Gambia Bird Flights Now Bookable Online – Airline Continues to Invest in on-Board Services | Business Wire

Gambia Bird Flights Now Bookable Online – Airline Continues to Invest in on-Board Services | Business Wire

Gambia Bird Flights Now Bookable Online – Airline Continues to Invest in on-Board Services


“Low Fare Calender” displays cheapest tickets for entire month -
additional legroom in Economy Class

BANJUL, The Gambia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Travel within West Africa and to Europe has just become even easier to book: all flights by Gambia Bird can now be booked online through the airline’s website. Customers can search for seats either for a specific travel date or in a “low fare calendar” which displays the cheapest tickets for an entire month. Until now, Gambia Bird tickets have been exclusively available through the airline’s telephone booking hotline, tour operators and travel agents. Gambia Bird serves Banjul (The Gambia) weekly from Barcelona.

Karsten Balke, Chief Commercial Officer of Gambia Bird Airlines: “The launch of our new online booking system sees us responding to a request that was voiced by many customers: they wanted to be able to book our flights directly and easily from their homes, the office or while on the road. Passengers who prefer to receive personal advice can continue to book through our hotline or a travel agency partner.”

In addition to its investments in online services, Gambia Bird also continues to improve its on-board offering. In Economy Class passengers can expect even more comfort from the end of April 2013, as most of the seats in this class now have a larger seat pitch of 31 inches or more. Additionally, passengers in Premium Class are served an exclusive three-course menu and have a greater baggage allowance. All Gambia Bird flights are operated in a two-class configuration with Premium and Economy Class.

In the summer months, which usually see less traffic, Gambia Bird Airlines removed selected services from the flight schedule. One Airbus A319 aircraft, which was sent to Germany for maintenance work at the end of March, will be back in service for Gambia Bird Airline mid-September for the Winter Flight Schedule 2013/2014, and will be used by Germania, Gambia Bird’s sister airline, in Summer 2013.

Founded in 2012, Gambia Bird Air Lines is headquartered in Banjul, The Gambia. The company is financially backed by German airline group Germania. Gambia Bird provides scheduled flights across West Africa including The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone as well as to Europe. It operates state-of-the-art Airbus A319-100 aircraft, which offer safe, comfortable and fuel-efficient transport. www.gambiabird.com

Contacts

Wilde & Partner Public Relations
for Gambia Bird Air Lines
Johannes Boos & Markus Schlichenmaier
+49-89-179190-14
aviation@wilde.de

Ethiopia presents itself as tourist destination for Indians | Business Standard

Ethiopia presents itself as tourist destination for Indians | Business Standard
Ethiopia is focussing on tourism from India, with an aim to bag a substantial chunk of 13 million Indians travelling outside the country every year.
    
Located in the Horn of Africa, the African nation plans to raise the pitch about 'Come, visit Ethiopia' theme to project itself among top five hot spots in the continent."India is a good source market for tourism now a days. More than 13 million people travel out of India every year. We also expect to have a good share of this market, even one or two per cent of this is significant for us," Genet Teshome, Consulate General of Ethiopia in Mumbai, told PTI here.
    
Asked how the government plans to popularise Ethiopia as a tourist destination in India, Teshome said, "We at trying our best to advertise Ethiopian destinations in India. We participated in a number of tour and travel exhibitions. Only this year we participated in Pune."
    
Surrounded by Eritrea in north, Djibouti and Somalia in east, Sudan and South Sudan in west, and Kenya in south, the second most populous nation in the Africa has made elaborate arrangements to attract Asian tourists, including from India."Our Federal Government is very clear in its aim that Ethiopia should be among the five top tourist destinations in Africa and India will play a very crucial role in this process," said Tourism Facilitation Senior Expert, Cultural and Tourism Ministry, Getenet Yigzaw.
    
Having recently opened a cultural centre in its embassy in New Delhi, the country is also planning to set up tourism boards in India for tourism promotion."By next year we plan to establish our Tourism Boards in New Delhi and Mumbai. India is going to be a crucial factor in development of Ethiopia as a world-class tourism destination," Yigzaw said.

Ethiopia and India are among some of the most ancientcivilisations in the world and we are ready to establish this connection again through tourism promotion, Yigzaw added.
    
Mandated to popularise the country's tourism, the state-owned Ethiopian Airlines recently took a group of tour and travel operators from India on a week-long familiarisation tour to some of its popular destinations."We have all forms of tourism in Ethiopia, be it historical, wild life, religious and anthropological. We need to promote it as a package," said Tekeba H Sellasie, Regional Director (Indian subcontinent), Ethiopian Airlines.
    
The airline presently operates a total of 14 passenger and nine cargo flights a week from Delhi and Mumbai. It also plans to operate from other Indian cities in coming years."We are planning to have Chennai then after a while we want to operate from Bangalore and Ahmedabad also. These will be three new destinations. Their frequency will depend on the traffic volume and the market share along with the demand. If the demand is there we can make it daily also," he said.
    
Keeping in mind the distinct food habits of the Indian tourists, the country is paying special attention to this factor."We have a good number of Indian restaurants in Addis Ababa. This can be increased with flow of Indian tourists. Our food is very close to Indian in terms of flavour and sometimes even ingredients in some cases. For vegetarians we have a huge variety of Ethiopian fasting food," Teshome said.
    
Ethiopia, also known as the 'Cradle of Human Kind', is widely considered the region where the human species first started to walk upright some 3.2 million years ago.
    
"In 1974, 52 fragments of hominid were discovered in Lower Awash Valley. The study of this early hominid skeletons provided clue as to when and how the humans began to walk upright," Yigzaw said.
    
In terms of nature, Ethiopia is the fourth largest bio-diversity zone in the world and claims to have more unique species of flora and fauna than any other African nation.
    
It has 20 National Parks, four wildlife sanctuaries, eight wildlife reserves as well as 18 controlled hunting areas.

VIDEO: Nima Market In Accra, Ghana | Gadling.com

VIDEO: Nima Market In Accra, Ghana | Gadling.com

Accra, the capital of Ghana, is an established point on the African tourism trail thanks to its good flight and cruise connections, its Anglophone accessibility, its beautiful beaches and the stability of the nation.

Less often seen, however, is Nima Market. Located in one of the poorest areas of the city and home to many migrants from rural Ghana and nearby countries coming to the big city in search of work, it is the heartbeat of the neighborhood. This video takes us on a slow walk through the stalls.

The best thing about this video is that the cameraman uses a lot of close-ups, giving us a shopper's-eye view of all the food for sale, from the delicious-looking tomatoes to the humongous snails. There are also a lot of fruits and vegetables most Westerners would have trouble naming.

While the produce and the clothing are colorful, you can see that all is not well in Nima. Many of the people have a careworn look, and the man selling shoes only wears a pair of battered flip-flops on his own feet. This blog post by Ghanean blogger and journalist Zainabu Issah highlights some of the challenges the vendors at Nima Market face.

The harder side of life is a part of travel that we can't shut our eyes to, and witnessing the struggles of people in other cultures can open our own minds. It's these insights that are often the most important part of our trip.

allAfrica.com: Resources » Angry Elephant Causes Roadblock in Kruger National Park

allAfrica.com: Resources » Angry Elephant Causes Roadblock in Kruger National Park

Food & Beverage News: Top News - Barry Callebaut to train Cote d'Ivoire farmers on Cocoa Horizons Truck

Food & Beverage News: Top News - Barry Callebaut to train Cote d'Ivoire farmers on Cocoa Horizons Truck
Barry Callebaut to train Cote d'Ivoire farmers on Cocoa Horizons Truck
Friday, April 26, 2013 08:00 IST 
Cote d'Ivoire

Barry Callebaut, one of the world's leading manufacturer of high-quality cocoa and chocolate products, unveiled the Cocoa Horizons Truck, an addition to its Cocoa Horizons sustainability initiative.

It is a multi-purpose mobile unit powered by solar energy, which provides space for farmer training sessions in good agricultural practices, basic health care services, literacy training and child labour sensitisation programmes.

The Cocoa Horizons Truck, which was built in Belgium, will be shipped to Côte d'Ivoire. It will travel through the cocoa-growing regions of the African nation in July 2013.

It is a pilot project and part of Barry Callebaut's plan to significantly step up the impact of its Quality Partner Programme (QPP), a cocoa farming programme which is an integral part of the company's ten-year Cocoa Horizons sustainability initiative.

Farmer training
The team on board the truck will include Barry Callebaut's own farmer training experts. Depending on the needs of the respective community, a nurse and a teacher will also be on board to provide basic health care, such as vaccination programmes and educational services.

The truck will start its journey in San Pedro, a major cocoa-growing area in the west of Côte d'Ivoire, and gradually move east. It will visit every village three to four times a year, staying for about a week at a time. Assessing the needs of each community and adapting the truck's training program where necessary will be a part of the pilot programme.

Hervé Beerens, responsible for the Cocoa Horizons Truck project, said, "As many cocoa farmers cannot read, training will take place in the form of theatre sketches, with the truck serving as a stage. This kind of entertaining training format is very effective and will help close the knowledge gaps farmers have in good agricultural practices."

Activities
"As part of our Cocoa Horizons activities, we already have more than 50 Barry Callebaut employees on the ground in Côte d'Ivoire who are directly working with more than 30,000 farmers," said Nicholas Camu, group manager, Cocoa Horizons, Barry Callebaut.

"However, we need to scale up our activities in order to accelerate our drive towards a more sustainable cocoa sector. We are convinced that a multi-purpose mobile unit such as the Cocoa Horizons Truck is the ideal way of providing support to thousands of additional of cocoa farmers,” he said.

Camu added, “At the end of the one-year pilot phase we will evaluate the impact of the Cocoa Horizons Truck. If everything works according to plan, we intend to increase the number of trucks successively. We expect to reach up to 10,000 cocoa farmers across Côte d'Ivoire in the first year.

Kenya Airways operating performance - Airline News - etravelblackboardasia.com

Kenya Airways operating performance - Airline News - etravelblackboardasia.com

Kenya Airways operating performance

Friday, 26 April 2013

Kenya Airways releases its operating results for the fourth quarter ended 31^st March 2013.

The company put into the market capacity totalling 3,143m seat kilometres which was 4.5% below last year’s level.  The decline during the period was as a result of discontinued operations to N’Djamena, Muscat and Jeddah though New Delhi joined the network in the first quarter of 2012.

Middle East and Far East regions saw a capacity growth of 18.9%. This was largely due to the operation of the larger B777 instead of the smaller B767 to Hongkong and Guangzhou via Bangkok.  Europe shrunk in capacity by 30.4% compared to the same quarter prior year due to rationalization occasioned by the Euro zone crisis and anticipated lower demand during the Kenyan election period.

The Northern Africa region capacity declined by 5.4% as a result of right sizing capacity to Djibouti via Addis Ababa and the Khartoum-Cairo route.  Capacity availed into the East African region grew by 34.9% compared to same period last year. This was mostly due to increased frequencies to Dar-es-salaam, Seychelles, Moroni via Dzaoudzi and equipment mix between Boeing 738 and Embraer 190.

Capacity growth in Southern Africa region remained flat.  West African region declined by 6.5% mainly on the Lagos route as a result of operating the smaller B738 aircraft compared to B767.  The suspension of N’Djamena as a destination due to low demand also contributed to the decline.  

Capacity declined by 2.3% compared to similar period last year on the domestic front despite entry of Eldoret route.  This was as a result of rationalization of Mombasa operations from the larger B737 aircraft to the smaller Embraer 190.  Capacity availed to Kisumu grew by 18.7% due to use of the larger Embraer 190 fleet as opposed to Embraer 170.

Traffic measured in revenue passenger kilometres at 2,073m was 7.5% below similar period last year.  Europe recorded the highest reduction due to the economic challenges facing the Euro-Zone economies that necessitated cutbacks in capacity offered including the closure of the Rome route.  The total passenger tally, which closed at 828,032, was at par with the same period last year.  The resulting average cabin factor at 65.9% was 2.2 points lower compared to last year.

Passenger uplift to Europe at 83,506 was a reduction from last year’s level of 113,184  at a 75.7% seat occupancy, an improvement of 5.2% over last year. 

In the Middle East, Far East and India regions, uplifted passenger traffic at 130,522 showed an improvement of 11.0% compared to same period prior year. However, the realised cabin factor of 66.1% was below prior year’s level of 74.6% due to slow uptake of capacity availed.

Within Africa but excluding Kenya, passengers uplifted totalled 424,490 indicating a marginal growth of 1.1% on the back of 2.6% capacity growth.  The resultant passenger cabin factor of 60.0% was 2.3 percentage points lower than similar period last year.

Passengers uplifted within Kenya at 189,514 increased by 4.3% a 1.9% cabin factor improvement.

Cargo capacity dropped by 14.9% with a proportionate decline in tonnage during the period.  There was a general slump from some key feeder markets in Asia and Europe.

Kenya Airways to operate its first Boeing 777 300ER flight to London Heathrow - TravelHouseUK

Kenya Airways to operate its first Boeing 777 300ER flight to London Heathrow - TravelHouseUK
TEST Kenya Airways, the flag carrier of Kenya, has chosen London Heathrow Airport being one of the two launch destinations in November this year for its upcoming Boeing 777 300ER. Capitalizing on potential of commercial aviation to provide the best of air travel, TravelhouseUK provides bargain deals along with the latest offers on the web. Ch Aviation has reported that Kenya Airways will be utilizing its first Boeing 777 300ER for regular flights to London Heathrow from Nairobi, Kenya.

The revision of the route with the Boeing 777 300ER would allow the potential for driving down airfare for flights to Nairobi under Kenya Airways, since the aircraft is expected of improved fuel efficiency.

The allocation of latest aircraft will also prove the airline’s priority with respect to its passenger sector hailing from the UK, increasing passenger loyalty in the process.

TravelhouseUK has standardized access for international flights in the UK which are operated by major airlines across all regions. The agency also offers bargain deals available with Kenya Airways, which include flights to Djibouti City, Malindi, Dar Es Salaam, Abidjan and Kilimanjaro.

Flights to London Heathrow Airport with the Boeing 777 300ER will start on the 4th of November, which will then follow on with the new aircraft also being allocated to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport on 8th of November. These flights will be operating from Nairobi on the same schedule and flight frequency as before. Kenya Airways has placed an order for 4 Boeing 777 300ERs, which will accommodate more than 300 passengers per flight among its classes of Premier World business class and Economy class.

The Boeing 777 is the largest twinjet airliner in commercial production, and has held a reputation for supporting relatively higher passenger loads within its performance limitations. Its 300ER variant has its stretched capacity to accommodate increased number of passengers. It also has given higher returns in fuel economy, while its extended range makes it a suitable airliner for long haul flights.

Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, has evolved into a financial stronghold within East Africa. International investment and urban development has led to the city having a circle of influence in the region of central Kenya, while government has allocated it as the capital of its county, its district as well as its own entire province. Thus it automatically shoulders being the reception for overseas travelers arriving in the country.

Based in the capital city of Nairobi, Kenya Airways has its hub of operations at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. The flag carrier of Kenya has remained a loyal operator of Boeing aircraft which consist most of its fleet, and has further inductions underway for following up progress on such inter continental scale. These inductions include
9 Boeing 787 Dreamliners along with 4 Embraer 190s. The airline is also a distinguished member of the Sky Team aviation alliance.

Arabian Aerospace - Flydubai makes maiden flight to South Sudan

Arabian Aerospace - Flydubai makes maiden flight to South Sudan

Flydubai, Dubai's innovative low-cost airline, has made its maiden flight to Juba, the capital city of the Republic of South Sudan.

The inaugural flight, FZ61, touched down at Juba Airport on Sunday with Ghaith Al Ghaith, CEO of Flydubai and Buti Al Ghandi, managing director of Saeed Mohammed Al Ghandi & Sons on board.

The Vice President, Dr Riek Macha Teny, welcomed the Flydubai and UAE media delegation with a celebratory ceremony held at the Presidential Terminal.

Al Ghaith, said: “We are delighted to have started flights to Juba today, which is our 56th destination in operation across our route network. We are excited about the trade and travel opportunities that this new route brings to both the Republic of South Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.”

The addition of Juba further broadens Flydubai’s network in Africa and opens up more routes to previously underserved markets. The carrier now serves six points in the continent: Addis Ababa, Alexandria, Djibouti, Juba, Khartoum and Port Sudan.

“We would like to take the opportunity to thank the authorities for the warm welcome. The affordable, reliable and high-quality service we offer will enable passengers to travel more frequently between our two nations and onwards via one stop in Dubai aviation’s hub,” added Al Ghaith.

Elsewhere, Flydubai started it’s twice a week service to Mineralnye Vody, its fifth destination in Russia. The carrier will inaugurate two more new routes later in April, adding Osh in Kyrgyzstan and Dushanbe in Tajikistan to its expanding network. To support the rapid network growth, Flydubai will take delivery six new aircraft before the end of 2013, bringing its fleet to 34.

Ethiopia hopes to reap benefits from eco-friendly rail projects

Ethiopia hopes to reap benefits from eco-friendly rail projects

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Taking advantage of its expanding hydropower and other renewable energy capacity, Ethiopia is building an extensive system of electric railways to ease urban traffic congestion and reduce carbon emissions and pollution, officials say.

The country is constructing nearly 2,400 km (1,500 miles) of national electric railways, plus 34 km (21 miles) of light rail in Addis Ababa as part of a five-year “Growth and Transformation” effort that ends in 2015.

Ethiopia has been slow to embrace railway transport in recent decades. The diesel-powered Addis Ababa-Djibouti City Railway, built by the French in the first two decades of the last century, is now barely functional.

But the government now plans to rejuvenate moribund railway infrastructure to reduce road traffic as well as air and noise pollution that afflict the capital and, increasingly, major regional cities as well.

Work on the Addis Ababa Light Rail Project has been started by a Chinese firm, China Rail Engineering Corporation, which is also building the first phase of the new Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, which will have a total length of 327 km (204 miles). The second section of the railway, from Mieso to Dawanle at the Djibouti border, is currently under construction by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation.

The two projects combined are expected to cost close to $2.8 billion, a sum that will be covered by the Ethiopian government and a loan from the Export-Import Bank of China.

A Turkish firm, Yapi Merkezi, has been awarded a $1.7 billion contract for a railway from the eastern town of Awash to the northern city of Woldiya, with a total length of 389 km (243 miles). The firm is preparing to begin construction.

CAN’T COME SOON ENOUGH

For Nardos Belete, a worker who lives in a northern district of Addis Ababa, where the Addis Ababa rail project construction first started, the railway cannot come soon enough.

“I have to wake up at six in the morning, prepare my two girls for school as well as feed them breakfast, and wait in a bus line to go to work” said the 40-year-old mother.

Belete recalls that when she was growing up in Addis, the air was much cleaner than it currently is. She hopes the new railway will help lower the current levels of air pollution.

Shewangizaw Kifle, an official at the state-owned Ethiopian Railway Corporation (ERC), emphasises the environmental benefits of railways as well as their energy efficiency.

According to Kifle, the railways will hugely reduce the carbon intensity of bulk transport compared to trucks, and should greatly reduce local air pollution as well as road congestion and noise.

The new tracks will be electrified, with 90 percent of the power expected to come from hydroelectric means and the rest to be covered through other renewable sources such as wind, solar and geothermal energy. 

The government expects freight transport to increase by more than 13 percent annually from 2011 to 2030, despite high fuel prices. Over the same period, demand for passenger transport is projected to increase by about 9 percent annually

EMISSIONS REDUCTIONS

The government says that without the new railways, overall carbon dioxide emissions from transport would grow by 800 percent to 40 tonnes a year by 2030. But according to Kifle, the country’s new rail capacity will reduce road traffic enough to cut expected annual greenhouse gas emissions from transport to just under 9 tonnes by 2030.

The government’s investment in the rail sector is part of Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy Strategy (CRGE), launched in 2011, by which the government plans to achieve middle-income status for Ethiopia by 2025 while building a climate-resilient economy.  

Kifle said that the government chose to use electricity rather than coal or diesel for the new railways because of its reliability, durability and the relatively small investment costs over the long term.    

The business community is eager to see the benefits of the new transport infrastructure.

According to a 2009 study by the Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Association, the competitiveness of Ethiopia’s exports is of critical importance to the country’s economy but that competitiveness is vulnerable to high transport costs, while public passenger transport is currently unable to meet the increasing demand. For both these reasons, investments in the rail sector are needed, the study said.                   

Nevertheless, Elias Kassa, head of the SWETH railway consultancy firm in Stockholm, Sweden, sounded a note of caution about overestimating the benefits of rail technology.

“Rail technology may be a cleaner and faster transportation mode for big cities like Addis Ababa,” the Ethiopian-born Kassa said, “but in order to succeed it has to be integrated with other transportation modes such as electric buses, normal buses and taxis.”

Kassa also warned that although railways help avoid traffic congestion and provide a high-quality means of transportation, the experience of European countries and China show that they are not necessarily cheaper, unless there is a huge subsidy from the government.

“It’s clear rail transportation provides improved comfort, which necessitates that you pay a higher fee,” said Kassa. He added that the energy and fuel saved transporting freight by rail, as well as time saved with passenger trains, may compensate significantly for high ticket prices.

E.G. Woldegebriel is a journalist based in Addis Ababa with an interest in environmental issues.

How Coffee Brings The World Together | WBUR & NPR

How Coffee Brings The World Together | WBUR & NPR

Coffee is more than a drink. For many of us — OK, for me — it's woven into the fabric of every day.

It also connects us to far corners of the globe.

For instance, every Friday, a truck pulls up to the warehouse of Counter Culture Coffee, a small roaster and coffee distributor in Durham, N.C., and unloads a bunch of heavy burlap sacks.

On any random day, that truck could bring "10 bags from a farm in El Salvador; 20 bags from a cooperative in Burundi; two bags of a special coffee from Guatemala," says Kim Elena Ionescu, one of the coffee buyers for Counter Culture Coffee. She travels the world, visiting coffee farms and deciding which beans the company will buy.

The best coffee, she says, comes from high altitudes, but you cannot grow it in places that freeze, "so you need that mixture of high altitude and warm climate, which makes the tropics the place to grow it."

All across Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia, people grow coffee.

In many tropical countries, especially poor ones, it's a pillar of the economy; exports of green coffee beans, globally, are worth $15 billion a year.

Some of these farms, Ionescu says, are idyllic places, high in the mountains. Taller trees often shade the coffee bushes. Such scenes "hearken a little bit to coffee's homeland, which is Ethiopia," Ionescu says. "Southwestern Ethiopia is really lush, it's got amazingly high altitudes, it's green, misty."

But honestly, even though there are millions of small, idyllic coffee farms, they aren't producing the majority of the world's coffee.

Most coffee isn't specialty coffee. It's just coffee: big cans of it, or instant coffee.

Forty percent of all coffee comes from Brazil, and the typical coffee farm in Brazil looks more like a corn farm in Iowa, Ionescu says — "coffee plants as far as the eye can see, unbroken by any kind of tree."

When it's time for harvest in Brazil, big machines roll through and strip off the cherrylike coffee fruit, with its valuable bean inside.

The second-biggest producer in the world is a surprise for many people: Vietnam. "Not a lot of people, especially in specialty coffee, talk about Vietnam," says Ionescu.

Vietnamese farmers grow a species of coffee tree called robusta. (The scientific name is Coffea canephora.) It grows fast and produces a big crop, but the bean has a bitter taste. It's often used in blends, especially in Europe. But high-end coffee producers like Counter Culture avoid it. They stick to another species — arabica.

This is one big divide in the coffee business. On one side is "commodity" coffee; on the other, small companies like Counter Culture Coffee, or even big ones like Starbucks or Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which sell coffee that's been more carefully harvested and graded. These companies market coffee almost like wine, labeling where it came from and how it tastes.

At Green Mountain's headquarters in Waterbury, Vt., tasters suck in mouthfuls of fresh brew, pause to reflect, then give each sample a score and talk about what their supersensitive taste buds picked up. "Chocolate, melon, lime, subtle peach," says one taster.

Specialty coffee like this accounts for only a small part — probably 10 or 15 percent — of the global coffee market.

Sometimes, these two sides of the coffee business seem to live in different worlds. But Counter Culture Coffee's Ionescu says they sometimes come together in surprising ways.

"You know, what's interesting to me is the large proportion of coffee growers who drink instant coffee, even on some of these idyllic hillsides in Central America," she says.

Instead of drinking their own top-quality coffee, they export it to people who can pay more for it, such as Europeans or Americans.

Lindsey Bolger, director of coffee for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, says if you measure the amount of coffee consumed per coffee drinker, the world champions live in Nordic countries. "Depending on which country, they're up to eight cups of coffee per person, per day. In the U.S., we're at maybe 2 or 2.5 cups of coffee per day," she says.

Americans actually used to drink a lot more coffee. Per person, we drank almost twice as much during World War II.

People used to divide the coffee world neatly into producers, like Brazil, and consuming countries in Western Europe and North America.

Bolger says those clear lines are getting blurred. Brazil could soon overtake the United States to become the world's single biggest coffee-consuming country, she says, and "we're seeing significant growth in consumption in regions like Southeast Asia, South Korea, Eastern Europe, India and the Gulf nations."

The coffee experience, it seems, is more global than ever.

This is the first in a series of reports for Coffee Week. Along with our friends at Morning Edition, we're bringing you the stories behind the coffee in your cup — from the farms of Guatemala to the corner coffee shop.

Don't Miss

LISTEN: Jerry Seinfeld Scolds Steve Inskeep On The Macchiato

By Mark Memmott April 26, 2013

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Safaris in style at Botswana camps - Travel Weekly

Safaris in style at Botswana camps - Travel Weekly

Botswana: Dangers in the deep - Travel - NZ Herald News

Botswana: Dangers in the deep - Travel - NZ Herald News

Lightning flashes across the dark sky. Thunder reverberates throughout the Okavango Delta.

I sit - cold, wet, scared.

The rain is unrelenting. Clothes are heavy, sticking to thighs, stomachs and backs. The reeds become thick; the passageway narrow. Hands and forearms are held high to protect eyes against the thwacking of the reeds. Cargo shorts are spread with streaks of khaki moss. Flying ants splatter my rain jacket.

We zigzag into the shoots of lime green vegetation. The bow of the mokoro - a traditional wooden canoe - pushes through the plants before Victor, my poler, corrects his course.

Victor steers the mokoro by standing at the back and pushing a wooden pole against the banks of the delta.

His movements are often shaky but he is strong and young.

We pass lilypad flowers that add beauty to this vast waterway in northern Botswana. They're white and mauve with yellow centres, and are as large as dinner plates. The mokoro flips the pads like pancakes as it hits them, revealing underbellies that are rhubarb red.

The rain continues, soaking through to my underwear.

The tips of my fingers trail outside the mokoro, dipping below the surface into the warm water. It's a contrast to the chill in my body.

Victor, a lithe 30-year-old, talks to me but I can't understand his words - the raindrops crinkling the poncho hood covering my ears.

The mokoro sidles up to a thick clump of reeds protruding from the tannin-coloured waters. They are no barrier, however, to the monster in front of us.

"Here hippo," I softly hear Victor say.

"There's a hippo?" I ask, unsure of my ears.

"Yes, just one. In here."

"Where?"

"I'm not sure. I am looking."

Then we see it. It's huge.

I sit still and Victor stops talking. It knows we're here. It's looking directly at us. Half of its head is above water, revealing its enormity. It's beautiful but all I can think about is its girth and strength.

The hippo is one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. I'm later told they kill more people than any other animal across the continent.

Male hippos weigh an average 1200kg, while females weigh about 900kg. They can launch themselves at prey, or tourists intruding into their pools, a distance of 100 metres.

It's no comfort then that polers venture within 50 metres of the aggressive creatures. It's the accepted distance among locals, but is disconcerting as I sit in front of the animals. It feels much closer.

It knows we're here, too. It watches with intent eyes, flittering its ears as it listens for movement.

Dragonflies buzz about, refusing to sit still for long.

The rain continues to send rings rippling across the brown water's surface. It's rainy season so being stuck in a monsoon in the Okavango makes perfect sense. It all makes sense, except for the distance between this delta hippo and the intruder - me.

We wait. For what, I don't know. For the hippo to move closer? I hope not.

"Victor, it's time to go," I say.

He may be comfortable here, in a tiny tributary of the world's largest inland delta, but I am not.

Adult hippos can stay underwater for six minutes and before they attack they pinpoint their prey, dive under and make a beeline.

Of course, if you have a quick poler you can move out of the way in time but it's the waiting for the hippo's head to reappear that's the nerve-racking part. And the fact that a hippo is intent on removing you from its home.

With this in mind, Victor zips us away from the creature in front of us. We're not keen to tempt fate.

Within a minute we're back among the relative safety of the narrow waterways of the Okavango, away from the open pools where hippos spend their days.

It is then that Victor reveals we'd encountered a large male and that his pool is a well-known "hippo hole".

It's one of those pieces of information you're glad you didn't know beforehand. Yet knowing it afterwards leaves you staring at every "hippo hole" you pass, convinced there's a mammoth creature waiting to charge.

Welcome to the Okavango Delta.

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: The Okavango Delta is in northern Botswana, which is in the south of Africa. Botswana's airports are in Gaborone, Francistown, Maun and Kasane. Intrepid Travel's Okavango Experience tour starts in Johannesburg and ends in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

STAYING THERE: Okavango Experience is a Basix tour, meaning budget accommodation (in this case, primarily camping) and optional activities. The tour is nine days and costs approximately A$1306 (conditions apply). For departure dates and details visit intrepidtravel.com.

PLAYING THERE: The currency in Botswana is the Pula (BWP) but US dollars can readily be changed at exchange bureaus and there are ATMs in larger towns. Currently, A$1 buys 8.49 BWP. Australian citizens do not need a visa to visit Botswana as a tourist for up to 90 days.

• The writer travelled as a guest of Intrepid Travel.

- AAP

Refurb for Botswana camp - Travel Weekly

Refurb for Botswana camp - Travel Weekly


By Natalia Thomson


Uncharted Africa Safari Co.’s Camp Kalahari, located in the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans of Botswana, has undergone a refurbishment.

The camp, nestled among the acacias and palms on the edge of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, is inspired by the safari camps of a bygone era, making it ideal for families and travelers who enjoy a relaxed atmosphere. The camp upgrade includes new, much larger guest tents in a light, sandy color with extended fly-sheets to shade and protect the en-suite bathrooms.

Guests at Camp Kalahari take part in a safari experience that includes game drives to see rare desert-adapted species, encounters with habituated meerkats, an cultural exchange with a group of Bushmen, dry season quad bike rides on the Pans and an up-close look at the green season wildebeest and zebra migration.



For more on Camp Kalahari and itineraries from that outpost, go towww.unchartedafrica.com/page.php?p_id=53.

Botswana: Honeymoon safari - Travel - NZ Herald News

Botswana: Honeymoon safari - Travel - NZ Herald News

I wake up with a jolt, stirred by the crunching of fallen branches metres from my pillow. A heavy-footed intruder is on the prowl and he isn't doing a very good job of disguising his tracks.

Since I fell asleep, two hours ago, the beaming full moon has traced a perfect arc across the sky, like a ball-bearing swinging on a pendulum. The thin gauze net wrapped around my four-poster bed billows in the warm night breeze, offering the only protection between us and the lively savannah.

Sharing a bedroom with a herd of elephants may not be every newlywed couple's idea of bliss, but for a growing number of honeymooners eschewing schmaltzy romance for a spirit of adventure, it's a match made in heaven.

Besides, as guests at Sanctuary Baines' Camp in Botswana's wildlife-rich Okavango Delta, we're hardly roughing it: sleeping under the stars on the deck of a luxury lodge is just one of the many intimate safari experiences at which this hotel excels.

Set on the banks of the Bora river, part of the Delta which spreads like a bony hand across northwest Botswana, the five-lodge camp has been constructed with minimal disruption to the environment and is staffed by local communities.

The combination of top-class camps, diverse game viewing (the region is home to 450 birds and 90 mammal species) and far fewer tourists than neighbouring countries makes Botswana an appealing option for safari seekers. With a new international airport terminal due to open in the region's main town, Maun, in two years, its popularity is only set to rise.

The safari begins as soon as our light aircraft takes off from Maun. During the 10-minute ride, 150m above ground, we sight herds of elephant, zebra and wildebeest marching across parched scrubland, dotted with spore-like mounds of vegetation.

We're greeted at the airstrip by a welcoming committee of inquisitive buffalo, who raise their heads to catch our scent, and a procession of sombre marabou storks, cloaked in black.

Oddly, the Delta floods in dry season (peaking from June to August) reshaping the terrain, creating new islands and submerging tracks. Our local guide, Tuello, expertly navigates our 4WD truck through the ever-changing landscape, bumping over mud mounds and blasting through puddles almost a metre deep.

Jittery impala (whose availability as prey has earned them the nickname 'MacDonalds of the bush') fly from the path of our vehicle, their hooves barely touching the ground. A family of baboons grapple with pendulous seed pods hanging from ubiquitous sausage trees, while the cacophonous call of a blacksmith bird adds an oddly industrial clatter to the soundscape.

And all this before we've even reached the camp.

Wildlife viewing is the highlight of a visit to the Delta, but Baines' Camp also provide opportunities to learn about local ways of life and survival - from weaving baskets with river reeds, to harvesting water-lily roots to make a dense, earthy stew, and steering a traditional mokoro boat (dug-out canoe) through the labyrinth of shallow waterways.

Our guide, Tuello, regales us with stories of countless nights spent sleeping in the bush and using the red root of a star apple tree to clean his teeth.

He demonstrates his ability to follow animal tracks on a frantic hunt for lions. Weaving through bulbous baobab trees and towering termite mounds, Tuello promises us, with confidence, that despite the blistering midday heat, he'll find two lions, reported to be in the area.

Hitting the breaks occasionally to examine faint paw prints on the ground, we drive in tense silence until Tuello casually points to a lioness and her juvenile cooling off in the water.

Of all the animals in the Delta, though, elephants prove to be the most charismatic. More than a quarter of Africa's 400,000 elephant population live in Botswana, with 80,000 in the Delta - the largest concentration in the world. Eating up to 200kg a day, these mighty creatures bulldoze their way through trees, bushes, bullrushes, water lilies and even safari lodges.

Run by the Living With Elephants foundation, the Walking with Elephants experience allows guests to learn more about the animals in a controlled environment. For the past 27 years, American zoologist Doug has dedicated his life to caring for three orphaned elephants - Thembi, Morula and Jabu. He eats what they eat (almost poisoning himself on occasion) and confesses he hasn't left their side - even to visit the dentist - for two years.

During our morning with the elephants, we learn about their behaviour (an emotional memory means they grieve just like humans) and intelligence (their sensitive trunks can pick up something as small as a pea or as large as a person).

The session ends with a picnic shared with the elephants - they graze on tree twigs, we opt for chicken drumsticks. As I leave, Jabu, the bull of the herd, wraps his trunk around my shoulder and plants a sloppy kiss on my cheek.

Of course, there are plenty of conventional opportunities for honeymooners to enjoy romantic moments at Baines' Camp: join hippos on an early morning boat trip along the Boro river, orange sunlight dancing on the large papyrus reeds; or watch the sunset, sipping champagne in an outdoor cast iron bath overflowing with bubbles.

But my most loving memory is that parting gift from Jabu. Who'd have thought a kiss from another male would be the highlight of a romantic holiday?

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: Botswana is in southern Africa. Sanctuary Baines' Camp has a private airstrip, about 45-60 minutes from the camp. When water levels are high, guests travel from the airstrip by boat to camp, about 50 minutes away.

STAYING THERE: Sanctuary Baines' Camp is built on raised platforms near Moremi Game Reserve. It consists of five luxurious suites. For details and prices visitsanctuaryretreats.com.

PLAYING THERE: Other romantic safari experiences in Africa include the new Norman Carr Safaris camp at Chinzombo, Zambia. It opens mid-June and has been heralded as the first 'wildly luxurious' sustainable bush camp in the Luangwa Valley. Visit normancarrsafaris.com.

There is also Segera in Kenya. Set on the Laikipia Plateau, the property looks out to Mount Kenya. Check out wilderness-collection.com.

If you're on a budget, try Hippo Hollow in South Africa. It's a 10-minute drive from Kruger National Park. Go to hippohollow.co.za.

- PAA