmed but guaranteed us that when we got to the border the office there would be open.

So we went to the border, got there much easier than we expected (one overnight bus, rather than 3 days worth of buses) but found immigration to be closed. Luckily a couple of Brazilians we’d met took us under our wing and the taxi we’d hired to take us to Brazil knew to took us to the immigration officer’s home to get us our stamps…only in Bolivia…

Thwarted!

August 4, 2009 By Jillian

From Banos we spent virtually the next 48 hours on a series of buses to make it to Peru. From Banos we went to Ambato, Riobama, Loja and Macara. Well you can imagine how much fun that was. Considering we actually made it through Ecuador with all of our stuff (hooray!), we decided not to tempt fate and decided to cross into Peru at the Macara/La Tina border crossing on advice of other travelers and our guidebook. The more popular crossing, along the coast at Tumbes, is apparently hectic, chaotic and full of con artists, thieves, and counterfeit money.

To say this border crossing was tranquillo is an understatement. With virtually no one else at the border, save a few military guards, we had to yell and bang on the door at the Peruvian immigration office to get someone to stamp our passports. No line, no lengthy forms, no customs check. Every other border we’ve been to has had sufficient public transportation, but then again the other crossings all had lines and people. Resigning ourselves to what was sure to be a VERY expensive cab ride to the Sullana, almost 140 km a way, we were shocked when negotiations started at $5 per person. Negotiating the driver down to about $3 we sped along the road arriving in Sullana just before dusk. A city ruled by mototaxi’s, our guidebook noted that Sullana was dangerous after dark so we headed directly to the long-distance bus station.

Chugging along in our moto-taxi with our backpacks sitting on an uncovered shelf behind the moto-taxi we wove through the alleys and dry aqueducts of the city. Waiting to make a right turn back onto a road, I turned my head slightly to check our bags. Two men jumped out of the moto-taxi behind us and approached both sides of our moto-taxi. Before I knew it the man on my side was trying to push himself into the cab and had his hand on my pocket. Screaming and pushing him as hard as I could out of the cab, it was over before Danny even realized exactly what was going on. We had successfully thwarted their attempt to rob us! Shaken, we urged the driver onto the bus station. Looking back on it we can’t decide if our moto-taxi driver was involved in the scheme as his first question to us was “did they take anything?” not “Are you ok?”. Large signs in the bus station indicate to only take taxi’s and moto-taxi’s approved by the station (inevitably more expensive, but certainly more secure) due to the high number of taxi robberies and assaults. It was a lovely introduction to Peru.

Sitting on the most luxurious night bus we’ve ever been on, we quickly fell asleep and put the whole moto-taxi theft incident behind us.

A Breakdown in Diplomacy

July 27, 2009 By Jillian

Standing in line for Ecuadorian immigration I read the latest poll in the local Colombian paper- Do you think FARC financed the election of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa? An overwhelming majority of respondents felt that it had.

Relations have been steadily deteriorating between Colombia and Ecuador due in part to Colombia’s anti-drug campaigns which have included bombing FARC bases in Ecuador in March 2008 and the impression, at least in Colombia that Ecuador is not doing enough to stop drug trafficking or confront FARC. In fact, as a result of the bombings in March 2008, Ecuador cut diplomatic ties to Colombia. Add to that the video which surfaced July 17th in which FARC leaders acknowledged donating funds to the President Correa’s 2006 election campaign and well lest just say diplomatically things have gotten heated.

Arriving at the border we expected that bureaucratic formalities would be longer and perhaps there would be an strong military presence. Standing in line for our salida from Colombia, we were processed in less than five minutes, not a single military or police official in sight. Crossing the bridge to Ecuador we were greeted by a huge billboard notifying everyone of the governments commitment to fight drug trafficking and a small band of military police who acted more like construction workers on break standing around joking with each other.

Despite the break down of diplomatic ties, the border was going strong- a heavy stream of traffic flowed in both directions seemingly without end. We waited an hour to get to immigration, and less 10 minutes later we were sitting in a collectivo on our way to catch a bus to Quito. Just goes to prove, governments might be feuding but business is business and life must go on.

We made it to Quito that night, after an additional five hours on the bus. Ecuador is more like Guatemala, whenever anyone flags down the bus, its stops. Needless to say this is quite often. Fortunately the scenery through the mountains was spectacular and we were happy to watch our water bottle compress and decompress as we changed altitude.

I feel like a broken record saying this, but Quito was an assault to our senses. We stayed in the La Mariscal neighborhood, the main tourist neighborhood, full of hotels, bars and restaurants. Unbeknown to us we had placed ourselves directly in the center of Quito’s going out neighborhood. While great for the variety of restaurants, we fell asleep to the sounds of pop music coming through our hostel loud and clear.

Leaving Africa

The Worst Road in Africa

We’re late, for a very important date

Thwarted!

A Breakdown in Diplomacy

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