Into the heart of darkness

It was all just too tempting. Here we were, sitting on the white sand beaches of Lake Kivu, a place of pure serenity and beautiful views on the western edge of Rwanda. It should have been the kind of paradise that grabs hold of you and won't let you go. But the horizon was beckoning. Every time we glanced to the right, we caught a glimpse of a volcano spewing smoke into the air. At night, we were told -- and later confirmed with our own eyes -- it glows red, thanks to the molten lava still churning inside its hollow peak, like a real-life scene from Mordor.

As if that weren't enough, the volcano lies in one of earth's forbidden lands: the Congo. We had no choice. We had to get closer.

We had read in our guidebook that the Congo is the genuine heart of darkness, the setting for Conrad's novel and the location of some of the world's most unsettling political follies. There was Mobutu, a man who robbed his nation in brazen acts like chartering a Concorde to fly to Disney Land or hitting up the head of the state mining company for $150-million in spending cash for a trip to Paris. Mobutu's downfall created a void that dragged nine nations into a war that, by its numbers at least, made the Rwandan genocide look petty. By the time it had calmed down -- which is now; "calm" being a relative term in this part of the world -- 3 million Congolese had died.

Adding to the tragedy for the citizens of Goma, the town nearest the Rwandan border where we were, was that volcano. It erupted in 2002 and poured rivers of ruby-red lava down the streets of what was once among the country's richest towns, setting fire to its villas and decimating livelihoods.

We had to see it for ourselves. So this morning we hiked to the border, exited Rwanda and headed for the unknown. The principal language in the Democratic Republic of Congo is French, a language its citizens speak fluently, a breath of fresh air from the stuttering French and English we've encountered in other African nations. After being dragged into the offices of the border post chief, who gave us a quick tongue-wagging about obtaining visas in Canada and "surprising" them at the border, we marched to the offices of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Foundation, where we were told we would find an Englishman we had met the night before. He was there, and set us up with a taxi driver who wouldn't rip us off. We headed for the town.

It didn't take long to reach the lava flow, which had dried into a mess of black volcanic rock that made it look like hell's gravel quarry. But far from being dead, Goma was rebuilding and the rocks had been piled into dark fences that surrounded new houses (shacks might be a better description) with gleaming tin roofs. Life looked remarkably normal -- families shopping at markets, women walking around with huge loads of goods on their heads, children playing: typical African scenes.

We had been told that Goma was safe, which is why we went. Still, our taxi driver told us he lived "par la priere a Dieu" -- by prayer to God -- and explained to us that rebels and military deserters who lived in town could well be spying on him, and might show up at his place that night with guns to demand the money he got from the mzungus: us. People, he said, were shot every day in Goma. Apparently even "safe" is a relative term when it comes to the Congo.

We drove around for a few hours before heading for the nicest restaurant in town, which was a piece of tranquility amidst the grubby craziness of Goma's streets. We had a delicious meal -- the French influence has apparently extended even to Goma -- next to the waters of Lake Kivu. Lake Kivu is the most relaxing place we have found in Africa, and it did us good to slow down beside the water for a while. Had we known what we would find here, we would have devoted several more days to this place. If there was any way to change the ticket, I would have loved to have summitted the volcano, an overnight hike that brings you to within spitting distance of the lava. As it is, we're leaving tomorrow for Kigali, where we'll catch a flight to Arusha in Tanzania, the base for our next safari. There have been times during this trip where five weeks seemed far too long, and I longed to fly back to London. Today five weeks seems far too short.

Lake Kivu

Just a short one, because we're short on time. We trekked to see the mountain gorillas yesterday. Huffed and puffed through the 8,000-ft-elevation air for just over an hour up a steep mountainside, past farmer's terraced fields and through dense bamboo stands, and then stopped to drop our bags. Walked another 10 feet and there they were -- the gorillas. About a dozen of them, hanging out in a clearing. The only twins ever born to the mountain gorillas playing around on the shrubs. A big silverback glaring at us. Mothers yawning, showing off lion-ish teeth that look awfully sharp for a vegetarian species. We snapped and snapped and snapped away -- we only had an hour and wanted to make the best of it. Got a couple shots I'm not entirely embarrassed of.

Today we're in Gisenyi, a town on Rwanda's Lake Kivu that serves as the country's domestic resort centre. Haven't seen the lake yet but got a cheap and clean room at a local Presbyterian church. We're within spitting distance of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and a large volcano that mowed over one of its cities in 2002. Amazing the things you don't hear about in North America.

Got here on a mini-bus so jam-packed with locals that the only space for my enormous -- and heavy -- backpack was on my lap. So we bounced around winding mountain roads, me using all my strength to keep from having my bag fall into the guy next to me. They packed us in 4 across into a skinny little mini-bus. It seems the craziest African experiences are on the roads, but I'm starting to dig it. We ran into a Dutch guy who said he found this place such a breath of fresh air after living in such a stifling, controlled country like Holland. I guess there's something to be said for embracing the looseness. Africa's kind of cool.

Mo's turn: On the Road to Rwanda

Most of what you've been reading is Nathan's attempts to shove his thoughts into words. But that, of course, is only half the story -- and Mo's usually more insightful anyways. Here's her take on our last 24 hours.

So after a pretty eventful bus ride out of Uganda, we’ve finally made it to Rwanda. Nathan and I were unable to get tickets on the “executive” bus between the two countries, so we ended up having to travel on what essentially was a death trap on wheels. We were crammed in three people to a row, with the bus being so full that latecomers were stuck standing in the aisle for the 10 hour trip along bumpy and windy roads. I don’t know how much better the executive bus would have been, as we took one between Nairobi and Kampala and were still given the free African massage (aka having your internal organs reorganized by the bumps on the road and lack of suspension in the bus). Definitely an experience to remember. I’m glad we chose to do that over flying.

Because we’re traveling by road, we had to get off the bus and cross the border on foot. As Nathan and I made our way across, I couldn’t help but imagine what the Rwandan / Ugandan border must have looked like exactly 13 years ago to this month with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the genocide, set up in camps trying to make their way across. Despite everything they’ve been through, the country seems to be rebuilding itself at a remarkable rate and although we haven’t spent that much time here yet, it seems that for the large part, people have been able to put the past behind them. Most of the refugees returned and they seem to have brought back lots of new immigrants with them. We’ve met quite a few people from the Congo and Uganda. It makes communicating pretty interesting as people are forced to try and speak with each other in what is often their second or third language. People also seem a lot friendlier here to foreigners than in Uganda, and I feel like we’re also getting extra special treatment from people when they find out we’re Canadians.

Rwanda is very much as I had imagined it to be. Lots of rolling green hills and with a far more European flare to it than any other country that we’ve visited so far. However, I am surprised by how few people speak French even though it is one of the official languages. In part that’s because French is not taught until secondary school and very few Rwandans make it that far through the education system. Unfortunately, many schools were destroyed and a large percentage of teachers were killed during the genocide, leaving Rwanda with an illiteracy rate of over 50%. This afternoon Nathan and I are heading off to the genocide memorial site, so we’ll get to find out a lot more about it. There are genocide memorial sites all over the country, some left in the same condition that they were in when it ended.

Tomorrow we head off to the town of Ruhengiery so we can get ready for our early morning gorilla trek on Saturday. In typical fashion, Nathan and I have decided to try and track the furthest, but largest, group of gorillas. We’ll probably end up having to hike/crawl through the brush for 5-6 hours and potentially climb up to 3000 meters. I’m sure Dian Fossey would be proud =). It should be worth it as there are supposed to be up to 30 gorillas in that group. I just hope that we only run into the animal variety!

Africa sucks

I have no trouble saying that this is the hardest travelling I have ever done. Not that I am a hugely seasoned traveller – but these countries we are passing through are far more foreign than any other place I have been to.

And it all seems to come down to the one unavoidable fact about a person like me on a continent like this: my skin is white, and it’s never been more apparent -- especially given where we've come from. Where we are taught to ignore skin colour, our experience here has been completely different. Everywhere we go, we are greeted by shouts of "mzungu! mzungu!" -- mzungu being the Swahili word for white man. We are told it's not pejorative, and much of the time it's shouted in a happy tone by people who want to shake our hand and then make a friendly pitch for us to buy a cab ride or Coke or trinket. We also get a lot of stares -- especially Mo, whose appearance seems to have struck the fancy of just about every man we pass here. My presence does not appear to be an obstacle to their expressions of appreciation -- whistles, cat-calls, kissing noises and the like.

But for the most part, we had found that it's all pleasant enough.

That was, until our last night in Kampala. Tired after a bruising day of rafting in nearby Jinja, we came back to the city at 5 p.m. and had to while away the hours until our early morning bus to Kigali, Rwanda left. We headed first for the bus operator's office, to buy tickets. We had hoped to be on the 2 a.m. departure, which was an "executive" bus that had two reclining seats to a side. But it was full, so we ended up in cattle class, on a bus with two plus three non-reclining seats that left at 3 a.m. We had a lot of hours left to kill, so we headed downtown for a bite to eat. Dusk came quickly upon us as we walked, and it was difficult to see. All we could make out in the headlights of the mad Kampala traffic were the silhouettes of a swarming throng of people heading up the sidewalk toward us. We were engulfed in people, and it felt a bit like being dragged underwater in the rapids. We needed air -- space -- but there was none to be found. The sidewalks were uneven, people were pushing, we couldn't go out into the street since doing so would likely end in death, and it seemed endless.

Adding to the troubles were the sidestreets we had to cross. In Kampala, like most of Africa, stop signs aren't just optional -- they appear not to exist at all. One takes one's own life in one's hands crossing the street, and you have to time your jog across for the half-second between the over-crowded minibuses and the kamikaze motorbike taxis. It all sounds fun enough, except when you're already surrounded by that huge crush of people -- and you're trying to stay together with your wife. At the same time, you are being hassled by every taxi driver you pass. It was infuriating, and a bit panic-inducing. It took 45 minutes to escape the people, and a few more for my heart rate to return to normal.

After dinner -- the Indian presence in Uganda provides for some very tasty restaurants -- we headed for the bus station, and arrived just before midnight to find the power out and dozens of people sitting on the cement parking lot in the pitch black. A single candle lit up a small restaurant area; the drivers were attempting to load the buses with their cell phones as lights. I eventually pulled out my flashlight to try to make their lives a little easier, and to help pass the time.

When we did board the bus, it was a scene of mass confusion. People pushing to get their bags checked. People shoving to get on. We found our seats -- which were assigned, thankfully -- and sat down. They had oversold the bus, so people were standing in the aisles. We, however, were beside an empty seat for a good 45 minutes. That was long enough to hear just about the whole bus talking in loud voices, their speech regularly punctuated with "mzungu." We knew they were talking about us, since we were the only non-Africans on the entire bus. We knew we had an open seat beside us, and that people must have been trying to see who drew the short straw and had to sit beside us. But we had no idea what people were actually saying -- and not a single person talked to us directly. It's an entirely unpleasant feeling to be the topic of a loud conversation among people who don't even show the decency to address you in person. We were furious, and wanted to scream out at them to shut up -- save that we didn't know how.

We were also furious when, in line at the border to get to Rwanda, we were routinely cut off by people who shoved themselves in front of us. This place functions in a state of continuous, loosely-organized anarchy, and for a couple who comes from as orderly a place as Canada, it is difficult. I am not sure if people are being rude, and perhaps it is culturally condescending or insensitive to feel as much. But when you feel like such a target for people's impolite gestures and conversation in foreign languages -- it's hard not to feel as much.

In any case, we made it safely to Kigali. Tired from 10 hours on the bus without much sleep, we took our own turn at being impolite -- at least, as much as our Canadian upbringings would allow for -- as we shouldered aside the horde of salesmen at the bus stop and grabbed a taxi for our hotel. It was, thankfully, clean and staffed by welcoming people. We talked to a Ugandan here who said even she could only stomache the Kampala madness for three days at a time before needing to get out again, and it felt good to know we weren't the only ones.

And Rwanda feels more relaxed, and the people fairly pleasant. We're looking forward to the days we have to spend here, and are feeling more relaxed already. Our first stop, however, will be a difficult one. We're heading to the genocide memorial centre here. I'm sure it will provide plenty to reflect on.

We fought the Nile . . .

. . . and the Nile won. Well, sort of. We woke up this morning, threw caution to the wind and boarded a bus for Jinja, a small Uganda community perched at the mouth of the Nile on Lake Victoria. The town itself is cute but sort of forgettable -- at least, that's what the guidebook says. We didn't actually go downtown. We skipped straight to the river.

For 31 kilometres from its mouth, the Nile churns its way down a half-dozen Class 5 and Class 6 rapids. You can research for yourself exactly what those ratings mean, but let me put it in visual terms: imagine the Nile, a massive river, pinched between rocks not more than 10 metres apart. Now imagine it also dropping about 10-15 metres as it storm between those rocks, then imagine what must be at least an acre of water frothing and churning into a sight of pure mayhem. Then imagine us on a blue raft careening toward it, with nothing but some inflatable pontoons between us and the madness -- and the sharp rocks below.

Of course, it all starts off gently enough. We boarded the rafts sporting helmets and life jackets, mouths dry from what we knew lay ahead -- and from warnings we had heard that injuries on the bacteria-laden Nile come often, and with nasty consequences.

But at that point, the Nile was a gentle river, quickening slightly over some minor burbles but otherwise placid. We were instructed in how to paddle, how to hold on and how to brace for dear life. We also got a watery lesson in flipping. Little did we know how valuable that one would prove -- nor how the guide's advice (especially his counsel that, if we were forced underwater, we should hold our breaths and wait: Eventually the water would propel us back to surface) would be echoing through our heads short minutes ahead.

I can't remember all the names of the various rapids we plunged through. What I can remember is the pure terror of our first capsizing. We were flying through a Class 5 rapid, our bow aimed at a giant standing wave that must have hovered at a good 15 feet high, water furiously spouting up as it crashed through the rapid. All was going well, until we jetted to the top of the wave -- and the raft flipped. I managed a quick gasp for breath before the world suddenly turned green and I began rushing at a crazy speed far below the surface. I -- and all the others who had also been tossed beneath the waves -- were utterly helpless. I was calm at first, heeding the guide's advice that the water would bring me up for air. But the seconds seemed to drag on endlessly. I felt like I was drowning, caught in the middle of the Nile flexing a muscle far stronger than anything I could muster. Then suddenly -- the surface. I had about a half-second to suck in as much air as I could before I was dragged under again. This must have happened four times as I went through what seemed like an endless series of waves. Then, almost as soon as it began, the water turned calmer again and I could float and breathe on my own. To say it was a rush would be understating it. Terror is more like it.

We floated along through a few more rapids, all tamer than the one we had passed, but still a rush. I eventually ended up in the front of the raft, a position that allows you a hair-rising vantage on the massive waves ahead. But we rode most of them quite comfortably. Others did not, and we watched as most of the members of our raft took on injuries. One scraped a knee. Another both heels. One broke a toe. It seemed all those assurances that safety was priority one on this trip didn't mean a whole lot -- and we had yet to hit the biggest rapid.

Just before the end of the trip is a rapid called the Bad Place. It is a Class 5 rapid that sits at the tail end of a Class 6 monster so big it could have practically swallowed a cruise ship whole. The cauldron of white at its end -- the Bad Place -- looked like it entirely deserved its name. I would probably have wimped out if I could have but when Mo decided to do it, that ceased to be an option, if only for vanity's sake.

We boarded the raft, me feeling more dread than excitement. We paddled our hearts out to an area we thought would be a gentler ride, but the waves caught us and tossed us into the giant water hole that was the Bad Place. We were stuck there for a moment, bow pointed into the water, stern sticking out. Then the wall of water obliterated any hope that we would float out of this one. Another long moment hoping I would breathe again, this one long enough that I started saying some farewells to this earth. Another quick breath before more of that drowning feeling. I must have found the exact centre of the thing, because when the Bad Place finally released me, I was a good 200 metres farther down the river than anyone else.

But I was alive, and so was Mo. More surprising, we were uninjured -- which is more than could be said for the raft, which had shed a few pieces in the crushing water. As we floated to our end point, our guide told us that was the craziest ride he had in four months of working there. I'm not sure I was in a position to disagree.

Back online again

Long time no write; it's been a busy week. The highlights: an afternoon spent watching tens of thousands of flamingoes at Lake Nakuru (truly unbelievable; from afar the shores of the lake looked like they had been smeared with bright pink lipstick) along with water buffalo, a rhino and a number of different types of gazelles. From there, we bounced along through rural Kenya -- including golden wheat fields that wouldn't have looked much out of place in Saskatchewan -- to Samburu National Park, an arid grass and scrublands area that is home to a number of unique Kenyan animals. They call them the Samburu Five: the reticulated giraffe (with darker and more prominent splotches than other sub-species), the oryx (also found on the dunes of Namibia, remarkably able to live without water), the Somali ostrich (has a blue neck rather than pink), Grevy's zebra (way cooler than the common zebra, with thin psychedelic stripes) and the gerenuk (a long-necked gazelle that looks like a cross between a giraffe and an antelope. Way cool).

We saw all of them, and in hindsight it was a pretty remarkable trip. At the time, though, it felt pretty disappointing. We had come hoping to see elephants and some of the big cats -- lions, cheetahs and leopards -- but even after many hours spent bouncing around the grasslands, we came up entirely empty. Adding to the frustration was the fact that upon our return to the lodge, we heard from others who had seen them. Somehow, we had just been unlucky. The season added to the troubles: the arid landscape usually concentrates the animals around the local river, which runs right next to the lodge we were staying at. But with the rains, water suddenly became plentiful and the animals dispersed, making them nearly impossible to find. We are, however, planning a trip to either the Serengeti or the Masia Mara (the Kenyan version of the Serengeti), where animals are far more plentiful. That should happen nearer the end of the trip.

We did, however, see elephants. Our last night on safari we stayed at a mountain lodge in Mt Kenya National Park. It is situated right on the edge of a watering hole, a natural animal magnet high in the mountain forest -- and all of the rooms face right out onto it. When we arrived, we were disappointed to see only a few gazelles (they get old after a while, since there's so many of them) there. But as evening came, we got to see a massive rush of 60-odd water buffalo snorting and churning up the mud as they travelled through. That was pretty cool. We fell asleep to the sounds of crickets and tree hyraxes (see if you can find their noise somewhere on the Internet -- it's the weirdest thing ever) -- but then were suddenly awoken by a load trumpeting. We stumbled out of bed to find a half-dozen elephants at the watering hole. We scrambled down to a water-side viewing bunker and stayed there for a good 30 minutes not more than 15 feet from the wild elephants. It was spectacular.

The safaris are on hiatus for now, though. I'm writing from Uganda, where we arrived today after a road trip to end all road trips. We boarded a bus last night in Nairobi just after midnight and pulled into Kampala this morning at 2 p.m. -- a full 14 hours of slamming into potholes the size of meteor craters and being woken from the few moments of sleep we were able to manage by moments of sheer terror that our bus would disintegrate. For good parts of the journey our bus -- the big tall touring kind -- was swaying like a drunken giraffe, and I was nervous it would flip on its side. We, thankfully, avoided any incidents. But that's more than I can say for the other people we saw on the journey. In just that one trip we managed to see two fender-benders and one pedestrian get hit by a mini-bus. So much excitement.

Kampala is a city of a million car horns, all honking in quick succession. They're impossible to escape, but not that annoying. Being here feels like being set free. In Nairobi -- and Kenya in general -- we were constantly harassed and put through elaborate guilt trips by trinket vendors whose best marketing strategy was to go for the throat and basically accuse us of letting them go hungry if we didn't buy their wares. I'm not making that up -- they had dozens of pre-prepared lines that they fired in quick succession when we balked, and many of them were aimed at shaming us into parting with our money. It usually worked, at least on the shaming part -- and often on the money part, too. It's hard not to feel guilty when you're bombing around the countryside in a safari van (which was our mode of transportation on our safaris) looking at women stooped under heavy loads, walking long distances to market up steep hills covered in rusting tin houses smaller than most car garages in North America.

Nonetheless, Kampala seems free of the hard sell and it's refreshing. We're looking forward to spending a bit of time here, then going to explore the mouth of the Nile at a place called Jinja. We're contemplating a whitewater rafting trip there, but are a little leery after one of my best friends did the same a while back and ended up with an infection that could well have ended in amputation. An afternoon of thrills sounds fun, but I'd love to have my leg for life. Something tells me the adrenaline will win in the end, though.

Pictures!

I threw up a few pictures of Lamu, the ruins and the dhow race if you want to take a look at what we're seeing:

www.flickr.com/photos/neoviking

Safari-bound

So, our man showed up and we've booked our way out into the land of lions, flamingoes, giraffes, leopards, buffaloes . . . the list goes on. We can't wait. Travelling in the low season has some significant downsides -- i.e., the rain -- but it also means you can travel into far nicer accommodations than you were expecting with your budget. Suffice to say, we won't be tenting it.

First stop is Nakuru, then on to Samburu National Park (forgive my spellings if they're off). After that, we're planning to hike one of the summits of Mt Kenya, which according to the Lonely Planet used to be Africa's highest mountain. It has now ceded that spot to Kilimanjaro, although no reason was given for the change in place. One assumes nuclear war or growth hormones are not factors.

We spent the day bumming around Nairobi. We're taking it easy today, slowly meandering around town, although we're hoping to head to a restaurant called Carnivore tonight. It is supposedly ranked one of the top 50 eating spots on earth and, as the name might suggest, is a feast of meat. One price gets you unlimited eating of all the different types of wild game you can stomache. Can't wait.

Hello, Montezuma

Ahhh, Africa. Land of lions and cheetahs, hot summer days and nights with cool breezes -- and above all, gastrointestinal distress. Yes, Montezuma is having his revenge on us. He made a brief but rather overpowering appearance last night, although this morning I appear to be better. Mo is apparently a tougher warrior, because she's managed to fend off the worst effects. I, on the other hand, gave in completely. Suffice to say it wasn't pleasant, although I'm feeling quite a bit better this morning. I hope it's all over.

I can't quite remember the last time I wrote, although lots has happened in the past few days. We spent a day on a dhow, sailing around the waters near Lamu using nothing but the wind. I've never been sailing before and it was amazing. We spent some time walking around some 16th century Swahili ruins, marvelling at the rigidity of their architecture so many years ago. Their buildings were built of coral glued together with home-made lime, and many are still standing today. They were also smart: the streets, if you can call them as much, between the houses were no wider than a man's shoulders. The reason: packing houses tightly together allows them to shade each other from the blazing sun, keeping interior temperatures lower. Genius, although Takwa was not the kind of place you could ever have driven a Hummer around.

After the Takwa ruins, we spent some time on Shella Beach, a truly unbelievable beach 12 kilometres long -- gorgeous white sand that extended farther than the eye could see. And it was almost completely unused. The water was so warm you could bathe in it, and clear too. A few wealthy people have discovered this place -- the prince of Monaco has a huge house here -- but if I had the cash I'd buy property here. There is no way a place this nice, especially in a fairly stable country, will go undeveloped for long.

We flew in to Nairobi yesterday, leaving an absolute deluge in Lamu. The rainy season has definitely arrived, and I'm glad we brought our rain coats. We spent the night in the Holiday Inn in Nairobi -- a super-swank hotel that we got for free thanks to all the points I accumulated on Global's tab. We visited a nearby mall last night -- took a cab there, because we were strongly warned that walking after 6 p.m. is a recipe for unpleasantness -- and ate at the food court. Not exactly a deep cultural experience, but I wasn 't much in the mood for eating anyways. And they have table service at food courts here. How cool is that.

Today we're hoping to leave on a safari, although the guy that was supposed to meet us at our hotel this morning never showed. So we may have to go for plan b and spend the day in Nairobi before taking off.

Sunshine, and we're still complaining . . . sort of

So we found our sunshine -- and not just a bit, but buckets of it. We landed yesterday in Lamu, Kenya, a largely Muslim island community on the Indian Ocean. It is a spectacular place. The town itself is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and with good reason. Its streets are narrow labyrinthes that wind between multi-storey stone and concrete buildings. Walking through them can be hazardous because donkeys -- the primary form of cargo transport, apart from the human back -- often come barrelling through.

The advantage of the backstreets, though, is that they are largely shaded from the sun, which is as intense at 8 in the morning as the noon-day sun in Ontario on a hot August day. There is no air conditioning here, although the architecture provides plenty of shaded spaces and paths for the breeze to blow. It is still insanely hot, though, although given where we've come from it would be churlish to complain.

We landed last night and immediately went to our hotel, which is a lovely pair of converted Swahili houses. It has a large ground-level courtyard with a covered eating area, and we managed to scam our way into the suite, which is three storeys up and looks directly onto the water. It is a huge room with a four-poster bed, giant stone bath and exterior patio and sunning area. It is about a perfect a honeymoon spot as I could ever have imagined. After showering -- two straight days of airplanes and waiting lounges left a lot to scrub off -- we fell asleep at about 4 p.m., and didn't wake again until 4:30 a.m., when the Islamic calls to prayer started echoing through the streets and the roosters started crowing. As the sun started coming up, I went for a walk around town, which was remarkably busy for that time of day. Fishermen were preparing their dhows for their day on the water as the tide was coming in. Others engaged in the imports trade were unloading stacks of coconut leaves and mangrove branches used for house construction here. A shingle of leaves all sewn together sells for 15 shillings -- or about 25 cents. Given how much everything costs here (hotels, food and water are at least as expensive as North America from our experience here thus far) I can't figure out how anyone makes a living here. But they seem to, and smiling faces are absolutely everywhere. I'ved learned a quick "jambo" (I believe it means hello, but whatever it does elicits a smile) seems to work magic.

It's festival day here in Lamu -- we saw a cross-country race this morning, followed by a donkey race. This afternoon we'll head out onto the water to watch a dhow race. I'm filling up my memory cards at a crazy pace. It's just so exotic and beautiful here. I told Mo this morning that if we left today, I'd still feel like we had an incredible honeymoon. And this is all just the beginning.

Touchdown in Africa

Funny how the more things change the more they stay the same. We landed in Nairobi this morning and have a few hours here before catching a flight to Lamu, on the Indian Ocean coast of Kenya, where we're hoping to catch some much-needed rest before starting on the really adventurous parts of our honeymoon.

First Africa impressions: the woman in front of me on the plane who started banging away on her BlackBerry the moment we landed, and the rain. Seems we left Vancouver just as the rain was ending, and walked into more of it here. Just can't escape it.

Flights were all on time and fine. A word of advice: take the chicken on Air Canada and the beef on Air Kenya. Apart from that, all is well. We're here, we're having fun (despite the back-to-back red eyes) and we had a nice afternoon in London walking through Hyde Park during a nine-hour layover there.

More soon from a place with beaches and, we hope, sunshine.

On our way

Lots to do today -- we haven't started packing yet, and we still have a bunch of loose ends to tie up. Rings have to go into a safety deposit box (we don't want to risk them in Africa). Credit card companies need to know we're going to Africa, so they don't think we've signed up to help the Nigerian prince with his cash problems and end up with a dead credit card. And, of course, we need to pack everything for five weeks on a continent we know absolutely nothing about.

Making matters worse, our flight leaves four hours earlier than I thought it did when we procrastinated on all of these details yesterday. Suffice to say, it's going to be a busy few hours.

Before I head for the packing, though, I wanted to say again how thankful Mo and I both are for how memorable you all helped make our wedding day. It was terrific having everyone we love and care about together in one place. We have heard from a number of people that there really wasn't a thing that we could change about the day, and we couldn't agree more.

By the way, we'd love it if you would share your pictures with us -- and with everyone else. Upload them to a new wedding pictures site we've created. Logging in takes a couple of steps:

a) browse to http://beta.zooomr.com/login
b) type in moandnathan.myopenid.com into the login box and hit enter
c) it will take you to a passw0rd page. Type in "wedding" (no quote marks) and hit enter
d) click on the "upload" link at the top of the page and start sending up pictures

You can view what everyone else has uploaded here:
http://beta.zooomr.com/photos/moandnathan

Ok, time to actually get something done. Next post should be from somewhere on the other side of the Atlantic . . .