Back to Dar Es Salaam

I really made it. I'm back in Dar and I like it! We were racing to the airport in Johannesburg because somehow everything took a bit longer in the morning than it was supposed to and so we started from the place we stayed to the airport one hour before the plane left. I was a bit nervous but everything went fine. Close but fine. In the plane they showed Harry Potter - the newest one witch I think is the best one so far. BUT I didn't see the grand finale. The plane was landing and the steward was collecting all the headphones. That was hard for me. So please if anybody saw Harry Potter please tell me what happend in the labyrinth.
Got out of the plane in Dar and like always was hit by the heat and the humidity. But somehow it felt like coming home. Was a really nice feeling. When I come through the passport control there were a lot of people with Tanzania bags and Tanzania track suits. I found out it was the Tanzanian team for the Commonwealth games that just returned from Australia / Mellburne. I congratulated the guys that won a gold and a bronze medall and took lot of nice pictures (can't upload them here. You know Tanzanian internet...) Later I followed the team out of the airport through a VIP exit where a guard asked me who I am and what I was doing here. I told him I'm from Australia and take pictures of the guys. He started smiling "Oh, you are from Australia and came all the way with our team. You may proceed." Very nice that Austria and Australia sounds so similar and I didn't even have to lie to him. Outside there was a big greeting for the Tanzanian heroes with a band a lot of dancers and some important politicians and a lot of camera teams and I was in the middle of it. Unfortunately Kikwete was not here.
Took the Taxi to Makongo where I stay now with Flo and was so suprised how beatiful green Tanzania is after the rain. It's really wonderful!
In the evening Carlos was visiting us and we had some Kilis.

Today I went to university and collect all my stuff from Claudia's room where I could store it the time I wasn't here. Met many nice people from last semester - Tanisha, Dan, Alex and also Johanna and Mia who are from the new semester. Now dinner with Tony at Istanas. I'm very hungry and will close now. Baday

Jo'burg

My flight from Cape town to Jo'burg had a delay of almost an hour probably because there was an armed robbery in Jo'burg airport where armed men stole millions of Dollars that were supposed to go to Tanzania. Don't ask me about details I was not there.
Sorry about the picture I took at Cape town airport's toilet but a toilet with a bluesrceen is quite funny I think (yeah yeah I'm a computer nerd...)
Arrived late but save in Johannesburg were I spent a boring day at the shopping center of course. Tomorrow I'll go to Dar for another 14 days. Don't really want to because I think we are in the middle of the raining season. But there is work waiting for me in Tanzania so I have no choice.

Back to Jo'burg

After 10 wonderful days in Cape town I have to go back to boring Johannesburg. Today I spent another day at the beach but not before getting into a car chase. The African taxi (thats the name of the Dala dalas in South Africa) was hit by a car on the side so it got a scratch. The other car didn't stop and so we started to chase them. It was a BMW Z4 so we didn't have a chance to get them. But was fun chasing them and when they were out of sight we were searching in the streets for the car. No success. After all of this I got droped of at the beach where it was too windy today - sandstorm. So after a short time I got back to my hostel.
That's it from Cape town. Kulula.com (South Africa's Ryanair) will take me to Jo'burg. Departure 21:20, arrival 23:20.
I'm off...

Little Tanzania

I am flabergasted! Found little Tanzania or better little Dar Es Salaam in Cape Town. I was looking for a hairdresser in the streets of Cape town and found only closed doors - no wonder it was Saturday 17:00. So while I was searching for a place a guy came up to me and asked if I needed some Ganja, Weed or Marijuana. He could organize everything for me. Well, somehow we talked about my time in Africa and he told me he was from Dar Es Salaam - somewhere around Moroko (that's on the road between Mwenge and Posta right?). After almost a month I could do the nice mambo poa, habari game again. It was so nice talking to him but it came even better: first he showed me a hairdresser that was opened and cheap and the best thing was that is was run by Tanzanians. Man they were looking when I started talking Swahili. Not joking the one guy stopped cutting hair and and was just staring at me and couldn't believe that a white guy in South Africa could speak Swaheli. By the way, how do you like my new haircut? Comments are welcome.

PSP and Google maps

Yesterday and today my days were very relaxed. Sun bathing on the beach and enjoying the warm weather - soon I'll be in rainy Dar Es Salaam again. Owen an Irish guy that stays with me in the dorm of our backpackers asked me if I am interested in buying his PSP (for those who don't know, that's a portable video game console). Unbelievable how briliant the graphic is. Tried it for some time, different games like Tennis, Football, Prince of Persia but found out very soon that I'm too old for such kind of games. Too bad, he offered it to me for a really good price.
To let you be part of my beach I looked it up in Google/maps and got this link for you. The guy with the blue shorts is me ;-) Enjoy the beach of Camps bay.
By the way, did you know that Nicolas Cage uses to come here some times.

Camps Bay and Mario Steinoecker

This day started very slowly because I was soo hangover from yesterday's night. I went out with Danni from Manchester. We just wanted to drink some beer but this guy didn't stop drinking. It's amazing how much he could drink even for Austrian or Norwegian standards. Of course I couldn't just stop drinking and go to bed - actually why not?
So after curing my headache I went to a beautiful beach near Cape town - Camps bay. I front of you you have clear blue water from the Atlantic ocean, behind you is Table mountain and in between a beautiful white sand beach. So I was lying there in the sun resting my aching body watching some guys playing beach volleyball. Hell they knew how to play that game! And then I recogniced one of them - Mario Steinoecker number 14 in the Austrian ranking. Later in the hostel I heard that the other guys probably were from the German national team. What a nice day! (They guy on the picture with the orange shorts is Mario)

An old friend and Robben Island

Yesterday I went to Robben Island - Afrikaans for Seal Island. Durin g the Apartheit regime it was a maximum security prison for opponents of the regime where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years in prison.
On the way to the island I saw an old friend again. The cargo boat MSC. I first met her in Dar Es Salaam where she was lying on the beach in the sun - stranded. And when I came to Cape town I was sitting in the taxi from the airport and saw her already here waiting for me.
Robben island was quite interesting because we were shown around by a former political prisoner who told us some interesting details about the regime. For example was the classification of people in different races inspired by Hitler's book "Mein Kampf". There were three classes - white, coloured or asian and black. The differentiation between black people and coloured was not always easy so the pencil test was introduced. A pencil was put in the hair of a person. If it stayed in the curly hair and didn't fall down the person was obviously coloured or black. Next he had to shake his head and if the pencil fell out of his hair he was a coloured, else black and with no rights.
On the island are only 17 seals left but thousands of Penguins. And I thought I spotted an elk but I found out those guys are called fallow deer.

This is all about Penguins

Today I had to get up really early. Was thrown into reality at 8 o'clock - no time for breakfast because we actually wanted to leave already at 8. So just a quick visit to the bathroom, brush my teath to get a good breath because today I wanted to visit the African Penguins and they absolutly don't like a bad breath!
found a very nice place where I got enough food and coffee that would last for the whole day. Tired from eating I actually wanted to go to bed again but I had an appointment with the penguis. They life near Simon's town at Boulders beach. A very beautiful So after an hour in the car we reached Simon's town where I got off and the others went on to give cape point a visit. First I was heading to the harbour because I needed coffee something to eat and I knew that sea men are always hungry. And there I beach where they have their little holes in the sand and breed their eggs. I feel a little bit bad had all their attention. That made it possible for an evil seegull to steal an egg from my little friends.
So I decided to leave them and go to the beach for humans just next door to the penguins. Read a nice book (still 'Das Boot') and was enjoying the African sun.

Rugby, Penguins and Table Mountain

After an exciting semester in Tanzania and one month of travelling around there I made it to South Africa. First Jo'burg whitch is a pretty boring city that has not much to offer but a funpark with unsave rollercoasters, hugh shopping centers where I got lost everytime I went and they have impressing traffic jams. Cape Town is very nice though - home of friendly Penguins and angry Rugby players, nice cheerleaders and beautiful Table Mountain and many many tourists! Yesterday I went to the Cape of good hope with two girls from Germany - Anna and Heschi or something like that. I was lucky because they had a car and I got a free ride to the south-westernmost point of Africa. The place where the Indian ocean and the Atlantic ocean come together and the only place in the world where Baboons eat seashells!?!

Finally

Finally after thousands of requests from all over the world I created my own webblog. Soon it will be filled with stories about my adventures from all over the world.