Visiting Vietnam

Vietnam had been on my bucket list for such a long time and I was excited to go with some friends. 

The visa application was online and more straightforward than I imagined it would be. Between the application and the visa being granted, it all happened in a week.

Getting There

As with travelling, a few things did go wrong and I remember saying this was one of my worst trips (the travel part) recently. I don’t remember when last I went on a trip that was this stressful! 

I arrived at the airport and was told that I could not be checked in as the airport I was meant to transit through required me to go through immigration, so I needed a transit visa. I’m not sure how we missed this when the ticket was booked, but I got rerouted on one leg and bought another ticket on the spot, and all this was happening before 6am. I was originally to leave at 6am and arrive at 11:30am, including the lay over, but the trip ended up taking the whole day. I got to my destination around 9pm.

Mafia Island Tanzania

Does the name of the island bring anything to mind? My best friend could not stop laughing and kept teasing me about it.

According to Google, Mafia Island is part of Tanzania's Mafia Archipelago, in the Indian Ocean. Large swaths of the island's southern coastline and surrounding waters are protected by the Mafia Island Marine Park.

Mtwara, Tanzania

I visited Mtwara this week and was pleased to discover this part of Tanzania.
Mtwara is in the South of Tanzania and it is far more developed than I imagined it would be.

If you have followed news on Tanzania recently, you may have seen that cashew nuts was in the news a lot. The nuts are mostly produced between Mtwara and Lindi. As we drove here, there were cashew trees all over. There are big cashew farms. Surprisingly, all the Tanzanians I was travelling with had never eaten cashew, only the nuts. Tanzania is one of the biggest producers of cashew nuts in Africa and it adds a percentage to their foreign exchange.

My first Safari in Kenya

Sometime in 2013, I went to Kenya for the first time. It was an exciting trip. The plan was to go on Safaris then end up on the coast.
I watched a film called 'The Ghost and the Darkness' recently and a flash of the Tsavo eaters story came back. I remembered that this was mentioned by Amani, our tour guide, at one of the parks but I don't know if I paid much attention to that story. This was a reminder that I hadn't written about my 2013 Kenya trip.

On the day we were to fly out of Abuja, we were sitting at the airport waiting for our flight when we saw the news of the West gate mall attack break. As frightening as it was, we were not going to change plans.

When we got to Nairobi, I stayed with my uncle and his family for 2 days in before leaving on Safaris.

It's been 5 years, my cousins are all grown up now

Finding beauty all around Burundi

I went on a trip to Burundi in mid March and I just couldn't stop taking photos. The country has a beautiful landscape.

Hello Bujumbura

Like Rwanda, it is a country of hills. It was green and scenic, it's the rainy season so everything looked lush and nice.

People who remain in the capital might not get the chance to see the beautiful scenery in different parts of the country.

An Exciting Trip to Portugal

My sister and I visited Portugal between the end of October and early November 2017.

Before we made the choice, I had three options - Hungary, Austria and Portugal. She chose Portugal and we were more than pleased that we went with that choice.

Around October, winter starts to say hello but Portugal was bright and sunny. My sister who lived in England at the time was so excited about the sun. Coming from Nigeria, I was pleased that the sun was not as hot!

We arrived Lisbon from London and were picked up by our super amazing host. We used CouchSurfing while we were in Lisbon. From our research on Lisbon, we saw that there was a lot to do. Having a local guide is always helpful and that’s one of the advantages of CS when I’m going to a city where I do not know anyone. From the minute he picked us up, we knew we made the right choice. He was warm, chatty and even took us around to see a bit of the city before driving home.