Hola Sr. Frog!  Back in my beloved Madrid... what a sane and civilized place after my whirlwind tour of the Near East.  After taking off from Tel Aviv I first decided to head straight to Ein Gedi on the western shores of the Dead Sea.  Now that is one thrilling experience - 52 degrees Celsius (126 degrees Fahrenheit) in the afternoon, 412 meters below sea level, and to describe the water merely as salty wouldn't do it justice.  It creates so much buoyancy that it is extremely difficult to keep your "lower" parts under water - when you do manage then about everything upwards from the middle of your chest still sticks out of the water and any attempt to sink lower makes you bounce as if jumping on a trampolin.  The heat both inside and outside of the water was painful, though, so I made my way back across the Judean Desert to Jerusalem.  Wandering the streets of the Old City was very impressive, even though the whole religious thing doesn't do anything for me, as you know.  I visited the halls of The Last Supper, took a peak at the Sleeping Maria Magdalena, and went to the Western Wall (or Wailing Wall) to watch Jews in their frantic head-banging prayer activities there.  Afterwards, I haggled with some Arabs close to the Via Dolorosa and eventually purchased an awesome sheesha made by Bedouines living between the ancient Jericho and the Jordan river.  Party back in Tel Aviv that night, with an early morning departure to the Gaza strip (sorry, of course I couldn't tell anybody before I went).  Made it past the first military checkpoint and hooked up with a camera team trailing UNHCR personnel on a trip to the Jabahlya refugee camp.  My pre-registration hadn't gone through in time, though, so the inside military post suggested I better not continue, as there had been a new wave of violence since the night before due to the PM's resignation and Arafat's latest act of nepotism when appointing the new security forces chief in Gaza City.  Well, I don't like to turn around after having made it that far but my smart brain got the better arguments over my traveling heart, so I exited via the Eisra checkpoint and kicked my car as hard as I could on the way south.  Five hours later I was in no-man's-land between Israel and Jordan, probably the loneliest border crossing I have ever witnessed.  Spent the hot afternoon hours (well, "only" about 44 degrees Celsius, or about 111 degrees Fahrenheit) in Aqaba, the seaside port town and special economic zone on the Gulf of Aqaba.  The ice-cream sorbet shake I've had at the Moewenpick Resort was probably the best piece of cool stuff in my life, even though they skin you alive - a large 2-liter bottle of water runs about US$11, and the winds are so hot with virtually no humidity that I drank 5 of these bottles in a 4-hour span and still got so dehydrated that I never had to go pee even once!!!  Back in Israel (oh yeah, talk about a slightly more involved border crossing!) I enjoyed the evening and nightlife of Eilat, basically a hotel resort town with a few beaches where half of Israel's youth seems to congregate between July and August.  Next morning I continued my border crossing assaults by venturing via Taba into the Sinai peninsula of Egypt - why people want to go there is beyond me as the landscape is an extremely barren mountainous rock desert with nothing to offer beyond its hotels.  I cruised down the coast to Nuweiba and enjoyed a few quiet hours in El Tabarin before returning all the way to Tel Aviv that night, where I was fortunate enough to meet up with an old friend from New Zealand, who showed me around Yafo (Jaffa) and the beaches at night time.  To give you that final experience for Israel, if you needed one, the Ben Gurion international airport has some of the most acribic security checks in place:  I arrived just after 2 o'clock in the morning and barely managed to get onto my flight, which left at 6:45!  Every single piece of my luggage content was separately swiped for explosives and drugs, I was interviewed by standard security and Mossad folks four times, and still I wasn't as annoyed as when at US airports... it somehow seemed to work much better and it really seemed to find everything and then some.  Arriving in Madrid was quite a relief, to say the least, and I relaxed for the weekend at the swimming pools of the city.  The embassy dealings I've had here would fill another book so I'll skip those for now... long story short, everything is approved but I can't get actual visas into my passport until 10 days before the trip, which effectively requires yet another trip to Madrid in September.  For now, however, it will be some cooling-down time in Iceland and Greenland starting on Thursday.

Shalom KJ - greetings from Tel Aviv (Jaffa), where I finally arrived yesterday morning after a 2-day odyssey from Zanzibar via Dar es Salaam and London. Puked worse than a sick puppy on the hydrofoil from Stone Town to Dar in heavy seas, adventured with crazy cabbies through the streets of Dar at night in search of an available hotel bed, slept through most of my long flight to Heathrow, which was its usual ugly self except for my six hours in the lounge, waited in the airplane for three hours on the ground (at midnight) only to be told of a necessary complete change of aircraft due to some crazy flaps control computer, and got stuck at Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv thanks to arriving in the morning hours of Shabath. Oh well! There goes all the rest+relax accumulated on Zanzibar, which was quite a beautiful island to spend much more time on one day. This morning I awoke to a bomb explosion at one of the busiest central bus stations in town - welcome to the real Israel! The city is surprisingly green, young, and very much alive despite all the things CNN tries to tell you. Endless beaches right downtown, a fancy mix of old and new, and a welcome 1st-World experience after almost three months of criss-crossing through Africa. Tomorrow on to Jerusalem and maybe Ramallah, depending on the security situation, then back to TLV and on Friday home to Madrid for a week or two.

Yowza Junior - one more thing: Return to California planned for October 3rd, 2004.

Heya KJ - back in Arusha after cruising for three days through Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Wildlife viewing was as expected - spectacular, to say the least. Spotted cheetahs on the lookout for prey, countless zebras and wildebeasts on the wide-open plains, lots of impalas and tomson's gazelles all over the place, and majestic lions up close, not to mention the usual fare of giraffes, elephants and hippos. The night atop the crater rim was freezing cold and spent inside mystic (and misty) clouds but the early-morning descent into the caldera, at 20 kilometers diameter one of the world's largest, more than made up for it: Thousands of stampeding wildebeasts in search of fresh grass, beautiful flamingos and pelicans on the salt shores of the crater's biggest lake, rhinos and hippos enjoying the frigid water ponds, spotted hyenas lazing in the sunshine, elephants and vervet monkeys at picnic sites looking like sets from Jurassic Park, and of course the cheetahs and lions everybody was asking for. Next via Pangani to Dar es Salaam and the Spice Islands of Zanzibar!

Jambosana... glad to be back, dearest of all frogs. I can't even begin to describe what these past two weeks have been like, overland-trucking my way to see the mountain gorillas, of whom only 600 or so remain on this world, all of them in the civil war border triangle of the D.R. Congo (Zaire), Rwanda and Uganda. Most of it will have to wait until my website is up and running again, complete with picture accounts of some of the most incredible days spent during the past year. Montain gorillas are probably the most magical thing you will ever see in your lifetime, the final reward after 1500km of rough trucking on dirt roads, countless hours spent fighting corruption at land border crossings and bribing greenbacks to grinning and gun-carrying bureaucrats, and a day like no other you will ever experience - several hours of a triumphant ride on the bed of a pick-up truck, looking in amazement at peace-starved villages in Zaire with the most incredibly happy people running out of their mud homes to wave at you and jump up and down like it's the final stage of the Tour de France. To top it off, an exhausting final 4 hours of jungle climbing await, not to mention at higher altitudes with the weather changing from hottest and extremely humid air to ice-cold mountain winds and torrential rainfalls. Two machete guys were attempting to clear the non-existent path, one guide ranger explained stuff in broken French, and 9 Kalashnikov and AK47-equipped soldiers tried to watch out for poachers and guerilla fighters... in a nutshell, just another day in a civil war area, which it has been for decades. The reward is an emotionally overpowering encounter with a family of gorilla gorilla beringei - some moments in life are unforgettable, and the first sight of a silverback in his jungle is one of them. We watched a mother carry around her big youngster, were thrilled to hear the silverback mate with some of his girls several times, loudly hammering his chest after every round, and we fended off curious attempts to have cameras stolen by an inquisitive younger male. The moment the silverback turned his attention on us made us freeze with fright and sheer amazement - an unbelievably dominant and huge animal to face, yet so peaceful, almost sensing the close bond of sharing virtually our entire DNA. He approached so closely that we could have touched him, making it hard to take pictures (no worries - I got some awesome shots). We tracked the group for about one hour until we had to retreat and embarked on our return treck. Not knowing something is bliss, as they say, and we got our dose of this - while there, Congolese guerilla rebels invaded our basecamp village Kisoro in Uganda. They were fought by UCPF militias, who killed three of them and pushed the rest of them back across the border. At the same time, we later learned from newspapers, two former Congo generals fled with 305 rebel soldiers into Uganda and were subsequently pushed south into Rwanda, which temporarily closed all borders the day we arrived back. We continued on to heavenly Lake Bunyonyi and its islands with pygmy people, where we relaxed for a day before heading to Kampala and Jinja, the source of the nile. On the way, I visited the Chimpanzee Sanctuary on Ngamba Island on Lake Victoria, almost two hours by boat from Entebbe. If faces could talk... these wonderful critters have a hillarious human-like behavior (or was that the other way around?) and an impressive range of facial expressions. What a peaceful two days were the last ones, in comparison to everything else - Lake Nakuru in Kenya, with more pelicans, flamingos, rhinos and all other sorts of stuff in one spot than you can imagine. A big mirror-like soda lake saved by the 1997 El Nino rains, with beautiful camping in a forest of acacia trees, this national park should be on everyone's list of things to do. Crossing south into Tanzania to Arusha tomorrow, but not before enjoying the Saturday night feast served up by Carnivores, easily the most spectacular restaurant in Nairobi. If zebra, kudu and all other sorts of game meats are your thing, this is the place to be - vegetarians need not apply. Next week will see the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti National Park with its famous wildebeast migration, as well as the trip to Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar - Spice Islands, here I come!

Jambo Junior... As expected, La Reunion turned out to be a wonderful "DOM-TOM" with everything that good old France has to offer, plus the incredible mountain circuits. Enjoyed the baguette-and-cheese culture thoroughly, went all over the island to see Salazie, Hell-Bourg and the Piton de la Fournaise volcano with its moonlike Plains des Sables. Relaxed on the beaches of St.-Gilles-les-Bains and Bucan Canot, admittedly taking in the view of female sunbathers a-la-francaise. Hopped back via Mauritius and the Seychelles to Kenya, where I am now in Mombasa. The dirt and the traffic are incredible, so are the mix of cultures and the muslim influence on everything. Spies everywhere... how went that joke about the islamic gentlemen's club? "Show your face, show your face!" Anyway, the call for prayers are very frequent and loud (and annoying for me) but the city does kind of grow on you after a day or two, even though the humidity is killing me. Wednesday it's back to Nairobi and on to Masai Mara - yep, more safaris for me!

Yowza Mr. Kermit Junior - one hell of a quicko update from the Indian Ocean. The Seychelles rank for me right there with Japan and Norway - very beautiful and interesting but not worth a second trip due to excessively ridiculous prices. Explored Mahe, the main island, by car for three days before hopping over to Praslin island by plane and then on to La Digue island by boat. This must be one of the most beautiful islands... I hiked around the entire island, visited the remote beaches of Grand Anse, Petite Anse, and Anse Cocos, and of course enjoyed not one but two sunsets at famous Anse Source d'Argent. Returned by boat to Praslin island to explore the impressive northeastern coast there, including the obligatory visit to Anse Lazio, a slightly crowded beach (well, 20 people or so) but heavenly, nevertheless. Flew back to Mahe island to catch my plane south to Mauritius... adventured cross-island to Port Louis, where my hotel nearly burnt down the first evening! No lights, and smoke and fire everywhere, but I knew I might as well be dead if I didn't dash inside to rescue my passport and stuff, which I luckily did, ending up on the street late at night trying to find a new bed in this town (which I did as well). Relaxed from this ordeal on the beaches of Grand Baie yesterday, got some more vaccinations today, and will head south to check out the beaches around Flic en Flac. Afterwards, it will be a short flight to La Reunion, so I can enjoy some French-European lifestyle sophistication after this Indian-Chinese assault of overpopulation, which is what Mauritius basically stands for today. The only cool thing I've done here so far was going to the crazy horse races at the Champs de Mars here in Port Louis - one amazingly crowded and fun experience.

[Mr. Kermit Junior auto-blog entry:]
He did it again!!! Ba-naaaaa-nasss!!! Can't just add the Seychelles as a "side trip" - no, it has to be half the Indian Ocean...

05/23-05/26 Mahe island, Seychelles Anse Intendance anyone?
05/27-05/29 Praslin island, Seychelles And La Digue.
05/30-02/06 Mauritius Yeah baby, more island stuff for me!
03/06-05/06 Reunion Even without accents, Vive La France!
06/06-07/06 Mahe island, Seychelles Bad travel planning. Ha!!!
07/06-09/06 Mombasa, Kenya And more beaches!
10/06-12/06 Masai Mara, Kenya Safari safari safari.
13/06-05/07 Overland Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania. Many more safaris...
06/07-09/07 Zanzibar island, Tanzania Spicey Spice Islands for me.
And on to Tel Aviv, Madrid, Berlin, then Iceland and the Caribbean - Martinique, more beaches for me until the end of September!

[original entry, 2 days earlier]
Hi Mr. KJ - back in the lounge at JNB international. What a thrill to hike around the Zambezi river and Victoria Falls at the end of the rain season, when water levels are almost 10 times higher than normal! Crossed the famous bridge towards Zambia on foot and visited Livingstone for a day. Crossing the Knife's Edge bridge on the Zambian side of the falls is like walking through hundreds of fire hoses being pointed at you with water at full power - no raincoat or umbrella will keep you dry. Of course, I did the incredible "Flight of Angels", a helicopter ride in a sweet big Bell 206 LongRanger helicopter over both sides of the falls, and also hiked out to the Devil's Cataract, which has spectacular water masses on the western side of the falls adorned with multiple rainbows. Went on a day trip to Chobe National Park in Botswana - without a doubt the most impressive "zoo" I have ever seen. During a river safari along the Namibian border I saw mating hippos, water buffalos, nile crocs, elephants... just everything the doctor ordered. Pulled the boat on shore just 15 meters away from two beautiful lions laying there and looking at us - no fence, no guns, no rangers, that's how you feel alive! Continued inland to witness countless circling vulchers before we found the lions with bloody paws, who had taken down some big kudus. Oh, and did I mention giraffes? Not 4 or 5... we're talking 40-50 parading in front of you, crossing the path of the LandRover. On the way back, past the Zimbabwean border, we couldn't continue for 20 minutes because of countless elephants with their young playing offsprings blocking the road! All in all, I think that this was probably my first real taste of Africa... what a cool place! On to Nairobi in Kenya this afternoon, then to the Seychelles for some vacationing tomorrow...

Salut Junior - just a quick update before I am jetting off to Vic Falls tomorrow. I went on several day game drives, a night game drive and a sunrise walking safari inside Kruger National Park and came face to face with some pretty awesome creatures. The place is full of giraffes, rhinos, hippos, impalas, buffalos, some leopards and lions, cheetahs, and all kinds of other normal zoo animals. Continued from Nelspruit into the Blyde River Canyon to see some spectacular scenery and ended up in Pretoria. Day tour of Johannesburg and Soweto today - what a huge place this is! Hiked around squatter camps inside Soweto and went to Orlando West, the site of the 1976 student uprisings and the only place on earth with a street called home by two Nobel prize winners. Oh, and did I mention that this country went absolutely bananas when they announced that they would become the host of the 2010 Football World Championships? I will remember where I was on that day!

Heya Junior - back in South Africa! Went on a special trip through Swaziland and Mocambique... now that seems more like the *real* Africa. Just crossing the land borders is one hell of an experience, a zoo without comparison. Spent a few days in Maputo and enjoyed bars on the beach, nightlife with African live music, and lots of run-down communist-era architecture. I even checked out the Museum of the Revolution! Crossed the bay to Catembe (with about 100 other people in a 20-foot "boat"!!!), yet another step back in time, and marveled at always-friendly and smiling people despite their below-poverty lives. One side note: My passport is beginning to run out of visa and stamp pages! The Mozis alone plastered yet another full-page visa and four stamps in it. With 8 countries still to go in Africa alone that's not good news; I will probably have to figure out how to get a new passport - while in Africa, so good luck to me. Oh yeah, before actually getting into Durban I did go diving out of Umkomaas... fantastic experience with manta rays up close, dolphins, huge turtles, and all sorts of other fun stuff.