Note: Africa Days is a series of posts based on journals and letters from my years living in Kinshasa and traveling across Africa, beginning in 1974. All posts are here, in reverse order below

“When we came down from Kilimanjaro (in the summer of 1975), we needed a rest. As soon as we got back to Nairobi, we boarded a plane and headed to the coast. Our next big adventure would be four days in Lamu, a tiny island just off the Kenyan coast, barely separated from the mainland by a lovely blue-green swath of Indian Ocean — just wide enough to have kept all wheeled vehicles off the island and genuine Swahili civilization still on. It was a charming stay (at $1 a night!), exploring narrow streets of the old town and walking along the 10 miles of wild beach, all of it deserted and backed by mile after mile of undulating white sand flecked with grasses. It was hard to leave, but the next step was Malindi, down the coast a bit, where we engaged for the first time in snorkeling, and found it immensely to our liking. I never realized how breathtaking the colors of the life in the coral leaf can be. Out of Malindi, we visited old Swahili ruins dating back to the 15th century at Gedi. Mombasa, further south, was also interesting historically.

“Zanzibar, the fabulous land of Zinj, was the perfect spice island. It is undergoing considerable socialist change now, and the government keeps a steady eye on all visitors: We were ushered about and given a driver for the only possible tour. We stayed in one of only three hotels on the island. But it was worth all the surveillance. The old slave caves where the overland drives ended and the wait for the ships began, the market where slaves were sold, the buildings where Livingstone, Speke, Burton and Stanley prepared for or rested up after their African explorations: all these were fascinating. But the best part to me was the agriculture. We took a tour through the countryside which made my nose swoon. We peeled the bark off cinnamon trees, crushed budding cloves, gaped at the cocoa, coconuts, coffee, nutmeg, lychee nuts, cashew trees, orange groves, lime groves, and trees of fruit whose like we’ve never seen. Zanzibar was as fertile and lovely a place as I’ve seen, had a sense of antiquity rare in Africa and smelled heavenly. Livingstone, when he was there in the mid-1800’s, wrote that the island was full of objectionable odors and should be referred to as Stinkibar. If that was true, it couldn’t have changed more.

“Dar es Salaam was next. We were there for Tanzania’s independence anniversary celebration and attended an interesting trade fair where the North Korean pavilion was the most prominent. We enjoyed the museum, which houses much of Leakey’s work. Then we made our way to Malawi, landing in Blantyre and hitchhiking to Zomba, a lovely old British university town at the base of a plateau on which we spent two days hiking. The serene forest trails felt almost like being in a U.S. state park, except for the very different mushrooms and butterflies. We camped all alone in a pretty spot within walking distance of a fine old hotel built atop the plateau in the old days when the Britishers would vacation there. This inn carried on the noble tradition of Malawi’s being the only country outside Denmark where they brew Carlsberg beer. It was a happy stay, and gave way to still another: several days on the shore of Lake Malawi, whose clear waters shelter tropical fish found nowhere else in the world. We were lucky enough to be camped next to a man who was fully outfitted for snorkeling and diving, and whose equipment we borrowed, along with his boat.

“Malawi was the friendliest place we’ve been. Our travels there were made nicer and more interesting by our frequent encounters with Malawians, who gave us rides, sang to us on buses and invited us into their homes for tea. Plus: the country has campgrounds — an common thing on this continent — and good cheap rest houses in the cities.

“Next we went to the land of ‘right of admission reserved,’ taking the plane from Blantyre to Salisbury and a very different world. Rhodesia felt like the U.S. of the 1950’s. But it offered two very compelling sights: the awesome and mysterious ruins of Zimbabwe, and Victoria Falls, whose native name, aptly enough, means “the smoke that thunders.’ At the falls, we had an intriguing walk several miles along the river, just Mike and me and the warthogs, monkeys and hippos.

“Victoria Falls is difficult to fully appreciate because of its magnitude and the fact that you can’t see much of it at once, since it drops into a deep gorge. My favorite view of it was the westernmost section on a moonlit evening, with the spray hitting our faces. We also had an interesting river cruise, and visited the most educational and fascinating crocodile farm.

“The Zambezi riverwalk was a foretaste of the greatest adventure of them all: our week in the Okavango swamp of Botswana.”