Taking off from EntebbeHaving got Christmas out of the way (as well as a slight case of Lassa Fever or some other tropical ailment), I can now return to my circumnavigation of the globe. You may recall I was lounging in the Entebbe Hilton quaffing an ice-cold Tusker beer and anticipating the trip to Mount Kilimanjaro which (carrying on my tradition of showing the local currency) I paid for with this.
Settling into my trusty Mooney and slipping some Osibisa into the CD player, I took off and headed south-east. A sizeable chunk of the flight is over Lake Victoria which is such a welcome sight after the aridity of some of the previous legs and I soon found myself in sight of Kilimanjaro as I crossed over into Tanzania. Snow-capped all the year round, Kilimanjaro is the highest peak in Africa at 19,330 ft and was first climbed in 1889. For some time it held the distinction of being the highest point in the world that had mobile phone coverage! It's actually an inactive stratovolcano with 3 separate volcanic cones; the widest being Kibo which has a crater diameter of 1.5 miles.
The airport itself is quite small although it can take 747s so landing my little machine was a doddle. Certainly, the view of the mountain is wonderful and I have added that to my list of places to go before I die. I couldn't resist ignoring tower instructions as I started out to Mombasa and flew round the summit before settling down to the 50 minute flight to the coast and my first glimpse of the Indian Ocean.
These days, Mombasa is famed for its wonderful beaches but it has an extremely chequered history. The original Arabic name is Manbasa; in Swahili it is called Kisiwa Cha Mvita (or Mvita for short), which means "Island of War", due to the many changes in its ownership. It actually is an island - with a causeway connecting it to the African mainland. Reputedly visited as early as the early 15th century by the Chine fleet of Zheng Ze, it wasn't until 70 years later that Vasco de Gama became the first European to reach there. Word on the streets was that he was not exactly welcomed with open arms so the Portuguese returned 2 years later and sacked the city - sort of a precursor to Bush diplomacy!
Right, a quick dip in the ocean and, with my Speedos still damp, it was off again once more to fly to Kenya's capital: Nairobi. This leg kind of goes back on itself as Nairobi is to the north of Kilimanjaro but it flies over one of Kenya's many national parks. It's hard to believe that the largest city in East Africa was still only a swamp back in 1899 until Uganda Railways built there and Nairobi (named after the Masai word for "cool waters") grew faster than a fast thing.
Landing at Jomo Kenyatta International, I was careful to only take a minimum of Kenyan shillings with me as Nairobi is renowned for its criminal activity with 1 in 3 residents apparently the victim of crime and, allegedly, a lot of very rich policemen! Mind you, there are few shadowy characters as Nairobi is only 150kms south of the equator (falls over laughing at such wit and fails to notice somebody nicking his aircraft). The city is apparently a testament to high-rise glass and steel with little character although it does boast 4 major football teams and several decent golf courses as well as a National Park on the doorstep.
Now, we come to a brief hiatus in our little trip-ette. Having had my Mooney misappropriated by a local hoodlum (OK, I fancied a change but that sounds much more intrepid, I decided to check out some other aircraft. I toyed with a few others but in the end, I settled for my dear old Mooney once more albeit with a new paint job. Oh, there were faster, glossier aircraft but I'm a creature of habit although, between you and I, I did try a new A380 Airbus which was amusing if nothing else. Can you imagine me responsible for 850 passengers?
Off we go now to Kasulu in Tanzania, flying along the lakes of Victoria and Tanganyika. It's a long boring 2.5 hour flight although the thermals over Tanganyika made it somewhat turbulent - not the time to open one's Thermos! Kasulu is presumably merely a fuel stop on the journey as I've seen more life and culture in a tub of yogurt. I tried Googling "Kasulu" in my usual bid to impart some snippets of fact to my beloved reader and this was the total result:
"Kasulu is one of the 4 districts of the Kigoma_Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the North by Burundi, to the East by the Kibondo district and to the South by the Kigoma Rural and Kigoma Urban Districts. According to the 2002 Tanzania National Census, the population of the Kasulu District was 628,677."
That is it! Naff all else. No exciting details of wars, gold, diamonds, poaching.....not even a picture of a local cattle herder.
I sit in my cabin, munching on an unspecified indigenous species sossidgeinnabun, hoping against hope a Starbucks will spring up shortly and wondering how things are in dear old Blighty? It's been a while since I left her shores and I think fondly of all the things that mean so much - Woolworths, MFI, the excitement of Celebrity Big Brother ............ the cornerstones of Civilisation that will always be there.
I've actually flown ?24 legs of my journey now and, looking at the route, I don't seem to have travelled that far. Knowing just how many hours I've sat in front of my PC to get as far as I have makes me realise just what a huge planet Earth is. I can only wonder at the trepidation as well as the tedium experienced by the original trans-global pioneers as they flew into the unknown - especially without the infrastructure and communications which we have now. Aircraft held together with string and hope, what must the pilots have felt? Little did they know just how their exploits would shape the future and that, in a few short decades, we would accept air travel as they accepted the motor car.
Click to enlarge
Settling into my trusty Mooney and slipping some Osibisa into the CD player, I took off and headed south-east. A sizeable chunk of the flight is over Lake Victoria which is such a welcome sight after the aridity of some of the previous legs and I soon found myself in sight of Kilimanjaro as I crossed over into Tanzania. Snow-capped all the year round, Kilimanjaro is the highest peak in Africa at 19,330 ft and was first climbed in 1889. For some time it held the distinction of being the highest point in the world that had mobile phone coverage! It's actually an inactive stratovolcano with 3 separate volcanic cones; the widest being Kibo which has a crater diameter of 1.5 miles.
The airport itself is quite small although it can take 747s so landing my little machine was a doddle. Certainly, the view of the mountain is wonderful and I have added that to my list of places to go before I die. I couldn't resist ignoring tower instructions as I started out to Mombasa and flew round the summit before settling down to the 50 minute flight to the coast and my first glimpse of the Indian Ocean.
These days, Mombasa is famed for its wonderful beaches but it has an extremely chequered history. The original Arabic name is Manbasa; in Swahili it is called Kisiwa Cha Mvita (or Mvita for short), which means "Island of War", due to the many changes in its ownership. It actually is an island - with a causeway connecting it to the African mainland. Reputedly visited as early as the early 15th century by the Chine fleet of Zheng Ze, it wasn't until 70 years later that Vasco de Gama became the first European to reach there. Word on the streets was that he was not exactly welcomed with open arms so the Portuguese returned 2 years later and sacked the city - sort of a precursor to Bush diplomacy!
Right, a quick dip in the ocean and, with my Speedos still damp, it was off again once more to fly to Kenya's capital: Nairobi. This leg kind of goes back on itself as Nairobi is to the north of Kilimanjaro but it flies over one of Kenya's many national parks. It's hard to believe that the largest city in East Africa was still only a swamp back in 1899 until Uganda Railways built there and Nairobi (named after the Masai word for "cool waters") grew faster than a fast thing.
Landing at Jomo Kenyatta International, I was careful to only take a minimum of Kenyan shillings with me as Nairobi is renowned for its criminal activity with 1 in 3 residents apparently the victim of crime and, allegedly, a lot of very rich policemen! Mind you, there are few shadowy characters as Nairobi is only 150kms south of the equator (falls over laughing at such wit and fails to notice somebody nicking his aircraft). The city is apparently a testament to high-rise glass and steel with little character although it does boast 4 major football teams and several decent golf courses as well as a National Park on the doorstep.
Now, we come to a brief hiatus in our little trip-ette. Having had my Mooney misappropriated by a local hoodlum (OK, I fancied a change but that sounds much more intrepid, I decided to check out some other aircraft. I toyed with a few others but in the end, I settled for my dear old Mooney once more albeit with a new paint job. Oh, there were faster, glossier aircraft but I'm a creature of habit although, between you and I, I did try a new A380 Airbus which was amusing if nothing else. Can you imagine me responsible for 850 passengers?Off we go now to Kasulu in Tanzania, flying along the lakes of Victoria and Tanganyika. It's a long boring 2.5 hour flight although the thermals over Tanganyika made it somewhat turbulent - not the time to open one's Thermos! Kasulu is presumably merely a fuel stop on the journey as I've seen more life and culture in a tub of yogurt. I tried Googling "Kasulu" in my usual bid to impart some snippets of fact to my beloved reader and this was the total result:
"Kasulu is one of the 4 districts of the Kigoma_Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the North by Burundi, to the East by the Kibondo district and to the South by the Kigoma Rural and Kigoma Urban Districts. According to the 2002 Tanzania National Census, the population of the Kasulu District was 628,677."
That is it! Naff all else. No exciting details of wars, gold, diamonds, poaching.....not even a picture of a local cattle herder.
I sit in my cabin, munching on an unspecified indigenous species sossidgeinnabun, hoping against hope a Starbucks will spring up shortly and wondering how things are in dear old Blighty? It's been a while since I left her shores and I think fondly of all the things that mean so much - Woolworths, MFI, the excitement of Celebrity Big Brother ............ the cornerstones of Civilisation that will always be there.
I've actually flown ?24 legs of my journey now and, looking at the route, I don't seem to have travelled that far. Knowing just how many hours I've sat in front of my PC to get as far as I have makes me realise just what a huge planet Earth is. I can only wonder at the trepidation as well as the tedium experienced by the original trans-global pioneers as they flew into the unknown - especially without the infrastructure and communications which we have now. Aircraft held together with string and hope, what must the pilots have felt? Little did they know just how their exploits would shape the future and that, in a few short decades, we would accept air travel as they accepted the motor car.
Click to enlarge
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3 comments:
Yay! Good to see you flying again. Love those pretty African notes - especially the Ugandan one with geometric patterns on.
Before today I had never before seen the word 'stratovolcano' - so thank you for today's education.
The picture of the giraffe in front of the high-rise buildings looks so ... wrong, somehow. Mind you, if peeps several floors up open their windows, I guess they could feed the giraffes?
Keep flying!
Take care :-) x
Don't forget some lion poo to rid my garden of that large intruding cat!
Plausey :-)
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