Aidouche en vadrouille

Les photos de Chine sont la! Avec quelques mois de retard, certes...

Bon, je vous previens j ai deja oublie tous les noms de temples, pagodes et consort donc si je meprends le temple de la philosophie avec celui des petales de roses tombant delicatement, je suis sure que vous ne m en tiendrez pas rigueur!

Carpe diem, nunc et ad vitam aeternam

Ave les gueux, Do you know that song from Jacques Dutronc, Il est cinq heures, Paris s eveille? It is five am, Paris is waking up.. beautiful beautiful. Well, not that I am awake at 5am, but I am now back home in my capital city, "a la Villette ou on tranche le lard et la Tour Eiffel a encore froid aux pieds". Et moi aussi d ailleurs! After Zanzibar, I went straight to the French Alpes skiing or actually snowboarding with a couple of good friends! See pictures. Well, not only was my body under shock because of the temperature difference, but it was also well bruised due to multiple falls on my knees, bum, head (hence the helmet), elbow...I mean, who starts snowboarding at 30, really?? Well, by the end of the week I was able to do a few things...like standing for more than 5 mn. What I enjoy the most since I'm back: speaking French and eating cheese. La vie est faite de petits plaisirs!

eh bien, on peut dire que cela fait un petit bail que je n ai pas renouvele ce site.

Cela fait bientot trois mois que je me ballade en rase campagne tanzanienne. J ai cotoye, de loin certes, l imposant mont kilimandjaro, j ai chevauche ces fameux bus africains qui m ont menee au dela des frontieres auxquelles se limitent bien trop souvent les touristes peu temeraires. C'est en effet bien poussiereuse et groggy que je suis descendue d un bus un beau matin de mars au village de Kolo afin de visiter des caves prehistoires. Kolo se situe en plein centre de la Tanzanie et je peux vous dire qu il n y avait pas foule. J etais d ailleurs la seule... bon pour etre honnete, les peintures rupestres se limitent a quelques bonhommes peints couleur ocre se dandinant tels des stylos bics assembles de maniere aleatoire ! Quand le guide me regarda serieusement et me dit' et la Aida, on peut observer un buffalo, et la une girafe', je me suis dit tout-bas' et la mytho, on peut observer un trait qui ressemble a un baton de berger!' Mais bien entendu, je me suis contentee de sourire et acquiser comme il se doit!

ce sont mes rencontres dans les restaurants locaux, dans les marches dans les bus qui m ont introduites a ce qu est la tanzanie. Un melange d ethnies, toutes parlant une seule et meme langue, le swahili! Sophie, mohammed, Akbar, Emmanuel, Theo et tant d autres sont de jeunes personnes qui m ont fait partager un petit bout de leur quotidien! Je me suis toujours sentie a l aise, chez moi, meme lorsque j arrivais a 6 heures du matin dans une gare routiere plus que blindee et avec 10 personnes me sautant dessus pour me proposer un safari, un taxi ou un mari...

le Rwanda fut aussi au menu. J y ai passe une semaine fin fevrier. Changement de paysage total, et je ne parle pas du paysage au sens litteral. ici, les gens ne vous calculent pas. Personne pour vous vendre quoi que ce soit, personne pour vous harceler! Kigali est une capitale paisible.. mais qui m a donnee la chaire de poule. quand on pense au massacre, et on ne peut s empecher d y penser, je peux vous dire que ca donne froid au dos! Je fixais les gens et me demandais quel role un tel ou X joua dans le genocide: victime ou bourreau? Dans les campagnes rwandaises, on voit souvent des pancartes indiquant a quel endroit un massacre eut lieu et combien de personnes perirent ! On voit aussi des prisonniers vetus de rose, c est la couleur du genocide! Le rwanda me parut etre un pays calme, pas de bruits agressifs ni de musiques dans les bus ni dans les rues...un silence qui glace parfois!

Me voici de retour sur la belle zanzibar, une ile a quelques km de la cote tanzanienne. Ici c est fare niente sur fare niente! On apprecie le temps et les choses simples! Et un peu moins simples, tels party party party!!

voila, je vous promets quelques details supplementaires sur le reste de mon periple dans les semaines a venir

en attendant, carpons diem ensemble

Joyeux Noel a tous et a toutes,

Froehliche Weihnachten

Happy xmas everyone ! blablablablabl

It's Sunday morning and I am getting ready to leave beautiful Zanzibar. Haven't slept as I was shaking a leg on Kendwa Rocks beach at the last full moon party moon party of the year!

Right, 10 am I leave for Stone Town Airport- Arrive there around 12pm and wait until 3 pm to catch my flight to Addis Abeba. I arrive in Addis around 5pm, it's cold there! I queue for 2 hours to get booked into a hotel - I am not flying until the next day as Ethiopian Airlines made a mistake when I changed my ticket. Great! I don't get to the hotel until midnight, I am shattered and sleep straight away without having dinner.

Early start on Monday, I am at the airport at  8 am. The flight is at 10. Well, no of course it is delayed! Problem to load the luggage, we have to change plane! Sa race, delayed by 2 hours! I am going to miss my connection flight to Paris. I ask the beautiful flight attendant what would happen. She smiles and tells me to take it easy! Oh well, I got three seats for myself and listen to one of my favourite songs, "Nothing else matters" by Metallica , so what could go wrong?

Land at Heathrow around 7pm, my flight is at 7.30pm. I run with Paolo, the Airline ground staff, to Terminal 2. I am kaputt!. I missed the flight, back to Terminal 3. Get into an argument with Ethiopian staff ( well, the guy was shouting - I was way too tired to argue! I was just smiling and I think that pissed him off). It's 10pm. I grab my backpack and start making some phone calls. London is home really, so staying over at a friend's place is not a problem! Or is it?

Well, it would not have been one had I not forgotten my debit card on the phone booth after trying to get hold of my cousin. Of course, I left it in the area where one cannot go come back once passed customs. And of course, it took me two hours to convince a member of staff to allow me back in. Get back in and find the card! pfuifff, I am lucky! So, it's past midnight, i am tired. The hotels are over £200, can't get hold of cousin so I decided to stay at the airport. Done worth in Africa!!  It's freezing cold! Never mind, Marks and Spencer is still open so I can get my favourite cookies! Right, got the cookies so I take a seat, make myself comfortable and suddendly realise that my passport is gone!!!! That's it I thought, i am going to be stuck here like Tom Hanks in "the Terminal". It's so cold that I start having headaches and a chest pain!

Right, 4 am- I am talking with a Singaporean girl who missed her train to Peterborough and a Bulgarian one who is on her way to Canada. I drink Peppermint tea and the terminal is quiet and sleepy!

5 am- I am waiting for M&S to open- maybe I dropped it there! There are three men behind me from the UK border Agency- I feel like making a joke and telling them that I want to seek asylum- I look at them, they don't look very nice so no joke! Then I thought I'd try first at the lost and found thing. I can't hardly speak so I just mumble sth! The guy doesn't understand what I am trying to explain but he says " I've seen your picture- Didn't you loose your passport?" Gave him the biggest smile, he gave me my passport! I had dropped it at M&S when I was buying those cookies- no more cookies I said! ( haven't I said that many times though?)

6am- go to Terminal 2, get my ticket with Air France. Have to wait until 1pm! Great. But I am happy, passport and credit card are with me! I am now concentrating very hard on not loosing or dropping anything. hard job, I am not very good at concentrating!

12.30. Flight is delayed by 2 hours because of bad weather conditions in Paris! I smile and think that I should have never changed my initial ticket from Zanzibar! Was meant to fly back on the 19/12! oh well! I call mum and tell her not to bother picking me up!

7pm, seating in a cosy taxi listening to a Parisian cab driver complaining about everything! Oh well, Parisians!
8pm, eating the best  omelette paysanne prepared by mum with Sister Lova Lova and The Thing (my younger brother) and watching my grandmother eating her Milchsuppe (beurk!)

Oh well, Mama Africa didn't want to let me go! I'll surely be back!

Aid Moubarak a tous , croyants ou mecreants. Pratiquants ou part-timers!
Surtout joyeux Aid a Charly, super-mecreant de son etat!!!

bisous

Eid Mubarak to all !

Hello everyone,

First of all I owe an apology to my English speaking friends who've been following me... in French! The thing is that I had no doubts that my very very intelligent friends would have no difficulties whatsoever to understand everything :) You see, I am funny in French (or I'd like to think so) and relating my adventures in English sounds pretty boring. But let me try .

I am now in Zanzibar off the Tanzanian coast. I landed yesterday in Dar es Salam, capital of Tanzania, and stayed over for one night. I am still travelling with Sally and Kate, two Australian "old mates" -as they say-, whom I met in Mozambique about 10 days ago. It's been good fun travelling with them and I guess I might not have experienced half of the adventures I went through had I not been with them.

I can't say much about Zanzibar yet apart from the fact that it looks charming and that it is buzzing because of Eid El Kebir which will be celebrated tomorrow! Exciting! After Eid el Fitr in Addis, I will now enjoy one of our biggest festivals in a very traditionnal muslim society. I am actually only looking forward to eating, hehe

Well, let me tell you about the rest of my journey in Mozambique. The north is very challenging in terms of travelling and communicating. Very few are the ones who speak English, and even rarer are the public transports. So when Sally, Kate and I decided to go to Ilha de Ibo ( Ibo Island) from Pemba, we knew what to excpect (never knew how to spell that word!)  At least that 's what we thought. We actually had to sit at the back of a lorry for about 6 hours, on an extremely bumping road (no asphalte here) and with app. 20 other passengers. You basically hold on to whatever you can, may it be your neighbour's wig!! . When we made it to Kessanga, we had to wait there for another 3 hours before the tide was up so we could embark on a "boat" to Ibo Island. The tide , we learnt later, would be our worst nightmare on Ibo. And of course, before embarking, we had to walk through a very muddy path with my extremely heavy backpack and I got stuck in the mud a few times!

Anyway, here we are on Ibo Island- it's really hot, there's very limited food and when available one has to wait for app. 2 hours for it! Never mind, we're on holiday and in Africa so no rush- zen is our leitmotiv, innit!!!

the real adventure started when Kate and I decided that staying one more on Ibo without exploring the fabulous islands would be a sacrilege ( is that an english word??oops). So, here we are on wednesday the third of December at 9 am walking with two local guides (both about 15 year old) through the mangrove to get to the Archipelagos of Quirimbas ( which is a national park). The walk was about a 3-hours one, through the mangrove, in the water and the mud. Of course, I fell a few times because that's what clumsy Aida does. Call me Pierre Richard! ( french version of Mr Bean I guess ).

So, we finally got to Quirimbas island, which is beautiful. It is also known as the coconut island. Kate and I are exhausted, it is extremely hot and the walk was hard ( there are more details to that walk actually). Anyway, after a 30-minutes break in a local restaurant ( so local that we decided not to eat there), our guides tell us that we have to hurry back because a boat to Ibo Island is just about to leave. Right, so here we are, walking back towards the mangrove to catch a "boat" to cross the channel to Ibo.

The tide has started to come up. It is actually coming up very quickly. In less that 20 minutes, there is hardly any land where we can walk. The "boat" has just gone to drop some passengers on the other side of the shore... the water is now up to our waist! KAte and I are only worried for the cameras. Bref, the boat is struggling to come our way because of the current so we have to walk a bit further in the water, with our bags on the head. Besides from the fact that walking in the water was quite painful because of the under-water vegetation (mangrove is a weird thing I have to say- got a few cut on my feet), I was getting slightly worried about the "boat" when I saw it approaching. It just looked a bit... old and unstable! Anyway, this is African, system D (debrouille). Kate and I get on the boat... it sinks! Not to worry, we saw it coming so we could get out without getting wet. But our second attempt wasn't that fortunate. The boat actually capsized , WITH OUR CAMERAS!!!! ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG, merde alors. I can't really describe the feeling; all I thought was " Aida how could you have been so stupid"

I was guttered for our cameras but also worried because Quirimbas Island  was quite far and all we could see was water and mangrove ... and water!!! . We had to think quickly ! Anyway, to cut a long story short while we were arguing with our "captain" in the water, a bigger boat arrived and took us safely to Ibo Island. It took us app. another 2,5 hours to return to the Island, which was a bit scary considering that no one knew where we were, our guides were only 15 and the mangrove is pretty nerve-racking at night!

It's a mini adventure! I managed to retrieve all the pictures from my memory card but the camera is gone! Oh well, I am glad I can actually swim and that we are all safe!

Voila,  we have a proverb in French that says that one cannot have the butter, the money generated by the sales of the butter and the smile of the dairywoman! (hence the title) the english version is I believe  " you can't have the cake and eat it". Well, I guess that I cannot want to have a good thrill and capture it without taking any risks!

Does that make any sense?? as i said, my brain is fried so I may just be talking crap :)))

Besitos a todos

Coucou,

Toujours vivante et bien portante, je mange et reve plus que jamais! ce qui est bon signe! J ai quitte Ilha de Mocambique hier, une ile situee au nord du pays. Ma foi, quelle beaute , un bijou , un tresor trop peu connu et c est tant mieux! Pas de touristes sud-africains -  souvent l equivalent des anglais ou allemands en espagne- Ici seuls  quelques touristes echoues et qui flanent dans les etroites ruelles de cette charmante ville coloniale. Ilha de Mocambique a des airs de SAint Louis du Senegal ou encore CArthagena en Colombie. L architecture coloniale est sublime mais malheureusement souvent en decripitude! L atmosphere y est plus que relaxe et j imagine bien un festival de jazz genre New Orleans. L Adaan - appel a la priere pr les mecreants- y ajoute une resonnance "orientale". Je suis restee dans une auberge de jeunesse qui etait placee juste derriere la mosquee principale. Donc bien entendu, a trois heures du matin,  le muezzin s egosille a appeler les nombreux paresseux a la priere. Je dois dire que l appel matinal est plutot strident, enrage et dont peu melodieux alors que celui de la priere de Maghreb -crepuscule- est plus qu envoutant! ca donnerait presque envie d etre une muslim full-time, innit Anna?

LA vraie souffrance a Ilha etait le soleil qui vous ecrase tel le serait un moucheron sous la lourde talonnette de sarkosy.A 6 heures du mat, impossible de dormir. A 9heures, on croirait le soleil a son zenith! On cherche desperement l ombre ou tt le monde se refugie. A Ilha, on frole les murssssssssss! 

J ai bcq aime Ilha. Les gens y sont tellement metisses - heritage perse, indien, portugais, mozambiquain! Les gens sont relaxes, pas de harcelement ici- les enfants sont vraiment curieux, essayent parfois de vous vendre un bracelet mais n insistent jamais et vous laissent avec un charmant sourire et un poli "bom dia sinora". Ehoui, j parle portugeshe moi! attention, j melange mon pauvre italien, le peu d espagnol que j ai appris avec sandrita, je mets des chhh partout, et voila! J commande ma morue sans problemes!

J aime, j adore le Mozambique. Les plages, les crustaces, les gens , la musique... je le recommande a tous et a toutes! Je dirai presque, sea sex and sun a la Gainsbourg, mais vous me connaissez , hehe!!!

Bon aujourd"hui, je suis a Ibo Island qui fait partie de l archipel Quirimbas- un parc national forme principalement d iles! Levee a 3heures du matin, j ai voyage pendant pres de 6 heures a l arriere d un camion tel du betail! J ai eu quelques frayeurs mais au nord du mozambique, les transports en commun sont rarissimes, alors pas vraiment de choix - j ai deja du prendre deux vols internes! Apres le camion, nous avons pris un dhow - petit voilier local- apres avoir attendu que la maree monte pendant 3 heures! Je ne vous cacherai pas que je suis un peu crevee, c est loin d etre reposant tout ca.

Je voyage avec deux australiennes que j ai rencontre a Ilha de Mocambique!

photos soon hopefully,

besitos

PS> je rentre a Paname le 15 decembre Incha Allah!

Charly . pas assez de commentaires croustillants je suppose?

hi everyone,

i am now in vilankulos by the coast on the Indian Ocean, probably about 1000 km from maputo, the capital of mozambique. well, i totally love it! Maputo is a great city and realy reminds me to Dakar, so I felt a bit like at home!

After spending a few days in maputo, i headed to Tofo where I met a bunch of backpackers from Germany, Australia, UK and Canada. SO , for those who are worried about me being too much on my own  DO NOT WORRY ANYMORE :)  We had great fun, partying, eating, playing silly games ( the murderer game for those who know it). but the best of it is that I am now a diver!!!!!!!!!!! yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh man . I passed my open water I course! well, it was hard: having to study physics and maths while on holiday was a pain. But breathing under water, removing your mask while at 16m underwater or trying to sit like a buddha without touching the ground was the most challenging parts of this 4-day course! but I loved it and I am glad I did it!

I am now in Vilankulos with some of the guys I met in Tofo. I"ll be spending a few days exploring the islands and will then head north to Ihla di Mocambique and then Pemba!

voila,

richard, you're right about Maputo- really much enjoyed it! people are very friendly and the atmosphere is very chilled!

Hello,

Here are some of the thousand of pictures I took! Hope you'll like them!
I am now in South Africa ,in Johannesburg, resting with family and I will be heading towards Mozambique by bus tomorrow morning, Incha Allah!

a plus

**** Kalvir - thx for your message! Was wondering when I was going to get one! Happy Diwali ! How is work? Hope you're well busy and tired so maybe you'll come and join me somewhere! :)

xxxx