They say a picture paints a thousand words, well not this one; after looking at the familiar picture on my grandparents sitting room wall, I was struggling to get into double figures; I had ‘man’ and ‘moustache’ which I had quickly followed up with ‘bicycle’, ‘train’, and ‘silly hat’ (which I was definitely counting as two) but beyond that I was finding it hard to find any words to describe this unremarkable sepia image of a man in a hat – that was until I was told that the silly hatted man in question, was in fact my great grandfather.
The familiar picture which sparked so much...
After discovering the identity of the bicycle wielding moustache enthusiast, the words I had previously struggled with began to appear, only now, they were in the form of questions: Where was this picture taken? How old was it? Why was there a train in the background? Where did the train go? Did the hat have something to do with a bet, or was it a genuine head-wear choice? After each question came an answer, and each answer provided new words I could now associate with this increasingly interesting picture, exciting words, previously unheard words, words like ‘Sudan’ and ‘Khartoum’ causing my young eyes to grow ever wider as I began to hear the story of a man who had lived and worked not only in Sudan, but in Egypt, and Kenya, and Tanzania! And he wasn’t alone, because providing me with the answers to my excited questioning was my grandmother, who as a young girl had joined him on his African adventures.
Growing up, my grandmother was always an excellent source of stories about her time in Africa, stories about her naughty pet chimpanzee, or stray elephants wandering through the garden, and her anecdotes about pharaohs and pyramids brought the warmth and excitement of a far away continent to South West Essex. The places she had lived and visited all sounded incredibly exotic and exciting, as did the journeys she took to get there. Hearing these stories at such a young age must have planted a seed somewhere inside me, a seed which, by the time I was considering places to travel as an adult, had grown into the desire to explore the continent I had heard so much about as a child. My first trip to Africa was a defining moment in my life, and I fell for this beautiful, enthralling, and often misunderstood continent in a huge way – I vowed to return as often as possible so I could discover more of its charms.
Previous trip to Africa - crossing the Malawian border with far too much luggage... (Thanks @tommyatkins9 for the photo)
Fortunately towards the end of last year I was given an opportunity to return to Africa, and for the the last three months I have been living and working in one of East Africa’s gems. Tanzania has been good to me, it has allowed me to get a better understanding of East African culture, it has once again thrown me into the beautiful chaos involved in even the most simple of tasks, and it has even given me the opportunity to learn some rudimentary Swahili (very rudimentary since you ask!) I have loved my time here (and will hopefully be blogging about some of my experiences) but unfortunately the time has come for me to leave Tanzania, I am currently a week into the one months ‘grace period’ allowed on my expired visa, and so I had begun considering options for onward travel, when I remembered that picture on my grandparent’s wall, and the familiar cogs of adventure planning with the accompanying rush of endorphins began to engulf me, and a new adventure plan began to form.
A glimpse at what I’ve doing for the last three months… (thanks @medicinthewild for the photo)
So what’s the plan?
My plan is to follow as near as possible the route my great grandfather (and grandmother) took overland from the UK to Africa in the 1930's, but in reverse.
Instead of catching the train to Liverpool and getting on a boat to Egypt, my route will start in Dar Es Salaam (conveniently as that’s where I currently am) and will then continue through northern Tanzania towards Nairobi. From there my great grandfather would have travelled north through what is now South Sudan towards Khartoum – however, given the current security situation in South Sudan, I’ve decided against following his exact route, so instead will circumnavigate the world’s newest country by heading into Ethiopia (a very agreeable detour!)
From Ethiopia (with hopefully a side trip to see one of the world’s most unique volcanoes) I will get back on the family trail, and cross the border into Sudan, where I will head north west towards Khartoum. From the Sudanese capital I plan to take the train north to Wadi Halfa, on the border with Egypt, and then follow the River Nile north towards the Mediterranean coast, and onward to Europe and eventually home.
Casual cigarette and monkey photo...
Sounds straight forward enough, but there are a few potential hiccups along the way – Ethiopian visas are not available at land borders for example (and apparently they aren’t currently in the business of giving them out to non-residents at their embassy in Nairobi), Sudanese visas are notoriously lengthy to obtain, and all passenger shipping across the Mediterranean from Egypt to Europe has been suspended until further notice due to conflicts in the Middle East, so there is every chance that I will have to get creative with the route (although with neighbouring countries along the way such as Somalia, Eritrea and Libya, my creativity might be stilted somewhat), there is also the very real possibility that my proposed plan will be shot down by bureaucrats and tied up in red tape before it has even really begun; even exiting Tanzania might be a struggle given that there seems to be some ‘inconsistencies’ with the understanding of ‘one months grace period’ between immigration officials, but whatever the final outcome, if I manage to get that far, I hope I’ll be able to add even more words to the familiar picture on my grandparent’s wall, and hopefully take a few of my own, which one day might plant their own seed of adventure.
Andy Browning © 2016