Bertie's Travelogue Part 7 - Kasulu to Durban

After Kasulu I looked forward to the excitement of a destination which actually had some life. Now, I don't want to cause offence to the vast numbers of Kasuluans reading this blog but the place was deader than a fish finger in a Chernobyl aquarium so I wasn't too unhappy to wave farewell. Air traffic control were quite excited as it's a busy time for them because another aircraft is due within a few months.

It was a nice simple flight south, following the shore of Lake Tanganyika and I eventually entered Zambia and landed at Mbala, the largest town in the north of the country. "Largest" is relative, of course, and suffice to say there is only one road to the border with Tanzania and this is only passable in the dry season. The area shows evidence of human activity going back some 300,000 years although the first European to reach there was Livingstone in the 1860's. In colonial times, the British Consul was based there and the town prospered as well as being re-named Abercorn. Its heyday was in the '50s and '60s although the area has declined since Zambia achieved independence in 1964 and the name Mbala was once more adopted.

There is one hotel and it was to this that I took my weary body before my next flight to Blantyre in Malawi.

Nice gentle take-off into a beautiful dawn and yet another lake to follow - this time it's Lake Nyasa. Considering the proximity of water, the software doesn't really do this justice insofar as the ground below is of a uniformly light sandy colour Maybe that's how the real thing is? Hang on, GoogleEarth time! ........................................ Hmmm, it's actually very green around there but I suppose realism can only go so far. I've even put in extra software which purports to enhance African terrain and scenery; oh well.

Now Blantyre is named after the birthplace of..........yes, you've guessed it...........Dr Livingstone. He certainly got around, didn't he? By all accounts, it's rather nice there and it boasts an influential expat community of some 25,000 souls from Britain and Europe. It houses the Supreme Court as well as Malawi's one channel television station. If you are reading this in Burton-on-Trent, did you know your town is twinned with Blantyre? Malawi itself used to be called Nyasaland before independence in 1964. It's among the world's least developed and most densely populated countries with its economy based mostly on agriculture and a largely rural population. Sadly there is low-life expectancy and high infant mortality along with an above average incidence of HIV/Aids although signs are that progress is being made.

Football is their national sport and, whilst there is not much evidence to support them as contenders at the 2010 World Cup, they did beat Djibouti 8-1 last May. Mind you, the Penge Women's Institute 2nd XI allegedly beat Djibouti so don't get too excited.

Finally, I am on my most southerly leg as I fly off to Durban in the Republic of South Africa. I've done all of my flying during daylight until now but I've decided that I want to do a predominantly instrument-based flight and a night landing. It's quite weird if one does this with all the lights off and the headphones on so all you can see is the occasional light far below and hear the occasional radio voice. I made sure I was at a reasonable altitude just in case some pillock stuck a mountain in the way but I finally got confirmation from Durban that I was 64 miles out and vectoring me in to my final pattern. Seeing the myriad lights stretched out below me as I started descending over the the outskirts of Durban was truly a relief but nothing compared to seeing the runway lights more or less where they should be.

It's a totally different ballgame trying to land without the ground to orientate one - especially when one realises in the nick of time that the altimeter needs to be reset. In the end though, It all came together and I touched down with real adrenalin pumping - great fun!

The history of South Africa is a fiery and interesting one. Stopover on voyages to the Orient, and originally dominated by the Dutch East India Company and their Boer offspring, it all kicked off when gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand reef and a certain Erasmus Jacobs found a pebble which turned out to be a 21 carat diamond. Strangely enough (and I'm sure it's coincidence), Britain started to take a lot more interest in the area at this point which culminated in the Boer Wars. South Africa became a Republic in 1961 and after a long and difficult birth is now one of the world's more stable countries. The sad part is that many other African countries have mineral wealth but politics, tribalism and the greed and expansionism of the West have all contributed to their present predicament.

Right, sermon over - back to Durban. The busiest port in Africa with beaches to die for, it's the third biggest city in the Republic. Little is known of the history of the first residents, as there is no written history of the area before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, who came to the KwaZulu-Natal coast while searching for a route from Europe to India. He landed at Christmas 1497, and thus named the area "Natal", or Christmas in Portuguese.

After the journey south, it's so nice to feel the vibrance of a modern city, committed to sport, fun and life. I think I might stay here for a bit of R & R; diving, cricket, football, surfing. Yep, think I can fit them into my busy schedule before I head off to Madagascar. Waiter, a bottle of Tusker if you please! I'll pay for it with this.

What a Load of Rubbish!

To be honest, I'm a bit screwed up at the moment. The confidence has gone, I don't like myself, I'm a nervous wreck and I can't even put the facade in place. All a bit pathetic really. I can't seem to write a blog whilst all this shit is in my head so I guess I need to get a bit out and then I can move on.

I'm getting there , I think. I'm facing things and I'm even allowing myself to accept that I can be less than the perceived standard of perfection to which I feel I must aspire. I'm not sure really why I can't allow myself to be less than perfect? I suppose because I know that I am so far from perfection that it gives me the ideal excuse to punish myself for failing. Why do I need to punish myself? Ah, now there's the €50,829.9 question (dollar conversion rate correct at time of writing).

Some people self-harm but I'm far too much of a coward so I do it mentally. I guess it stems from never being quite good enough in my parent's eyes. The reasons are immaterial but this mental masochism is just sooooo easy. Take tonight for example:

I have several friends on the internet and all seem to have problems of one sort or another, whether it be health, employment, money or supporting Newcastle United . Hopefully, they will all be resolved in time but things seem pretty serious in several cases. Yours truly has (I think) reasonable health, no job worries, no real financial worries but I still moan to them and they offer nothing but care, understanding and support. It's a perfect lose:lose situation for me as not only can I beat myself up for not appreciating what I have but also I can suffer the discomfort of people being nice to me.

Perhaps I need to realise that the people who like me or love me do so for what I am and not what I feel I ought to be? The trouble is; how in God's name do I do that? I know that I won't ever find an answer because, by finding that answer, I'll be unable to feed the problem and I can't imagine being allowed to live a life where my head isn't worrying about 3 million things at any one moment. Still, my friends, thank you sincerely for being my friends.

Moving on, I discovered a great new game the other day.

Every Wednesday, the Council send a nice big yellow bin lorry to take my sacks of rubbish to wherever it goes. I don't have a dustbin as I have no garden so I dutifully place my sacks outside ready for collection (actually, to tell the truth, I wake about 5 am and lay there worrying that I might miss the bin lorry which doesn't actually turn up until 11.30ish). Dimwit, I hear you cry, put it out the night before! Well, actually, I had thought of that but the foxes and seagulls have a competition to see how far they can spread the contents. It can be quite embarrassing seeing my used Tassimo pods scattered across the highway not to mention the catalogues which keep being sent to me. "Wincyette for the Old and Fat" was completely unasked for but it appears regularly through the letterbox. The worst part of having one's rubbish scattered, however, is the fear that there is something there that should have been recycled!

You can almost feel the glares of disapproval as an aluminium ring-pull is spotted among the detritus of Bassett Towers. I shamefacedly shuffle out into the road and pick it up whilst the local drunks seem to get away with lobbing everything from empty Tennants cans to regurgitated McDonalds Winter Specials..........oh, that's not regurgitated? You mean they're meant to look like that? Blimey!


Anyway, as I was saying, I put my sacks out last Wednesday at about 6am (just in case they were a bit early - neurotic? Wassat?). When I peered out at 10, I saw that the seagulls had done their usual trick and a bag had been pecked open although I had inadvertently foiled their little game as I had chucked out some old herbs and spices and they'd had a go at some paprika! Ha, revenge is sweet. The upshot of all this was that after the binmen had gone, I noticed a small plastic bag of stale oregano (which I had also thrown out) left lying on the pavement which I kicked into the gutter as I went out. Later, I found it placed on my step so I once again kicked it into the gutter. After it happened a second time, I suddenly twigged......people were thinking it was a dropped stash! After picking it up and seeing it had a small label annotated 'oregano' in small letters, they had just dropped it again.


I'm afraid I was a bit naughty. I peeled off the label and left the bag prominently in the centre of the pavement when I took my daughter home that evening. Sure enough, 20 minutes later, when I got back, it had gone. Some local lads, wandering homewards after an evening of worship and self-enlightenment at the altar of the great god, Heineken, presumably pounced on it and I had wonderful visions of them desperately trying to get a hit with a Rizla full of stale oregano. Who knows, it might even have worked? Herbie Rides Again (given thyme)?

Demons

"In order to beat the demon, you have to say his name" - so said Sir Terry Pratchett when facing up to the cruelly insidious effects of Alzheimer's Disease. I've always been very good at letting demons whizz around having marked the X for no publicity box and so, I suppose, this is my attempt to shame them and subsequently myself into a bit more direct action.

Last October I offered my services to a large historical military establishment nearby as they were after volunteers. Their website states that volunteers were needed for the following:

Administration
General Record Keeping, Visitor Surveys, Volunteer Records, Volunteer Development,

Curatorial
Archiving, Research, Preservation

Education
Guiding, Working with Children, Translation, Helping Special Needs Visitors

Buildings and Grounds
Cleaning, Repairs, Maintenance

Displays and Exhibitions
Interpretation, Setting up, Repair, Maintenance

Front of House
Shop, Retail, Reception, Hospitality, Guiding, Stewarding Special Events

Promotion
Publicity, Events

It all seemed perfect for me; a purpose in life and no pressure to perform whilst hopefully spending some time out in the fresh air, interacting with people, playing with computers and, best of all, gaining knowledge and using my brain for something useful. I rang and was cordially invited down for a chat with the curator and we parted on good terms. A week later there had been no contact. The following week I emailed and there was no reply. I have to say it had a considerable effect on me as I felt that, given I had the expertise and knowledge (and can even clean and paint), it must have been my personality which had prompted my perceived rejection.

Christmas came and went and I realised that I was gradually withdrawing from social interaction. The gregarious entertainer was turning into an introvert who actually felt awkward when talking to people and, worst of all, was comfortable with that premise. A few swift calculations made me realise that I was spending approximately 14 hours in front of my PC on days when we didn't go out and, because of the pain of Mrs B's knee, this was usually no more than twice a week. I was aware that I was heading towards a place I hadn't been for a good few years so I decided to face at least one demon and duly toddled off to the doctor. Of course, I beat around the bush but he knew me enough to start asking the questions (the violent trembling in my right hand was also a bit of a giveaway!) and I have to say I felt better having spoken to him. He prescribed me some tablets; a course of action which I had always steadfastly refused before as a) they never seemed to work and b) it seemed like giving in, and they had an amazing effect.

I took one tablet and slept for about 18 of the next 24 hours. The next day I took half a tablet and slept for about 14 hours. That was the end of those!! There was no way I was going to turn into a chemically-induced vegetable. I am now on a different medication and it seems to be doing the trick a bit more although I find now that I am unable to get worked up into my usual state of frustration, anger etc and write blogs accordingly. This particular one is, in fact, really quite hard to do and I'm conscious that there is little fluency in it. I had to really force myself to write it but at least, by so doing, I am kicking another small demon in the butt.

Talking of demons, I also decided this week that I must do something about my withdrawal from Society as well as getting my increasingly ample frame out of this chair so I telephoned my friend The Curator once more. He was most apologetic and used the excuse of totally forgetting about me......hmmmmm! Anyway, I am now awaiting some stuff to research on their behalf so I might soon be able to say that I am not totally surplus to requirements. That isn't supposed to sound as if I'm feeling sorry for myself but, let's face it, if I didn't get up, it would hardly have a great effect on anybody's life.

Perhaps I am now in the ascendant? Perhaps I can now find some other demons to name - God knows, I have enough of them. The scary part is that I'm kind of used to them and therefore, paradoxically, they have become a form of security whose absence would be less comfortable at first than their presence.

Maybe I'll stick to my Round the World blogs, they seem a lot less harmless? I've reached the Seychelles now and the next part of my epic adventures will be published shortly.

On a final note, my son was grabbed in the street yesterday by 2 burly policemen and accused of being somebody they were after. When he protested he wasn't the person named, they insisted on seeing ID. I'd have loved to have seen their faces as he produced his warrant card! Sometimes, Life can be so sweet.

John Martyn 1948-2009

Go Out And Get It

I believe in a minute for every man
When he must take notice of the clock and all its hands
If he sees the road leads straight ahead
Got to run on down, never never be afraid
And it's yours, go out and get it
Don't get wet, please keep dry
Think about the people that made you cry.

I know a man, six feet tall
Buckskin jacket, velvet stripes and all
From Boston town, educated well
And he keeps his mind within a padded shell
It's yours, go out and get it
Don't get wet, please keep dry
Think about the people that made you cry.

Behind the curtain, upon the shelf
Lives a man, living with himself
Behind his eyes, behind his smile
What's going on, nobody in the world can tell
It's yours, go out and get it
Don't get wet, please keep dry
Think about the people that made you cry.

It's yours, go out and get it
Don't get wet, please keep dry
Think about the people that made you cry.

One I would have been, one I am. Sleep in peace John.

Bertie's Travelogue Part 6 - Entebbe to Kasulu

Taking off from Entebbe

Having 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.

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