2003 Nova Scotia
A first trip with Zoe to Nova Scotia.
2002 Southern Africa Sojourn
Ex-Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, South Africa, Swaziland & Namibia
At the end of our four-year stint working in Tanzania, Trish and I took a three-month leave of absence to travel in South Africa. Our journey took us:
from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to Mbeya, Tanzania by train,
then we walked over the border into Malawi where we spent four weeks
a two week stint in Zambia before catching a flight to….
South Africa, where we spent 6 weeks on the Baz Bus moving clockwise from Johannesburg to Nelspruit to Durban to Port Elizabeth to Cape Town, and then….
a final sojourn in Namibia to see the sand dunes and a final safari.
Our daughter, Zoe, was stowed away the whole time in utero, and arrived in Canada two months after we did. She claims that she still remembers hearing drums in Johannesburg.
Ex-Tanzania
“Leaving on a slow train….don’t know when I’ll be back again….”
The train from Dar es Salaam to Mbeya, Tanzania took about 24 hours for what might have been a 10-hour drive. But it was a fun way to cross the country one more time again. To cap it off, we ended up taking a bus to the border and walking over to Malawi. A fitting end to nearly four years of living in Tanzania.
Malawi
We never intended to travel for four weeks in Malawi. It just took that long to get around.
Zambia
We had been to Zambia several times for work before, so it was fairly easy going. But we basically made a beeline for Lusaka, and then headed southwest to Livingstone and Victoria Falls. We toyed briefly with carrying on to Zimbabwe, but as is often the case, it was not a happy place at that time, and we didn’t think that adding more tourists to the mix was going to be helpful. So instead, we caught a flight on to Johannesburg.
South Africa
We had the great luxury to spend close to six weeks travelling clockwise around South Africa, with a safari at Kruger National Park and brief detour through what was then called Swaziland. Along the way, we met up with Trish’s Dad in Port Elizabeth and drove along the Garden Route to Cape Town.
Namibia
By the time that we got to Namibia, Trish was likely about 7 months along in her pregnancy, so we took it a bit easier and joined a combo-tour with a driver. We were still camping everywhere, but it was a bit safer than hitching rides in pick-up trucks.
Visiting the dunes was a key highlight of that trip (heck, my life). Amazing shapes and colours.
1998 - 2002 Tanzania
Trish and I lived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania for four years between 1998 and 2002. We saw quite a few places within Tanzania, but also got to visit Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi and South Africa for work and holidays.
Travel within Tanzania
Tanzania was a great place to live because there are so many different ecosystems and cultures within one country. Between trips for work and holidays to cool places like Mount Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar, Pemba, the Ngorongoro Crater, Gombe Stream National Park and Mwanza, we got to see a nice cross-section of the country.
Travel in the Region
Our work involved a number of regional meetings, which allowed us to visit a number of other cities and towns in the neighbouring countries.
A Few Photos
Our time in Tanzania was just before the advent digital photography, meaning that all of my photos from that time were shot on 35 mm film and then printed at the local photo lab in Dar es Salaam. I won’t even attempt to scan and import four years worth of photos, but below I’ll post a few that I can find on hand. Stay tuned.
But in the meantime, feel free to browse through four years of blog posts called A Swahili Lexicon: Words and stories from Tanzania, which include a few low-res photos via Word Documents to PDF. Very old school.
1993 Vancouver to San Francisco by bike
In 1993, I attended an environmental conference near San Francisco, California and decided to add a bike trip afterwards. Originally, I planned to bike north to Vancouver, but after reading the one and only guide book on this route, I understood that the prevailing winds blow from the North to South, so no one rides north. Uh oh…..
….. Having booked my plane ticket already, I devised a brilliant plan to send my bike to friends in Vancouver, attend the conference in California, take a 24-hour bus north to Vancouver to meet my bike, and then bike back to catch my plane in San Francisco…. It all made sense from my apartment in Ottawa.
Of course, once I reached Vancouver, I decided to head North along the Sunshine Coast before crossing over to Vancouver Island. I then biked down the island to Victoria, caught the ferry to Port Angeles, Washington, and biked down Highway 101 through Oregon and California.
The entire trip took about 5 weeks, and I averaged about 80 km / day. Along the way, I ended up travelling with two other Canadians and two Australians, with whom I shared campsites, meals and company.
The photos below were shot on a small compact film camera that I carried in my front bag. This is one of the most stunning coastlines that I’ve seen, and still a popular bike touring route.
