10/1/07

Bonjour Tout Le Monde

Hey Holy C’rap!!! We thought that if we were sitting at home in an office, then it would be really cool to get an email from Timbuktu!!!! ….So here it is

WE ARE IN FRIGG’IN TIMBUKTU!!!!!!!

This is only a short email since the internet is a bit crapp’y and slow, and we actually have a blog about our last week here in Mali but it is still on our laptop… so we will upload it later along with the story about how Avril got threatened by a crazy lady with a machete…

But for now all you need to know is that Mali ROCKS!!!

Mali is really hot, dusty, dirty, and poor with open sewages everywhere… And the capital city Bamako is so polluted that our noses have been bleeding, but we love it!!! Continue reading →

9/1/07

Bonjour and I ni sogoma to all you funky cats and grande femmes d’Afrique

Well, we are currently in a dusty little town called Sevare in the middle of Mali, and after 5 days here Mali is DEFINITELY living up to its reputation as a hard travel destination.

So far we have sat in a chicken bus to a fishing village called Segou on the Niger River, choking and coughing and covered in fine red dust since the wheel arch of the bus was completely rusted open with holes filling the bus up with dust…

And we also managed to ignore the guidebook and get on a bus NOT recommended by locals, which then broke down leaving us stranded in the scorching sun on the side of the road for 3 hours while the driver completely dismantled the engine.

And THEN since the normally 6 hour journey ended up taking 14 hours, we got dumped a cross roads on the highway late at night where we had to hire a decrepit Peugeot with no brakes, which we then had to push onto a river ferry since it could only be started with a push start! Continue reading →

1/1/07

Just click on the picture to see the bigger original size.

Bonjour Mes Amis and a snappy new rear to all

Well, we are currently at Casablanca airport in Morocco en route to Mali and today is one of those days where we will have had breakfast in Dublin, lunch in Paris, dinner in Casablanca, and a nightcap in Bamako, Mali… which may sound like fun, but HOLY CRAP we are way too exhausted to appreciate it!!!

Anyhows, we have now finished up working in Ireland, so for the last few weeks, we have been totally stressed out packing up all the bucket loads of shit that we have somehow accumulated over the last year and a half, and are now paying a fortune to have shipped home!

Not only that, but the overnight on call doctor work that I have been doing has now been changed, so I have been working 94 hours a week in 2 rough and unpleasant industrial towns called Tralee and Listowel which sucked BIGTIME because I have had my arse worked off since around Christmas and New Years, the Irish tend to decompensate completely with Asthma, respiratory infections and alcohol related violence… Continue reading →

25/12/06

Our photos from when we went down to South Park? http://www.sp-studio.de/

Hey there to all you funky monkeys and secret squirrels and a big Nollaig Shona Dhuit which is Merry Christmas in Irish.

Well, it is currently a freezing cold Christmas eve in County Kerry, Ireland and today we did the traditional Irish thing, and we joined the locals for a swim in the Atlantic, which seems to be THE fun thing to do all over Ireland at midday on Christmas day… NOT!!!!

So… if this blog reads a bit slow, it’s TOTALLY because I am typing with one hand since the other hand is desperately groping around my groin trying to find my left testicle which seems to have disappeared in the cold!

Anyways, we are finishing up for good in Ireland on the 3rd of January, and I guess we should be blogging about our mixed emotions about leaving…

…But instead, we have been TOTALLY FREAKING OUT since for the last few weeks we have been COMPLETELY preoccupied with researching big SCARY Africa, so we thought we’d blog about that instead!!!

So anyways, next week, we leave Paris to go to Casablanca in Morocco, and then onto Bamako in Mali, which is in the middle of West Africa, and is considered to be one of the poorest countries in the world… But it is famous for the village of TIMBUKTU, which is in the middle of friggin nowhere, somewhere deep in the Saharan Desert!

Now, although we have travelled extensively to developing countries before, we have NEVER been to Sub-Saharan Africa… and every place that we have been to so far would be considered as a second or first world country… So this will effectively be the first third world country that we have been to.

Needless to say, we have been a little nervous since we don’t speak French, and Mali is also surrounded by some pretty dangerous war torn countries like Algeria and Cote d’Ivore (The Ivory Coast)… Continue reading →

18/11/06

Hola y como estas muchachos, muchachas, cucurachas and barrachas

Well, we are currently in Madrid in Spain and we have just finished our breakfast of pig’s blood sausage, rabbit livers in paprika and onion, and kidney stew of some unknown animal, but whose kidneys look bigger than a chicken’s but smaller than a pig’s… YAY for us not knowing enough body parts in spanish to order decent tapas!!!

…Anyhows, we were going to start the blog off by saying… WOOHOO!!! Spain is now officially our 50^th country!!!

Yep… where as most people would count how their relationship is going by how many years they have been together… instead we count our relationship by how many countries that we have survived together…

So we SHOULD be out celebrating that our relationship has lasted 50 countries…

But last night after we missed out on getting tickets to see The Violent Femmes in Madrid, I tripped over on the way to a cinema and seriously busted up my ankle!!!

…AAAAAAAARRRRGH and Fuuuck a duck!!! Other than friggin HURTING and badly swelling up, it suddenly occurred to me that it is likely that I am being punished for blaspheming in Fatima. Continue reading →