I am most resolutely not a football fan; in fact I make every effort conceivable to avoid the sport altogether. To my knowledge, I have tried to kick a football exactly once – and missed, and I’ve been to a match exactly once – and accidentally cheered for the wrong team. Despite this, on the 11th July 2010, I found myself in South Africa. It was a complete coincidence I assure you, though it did double the cost of my flights.

The final was spent squashed in a hotel bar, between a rowdy crowd of Dutchmen on my left and an even rowdier crowd of Spaniards on my right. Amongst the chaos of shouting at the small TV set from the 1980’s, face painting, beer guzzling and vuvuzela honking, I had managed to contract severe food poisoning. Suffice to say, I forget who won.

However, it is now May 2011 and I am, potentially naively, back off on my next journey across Africa. This trip is much more ambitious, as is only fitting for a gap year; I will be leaving the comparable sanctuary of South Africa’s Limpopo province and the clean camping sites of Kruger in favour of travelling from Johannesburg to Mombasa via plane, train and automobile - and the occasional ferry.

Many of my friends, my parents included, have asked why I’m not going to a more popular gap year destination; South America or South East Asia perhaps.

I suppose you hear about Africa so much in the media that curiosity has gotten the better of me. There are countless news articles, documentaries and fundraisers going on across the western world at any one point that the message that each one is trying to convey seems to blur together. So I’ve worked and saved for months, done as much research as I can do and bought the strongest mosquito spray I could find (hopefully my skin wont peel off) and come tomorrow, I will be off.

Attenborough, eat your heart out.

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