This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 11:47 pm and is filed under Africa, Cape to Cairo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tanzania, Travel, Zambia, Zimbabwe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
For your entertainment and at least partly for my nostalgia, I kept a list traveling from Cape Town to Cairo of various interesting statistics. It makes for a colourful two minute retelling of the course of events.
Cockroaches seen in hotel rooms:
On at least four different occasions. Once occasion provided at least three individuals.
Mice seen in hotel rooms:
One. Who even posed briefly for a photograph.
Number of places which called themselves hotels (but really weren’t):
Almost every one I stayed at. Except possibly in Khartoum.
Trains taken: Four
Trucks sat on top of: One
Trucks sat inside of: One
Buses taken: Fourteen
Horse carts ridden in: One
Feluccas lain in: One
Times I was asked for “One Birr Please”: (infinity symbol)
Number of times the local price of a sandwich that I paid in Aswan: Ten
Photos taken: 4,524
Photos which involve mice: Three
Journals brought along: Five
Journals filled with stories: 4
Journals given away to people who needed: One
Words written in the four filled journals: Somewhere around 60,000
Times I read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse: Two and a half
Times I read Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen: One
Museums visited: Nine
Pharmacies visited: Three
Number of occasions that there were school groups in visited museums: Seven
Number of times that there were school groups in visited pharmacies: None
Most days in a hotel with no water: Three
Number of stuffed toys taken with: One
Number of knives returned with: Three
Most consecutive days without a shower: Three
Number of times a country matched my expectations: None
Time taken: Fifty nine days
Time it felt like: An entire life.
Bonus! Mouse.
