Our Wild Journey Travel diary

People we met...

During a big trip like this one meets a lot of people - good ones, bad ones, sometimes for longer time, sometimes only passing. We want to introduce you to people who have a meaning for us, people who we like or not and spent some more time with.

Dahab on the Sinai Peninsula - here we spent 10 days under and above water with these people: from the left: Mohamed, an instructor, Toshi, a Japanese who works in Darfur for "Doctors without frontiers", Hesham, a future divemaster, on the desk is Moustafa, our instructor and...we 2! www.adventure-spot.nl

We found a lot of nice people in Dakhla Oasis, one of them is Nassr Eldineri, a carpenter and painter who told us a lot about the oasis when we were sitting around his fire and we really enjoyed the time there. His friends are of similar creativity!

These 2 Swiss guys (plus 1 dog - Kalba), Brigitte and Chris we met in Al Quseir, they live and work in Egypt and are at the moment on a tour through this country. We spent New Year's together and had a lot of fun during the 1 week we travelled together through Marsa Alam, Assuan, Abu Simbel.

Sandra and Gerard, a dutch couple, are just on another tour, they have done a lot so far but now they cross Africa via the Eastern route, same like we. We met them in Assuan as well. Together with the Malaysians Ghani, Alison and 4 years old Adrian and them we made our way down to Khartoum. It was real fun! We are sure we see them again in Kenya, when we find them laying on the beach for weeks!

This group of guys were the people we met in Khartoum and the ones we spent the most time with. From left to right: Taha, in whose house we stayed for a week and who made our trip to the Nuba Mountains so successful, then Mohammed, who loves his huge Landcruiser and knows a lot about wildlife, then Abdelsalam, the workshopowner with who all our Sudanese experience started, then Hassan, Abdelsalams brother and Hesham, who loves shoting monkeys! :o) All of these guys you will meet at some point in Abdelsalams workshop.

Kadugli, Sudan - Jabir Tutu started with us as a guide and ended up becoming our friend. Through him we had very nice days in Kadugli and learned a lot from him. He is an information officer in the SPLM, if ever you come to the Nuba Mountains give him a ring: +249924567941 In the middle you see Fatima, the only English-speaking woman of the Kadugli tribe, she helped us especially Andrea in the henna ceremony.

Kadugli, Sudan - Hafiz Alsir, Taha's friend and captain of the army let us stay in his house for a few days and is a very nice guy.

Khartoum, Sudan - ...and this big group is Taha's family, with who we stayed here in Khartoum for a week. The old woman in the middle is Khadeeja the mother of Taha with his wife Khawla and his 2 brothers Mohammed Ali with his wife Wigdan and their kids Isra, Aya and Abdul Aziz and Yaseen with his wife Taiseer and their kids Ahmed and Bashier. They are all very nice and welcoming people! There are even a few people missing, Taha's sister Ihsan and her husband Maky is down in El Obeid, their kids are Ahmed (the young man in the photo) Ismail, Ibrahim and Taiseer. We spent a really unforgettable time here in Khartoum and El Obeid and thank all of them very much! We will miss them!

21st March 2009 - Egypt, El Quseir. About this meeting we didn't want to write much as it was not really as interesting as expected. It was not like the info we received from them and our imagination and experiences with other travellers are different. But after reading their diary we wanted to dedicte them a few words as well.
If you are interested in this story, click here
Their website www.cesty.mexikano.cz

But at the same time we would like to thank everybody we met on the way (by 4x4, motobike or pushbike) for the nice chats and info, when our paths crossed, be it in national parks, veterinary checkpoints or around a village campfire.

Harare, Zimbabwe - In Lusaka in Zambia we met the father of this lovely family here in Zimbabwe. And as the Zimbabwean white mentality is based upon "We Make a Plan" - he gave us all the infos and made a plan about how to get to his family once we were in Harare. Unfortunately we have no photo of Colin, the nice guy we met in Lusaka. His family as well made plans about our stay and what we could visit. Lyn, his wife, is a lovely woman full of humour and energy, she is on the left photo on the right side, together with one of her daughters Cherylyn, also a very nice person and a great chef (the middle of the photo), then Ross, Cherylyn's husband, with who we had a very nice time on the 4x4 Jamboree and a lot of laughs. Then we also met Carolyn and Dicken, another of Colin and Lyn's daughters and her husband. All these people helped us having an unforgettable stay in Zimbabwe - we are very thankful for all they have done for us! Other people we have met but don't have all on photo are Adele (left photo on the left), Mark and Hillary, Mike and Sue, Bill, Ralph and Rose, Mike and Pat as well as John and many others!

Namibia - veterinary checkpoint in Rundu
These people, a "Swedish-New Zealander" couple, liviing in Switzerland, we met on one of those checkpoints. Milan and Louise (Milan on the left and Louise next to Nick). We met again a few more times on our way through Namibia and had nice times together, including the relaxing, lazy one in Sodwana Bay in South Africa. This photo was on a quad ride through the dunes South of Swakopmund, before their friend Nick had to fly back to Asia. www.touringafrica.ch