Happy Easter in Europe

It's been some time now since I paid any attention to my blog. I have mainly used my time to adjust to the life in Europe. It is such a big contrast from one day sweating in the green jungle in Africa eating fresh bananas to sitting in the tube in London watching the people being busy on their smartphones while dressed in ONLY black! (Seriously, why does everyone have to wear black in Europe??... the Africans at least know their colors :)

In the Finnish forest and yes we still have snow!

But I am happy that it is spring already in Europe and soon it will be all green. My flight from Zambia went smooth and I even had three seats for myself so I could actually sleep :) I stayed only one night in London and my friend's place and then took a plane to Finland, where I have now been for almost three weeks. Here the cold weather was almost a shock to me, I have to tell you that I have been cold every day even though I am wearing four layers of woolen socks! So thank God for the sauna, where I can sweat and feel at home. But I can also luckily admit that I was happy to be able to see some snow this year and go cross country skiing :) It is also very beautiful here and he sun is so bright!

So I do enjoy being back in Finland staying with my parents catching up with friends and family, especially my nephew, who almost did not recognize me... aaaahhhh... This is a sign I need to visit more often... but then again when you are just under two years old I don't know how much you really remember about life.

Princess cake, my favorite :)

My days have been filled with food, food, and food. I just wanted to eat just about everything. So hello extra kilos, time to go! I also celebrated my birthday with my family, which I had not done since 1999 or something like that. I postponed the tedious task of uploading all my 5 million pictures from Africa on my computer but now that is all done as well! I will upload some of them on picasa, which is linked to this blog.

Carl was in love with the Easter bunny.

For Easter my Filipino friend Carl came to visit me and we had a great time eating even more food than usual. Carl found Finland very exotic, especially my village of 500 people. I had not seen Carl for 3 years so this was really nice and it became also my first experience of going to the sauna with a gay guy (we wore towels by the way). You know that if you ever go to Finland, a sauna visit is a must!! Wouldn't be a complete Finland experience without it :)

I only have a few days left in Finland before I head out on new adventures. So I am repacking the bag and spending as much time in the sauna as I can! 

hApPy eAstEr everone!

Lots of witches in town

Bye Bye Africa...

My time in Africa has come to an end. It has been a good journey and spending five months in "the dark Africa" has changed my perception of the continent, the people, and non-profits. I, and I think most of us, have this dark image of Africa, where children is starving, there is aids everywhere and child soldiers shoot at anything moving. The media has us thinking that Africa is just a bad bad place. While all of this is somewhat true, Africa has so much more to offer. To me Africa is beating music, bum shaking mamas, vibrant colours, friendly people, rice and beans, nsima and fish, smiling curious children, tranquility, strong laid-back people, and so on. It might be that this is mainly representing Malawi as I spent most of my time there and of course there is still famine, poor people, corrupt governments, scam cheating charities and all the rest. But the people itself, poor or not, are just like you and me. We all want love, peace and joy. Some might consider that being driving down the street in a ferrari while others might find that in watching a colourful sunset over the sea or sharing a meal with your family whether it is a buffet or a bowl of maize porridge. Being born in the Western world is just luck of the draw but true happiness can be achieved any where, it is just a state of mind. 

Dar es Salaam

Africa, at least the central and eastern part is just beautiful. They are blessed with seasonal fruit and lush green wet seasons. I enjoyed so many fresh mangoes, pineapples, bananas and avocados. To me that is pure luxury, to be able to wake up in the morning and just pick the fruits from the tree. I will miss that.
 

The people are also beautiful. They are so strong. It always amazes me when I see women carrying something like 30 Liter of water on their head up the hill and that little 8 year old girl carrying her 1 year old baby sister on her back. The women are the ones we truly need to applaud in Africa. They are the ones taking care of the family. As they say" if you educate a women you educate a village, if you educate a man, you educate one person". I found this to be very true in Africa and I always tried to buy my vegetables from women and encourage the little shy girls. Lots of women are suppressed in Africa, they have no say, they get no education and have to deal with their lazy drunk husbands. I was actually shocked by the amount of alcohol men drink in Malawi. And when they drink it is like there is no tomorrow. They drink until they cannot stand up any more (maybe a bit like in Finland actually). Like the fishermen. They are out fishing all night, which is very much a hard job, but then

Rain from Victoria Falls

when they come back into shore around sunrise they might sell their fish, fill their stomachs with some nsima (maize flour porridge) and chicken, go to the bar and sit there drinking all day spending all their money on cheap deadly alcohol and maybe have a good time with a prostitute before passing out at noon and maybe finally make it home in the late afternoon with whatever left over money there is. What can I day but TIA (this is africa).

I am not trying to be a feminist but this is just the reality in a lot of African places. I think alcohol destroys so much, not just in Africa but all over the world. It's sad. 

So spending some months in Africa has definitely broaden my horizon. I have, as on all of my trips, learnt and discovered new things about myself and the people and countries around me. I am grateful for all the experiences I had in Africa, good and bad and for staying healthy and malaria free. I met so many interesting and nice people both muzungus (tourists) and locals. I will definitely go back to Africa on day and explore more as there are so many things to see and visit. My highlights were seeing the animals, the masai people, and swimming in Lake Malawi among many other things. I have made some great friends on the way, who I hope to see yet again some day.

Tawonga Malawi, Asante sana Tanzania, and Zikomo Zambia. I had a great time!

...next stop Europe!

 

 

 

Kenya Airways took me back home to Europe. Great airline by the way.

Safaris, Victoria Falls and up close with baboons

It was so good to be back on the road again after staying put in Nkhata-Bay, Malawi for so long. I hopped  on the bus to Lilongwe and managed to hitch a ride the  next day with the Mufasa lodge owner all the way to Chipata on the Zambian side of the border. It is so easy to travel by your own transportation compared to all the mini buses and shared taxis one ends up taking.  

My plan was to go to South Luangwa National Park in Zambia so I got a minibus from Chipata to the park after a long ordeal of hassling the price. By this time I am so not into negotiating prices any more...just give me the real deal man.... but no way... I have to almost have a fight with them to get my moneys worth. Anyways, I ended up paying an ok price. But to get to this park was just a long journey. It is a 130km stretch on a small bumpy dirt road and I thought it would take some time but not 5h! How can one even drive so slow that it takes 5h to do 130km?? Well... on a road like this yeah it is almost faster to bike. I got to the park or Mwufe village in the dark and managed to bumped into the lodge owners of Flatdogs, where I planned to go. However, the nicely informed me that they are not open YET. Oh shit, I thought, I did 5h of bumpy soar bum road for nothing? I have to go back? in the dark? Well.. this is backpacking... you just have to deal with it..things change. But the owners, two pretty young guys, informed me that I can always go to Croc Valley lodge, they are open all year around...but maybe there is nobody else there since it is the low season. Good luck, sionara! (they didn't even give me  a ride...) Luckily, a sweet local women took me to a taxi driver. I was not allowed to walk the 3 km as animals can attack you, besides it was pitch black dark anyways. So I got to Croc Valley and it was completely dark... power cut... and I definitely thought I would be the only one there. But then as I walk to reception, tadaaa, the power came back on lighting up this beautiful place and there was four guys sitting at the bar chatting away. Ah thank god for other backpackers, I thought... now this is way better :)

The five of us ended up having a great time at South Luangwa and we were a good mix, there was one Dane, one Ozzie, one Malaysian, one Brit, and one Finn. A pretty good mix and we were all world travelers :) so we ended up having a good time. We went both on a morning and evening safari. This park is huge about 9000 km2 and even though it was the low season, meaning wet season with high vegetation, we managed to see elephants, giraffes, hippos, wilderbeast, crocodiles, zebras, water hog, so many different birds, impalas, pukus, and then finally at the night drive we saw a young female lion! It was pitch black dark and suddenly the cat came out of no where from the bush right besides up, ran onto the road in front and then walked a bit a head before going off into the bush again... Wow, I got so scared! It is dark, and we are in an open safari truck, and then there is a lion just coming out of the bush right next to us. Ah, I have so much respect for nature and the animals that wiiiieee I leave them alone. Like the elephants. They are huuuuuge and if they get annoyed they can just lift their trunk and hit you... running attack! Well, I don't think that really happens a lot but still, respect man!

I had a great time at Croc Valley http://www.crocvalley.com and I could of easily stayed there for a week. It is a beautiful place, very calm and right at the river where hippos and elephants cross. Fortunately, it was high water in the river so no hippos came to swim in the pool as they usually do. Instead we had a good time there instead.
 
After a couple of days we all where heading different directions. Me and the Brit planned to go to south to Livingstone and the Ozzie and the Malay headed for Malawi. The Dane was lucky enough to have his own bike and went off to Malawi and Tanzania. After a last good meal we said our bye's and me and the Brit tried our luck hitching south to Lusaka. But it was not so much of a luck since no one picked us up so we decided to stay a night in Chipata and then take the 5am morning bus, which we did take the next morning and we even managed to get another bus straight to Livingstone when we got to Lusaka. So we managed to travel almost all of the country in one day, Chipata to Livingstone in 12h, not bad.

Livingstone is where Victoria falls is on the Zambian side.
Vic falls is also the seventh world wonder and I can see why! It is absolutely stunning, especially now in the wet season when million of liter of water runs through the falls. Lots of
power right there! The Zambian side of the falls are beautiful and you are really close to the falls. It is not just one fall but something like 1km of falls on one stretch of cliffs. We were so close to the falls that the mist that comes out of it just pours down like rain. It was fantastic! Just like a shower really. And the sun was shining so beautiful sunny shower :)

I really had a good day there even though I got attacked by a baboon! I stupidly had two bananas in my bag, which of course the baboons can smell right away. And this big male baboon noticed this and when passing me on the trail path he just decided to grab on to my bag and pull it towards him. I freaked, turned around to walk away but I got pulled back by this huge creature and there was not really much I could do. Luckily there were some guys walking by and I managed to get a hold of one of them and just grabbed on to him and screamed. I think I took him by surprise but he acted fast, shouted to the baboon and managed to pull me away. I am not sure if he hit it or not... but it let go of my bag! You can imagen how fast I ate those bananas after that! Waaaaaa.... I was shaken... these baboons are huge! If it could stand straight up it would be even taller than me... Then I also heard afterwards that they can easily bite through your arm and basically do whatever with you as humans have no chance. So that was my up closer with an African baboon.

I also managed to get really up close to a White Rhino the next day when I went on a walking safari in Mosi-ou-tuna nation park at Victoria Falls. This was also quite an experience and a but different than sitting in a safari truck. They do not have any cats in this park but there were dangerous animals like phaetons and the odd charging water buffalo. Luckily, no animals charged us and we did not step on any snakes. It was a pretty calm walking safari but I really like the hiking part and being on the same level as the animals. We saw beautiful giraffe with a small baby and I have to say that the giraffes are my favourite animal. If I could, I would have one in the back yard... they are so graceful and seem to not give a shit.. hahaha.. I like them!

Safari and water falls, that was mainly my taste of Zambia. I had only ten days there but I truly enjoyed it. Lusaka, the capital is not my favourite but I would definitely go back to South Luangwa national park and of course take a shower at Vic Falls again!

Bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe at Victoria Falls. This is also the spot where everyone bungy jumps.