Sean & Lucie’s Big African Adventure

Sunday 28^th December

We were beginning to worry about ever escaping Tiwi’s seductive clutches, but managed to wrest ourselves out of them this morning and have made it over the Tanzanian border to Tanga, where we’re now contemplating our next moves.

The 10 days at Tiwi were pretty much indistinguishable from each other, we spent the days swimming when the tide was in, lying in the shade when we couldn’t swim, and cracking open the beers from midday until bedtime. 

In a bleak midwinter......

Christmas day was super-uneventful, I think I even failed to go for a swim, but we spent a very pleasant evening with our chums eating yet more fish and waving sparklers about.   We were a mixed bunch, with Anne Marie and Patrick from Holland and Cisco and Christina from Spain.

What do you mean there's no turkey?

 It was the least Chrismassy Christmas ever, but a bit of a hoot nonetheless.

We met lots of really nice people at Tiwi. all of whom were great fun.  Most remarkable of all were Marco and Antonietta, our Swiss-Italian neighbours.  They keep 3 campervans on 3 continents, and shuttle between them during the swiss winter.  They were both in their early 60’s and super fit, great fun, Marco had a fabulously smutty sense of humour and Antonietta made amazingly good cakes on their fire.

Smarter than your average retirees!

I nearly invented the sport of Kite-Tubing, whereby one sits in the sea in an inner tube, and uses a kite as a means of propulsion.  However Sean and Patrick went out to test my brilliant idea, and it proved to be a complete failure.  Sadly, the amusing video is failing to load, so you’ll just have to take my word for it, and use your imagination.

One event of enormous significance; on Boxing Day Sean went fishing and caught something!  After a morning of being chucked about in one of the Kenyan fishermens’ improbable dhows with outriggers he came back bearing a 3.5Kg Yellow Fin Tuna which he assures me he caught himself.  It was delicious.

Captain Birdseye eat your heart out!!

Unfortunately, he also managed to split his big toe open on a lump of coral that morning, it looks horribly painful but I think he’s going to survive.

A practical aside or two:  So far most of the kit we’ve bought has been useful, but at Tiwi our awning proved invaluable for reasons that we never anticipated.  Every night after dark we found ourselves under a relentless bombardment of Bat poo, which covered everything that wasn’t under shelter.  We huddled under the awning and hid from the splattering, but the tent and awning are both covered in a rich patina of fig based bat ordure.  As soon as possible we’re going to have a major session with a jet wash.

Another animal related nuisance – our tent has been invaded by ants which is really irritating, as they seem to be making themselves comfortable and we can’t get at the little critters.  We’ve fumigated the tent with Doom twice now so hopefully we’re winning, but I think the Doom might finish us off before the ants.

On another note, Africa has gone Obama bonkers, and I couldn’t resist this very attractive Kanga.   It looks even better with his face on my backside – honest! 

Obama - Savior of the Universe?

I’m working on our New Year’s Eve post, I fear it might be libellous or cause an international incident in it’s current edit.  Watch this blog closely!