Accra Craft Market, Ghana

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Tara

After such an amazing trip to Ghana, of course I wanted to buy some souvenirs! We visited the Arts & Craft Market in Accra for some serious shopping! The vendors here are very pushy and you do have to bargain pretty hard. We came away with 2 paintings – Bee-eaters & Kingfishers, a kaftan for me and a t-shirt and baseball cap for my husband.

Take a look and see what YOU would buy here!

My poor husband struggles to keep up and balance the backpacks and shopping!

He decided against a hair cut.

Even after exiting the market, they still chase after you!

Furniture can be purchased on several street corners in Accra.

Off We Go – In A Ghanaian Tro-Tro

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Tara

One of the reasons birders on a budget will love Ghana is that public transport is readily available and very cheap! After getting a good night’s sleep in the Holiday Inn, we were very keen the next morning to get to Kakum National Park, Ghana’s premier birding hotspot.

We paid around $10 for a hotel taxi (it would have been cheaper if we had gotten one in the street) to the Tema Station. I had mistakenly believed that we could get a tro-tro to Cape Coast from there. That was wrong, we needed to take one tro-tro to Kaneshie, then get another one to Cape Coast.

Since we were the last to board, we had to go to the back of the mini-bus.

The driver dropped us off at Kaneshie right in front of the section where the Cape Coast tro-tros departed. We found Ghanaians to be very friendly and helpful whenever we needed directions. The drivers of these tro-tros charged us the same as everyone else, no attempt at tourist prices.

While you wait for the tro-tro to fill up, vendors will come around selling everything under the sun. We just watched the people in the market and waited, it didn’t take more than 15 minutes or so to fill up.

You can also get buses like this to Cape Coast but the tro-tros tend to fill up quicker. Either way it’s a cheap trip, around $6-$8.

Upon arrival in Cape Coast, the driver dropped us at the station where another tro-tro went to Kakum National Park. You can actually go all the way to the park from here and hop out at the gate.

This is where we hopped out – the Rainforest Lodge. By this time it was around 2pm so we decided to just have lunch, relax and watch birds around the lodge and save Kakum for an early start in the morning.

Shopping In Antananarivo – Souvenirs Of Madagascar

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Tara

The one disappointing thing was that there weren’t many handicrafts being sold at any of the places we visited and I always like to bring souvenirs home. Preferably ones that are made by locals and contribute to the local economy so they benefit from eco-tourism.

Since I live in Australia where the quarantine laws are very strict about bringing in anything that is of plant (such as wood carvings) or animal origin, I try to avoid such things unless the item is a rare find and of course not made out of any endangered species. I really like paintings, embroideries, batiks and jewelry depicting birds. And no trip to Madagascar is complete without a few t-shirts to proclaim to all your friends back home you have been here!

There are a few souvenir shops in downtown Tana, some of which accept credit cards.

There is also a market out near the airport with about 50 small shops selling all kinds of handicrafts. Cash only but bargaining is expected!

I ended up buying a table cloth with embroidered birds, a few fridge magnets and a couple embroidered wallets. Word quickly got out that I liked birds espececially and a few stall holders came running up to me clutching any merchandise with a bird on it!

Back at the airport, after we paid the taxi, checked in and had no further use for Ariary, I spent the last few notes on an embroidered doily at one of the kiosks in the lobby.

The Road To Ankarafantsika, Madagascar

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Tara

After finally breaking free of the horrendous traffic in Tana, we were once again on a good road with pretty scenery. Highway 4 is the main road between Tana and Mahajunga and is a well-kept, paved road.

Ignore what Google says. It will take a good 7-8 hours to make the trip. The road traverses a mountainous area where you can’t drive at speed and you will also have to deal with slow moving vehicles as this is a major road but only one lane.

As I mentioned before, make sure you have plenty of cash. No one anywhere near the Ankarafantsika National Park takes credit cards and there are no BNI branches where you can use foreign ATMs. Visit the ATM before you leave Antananarivo and stock up with cash. You will also need to top up your petrol as most vehicles won’t make it there and back and will need to refuel along the way and you must pay in cash.

Leaving the outskirts of Tana, there are lots of farms and small villages.

After about 100 km, you enter the mountainous area.

Maevatanana which means “beautiful village” according to our driver is a good place for a meal break.

Hotel Restaurant Chouchou has good, cheap food, clean toilets (a rarity along this road) and also cheap rooms if you want to stay here enroute. We only had a late lunch here.

We are getting closer to the park from here on. Here are some scenes of typical village life.

Never Underestimate Antananarivo Traffic Jams

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Tara

This was a loooong travel day! We left early from Andasibe and would have to cross the busy city of Antananarivo (usually called “Tana”) before finding the road to Ankarafantsika. We retraced our route back with only one stop in Moramanga where I was hoping to hit up an ATM for cash. When we got there, I tried two banks, one ATM was out of order and the other didn’t like my foreign debit card. So we pushed on to Tana where I finally had luck at the BNI Bank which is the only bank that is reliable for both Visa & Mastercard debit cards. We stopped at the same Jovana petrol station near the US Embassy, the driver seemed to like that one in particular. We hit major traffic jams all throughout the city and even for about 20 km once we got past the city. Fourtunately there is enough of interest to watch out the window. While we were driving past markets, the driver cautioned me to keep the window rolled up for fear of grab & run thieves so I had to shoot through the window.

It took about 90 minutes just to get from one end of the city to the other! I hope you enjoy these traffic jam and city scenes!

Tana Laundromat

One of the dodgy markets where thieves can be a problem.

Now we are downtown in a less risky area.

Passing Lake Anosy

Another market where we had to be careful and keep the windows up.

All kinds of traffic in this jam!

Craft market just outside the city on the road to the airport.

Planning A Visit To Madagascar

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Tara

Madagascar is one of the most fascinating countries on earth with its unique culture and wildlife found nowhere else on earth. You could spend months here and not see it all. Unfortunately, very few of us have unlimited time and money to spend as much time here as we would like so we need to prioritize and plan very carefully to make the most of our visit to Madagascar. Here’s some things to consider.

VISAS

Madagascar gives a free visa on arrival to the citizens of most countries. This is where it is essential to book your airplane seat wisely as you want to be first off the plane and first in line at the visa desk. It’s like a rugby scrum and very disorganized. People crowd around the desk, most don’t stand in a line and everyone is shoving their passports at the officer who puts them on a desk where other officers grab a passport off the desk, input the data into a computer and issue the visa. Then he holds up the passport and calls out the name of the owner who will be somewhere in the rugby scrum! We were one of the first off the plane and it still took about 10 minutes, I wouldn’t want to be last off the plane! You can also expect to be heat-screened for Ebola as you enter the airport. You walk slowly past a machine that is able to detect if you have a fever.

FINANCES

Once you get here, if you travel like the locals do, Madagascar can be very cheap. You will need lots of cash no matter what. I cannot emphasize this enough as I am very plastic-orientated. And in Madagascar when I say LOTS of cash, I mean literally. If you change even $200 you will end up with a very thick stack of Ariary the size of War & Peace! The bank in the airport is good enough to change cash, there isn’t much difference between them. Even the tour operator went there to change the Euros I gave her as payment to Ariary and she would know the best place to exchange money.

Only a few hotels around the country and some souvenir shops in Antananarivo accept credit cards and then it’s only Visa or Mastercard, not Amex. ATMs are widespread but not all banks accept foreign ATM cards. I totally underestimated this and got into strife in Ankarafantsika as there was no place near by to get cash so we had to seriously curtail what we wanted to do and we could only eat one meal a day in addition to breakfast provided by the hotel. BNI branches are good for foreign cards, Bank of Africa didn’t accept my debit card or my Visa card.

Petrol (gas) stations do not accept credit cards! Not even the big ones like Shell, Total, Jovenna and Galana. This was the main reason I ran low on cash. I knew I had to pay cash for food, guides, park entries and lodges but I had expected to use a credit card to fill the car. Unless you are using public transport such as taxi-brousse, you will have to pay the fuel for your rental car so be prepared!

GETTING AROUND

Getting around Madagascar isn’t as simple as South Africa where you can simply drive off in your own rental car on your own. Car hire companies in Madagascar only hire cars with their own driver. The rate quoted to you will include the daily rate for the vehicle and the driver’s expenses such as food and accommodation and the car insurance. You can either book a full tour package which includes your accommodation, sightseeing and the transport or just book the car & driver. If you book a full package, you will probably have to pay some portion of it in advance by bank transfer as the tour operator has to pay the accommodation. If you book only the car & driver, you can usually negotiate to pay cash on arrival. No tour operator in Madagascar that I could find (and I did look extensively) accepts credit cards or even Paypal.

The above is of particular interest to travel hackers as paying by bank transfer is the worst possible scenario. You have to part with the cash immediately (no 30 days interest free), no miles by using the right credit card and you have to pay bank fees to transfer the money! There is also some risk if the tour operator doesn’t show up or goes out of business, you won’t get your money back. Needless to say, I will bend over backwards to avoid bank transfers!

I have to admit that I don’t prefer this type of travel. I much prefer to drive my own car or take public transport. I am just not comfortable being in the role of “boss of a personal chauffeur” even just for a few days. However with a tight schedule and the need to see two specific national parks, we didn’t have time to mess around with public transportation. If I could have added a couple days on to the week we spent in Madagascar, we could have done the itinerary using public transport (buses & taxi-brousse).

CHOOSING WHICH NATIONAL PARKS TO VISIT

How much time do you have? What animals and birds do you want to see? This is where you really have to do your homework. Even us hard-core birders want to see lemurs as well as birds. The good news is that pretty much all national parks have different species of lemurs and birds. If you are after specific species, you need to read trip reports on Surfbirds and see what species are commonly seen where. Also read up on Madagascar’s National Parks. Be realistic in how many you can visit in the amount of time available to you. If you only have a week, choose the two most likely parks to have your target species. Avoid trusting Air Madagascar to get you anywhere on time, you need a day or so as a buffer just in case they cancel or are very late. If one of the parks you want is only reachable by plane, do that one first and save the easier-to-reach park for last.

I was targeting the 3 parrot species in Madagascar – Greater Vasa Parrots, Lesser Vasa Parrots and Grey-headed Lovebirds. After that, I wanted to see as many lemurs and other birds as possible. I only had a week and didn’t want to mess with Air Madagascar so after many hours of research, I chose two parks that were both reachable from Antananarivo easily by road, even by sedan car so we didn’t need a 4WD. I chose Andasibe-Mantadia as a good all-rounder that had two of my target birds and Ankarafantsika that had all 3 species.

In posts to follow, I will go into detail about these two parks, how to get there, where to stay and what to see.

Because I can’t emphasize it enough I will repeat: when in Madagascar, make sure you have plenty of cash!

Getting Around Mauritius – Rental Car VS Bus

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Tara

Regrettably, we didn’t have a lot of time to spend in Mauritius. We aren’t the beach holiday type (nor would we travel all the way from Australia to Mauritius simply for a beach) so we had to have a well organized plan to decided on what kind of transport we needed. The main purpose of the trip was to see the Echo Parakeets in Black River Gorges National Park. The hotel we stayed at (on points of course) was the nearest points option to BRGNP, the Mauritius Hilton at Flic en Flac. I also wanted to squeeze in a quick visit to the Casela Bird Park and the 7 Coloured Sands at Chamarel.

RENTAL CARS

With such a short amount of time, only a rental car would do. The one thing I found frustrating is that the majors – Hertz, Avis, etc only seemed to have manual transmissions at a reasonable cost. I can only drive an automatic, especially if I will be driving through towns. The best option was going through a rental car consolidator which had more options with smaller car hire companies that offered automatics at reasonable prices. I checked 3 options – Expedia, Holiday Autos & DriveAway. All prices for these examples are in Australian dollars but if you do a quote, it will default to your own currency.

Expedia

Holiday Autos

DriveAway

Holiday Autos had the best price back then just as they do now so I booked with them for First since it was the better deal for a better car. The rate includes excess up to 15,000 MUR which is around $450 USD or $500 AUD and this amount was covered by my travel insurance policy. Always check before booking a rental car what the insurance covers and what the excess is!

Here’s the actual car. As usual, I did a full inspection and made sure the employee knew I was doing it. It did take a while for them to fetch the car from their depot in town and we had to sit there and wait. I had given my flight number and they have a display on flight times in the office which is shared by all car hire companies so they could have been more proactive in getting the car there on time to meet the flight. I returned it a bit early and once again did the inspection, got the final receipt and had no issues while returning it so First was a good choice for me!

LOCAL BUSES

Traveling by local buses can be fun, is usually the cheapest option and a good way to meet the locals. Mauritius does have a large bus network and if you have plenty of time to spare and not so much money, this could be a good option for you.

With so much to see in such a short time, there was no way this was going to work! Here is an example for a route from near the airport to Flic en Flac (not the Hilton, just the town center).

TAXIS, TRANSFERS & TOUR BUSES

Just like any other country, Mauritius offers all of the above – at a price of course! We didn’t use any of these options so I can’t really comment on them. When you arrive at the airport, there are brochures with tour ads so you can call them directly or book through your hotel. When we were at Chamarel, there were lots of tour buses there so obviously lots of people do use this option.

Scenes from the road between the airport and Casela Bird Park.

All things considered, I was happy with my choice of rental car as the best means of transport in Mauritius.

A Few Cautions About Driving From Kruger To JNB

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Tara

If you Google-map it, Kruger to Jo-burg doesn’t look like that big a drive, about 5 hours.

What Google doesn’t tell you is just how slow the traffic can be! We were lucky we left by 2pm and I was expecting to hit JNB by 7pm driving at a good speed.

We left through Malelane Gate and took advantage of the clean restrooms. There is also a map here if you are just arriving and want to know where the latest sightings have been.

The main highway passes through some pretty countryside, we even saw some birds but we were going too fast to stop.

This is where it got fun (not). The traffic was backed up over an hour with trucks coming from Mozambique heading to Jo-burg. It may look benign for those people headed to Kruger but no such luck. After we got past a small town, it was backed up even worse! Remember, you have to be at your restcamp before curfew which varies around 6pm-6:30-ish so make allowances for bad traffic. The jam was so bad I was wondering if some people would get there in time. The yellow highlighting is where the traffic was backed up.

The blazing sunset was awesome but knowing we would have to drive much of the road in the dark not so awesome.

Expect to have to overtake lots of trucks any time of day or night. It’s a good paved highway but usually one lane in each direction and trucks will NOT pull over and let you by. You generally have to cross into the opposite lane to overtake and hope nothing comes out of a side road. It was pretty nerve-wracking! Petrol stations can be few and far between so fill up at the first one you see after leaving Kruger. Some of them don’t take credit cards so be prepared to pay cash.

There are a few toll gates and you will need cash for the ones in the rural areas but once you get to the general Jo-burg/Pretoria area they will be electronic toll gates. Your rental car will have a transponder and you should hear a beep as you go under them. Don’t worry, they will be charged at cost a couple days after you return the car and most car hire companies don’t add an administrative fee. Avis didn’t at least!

Staying Safe & Healthy On Safari In South Africa – Videos

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Tara

Sometimes it’s just hard to describe what it is really like in South Africa. People hear all kinds of stories about getting robbed, charged by elephants and eaten by lions. Fortunately, these things are extreme cases and can be avoided if you use common sense and take the necessary precautions. Eco-tourists don’t want to be hanging around cities and tend to head straight for the game parks anyways but sometimes airline schedules can force an overnight stay in Johannesburg. You also need to follow a few simple health precautions. Most people will have safe and enjoyable visits to South Africa, here’s a few tips to help you do the same.

IS IT SAFE TO GO?

Government advisories are a good place to start when determining what dangers you need to avoid. Here’s a list of the English speaking ones. I do read them but I consider them to err on the side of caution so I like to get recent experiences from people who are actually traveling in South Africa on forums such as Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree. I personally would never go out at night in any city but I am not a nightlife kind of person anyway. Just use common sense, have your hotel point out where you can walk safely and where you can’t. Keep your possessions locked in the the trunk of your car out of sight. If you do get robbed, don’t argue, just give them what they want, but best to avoid putting yourself in a situation where you could be robbed.

Better yet, just get out of the city asap and get into the parks!

SAFETY ON SAFARI

SANPARKS has very strict rules and regulation to protect both you and the animals. This video has no sound but it’s easy to understand.

WHAT NOT TO DO ON A SAFARI!

STAYING HEALTHY IN SOUTH AFRICA

The CDC has some great advice.

Check the vaccines and medicines list and visit your doctor (ideally, 4-6 weeks) before your trip to get vaccines or medicines you may need. You may need a yellow fever shot to show other border officials if you have any African stamps in your passport. Malaria is present in some South African parks. We didn’t encounter a lot of mosquitoes while we were there but we did have the mozzie spray on hand and we took Doxycycline for malaria protection. Thankfully as of this writing, South Africa is free of Ebola.

Since I don’t shoot video, I’ll leave you with this video from a man on YouTube who shows what a typical day on safari is really like.

How To Find Birder-Friendly Accomodation In South Africa

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Tara

I stumbled on this website while searching for something else. Since I didn’t go everywhere in South Africa to give personal recommendations it’s a nice little resource to keep on hand. Kurisa Moya is listed under Limpopo. The other lodge we stayed at – 2 Oaks in King William’s Town isn’t on the list but they really should be as they are definitely birder-friendly.

“Birder Friendly Establishments” are registered with BirdLife South Africa. They are committed to supporting BirdLife South Africa’s vision, which is to conserve South Africa’s birdlife and their habitats by promoting Avitourism.

These establishments will do their utmost to ensure that birding guests have the best possible “birder friendly” experience. They offer flexible meal times or packed meals when requested, information on birds in their area, and advice on where to pick up local bird guides.

There are certainly a number of other establishments in each area which offer excellent birding, but this section shows specifically those establishments registered with BirdLife South Africa.

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