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It is always tempting (especially when travelling alone) to write down every thought and minor occurrence in a blog of some sort, I read them and usually feel sick- so a word of permission, you can stop reading now I won’t mind.



I started by heading out of the snow in Cambridge insanely early after a memory of missing a flight from Heathrow last time. The inevitable tube strike made my underground journey of an estimated 35 mins into a 2.5 hour shit sandwich, but I still got to Heathrow early and killed time lusting after the booze I could not carry and so could not buy, feigning interest in £600 Hermes man handbags and pretending to choose my favourite Prada watch.

I took off on Ethiopian airways, which in typical African style is a mixed bag. Very very sweet attentive and pretty hostesses, the best airplane food I have ever had, seriously. However, the service while good was s l o w ……… and the tiny tv’s were one in every thirty feet of plane, making your seat number a lottery of ‘with or without tv’ an important distraction for a 6ft 4 man who finds it very hard to sleep aboard planes. I had an unfortunate seat, directly below a tv so I could strain my neck and get an inverted Technicolor version or I could peer longingly at the tiny screen thirty feet away, I chose the latter because I could hear the film very well in my headphones and because I had seen the film before (Cyrus – very funny) I hoped my memory would fill the gaps left by my tired eyes.

I have never ever ever seen so many babies on a plane before… I had (honestly) One directly behind me, another an arms reach to my right and another three or four seats in front. Credit where it is due, they worked seamlessly as a team to ensure that a moments silence was never experienced, on a rare occasion they would serenade me all together at once – a rare treat at 5am.

We landed as scheduled in Addis Ababa, which from the air looked, between its mixed architecture, unstereotypically green and lush.. After some confusion as to which was my connecting plane I boarded for Jo’berg. I settled into my seat and ate a surprisingly unappealing looking sandwich (a hot dog roll in cling film containing spam and red peppers) which turned out to be quite delicious.. not sure why as I was not hungry, something about the meat was very tasty, top marks for food again. I watched a tourist programme on the mercifully larger/closer TV and learnt a thing or two about Ethiopia, most memorably that they (Apparently) invented coffee drinking? – I asked for a coffee that I had been so far refusing and to be fair it was exceptionally good.

I feel asleep and woke to a bump of landing, ‘great’ I thought ‘Jo’berg… that was quick’ – then the pilot said words I will never forget “Welcome to Mombasa. “

Panic flooded my stomach, did I get on the wrong plane?? Impossible right? – well yes it turns out, we were just pulling in to swap some passengers – now normally in a taxi or bus situation I wouldn’t mind it but on a plane?!?! This was very unusual. So the new comers got on and we sat on the runway not allowed to leave the plane while it was ‘repaired’ – the fault was never fully explained, so the hot passengers started to complain, and long story short, had an argument that kept us grounded for another couple of hours..

Take off eventually happened and we landed in Jo’berg at 6pm, 5 hours late. Immigration process was short but did involve some blagging on my part as I did not bring my yellow fever certificate.

So by this time it was too late to catch bus to Nelspruit, I made use of the only bit of forward planning I had bothered with and called ‘Brown Sugar’ a backpackers I have used before in Jo’berg – they dutifully picked me up and took me to their castle like fortress in central Jo’berg. All was good here, apart from the world cup legacy which has left the prices inflated beyond reason, a few cold cans of castle and time to get sorted. Met Chris a 50 something scouser with some great stories and a ukulele.

Got a cab down to the bus station the next morning and found out I had missed the bus and would need to get the 10pm one, arriving at 3am – not an option as I didn’t fancy wandering the streets with my camera gear in a town I had never visited, and that I had not even so much as a map for, in the middle of the night. I decided to avoid the cost of a return journey to the hostel and try to find something close by. This is when I found myself in a situation I vowed never to be in, laden with expensive stuff wandering around in central Jo’berg looking very lost. No tourist info booth but a sweet old lady at another desk offered to take me to the ‘springbok hotel’ nearby. I gratefully accepted but within a few blocks of the bus station I was beginning to feel venerable again as I realised I was at the mercy of this stranger leading me into a notoriously dangerous city with not Idea how far we were going to go.