Pegs, poles and canvas

Nile Source, Uganda: Not a hundred meters from our tent, at the bottom of a steep slope covered with dense rainforest, the massive beginnings of the Nile splashes over rocks and fallen tree trunks. Throw a bottle in there and it ends up in Cairo.

Lake Nkuruba, Uganda: We might have coughed up a ridicoluos amount of money, spent a frantic thirty minutes behind some hyped up national park's high voltage fences waching miserable animals, while being sheparded back and forth between fat and pale tourists by the most unenthusiastic guide in the southern hemisphere. The thought of the tourists scared us, so we pitched our tent by an old crater lake where wild birds sang us lullabyes and the monkeys were our neighbours.

Lake Tanganyka, Tanzania: The only thing better than waking up to the tranquil clucking of a calm lake shore while the reflection of sunrays plays across the tent canvas, is walking naked down to the water with only a bar of soap in your hand to give the day a refreshingly clean start.

Livingstonia, Malawi: The first sunrays of a new day filtered through purple clouds, a vast lake, hundreds of husbands returning from a nights work in their tiny fishing canoes, rolling hills dotted with wifes campfires preparing a hard earned breakfast, a dramatic mountain rising vertical in jagged rock formations lit a deep red by the morning sun, a tiny ledge clinging to its unforgiving position, our tent.

Chintsa, South Africa: When you wake up in the black of night, tent piched in the middle of a dead quiet forest, to the approaching sound of rustling leaves and low hoarse grunting, the fabric separating you from whaterver's lurking out there seems pretty thin. Luckily it's only a tiny black pig too cute to be allowed.

Little Karoo, South Africa: Piching our tent between the rusted tracks of an old and abandoned railroad station. Getting drunk on local wine while digging into a fresh garden salad. Hardly not the grandest adventure our worn tent has seen, but a satisfactory end to our amazing journey of pegs, poles and canvas none the less.