Tsitsikamma to Tataouine

Inspired by the way Jeff & Kerryn-lee (Pass the Map) documented their 2012 expedition through Southern Africa with infographics, we were inspired to do the same. So each Tuesday we will be posting a summary infographic, in the order of our route, and today's one is for Rwanda! Check out the others here. Our time in Rwanda was way too short but in those few days we packed an amazing amount of experiences, met people who will be friends for life and more than anything were in awe of this country's rise from the ashes. We can't wait to go back!

Inspired by the way Jeff & Kerryn-lee (Pass the Map) documented their 2012 expedition through Southern Africa with infographics, we were motivated to do the same. So each Tuesday we will be posting a summary infographic, in the order of our route, and today's one is for Tanzania!

No matter how organised you are it’s inevitable that you’ll forget something when you go camping. Here’s a list of 10 camping hacks that may come in handy:

Buzzfeed ‘41 Genius Camping Hacks...’

Care 2 '13 surprising uses for honey'

Green Moxie '16 Brilliant camping hacks...'

Craft Foxes 'Ingenious Camping Hacks Crafters Will Love'

Buzzfeed ‘23 Simple And Essential Hiking Hacks’

Your Camping Expert 'How To Open A Can Without A Can Opener'

Living the nourished life '12 Natural Toothpaste Alternatives'

Buzzfeed ‘41 Genius Camping Hacks...’

Brian's Backpacking Blog 'Navigating Without a Compass'

Instructables 'Turn a Can Tab into a Survival Fish Hook'

30 seconds of your time could mean £500000 to help the communities & mountain gorillas of Virunga! All you need to do is vote for the Virunga Foundation in Google's Impact Challenge:  https://impactchallenge.withgoogle.com/uk2014/charity/virunga

Inspired by the way Jeff & Kerryn-lee (Pass the Map) documented their 2012 expedition through Southern Africa with infographics, we were motivated to do the same. So each Tuesday we will be posting a summary infographic, in the order of our route, and today's one is for Malawi!

Inspired by the way Jeff & Kerryn-lee (Pass the Map) documented their 2012 expedition through Southern Africa with infographics, we were motivated to do the same. So each Tuesday we will be posting a summary infographic, in the order of our route, and today's one is for Zambia!

They created some incredible infographics summarising their stay in each country: 

We LOVE them! Don't you think it's a fantastic way to create something frameable that gives much more detail in the same space than a photo would? So we were inspired to do something similar...

After checking with Jeff and Kerryn-lee we did and each Tuesday we'll be posting our infographics in order of our route. Hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed Jeff and Kerryn-lee's!

There’s absolutely no doubt that Tanzania offers some of the most spectacular scenery and wildlife viewing opportunities in the world. The country has pristine white sanded and blue watered beaches, clichéd but very much real island paradises, baobabs in open savannahs, the annual Wildebeest migration, the continent’s largest mountain and two lakes so big they have inland beaches. Yet Tanzania is so much more than just these natural wonders. We spent a night in Moshi that illustrated this perfectly…  We’d been to Tanzania four times before and not seen Kilimanjaro, except from the airplane, and decided we just couldn’t go for a fifth time and not at least briefly cast an eye on her. So from our stop at Mkoma Bay on the east coast at Pangani we headed inland to Moshi to see the famous mountain. We were lucky enough to make friends with another guest at Mkoma Bay who lives in Moshi and not only offered to lead the 380km from Pangani to Moshi but also a spot to camp for the night! We gladly followed Musi and Marie through the never ending roadworks (by now the same road must be in tip top condition) with our sense of excitement growing as we got closer, metre by metre, to Kilimanjaro. From a 100km outside of Moshi we started looking out for Africa’s largest mountain and were more than a little confused that the world’s largest free standing mountain was by now not immediately evident! It turns out this fact is true but made difficult to see by the fact that the area around Kilimanjaro is covered with mountain ranges, it’s just that none of these actually connect to Kilimanjaro itself.  It didn’t help that is was a very rainy and cloudy day but as we drove into Moshi we could at last see at least the bottom of the world famous Kilimanjaro! As the locals say, we just needed to wait for her to lift her skirt and reveal herself in all her splendid glory.  Musi led us through Moshi to our camping spot for the night and after setting and cleaning ourselves up we headed out to catch some Moshi nightlife. We all piled into Musi’s car and headed to Glacier Bar, a massive house converted into several bars, restaurants and even fashion booths with a big open area in the middle where the party happens. As luck would have it the big event on at Glacier’s that night was the Redds Fashion Unibash. The fashion show is aimed at show-casing young designers from the country’s universities and offers cash prizes to those judged as having the best designs on the night. In between the fashion, all modelled by the Miss and Mr Tanzania contestants, the massive crowd was entertained by Joh Makini live in action.

Photo by Issa Michuzi

After an excellent dinner of nyama choma (grilled meat) we grabbed a drink and headed straight into the thriving mass of people surrounding the stage. The all-Tanzanian live line-up busted out Bongo Flava beats that kept the crowd literally jumping. And that included us! Bearing in mind that we’re old now and thumping club scenes are not really our bag anymore, the music has to be quite something for us to keep going – but that it certainly was. So much so we were almost disappointed when it stopped so the fashion show could start. That feeling passed the second the incredibly energetic MC stepped on stage with the phrase ‘Nice, nice, nice’, one we would hear countless more times that night. All the designs were modern, fashion forward and unmistakably African, but our favourites were most definitely the brightly coloured formal men’s wear. 

Photo by Issa Michuzi

Photo by Issa Michuzi

Despite slightly sore heads we awoke bright and early the next morning and jumped out from under our mosquito nets hoping to at last see Kilimanjaro in all her glory. Alas she was still hiding and for all we know there could have been a golf course or an ocean under all those clouds. After as many delays as possible, all aimed at giving the clouds time to disappear, we eventually headed to our next destination without having laid eyes on her. There was no sense of disappointment though since Moshi had delivered so many unexpected and unique experiences, more than making up for its hiding mountain.   The entire Moshi encounter, from our generous host and now friend, to the slick and home-grown fashion event, is a great metaphor for Tanzania today: a vibrant, energetic, colourful, modern and cutting edge society that has so much more to offer than just safaris. 

Meet Jeff and Kerryn-lee who, in 2012, embarked on a 22,500 km journey over 150 days, through  South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. This trip became the beginning of a much larger journey for them as global travelers and bloggers, and you can follow their exploits at http://www.passthemap.com/

To remember the journey that started it all they created some incredible infographics summarising their stay in each country. 

And they inspired us to do the same! We think it's a fantastic way to create something frameable that gives much more detail in the same space that a photo would.  

So each Tuesday we'll be posting our per country summary infographics in order of our route. Hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed Jeff and Kerryn-lee's!