Oh yes we love the beach in Mozambique. There is something about a beach. Its the best place to meet the sea and still have a bit of control over the situation. We are very familiar with the beaches of Cape Town and the Wild Coast of South Africa (which is very beautiful but not that wild). Meeting the beach in Mozambique was wild. We are talking palm trees and turquoise blue sea and fine white sand. And people. Fishing people, pulling in nets people, walking up the beach peo

Just add water Days of rain, followed by more rain and what you get is luscious green growth, everywhere you look. The rain came and with it came the mud, then everything turned green. The magic of the proverbial just add water. We had known the rains were coming, when they arrived, we had mixed feelings, the joy and relief from the endless days of heat, the smell of rain on dry dust is one of my oldest memories and one of the most difficult to describe. A surrender of dust t

During the chingamarenga war, also known, by some, as the Rhodesian War, young men and women took up arms to over throw the system that was in place in Rhodesia. Some of them were as young as 12 years old. I was 18 when I took up arms in defence of not the system, but the lives of the civilians who were caught up in the violence. It was a guerilla war and those kind of wars involve civilians, on both sides. Actually, I was conscripted into "national service" but I was going t

Its Black Friday time. What started out as Black Friday morphed into Cyber Monday. Why stop there when we are on to a good thing! Let's start Black Friday, half way through November, with early Black Friday offers and then extend Black Friday for another week. The philosophy around Black Friday seems to be every one gets a bargin. I would like to ask you that question, but as this is a one way converstation, I get the floor. After I have given my uninformed opinion, I will a

Living in a bus sounds like fun and it is. Different is always fun, depending on how long it lasts. After traveling for days on end, it was a bit strange to be on board a bus that was definitely not going anywhere. There is more space in a bus than there is in a car, but once you have a few beds loaded into that space and five people, it is certainly cosy. Outside the bus is space and sunshine, beautiful msasa trees in a cloudless blue sky. It's fantastic to be outside. The

"Burgernomics" provides a sexier way of measuring price changes in a commodity that we are all familair with, while being a bit more enticing than a loaf of bread. Otherwise known as the Big Mac index, an idea the Economist originated, or it may have been dreamt up by the MacDonalds marketing team. Essentially, what it does is show the purchasing power of any particular fiat currency against a standard and consistent good such as the Big Mac. The assumption is there were Big

Leaving the Oasis of the Lion & Elephant behind us we headed North, as we drove along the Great North Road, it all but disappeared...

. That's the name of the beautifully rustic collection of thatched rondavels on the banks of the Bubye River, where the Great North Road...

As we headed North the landscape changed, oddly shaped hills, typical of the Karoo, spread off into the distance. Trees were no where to...

When things go wrong and you lose your dream you have a choice, you can give up, or you can try again. Trying again might give a...

The African taxi is a mixture of socialism and capitalism and is eco-friendly almost by default. They are nothing like a London cab, or...

I am back in Harare and it's fantastic to feel the energy of an African city again. The new meets the old, brand-new cars, out the box Land rovers and Mercs, alongside dilapidated colonial buildings of a previous era. Traffic lights that don’t work due to a power cut or a malfunction no one knows or cares. People everywhere coming and going en masse each of them with a purpose but with a relaxed air that comes with living in the sunshine. All year round. And then there are th