Answers to Brain Teasers Featured in Okavango Delta Blog

And here are the answers, finally, to the Brain Teasers featured in our Okavango Delta blog entry in May 2011:

Q. How do you turn 182 into a number less than 20 when you can only move 2 sticks (and you must re-use these sticks elsewhere).

A. Move the two vertical sticks from the 8 to form 13 1/2.

Q. How do you fit ten people into 9 rooms.

A. Rather than 10 physical people, try TEN PEOPLE (9 letters fit nicely into 9 boxes).

Q. How do you make the rubbish in this picture appear to be off the shovel when you can only move and reuse 2 sticks.

A. Push the stick at the top of the handle up so that the handle becomes a side of the shovel and one side becomes the new handle, then move remaining side of the shovel to its new position:

The Last Stand

We arrived into Johannesburg at 8am in the morning and again were delighted to have arrived back into a country that just works. Even though we feared repercussions from the recent strikes which affected petrol supplies, we got into a taxi immediately who was happy to agree to a good price and took us quickly to Purple Palms in Kempton Park. We were even more delighted to discover that the wifi here was free and fast. To be able to shop in the local supermarket again for less than a couple of pounds a day was also very exciting (especially when we bought a bucket load of wine and some Cadbury's!).

So we have spent our last couple of days just catching up on the blog (in the knowledge that with a wedding coming up we simply won't do that back home) and sleeping. We are exhausted. No one tells you how much hard work travelling can be. I know it sounds stupid when you have also lazed on a beach for days on end. But we are tired of moving around all the time and looking forward to coming home.

But we also knew that we wanted to see Soweto so on our final full day we headed off on a tour. Eric our guide took us first past Soccer City where the final of the 2010 World Cup was held and then we drove on to Soweto.

South Western Township only became known as Soweto in 1963 and today has 3 classes living in it. The rich, who live in very nice individual houses in an area nick-named Beverley Hills. An area that doesn't need security fencing as they have a good neighbourhood watch system. An area that is also still 100% black. Eric laughed as I said I might move there it looked so nice and said I would gain an entry into the Guinness Book of Records if I did. But this area still looks over onto temporary hostels that house large families in single rooms. That don't have electricity because the government is desperately trying to move them out into proper homes rather than wasting money on short term solutions. They have chemical toilets only and fetch their water from outside each day.

The middle classes live in matchbox houses, red brick 4 roomed buildings just like the ones occupied by Desmond Tutu and previously by Nelson Mandela. These houses are permanent, have electricity and water on meters but most still have outside toilets, some still long drops.

The poor are still sadly in tin shacks. Just one room for a full family. Shacks made of anything they can find from salvaged buses, to carpets thrown out by building sites. However most of these areas have proper long drop toilets where they used to have chemical ones and the government is doing its best to move people out quickly as part of its Renovation Development Project. It is just taking time to build the new properties unfortunately. And sadly, Eric told us that people are still abusing the system of free housing which is impacting on those that truly need it. People are the same the world over.

The tour took us through the site of the Soweto shootings in 1976 where Hector Pieterson was immortalised by a photograph of his body being carried after being shot by police during the student protests against Afrikaans being used as a medium of instruction.

The Hector Pieterson museum is actually very good and seemed to me to be as unbiased as possible towards the subject. But perhaps it is best for people to visit for themselves and to draw their own conclusions.

It was a fitting end to our BigTrip. We fly home in a few hours.

It's been fantastic, all of it. Even the tough parts. But I'll save our reflections for one final blog...

Testies Survival Kit: Sewing Kit

ITEM USED: Sewing Kit

COUNTRY USED IN: Everywhere!

CHALLENGE OVERCOME: All things that needed sewing.

I have used the sewing kit in my Testies Survival Kit more than any other item. Here is a list of what it's been used for:

Sewing button back on Sean's shorts

Putting button back on my trousers

Sewing the bottom of an elephant (toy made in Malawi given as gift to Niece and Nephew)

Sewing a 'hook' into Sean's 20p hat from Thailand so that I could clip it onto a bag so that we didn't leave it behind. This hook eventually wore out so I replaced it with a better one using part of a ribbon from Brazil given to us as a friendship bracelet by Gustav on the Trans-Siberian.

Sewing up my shorts after I ripped them on a protruding nail on a chair

Fixing a seam in Sean's 'Jesus Shirt'

And had it not been in the stolen backpacks, I would have also used it to sew up my only pair of trousers after I ripped those on a protruding nail also, and sewed up the top of the bag we bought from PEP to carry the few items we then had left after it came apart within hours of purchase. As it was I had to pay one of the many men on the streets of Mozambique with old Singer machines to fix the bag which cost me more than the bag itself as he happened not to have change (surprise!).

Best Testies Survival Kit item? Probably.

Pemba - Take 2

Now this is more like it.

I've noted before in this blog (and, indeed, in life generally) that sometimes you get things wrong. Yes, even me. So it was that our decision not to stay at the Pemba Dive and Bushcamp on our initial visit to Pemba has proven to be a poor call on our part. Had Jen and I stayed here pre-Ibo as well as post-Ibo, not only would we be in possession of a much higher proportion of our personal belongings, but we would have been able to enjoy the tranquil surrounds, beachfront bar, stunning food and superb hospitality of this wonderful place for more than just the couple of days.

Already feeling supremely contented after our magical few days on and around Ibo, our evening arrival at the bushcamp was greeted with two immediate mood-enhancers - a secure double room (even better than the twin bush hut we'd requested) and a red meat feast the likes of which we'd not had for a long, long time.

With just days of our odyssey remaining, we were well past the point of wanting to make plans or sight see and instead were all about the relaxation, which is predominantly what we've done here. On our last day today we did have one - rather naive - hope, which was to make a third and final attempt to get a copy of our police report from the World's Finest Police Department (TM). Inevitably, that didn't happen, firstly for the previously stated reasons of "secrecy" and then secondly because it had been moved from one department to another and the man with the key was out of town. They promised that if we came back "tomorrow" we'd definitely, absolutely, positively get a copy of the report. They'd said that the previous two times as well. It was irrelevant, of course - we are flying out to Johannesburg in a matter of hours, and I'd bet whatever you liked that if we did show up tomorrow we'd leave with exactly as many copies as we have on any previous occasion.

But meh, this place is way, way too nice to be worrying about small negatives like that. Owners Rudi and Brenda, and onsite manager Lynn could not be more helpful, while their chef is some kind of genius. Ok, he keeps it simple - get lots of meat, perfectly cook lots of meat, serve lots of meat - but it's just an epic win all round. I've managed to lose something like 15kg over the course of this trip, but I reckon I've put at least half that back on in the past three days. All while watching the sunset over the water, or drinking beer by the campfire, or just generally being in a state of uber-relaxed bliss.

So here we are, Jen and I, ready to fly to Jo'Burg for our final stop but sad to be leaving so soon. Our lack of a camera charger means we're saving the battery for a planned trip to Soweto, and have no photos of this place, so you'll just have to take our word for it.

Pemba Dive and Bushcamp, the perfect end to our Mozambican chapter.

Things Jennie will remember:

1) Playing chess with Sean in the big games room (and beating him on the last occasion!)

2) Reading Purple Hibiscus on the private beach

3) Meeting Anita and Ven again (who we'd first bumped into on Ibo)

4) Amarula

5) Our final fresh coconut

6) The generosity of Rudi and Brenda. They didn't have to care as much as they did. But they did. And we thank them for it.

Testies Survival Kit: Fishing Line

ITEM USED: Fishing Line

COUNTRY USED IN: Mozambique

CHALLENGE OVERCOME: Hunger

Mozambique is famed for its seafood. So of course, I had to use the fishing line from my wonderful Testies Survival Kit to hook myself some of that!

First I had to figure out how to put the thing together! Turns out that the hooks get tied onto the clear wire. Then you have to tie in one of the balls as a weight a few inches above the hook. Then to the end of the fishing wire you tie one of the 'spinners' (the little metal clasps) to prevent the wire from tangling. Then you tie the rope to the other end of the spinner and hey presto, you're all set to go.

Off I set onto my dhow into the mangroves of Ibo Island. And waited. And waited.

Of course, sometimes you don't catch fish:

But then, sometimes you do:

And sometimes you just cheat and buy them when you get home:

However you get hold of it, the seafood in Mozambique is worth the effort!

Paradise Archipelago

Booking a private transfer to the Quirimbas Archipelago turned out to be the Best. Decision. Ever.

The road to Tandanhangue is long, unsealed, rocky, dusty and full of pot holes. But this didn't phase me at all in my nice plush minibus for 5 with leg room galore. We arrived in 3 hours (which would have taken twice as long by public chapa) and our motorised private dhow was waiting for us. In we hopped, noting how much care the captain took over wrapping everyone's bags in a plastic cover and off we sped through the mangroves. Turns out the slightest wind and a motorised boat means water splash. And that's why the bags were wrapped up so. But Sean and I didn't care as we got soaked. We'd made it to Ibo. We'd made it.

We met Pip and Sandy on our journey to Ibo, who became our travelling companions for our days on the island. They both work for Médecins Sans Frontières and are stationed in Harare at the moment. Sandy is from Vancouver and Pip from England but hasn't lived there for many years now having been a key figure at Haiti and other such posts where medical assistance is urgently required.

Since we were in the splashing out kind of mood we stayed at Miti Miwiri in a lovely 4 poster bed room.

We settled in and then headed off for a stroll around Ibo town. The town is very similar to Mozambique Island, including being similarly ghostly. The mangroves are more prevalent here and their fort is smaller, but no less beautiful.

And silver is the thing that they do here and so we watched them make the intricate jewellery and were reminded of Inle Lake in Myanmar (although we noted there it was all female and here it was all male workers).

The food here is also fantastic, with no shortage of decent chefs. Our first night we dined on soup and crayfish covered in a delicious barbecue salsa, finished with a shot of some tasty liquor.

One major activity to do here is to walk through the mangrove at low tide to the neighbouring island of Quirimbas. So at 7.30am the next day off we set. It's an incredible 3 hour walk and you have to go quickly, because the last thing you want it to get stuck when the tide comes in. The first half is all through the mangroves, splashing your way through the mud and puddles, minding out for the crabs and mangrove roots. The scenery then changes as you walk through a water channel over rock pools of small fish, caught until the tide returns. And then it opens up into a vast plain of sand where you can see the far off tide, but gasp as it catches up to you so quickly as you walk. At one point we waded through a channel of incoming tide that went up to my waist - we had obviously dawdled!

I learned that the mangrove has a stick-like pod that when ready drops to the floor. If the pod sticks into the ground vertically then a new tree will grow and if not, well better luck next time.

I had a mudpack on my arm which came up silky smooth. And we bumped into some local ladies (who initially ran away screaming) but then allowed us to take their photos. The youngest had mussiro on her face, a white paste used as a sunscreen or beauty treatment, the patterns of which can denote marital status and other things. Again, reminding me of the ladies at Inle Lake.

As we approached the island of Quirimbas we gasped at its beauty. The waters were turquoise and warm, the ladies carried heavy loads of wood on their head from the mangrove, the fishermen gathered their nets and the beaches stretched forever. We spent a pleasant hour walking around the village meeting the local children, drinking fresh coconut juice, gazing at the baobab trees before returning to the beach to laze there until the tide was in and we could charter a dhow back to Ibo.

That night Sean and I dined at African Pot with Pip and Sandy, Fabian and Augustina (a couple who we met the night before at our lodge) on a starter of crab quiche, followed by the most sumptuous goat we've ever had - it was so tender and juicy, served with matapa and rice and finished with a chocolate tart.

We thought our days couldn't get any better, but they could! For the next day we got a boat to the nearby sandbank. This was just desert island dreams. There is nothing but this sandbank, surrounded by washed up shells and corals and turquoise seas. It's a shame again that the tide comes and makes this bank disappear otherwise we'd have happily stayed for hours.

We had originally intended to follow the sandbank with a trip to another island called Matemo but the winds had started to pick up and our captain said we had to head back. Flipping heck had the winds picked up! We struggled to even get back onto the boat as it swelled in the waves. A few minutes out on the sea and we were drenched from the spray and the waves. It was absolutely the most fun! The boat rocked and rolled. The waves swept over us. And I screamed with delight.

When we got back to the hotel, Laura, whom we had met on the journey from Mozambique Island to Pemba arrived at our lodge. It was great to catch up and spend our last few hours with her.

The moon that evening was full and beautiful and it shone over the buildings with an almost orange haze. It's a shame my camera was almost out of battery since the camera charger was in our stolen bags and I wasn't able to capture the moon in all its glory. I'll certainly remember it though at the end of the street, big and bright and stunning. We ate at Miti Miwiri that night on bruschetta, prawn pumpkin and coconut pie before I got beaten at chess by the headmaster of Matemo school. I hadn't played in years, and he knew all the text book moves since he practises mostly against his computer! I didn't stand a chance.

But again our time here had gone all too quickly and it was already time to leave. We finished our last morning with breakfast at Cinco Portas on homemade breads, peanut butter, bacon, fresh fruits and eggs, said goodbye to Laura and hopped back into our dhow.

These islands are amazing. If you ever get a chance to go, do it. And do it in style too, it's worth the extra few dollars.

Here are the photos:

BT87_Quirimbas Archipelago 14 - 16 July 2011

* Thank you to Sandy for allowing me to take a copy of all her photos, some of which are used in this blog

The Bare Necessities

So we haven't quite made it to Ibo yet.

Jen and I have been staying, as you know, at a backpacker establishment known as Russell's Place (named after the owner) but its other name is Pemba Magic Lodge. We now know why the place is "magic" - two nights ago our backpacks mysteriously disappeared without trace from our dorm room. Thankfully Jen and I had our valuable stuff - money, passports, laptop, camera with us in the bar at the time of the theft and so haven't lost any of that. We've just - rather tediously - lost our clothes, shoes, toiletries and - most annoyingly - all the little trinkets and souvenirs and presents we'd picked up in Africa over the past six months. Nothing world-ending to lose, but bloody annoying nonetheless. Jen's been shopping today for a change of clothes and some toiletries, but it is safe to say that we're right down to the bare necessities now. How very hardcore of us.

How did this happen, you may ask? Well the dorm we were was built onto the top of a shipping container and so while it had stairs, it didn't actually have a door (which in Africa is pretty standard on dorm rooms). That being said, it was upstairs and out of plain view, and our backpacks were chained by travel lock to our bed. Compare this to a number of the campers in Russell's establishment who were simply in unsecured tents with bags lying unprotected next to them and you can see our suspicion - we were by no means the easiest or most convenient target, and yet somehow our bags seem to have been specifically targeted by someone who knew they were there. The "guard" to our dorm was apparently asleep and somehow the thieves (because there had to be more than one) escaped completely unnoticed.

Now I don't want to go slinging around claims like "it was an inside job."

But the inescapable conclusion is that it was an inside job.

Russell isn't actually here at the moment and his manager Rafael has been handling things. And by "handling" I mean making a half-arsed attempt to seem concerned whilst telling Jen (twice) that "maybe if we gave a little money the bags would show up again." It was unclear to Jen whether he was asking for the money himself, or just indicating that this is the way things work around here, but it's lucky for both Rafael and myself that he said that to Jen, and not me. Had he said it to me he would now be in hospital, and I would now be in jail for assault and GBH. It's actually quite galling to still be staying here, but we've had to remain here so that our dealings with the police could go more smoothly and they knew where and how to contact us. We have, at least, been moved to a different room.

Speaking of the Mozambican police, well it's been reassuring that in a week of such distress and confusion they have been all we expected them to be - bureaucratic, unhelpful and generally incompetent. They are also refusing to give us a copy of the police report we signed, due to it now being "secret." Telling them that it's not actually a secret from us given that we're the ones who wrote it (translating everything we lost into Portuguese no less!) and signed it has so far proved unsuccessful and, I daresay, will continue to remain so. While in the police station for the third time I actually saw a list of cases under police investigation where someone had been caught and arrested. Having seen these guys in action I was genuinely stunned - how bad a criminal do you have to be to actually get caught by these mugs?

It would be remiss of me not to mention Hywel and Megan here - introduced by Jen in the previous entry - who have been absolute champions over the past couple of days. They've bought us drinks, assisted us with the police, Hywel even offered me clothes...and most brilliant of all they've just cooked us the most stunning seafood feast on the basis that they didn't want our memories of this place to be negative. Having also had such a good (albeit brief) time with James and Sam on Mozambique Island, we can only think that the house the four of them shared in Malawi must have been a fantastic place to live.

And in the spirit of not letting such an incident have a negative impact on our trip, we have decided that tomorrow we're going to go across to Ibo and the Quirimbas Archipelago anyway, and what's more we're going to get to the boat on a private 4WD transfer rather than a seven-hour chapa ride. I reckon we've earned that.

A final mention though, to our dear Russell and his truly "magic"place. I've done quick count and by my reckoning we've so far this year found accommodation at 122 different hotels, hostels, guesthouses, homestays and campsites. At 121 of those we haven't been robbed.

Take a bow Russell. Take a bow.