| West
to East Africa November
2003 - February 2004 with Ann "Stevie" (Spaulding) & Steve Wilberding |
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Click
on map to enlarge!
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In
my 60th year my husband Steve asked if I wanted a party for my birthday
and I said, "No. I'd like a big, challenging trip with one carry-on
suitcase," just as he chose when he turned 60- (to Antarctica). So
for 5 months I planned the trip which would take us first to be Grannies
in our eldest son's home in Nigeria where he is a political officer at the
USA embassy. Then we flew to the farthest west of Africa- the Cape Verde
Islands, into Senegal and then across land through Dogon country in Mali
and finally a difficult entry into Timbuktu. Then across the desert with
the Tuareg people into Niger (surrounded by 6 AK-47 in the dead of night)
and along the Niger River. Visits to Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast ended
our first month. We met our son and his family in Accra, Ghana for a fascinating
week of Ashanti culture and a lot of beach and tennis. We all drove through Togo and Benin where after some days visiting Abomey palace restoration and slave monuments, we bid them farewell and flew to Cameroon but not before we landed in Gabon for an unexpected few days- the plane just didn't go any further that day. The grassfields of Cameroon and the small kingdoms were our last stops in West Africa. We flew East overnight across Central Africa to Uganda for a week's birding and visiting the source of the Nile from tented camps and finding a little hippo in our swimming pool! Then to Nairobi and a glamorous stay at
Giraffe
Manor (with giraffes looking for handouts in your bedroom window,) visiting
friends and Steve came home. I took the bus 4 hours to Arusha Tanzania to
stay with missionary friends and to work with them for a few weeks and then
took a ship from Mombassa into the Indian Ocean visiting Zanzibar, etc.
On our way to Madagascar we turned around in the face of a cyclone which
followed us for 3 days to the Seychelles- an unexpected destination. From
there I flew to Cairo to stay with friends revisiting the pyramids, a trip
to St. Kathrines on the Sinai and Alexandria to the new library. Then an
uneventful few days visiting old Bombaywallas on Chiswick Mall in London
before flying home.