A year in numbers

It would seem appropriate that after a trip lasting nearly a year I should probably write some sort of review ; it should probably be deep and meaningful and use the words ‘magnificent’, ‘discovery’, ‘development’, ‘introspection’, ‘experience’, ‘growth’ and such.

But lets leave all that nonsense to one side for now, and start off with a few basic statistics, for those who are excited by such things… (and its easier to write!)

30,000

Approximately how much the trip cost me, in UK pounds.  This excludes the cost of the van itself  (about £3k), the conversion and fitting out etc which I haven’t worked out yet.

• £2,136 of this covers the initial flights to SA, to Canada, and back to the UK
• £3,670 of this was spent on shipping the van to and from Africa
• £1,140 or thereabouts was the cost of the carnet de passage for the vehicle
• £23,000 was everything else – accommodation, food, diesel, tours, park fees, etc etc.

Its hard to give an accurate estimate of a ‘per person, per day’ cost at the moment as for the first 3 months there were 2 of us on this trip and these figures include Africa and North America (quite different costs of living), but a quick calculation based on the £23k figure above comes to about £70 per day (about US$108).

If I were to remove the costs associated with the big safari trips and the diving excursions and so on, then split the spending up by region/country, this figure would come down quite a bit – but I haven’t got the patience for doing that just now.

16,222

How many miles I drove, or at least, logged – I know I forgot to log a few days here and there.

• 12,502 miles of driving in Africa – there were more, I just forgot to log them.
• 4,120 miles in the United States.

Now given that the ‘average’ mileage that people apparently cite when applying for motor insurance in the UK is somewhere around 12-15k per year, I would say that I was pretty much on par.  I think I prefer the idea of driving around Africa over sitting in queues on the M25.

326

How many days I was away for (10 months and 22 days).

292

The number of days I spent in Africa, making up approximately 90% of the trip.  The original plan was for a maximum of 6 months.

237

The number of nights I slept in the van – just over 80% of the time I was in Africa with it.

The first 3 weeks we were in a guesthouse, waiting for the van to arrive and clear customs (it was mistakingly offloaded in Namibia so we had to wait longer than planned), and I spent a couple of weeks in tents on organised safari trips etc.  Sleeping in the vehicle (or at least, camping) definitely helped to keep the costs down (or at least, freed up money to do other things).

117

Approximately how many different campsites I stayed at in the van during my time in Africa, which means I was staying a fraction over 2 nights at each place (on average).

My longest stays (either in one go or over multiple visits to the same campsite) were:

• Oppi Koppi (Kamanjab, Namibia) – 23 nights in total from 3 separate stays
• Jungle Junction (Nairobi, Kenya) – 15 nights
• Riverlodge Backpackers / Camping (Cape Town, South Africa) – 13 nights

45

The magic number in Tanzania.  This is the absolute maximum speed, in kilometres per hour, at which you should drive if is a building in sight (which seems to constitute a “built up area” in the eyes of the police).

The official speed limit in built up areas is actually 50kph or even 60kph, but even if you stay at 45kph, the police will probably still pull you over for speeding (showing you the reading on their speed gun that they took from someone an hour or so ago who actually was speeding) or make up some other non-offence and try to extort money out of you.

F*ckers.

23

The number of ‘game reserves’ I visited (rather than just passed through or alongside and barely noticed).

In the list below, [SD] means ‘self drive’ – all others were on 4×4 vehicles run by safari operators or the game parks themselves.

South Africa

• Hluhluwe-Imfolozi [SD]
• Tembe Elephant Park
• Kruger National Park [SD]

Swaziland

• Mlilwani Wildlife Sanctuary [SD + mountain bike]

Namibia

• Etosha National Park [SD]
• Erindi Private Game Reserve

Botswana

• Moremi Game Reserve and Okavango Delta
• Chobe National Park

Zambia

• Kasanka National Park [SD]
• South Luangwa National Park

Malawi

• Majete Wildlife Reserve [SD]
• Nyika National Park [SD + mountain bike]

Tanzania

• Mikumi National Park [SD]
• Ruaha National Park [SD ish – Fari took me there in his 4×4]
• Serengeti National Park
• Ngorongoro Crater and Convservation Area
• Lake Manyara
• Tarangire National Park

Kenya

• Lake Nakuru National Park
• Lake Naivasha National Park
• Masai Mara National Reserve
• Ambsoseli National Park

Rwanda

• Volcanoes National Park (walking – mountain gorillas)

12

The number of flights I took:

1. Heathrow (UK) > Cape Town
2. Cape Town > Durban
3. Okavango Delta scenic flight
4. Zanzibar > Dar es Salaam
5. Dar es Salaam > Mafia Island
6. Mafia Island > Dar es Salaam
7. Nairobi > Kigali (Rwanda)
8. Kigali > Nairobi
9. Nairobi > Amsterdam
10. Amsterdam > Vancouver
11. Seattle > Amsterdam
12. Amsterdam > Birmingham UK

Alas no, I don’t know what that equates to in terms of mileage, nor can I be bothered to try and find out.

11

How many countries I visited (excludes Holland as I was only there on a flight stopover):

1. South Africa (97 days on a 90 day visa – got banned for a year for overstaying)
2. Swaziland (5 days)
3. Namibia (62 days)
4. Botswana (8 days)
5. Zambia (21 days)
6. Malawi (30 days)
7. Tanzania (38 days)
8. Kenya (28 days)
9. Rwanda (3 days)
10. Canada (8 days)
11. United States (21 days)

6

Shock absorbers.  I replaced all 4 before leaving South Africa for Namibia, and the front 2 had to be replaced in Dar es Salaam, having wallowed my way all the way through Tanzania from Malawi over the course of a month.

4

How many times I got pulled over by roadside rozzers in Tanzania.  On 3 of those occasions, they claimed I was speeding.  I talked my way out of 2 of these.  One one occasion the police just asked for money, plain and simple, without bothering to make up an excuse.  I suspect he was the most honest of the bunch, frankly.

Also the number of punctures I picked up.  2 of those were fixable, 2 required new tyres.  Which leads me on to the number of tyres I replaced in total (4), replacing 2 of my existing UK tyres before entering Namibia as I knew the roads would be more dubious.

2

The number of times the van got stuck – both times in sand.  One took a few minutes to dig out, the other time took several hours.

Also the number of traffic fines I paid – one for speeding ($20 in Tanzania) and the other when  spot checks by the roadside rozzers revealed that my not-quite-self-adhesive-enough white reflective tape had come off my front bumpers in Zambia (another $20).

0

The number of times I wished I was back home and at work, even when I was running low on funds towards the end of the trip.

Seattle

Well after a week sightseeing and adjusting to being back in the ‘western’ world in Vancouver it was time to bid a sad, but fond, farewell to my fantastic hosts and head south into the United States – Seattle, to be more exact.

To get there, I took the Amtrak ‘Cascades’ train from Vancouver (C$41 one way) ; you ‘clear’ US customs and immigration in the train station in Vancouver although the train stops briefly at the physical border to allow their customs/immigration officers to do a walk through, picking up your customs declaration forms and checking your passports – all quite straightforward and easier than getting into Canada!

Unfortunately heavy rain along the route had caused a mudslide which was blocking the tracks, so we were moved from the train onto a couple of coaches for the last leg of the journey.  It didn’t seem to make much difference to the overall journey time though, arriving at about 10pm in Seattle Kings Street station.  A short cab ride from there and I was at my pre-arranged accommodation – the Belltown Inn (US$80 per night + taxes for a double bed with kitchenette).

I spent most of today wandering around Seattle, somewhat aimlessly, just taking in some of the views and tourist sights, starting off with the nearby waterfront and heading up to what is probably Seattle’s most famous landmark, the Space Needle…

The Waterfront, Seattle – looking south from cruise ship pier

Space Needle

From the Space Needle I headed north/west a bit in search of a park which apparently has good views of the Needle and city, but got a bit lost and ended up in Queen Anne / Interbay / Smith Cove Waterway.

Walking back from Smith Cove towards Centennial Park

Navigation is much easier when you have the water on one side, so I followed the coast back towards ‘downtown’ Seattle…

One of the statues at the Olympic Sculpture Park – complete with seagull

Another sculpture with the Space Needle in the background

Having seen some of the city from ground level, I decided to take the lift (elevator, if you prefer) up the Columbia Centre/Tower to their viewing platform – the Sky View Observatory.  This is one of two popular viewing platforms in the city, the other being the much busier and I suspect more expensive, Space Needle.  But you can’t really get a photo of the Needle if you’re up it.

One of many views over the city from the Sky View Observatory

Century Link field

Looking north towards Smith Cove and Magnolia

The Seattle Great Wheel

Space Needle towering over its neighbours

I believe this is Mount Ranier?

From the Columbia Tower I headed to another of Seattle’s famous landmarks – Pike Place Market.  Essentially this is a covered market with lots of food and flower stalls, and is heaving!  Its got a really nice ‘vibe’ to it and the fish stalls in particular are popular attractions, as they chuck fish around and sometimes at customers.  All in good jest 🙂

Sightseeing over for the day, I headed back to my apartment for a few hours before heading out again to meet my friend Marcus (who recently emigrated from the UK and is getting married in a few weeks here in Seattle) for a meal and some local craft beers in Pike Place.

Everyone likes a full growler…

A long, busy, but pretty cool day!  Seattle men, incidentally, appear to have the same fondness for beards as their Vancouver counterparts.

Day trip to Whistler

On a bit of a ‘spur of the moment’ decision, we all popped up to Whistler today just to have a look around and see how the snow conditions were.  Its about an hour and a half / two hours drive north of Vancouver.

Viewpoint over Vancouver

Not much snow 😦

The snow conditions looked a bit bleak, to be honest – especially lower down although reports indicated that there was still a reasonable amount of snow ‘up top’.  Looked a bit like late season conditions in the alps.

Pulled this really hot local bird…. (ok, not really) (as in, didn’t pull her, not that she isn’t hot…I’ll stop talking now…)

Whilst wandering down the street in town I bumped into Kerry, one of two sisters I met a few years ago while trekking up Kilimanjaro!  It is, as ‘they’ say, a small world…

(NB: that isn’t her in the photo above, thats Kat, one of my hosts)

Now admittedly, due to the ‘wonders’ of Facebook, I knew that Kerry and her sister were going to be in the area, but I hadn’t tried to make any plans to meet up simply because I had no plans to go to Whistler until that morning ; so bumping into her in the street was a bit random, but cool 🙂

Whistler village (?) itself looks pretty cool and I’d definitely consider coming back here another time to actually try out the slopes.

Stopped off at a waterfall on the way back – can’t remember the name – but it was quite impressive nonetheless.

Can’t remember the name of the waterfall, sorry!

Another good day, but sadly my one in Canada as I’m catching the Amtrak train to Seattle tomorrow afternoon.  I’ll be sad to say goodbye to Moreno and Kat but hopefully I’ll be back out here before too long!

Vancouver Museum of Anthropology

Nestled amongst the sprawling grounds of the the University of British Columbia lies the Museum of Anthropology (MOA), a treasure trove of ethnic and archaeological artefacts from around the world, though focussing largely, as you might expect, on Native American pieces.  Of which they have many!

Its obviously a popular outing for the local schools but if you can find a quiet corner where you aren’t tripping over (generally well behaved, to be fair) kids intent on drawing the various artefacts, its a cool place to wander.

In essence the museum is split into three key areas – outside, they have a ‘reconstructed’ Haida village with a few buildings and totem poles, the ‘Great Hall’ which contains large collection of totem poles, sculptures, carvings, boats etc, and the ‘Multiversity Galleries’, containing display units packed full with smaller artefacts.  You could easily spend many hours here and not see everything…

So, some photos from each of these in turn – or at least the first two, as the 3rd was too dark to get any usable photos!

Small ‘park’ area outside the museum with reconstructed buildings and totem poles

That’ll be one of them totem poles then…

Reconstructed building with ‘Respect to Bill Reid’ pole

Aside from the main areas there is an area called the Bill Reid Rotunda, an area dedicated to a local artist and dominated by one of his works, a huge piece called “The Raven and the First Men”:

The Raven and the First Men – by Bill Reid

After a few hours I decided to call it a day in the museum and go for a walk along the beach which, I had been warned, was a nudist beach.  Which is a bit weird as (a) it backs right up against the university campus and museum (which is a tourist attraction) and (b) because its a bit bloomin chilly here!  And yet despite the nip in the air, there were a few brave, or foolhardy, souls, who were stripping off and plunging into the water.  Not for long though!

But don’t worry, no photos of them, just scenery:

Wreck Beach – nudist beach. And yes, there were a few despite the weather!

It was cracking on towards lunchtime so I left the beach and wandered through the university campus to try and find a bus that would take me to downtown, or at least a Metro station.  Sadly my phone was refusing to load the ‘transit’ map I’d downloaded to cover such eventualities and I couldn’t get my internet connection to work, so I ended up getting on a random bus which wasn’t actually going anywhere near downtown, but hey.  The driver was good enough to let me know when we were at a stop that would allow me to catch another bus to a Metro station, so eventually I found myself back in Gastown and, perhaps not surprisingly, in another bar/restaurant in search of lunch – the Lamplighter this time 🙂

Lunch turned into most of the afternoon, sampling their craft beers and reading, before catching the train back to Moreno and Kats  ; another nice day!

Another day in Vancouver

Spent another day in and around Vancouver city centre today, starting off with a ride on the train to the ‘Telus’ Science World.

Which was crap.  Ok, let me rephrase that.  It was crap for adults.  Its aimed squarely at kids with just about nothing of interest for adults.  Bit of a waste of money but hey, got to try these things.  Packed full of school groups making an absolute racket.  Excellent 😉

Seeking a bit of peace and quiet, I left the Science World and headed west along the False Creek seawall to get some views of downtown Vancouver from the outside, as it were.  Without a map its hard to explain!  The weather today was a little less impressive and more ‘seasonal’ – which means it was grey and raining on and off.  Nice day for a walk then!

Science World (domed building) and the docks along False Creek, Vancouver

Pedestrian bridge – Olympic Village, Vancouver

L-R: Yaletown, Cambie Bridge, BC Place/Stadium, Plaza of Nations dock

Yaletown Dock (I think)

 

Despite the weather there were a fair few locals out jogging, rollerblading, or cycling along the sea wall, often with one or more dogs in tow.

The Erickson – apartment block, condo, whatever 🙂

More docks, more yachts

Eventually I arrived at Granville Island which is all about arts, crafts, shopping, and eating, it seems.  Seeing as I wasn’t really in the mood for mooching around lots of touristy shops (am I ever?) I made a cursory pass through the complex before heading off the island and across Granville Bridge into downtown Vancouver.

I was getting peckish by now but couldn’t decide between the multitude of eateries, so ended up walking into Gastown which made the choice even harder!  I almost went back to Peckingpah but opted to try out ‘Steamworks‘, a large bar/restaurant on the waterfront.  Well, waterfront ish.  And very glad I was to have gone there – nice food, decent selection of beers/ales, and a very attractive Spanish waitress (from Madrid, apparently) with a nice short ‘flouncy’ leather skirt on.

Seeing as I was a bit ‘touristed’ out, and was quite happy where I was, I decided to just spend a few hours in Steamworks before arranging to meet up with Moreno near Granville Island after he’d finished work for the day to get a lift back to theirs.

Very chilled out day – good to see more of Vancouver but also quite nice just to sit down and do nothing in a bar!

No tranny hookers but a carjacking

After a full day yesterday, I decided to have a rest today and catch up on some laundry, some photo editing, and a few episodes of The Walking Dead c/o Netflix.  Not every day has to be full of excitement, after all!

In the evening we went out for a meal to one of Moreno & Kats favourite pizzerias, the name of which sadly escapes me at the moment – but it had great food and atmosphere 🙂  On the way back Moreno decided to take a route through a slightly less than salubrious part of town to show me a street known for its tranny hookers.  I’m assuming this was just from a tourism perspective than anything else!

We didn’t see any of the aforementioned hookers but did end up getting caught up in an attempted mugging/carjacking incident – so it wasn’t a complete loss 😉

We were driving along and this old guy came running towards us, waving us down.  Kat immediately told Moreno to lock the doors which he did, but wound Kat’s window down a little to allow the guy to talk to us.  He basically said that someone was trying to rob him/take his car, pointing to a car a little further up the road.  Moreno was on the phone to the police already, at which point the chap who was apparently doing the carjacking appeared from the car and saw that we were getting involved and started walking towards us.

At this point we let the ‘victim’ in as he said the other guy had a knife, then started to drive off.  The guy doing the carjacking started running towards us but soon thought twice about getting run over – sensible!

Moreno handed the phone over to the ‘victim’ to continue explaining the situation to the police as we drove around a couple of blocks to end up back near the scene of the incident ; the police turned up shortly afterwards and we all had to spend the next hour or so writing statements out and going through them with the officers.  Still, one of them was a rather attractive female officer so again, not a complete loss 🙂

It turns out that the ‘victim’ hadn’t been in the car alone ; there had been a woman in there with him.  He claims she was a ‘mature’ backpacker from Germany who he had met earlier and had asked for a ride – so he was giving her one.  Fnah fnah, and all that.  Given the reputation that the area has, it all sounded a bit fishy.  More likely the guy doing the carjacking was the woman’s pimp.  The ‘victim’ never quite explained why they were pulled over to the side of the road…

Excitement over, time to go home!

Vancouver views

As my hosts had to work today, I decided to go on a self guided walking tour of Vancouver city centre.  Moreno was kind enough to give me a lift and save me from having to figure out the public transport system, dropping me off in the middle of Chinatown before heading to work.

After wandering around for a bit, past numerous shops selling all sorts of weird sh*t most of which I didn’t recognise, I headed towards what might be considered the more ‘touristy’ side of Vancouver – Gastown.

Its a cool ‘district’ which I really liked just wandering around ; lots of boutique shops selling native American arts and crafts, clothes shops, coffee shops including the ubiquitous Starbucks (good for free wifi if nothing else), and restaurants.  Lots of restaurants.

As with any city there are positives and negatives and with Vancouver there seems to be a visibly large population of homeless people – one street in particular (the name of which escapes me but I think it has a ‘drop in’ centre) had loads of people set up to sleep outside.  There seems to be a permanent police presence there but at no point did I feel unsafe walking past them – they [the homeless] were just minding their own business and didn’t give a monkeys about a tourist walking past.  At times it was a bit stereotypical – a guy walking along the street talking to himself, pushing a shopping trolley with his worldly possessions in it, wearing a plastic ‘viking’ helmet.  Quite sad really.

One of the more popular tourist attractions in Gastown is the Steam Clock, which seemed to be permanently surrounded by Asian tourists so I didn’t get round to taking any photos of it.  Instead I went up to the Vancouver Lookout, a 360 panoramic viewing platform atop the Harbour Centre.  Which is a natural lead into some photos, I think…

Metropolitan Cathedral of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary

Presumably this building belongs to the news organisation of the same name

Possibly the MNP Tower on the left?

Under construction

Vancouver Block Clock Tower on Granville

BC Place – multi purpose stadium

Ummm… 322 Water Street apparently!

Another of Vancouver’s new outlets

Not quite sure which building this is – next to Canada Place

Seeing as it was now about time to grab something to eat, I touched base with Moreno and arranged to meet him at the Peckingpah, a ‘Carolina BBQ’ restaurant which served up some pretty nice food and local ‘craft’ beers.  Well worth a visit if you’re in the neighbourhood!

Moreno then dropped me off at Stanley Park, to the north-western edge of the peninsula that makes up ‘downtown’ Vancouver.  The park is home to, amongst other attractions, the Vancouver Aquarium, which was to be my ‘home’ for the next few hours.

Grebbit

Beluga whale ‘show’

Sea otter – very cute 🙂

Its a small red bird

Having ‘done’ the Aquarium I decided to wander around a bit of Stanley Park for a bit, taking in the views over Vancouver and the nearby mountains which should, apparently, be covered in snow at this time of year but clearly aren’t…

Totem pole (obviously)

Brockton Point Lighthouse, Stanley Park

Vancouverites out enjoying the end of their day

From Stanley Park I walked back into the city centre to find a train station to get me back towards Moreno and Kats…

Walking back from Stanley Park

A different sort of crane to many recent photos 🙂

The ‘staggered’ topped building [top right] is Harbour Centre from where the earlier cityscapes were shot

Who needs a runway?

Canada Place (white ‘sail’ topped buildings)

That evening I went out with Moreno to a bar in Vancouver to sample the local beers and watch hockey on TV, which is apparently the thing to do in Canada 🙂  That, and grow beards.  The men, that is.  They’re quite big on their facial growth over here.  Guess it helps keep them warm during the winter or something 🙂

An excellent day, all in all.  I like Vancouver!

Chilliwack Lake

Feeling much more human after a good nights sleep, I took the opportunity to tag along with Moreno and some friends of his who had planned to go out to a nearby (ish – about 90mins drive away) to get my first views of ‘wild’ Canada – I wasn’t disappointed!

I’ll let the pictures do the talking:

Chilliwack Lake

Amazing colours in the water 🙂

I think I like Canada already!

There isn’t much to say about the walk itself – it was easy, good terrain, a mixture of lakeside tracks and forest trails (some of which were a little tricky to follow but fortunately were marked with tape in trees from time to time), then eventually we came to the Canadian/US border – which here consists of a cleared section of woodland and not a whole lot more!

The border with the US

I was also introduced to the ‘Anal’ driving game today ; this works very well in North America but less so in Europe.  The idea is simple – whilst driving or even walking around, look at the names of the other vehicles on the road and prefix them with the word ‘anal’.  So for example we could have Anal Challenger ; Anal Cruiser, Anal Charger, and so on.

Like I said  – it doesn’t work so well for European car models.  Anal 500 isn’t funny.  Anal Focus has some merit.  Anal 3 series?  Nope, just not working is it?

Our reward for sneaking into the US for a few hundred metres before retreating to Canada was a brew up and meal over a camp fire which was quite cool – not something you’d tend to do back home although I imagine there’s no reason not to, we just don’t seem to ‘do’ campfires.  Which is a shame as they’re great!

Moreno also took the opportunity to play with a gadget which I think he’d taken to Africa but hadn’t really used much there – his Biolite stove.  This is a very neat portable stove which can burn most organic matter, in our case small twigs and a few lollipop sticks.  They probably call them something else over here!  Its surprising how much heat these things belt out for such a small amount of fuel and I’d definitely consider buying something like that for ‘wilderness’ camping.  They even generate enough electricity to charge your phones 🙂  Its the orange thing with the kettle on it in the picture below.  The Helinox chair & table are pretty cool too.  Not that I’m jealous about his gizmos or anything.

A cool way to end the day – chilli over a camp fire. Yep, loving Canada already!

Excellent start to my time here in Canada – beautiful scenery and a nice temperature to be out and about in!   I’m assured its usually grey and miserable and raining at this time of year but its hard to believe from today’s experience.

Three flights and an inquisition

The day has finally arrived when I say a rather sad but perhaps overdue farewell to Africa, almost 10 months after arriving in Durban.  I won’t prattle on about how wonderful the experience has been (which for the most part it has, although there have been a few negatives, some of them more so than others), but hopefully you’ve read a few of my previous blog entries by now and seen a few photos which should give you some insight into what I’ve seen and done and thought along the way.

So instead I’ll talk about the start of the next leg of my trip, which will sadly be undertaken without my trusty VW campervan whilst it makes its slow progress back to the UK.  The engine is shot, and needs replacing, which will be much easier to arrange back in ‘Blighty (and probably cheaper, despite labour costs being much lower in Africa).

Yesterday I flew (with KLM/Air Kenya) out from Mombasa to Amsterdam (Holland / Netherlands) via Nairobi ; the flight from Mombasa was uneventful but pleasant enough, despite the stupid early start (3am pickup or something from the backpackers place).  The flight up to Amsterdam was frustrating, largely due to the fat tw@t in front of me who insisted on throwing his seat backwards at every opportunity – something that has become a common source of discontent on flights these days and will no doubt result in a big fight one day.  We exchanged a few words after he found he couldn’t push his seat back due to my knees stopping him.  He said if I didn’t like it I should move, despite the fact that he was in the exit row and had plenty of room already.

Anyhow, we didn’t quite come to blows, possibly because the flight ended shortly after our ‘discussion’.

Arriving in Schiphol airport was like a breathe of fresh air – it was so, well, European!  By which I probably just mean familiar, even though I’ve only been to this particular airport once.  I guess I was feeling a bit more homesick than I thought!

And of course, the ‘scenery’ was great, even if it was winter/spring and everyone was wrapped up against the cold, which again, was a huge relief.  I actually had to wear my ski jacket whilst waiting for the pickup organised by my guesthouse.  Excellent!

My bed for the night was a cheap but adequate B&B/guesthouse (Hotel Zwanenburg) a way out of the city centre, far enough away from the infamous Red Light District to prevent me from making the effort to go in and look around – been there, done that.  Plus I was shattered as I can’t sleep when I’m flying.  Arriving

Today I continued my journey, heading west to Vancouver in Canada.  I’m here to spend some time with 2 “awesome” people I met in Namibia, Moreno and Kat, after which I’ll be heading south to explore along the west coast (sorry, seaboard) of the US before returning to Seattle to attend a friends wedding.  Then I fly home and start building my life over again – starting off with getting a job I suppose!

But thats a month off so I am trying not to dwell on such things!  Before all that, I had to get through Candian Immigration…

First stop – the usual passport checks.  The guy there asked a few questions, having checked the stamps in my passport (not too surprising really) and asked where I was staying (“with friends in Vancouver”), when I was leaving (“in about a week, to America, and then back home to the UK about 3 weeks later”), and so on.  I wasn’t too worried at this point as he didn’t seem too interested and soon stamped my passport and waved me through.

That wasn’t too bad, really. And then I got stopped by another official just as I was about to pass through the customs gate.  Bugger.  I don’t know if I had been red flagged or whether or not this was just a random search – he assured me it was the latter but I very much doubt that.

So after waiting for 20 minutes or so it was my turn to be interviewed and man, what a pain that turned out to be!  Basically they weren’t happy about the fact that I had been away from home for so long – they wanted to know how I was funding the whole thing if I wasn’t working, and perhaps more importantly if I could prove that I had a reason to go home – having sold my home, quit my job, and having my sister’s address on all my documentation they were perhaps justifiably curious.

We then got onto my travel plans whilst in Canada and the US ; I mentioned I was going to a friend’s wedding and immediately that opened up another line of questioning for him – how do you know him, how long have you known him, who is he marrying, is he working here, what does he do, who for, where does he live, and so on.

After I had gone through all that, I had to unpack everything in the 2 large bags I was carrying and talk him through everything (clothes, electronics and so on, mostly cameras), and then he came across some laminated copies of my ID – on the back I had Cristina’s ID as well (the intention had been to hand them over to corrupt police at checkpoints in Africa to avoid getting into situations whereby we were at their mercy if we’d given them our original documentation).

So then the questioning went down a different route – why are you carrying this person’s ID?  Where is she?  When I explained that she had gone home and we were no longer ‘together’, he asked whether or not there was any history of violence!  For f*cks sake!!!  I have to admit I was beginning to get a bit annoyed by now and fearful that this was all a prelude to the “well I’m afraid we’re not going to let you in” conversation.  During all this I was trying to get onto the airport’s wifi network so I could let Moreno and Kat know that I was having ‘issues’ (they were waiting for me in Arrivals lounge) and by the way, can I have their mobile number so I can give it to this guy and get him to call them to verify some of this if necessary!

Fortunately though it didn’t come to that – he eventually seemed satisfied and let me go, telling me that he hoped I understood that they have to be sure that people coming in aren’t looking to stay and don’t have criminal records etc.  “Sure, of course” I said, thinking that if I could be bothered I would make an official complaint about some of his lines of questioning once through.

But enough of all that – I was immensely relieved to see Moreno and Kat still waiting for me on the other side.  It was great to see them again but I was slightly disappointed that Moreno had trimmed his beard since getting back from Africa –  I was expecting a full on birds nest by now!

From there it was a short journey back to their flat (or is it apartment or condo?) and time to chill out, catch up, and eat some rather tasty Chinese/Thai takeout (takeaway, for us Brits).

All in all, a tiring couple of days, but I’m actually quite glad to be out of Africa and back in the ‘western’ world again.  Definitely back into my comfort zone!  Except they drive on the wrong side of the road here.  Thats going to be fun when I hire a car in the US 🙂

 

But first – Canada!

PS: Sorry for the lack of photos – I’m sure I’ll make up for it over the next months-worth of blog entries!