louiseinlimbo

I should have said ‘final photo from the tribal part of this visit’, as there was also some great scenery as well as the Tropical Modernist architecture of Luanda and Namibe. The southern half of Angola is pretty dry (at least it is during August) – most of it not quite desert, but still very dusty and sandy.  The downside was the dust thrown up by the vehicle in front (that car being reserved for the guide and her partner, and its front seat claimed by an older Spanish tour group member who said she got car sick if she travelled further back in a vehicle), but that was more than made up for by the rocks and canyons (such as Curoca Canyon above) and the occasional oasis (such as Arco Oasis below). There were also old rock paintings in a couple of caves, and engravings on the sides of a rocky outcrop on the way up to one of the caves.  Apparently they are amongst the oldest in southern Africa, estimated to be some 20,000 years old. We visi ted the animist cemetery at Virei...

But it was time to get back on the road – to another country I haven’t visited before: Angola. I’ve been on a couple of tours with a company that like to go deep into tribal stuff, and I signed up to their tour visiting various different tribes in southern Angola. & I have to say, there are some great tribes in southern Angola, for those of us who love seeing very different traditional dress!   Above you can see the ornate beaded ‘necklaces’ worn by the Muila tribes – which never come off, they sleep with their heads resting on a stool.    The lady on the left is from the Himba tribe, known especially for the reddish substance they smear on their hair and bodies: a paste made from butterfat, ground red ochre, and some kind of aromatic resin, which apparently protects them both from the sun and from mosquitoes.   The bits of goatskin sticking up from the middle of her head indicate that she is a mother (or has been married for at least a year). Unfortunatel...

Oh my goodness, life has been so busy that I haven’t had the time to write anything here for more than six weeks … but I don’t want to miss out the highlights from my trip back to the UK.   Firstly, a reunion of pupils from my school, marking 50 years since its opening.   I was in the very first intake, and knew that at least a couple of other people from my year would be there, so I made sure I was in the UK in time to attend.   Yes, those two friends and a few more were there, including one of two others that I had really hoped to see.   Every time I thought about the reunion, I thought “please let Nicolette and/or Helen be there”, so I was thrilled when not only was Nicolette there, but she expressed having made the same wish beforehand to see me there!   A couple of my teachers also attended, and a quick conversation with my old English History teacher revealed that we shared a love of Malian music, which was quite a surprise.   This teacher asked if he...

When I’m travelling independently (ie not on a guided tour), I still stay in hostels.   Not just any hostels, but the cheapest one in my location, provided its location is okay and customer reviews do not refer to anything exceptionally bad, such as bed bugs.   (this is the review on bookingdotcom for the hostel I stayed at in Tirana for the last week: Couldn't even spend one night there. Scored 2.0 😊 the price. ☹ this hostel was really scary. there was no clear signage around - so it was difficult to find it. no locks on doors, no curtains on beds, no security, no reception, weird smell, scary vibe. We couldn't even stay the night because of how uncomfortable we felt.) I do this for financial reasons, as the package tour part of my travel lifestyle can be pretty expensive so I need to ‘balance the books’.   But I also do so for the company – even if I won £1 million next month, I would still stay in hostels (although maybe with the very occasional night in a...

One of the main draws of Montenegro is its beautiful scenery – hills, forests, mountains, lakes – so when I received the latest marketing email from a tour company I use frequently with a one-week hiking trip in Montenegro, during this time when I was planning to visit the country, it seemed sensible to sign up for it, especially as the cost was more than covered by the refund I’d received for the cancelled Socotra trip.  I hoped that the Valbona-Theth hike in Albania had helped to prepare me physically for the hiking, and was relieved when I met the other tour group members to see that they were mostly around my age. Before meeting up with them, however, I had a few days to explore some other parts of the country – the capital (Podgorica), and the coastal town of Budva.  Podgorica has little of interest to a tourist, but it bothers me when I visit a country and don’t get to see its capital, so I gave myself a couple of days there – enough to see the sights (a clock tower, a c...

When I finally left Tirana, my first stop was Berat – also known as the ‘city of a thousand windows’.  Not sure that this is a very meaningful description if other windows are like two of the three on my hostel dorm: window frames and panes set onto the front of a brick wall (with no gap in the bricks for windows)!!  But it truly is a beautiful city, dominated by a large castle overlooking it from a hilltop.  Started by the Romans and largely re-built by the Byzantines in the thirteenth century, it contains within its walls a number of Orthodox churches, two Ottoman-era mosques, a museum and of course a number of cafes. From there I moved on to Gjirokaster, another inland city built around an old hilltop fortress, this one even larger as it includes a residential quarter within its walls as well as a former prison and a museum.  Again, there were cultural events in the city – this picture being a group of polyphonic singers on stage in one of the city squares, and ag...