Historical places in Africa

If you enjoyed the movie "Out of Africa" about the world famous Danish author Baroness Karen Blixen, it is recommend that you visit her old coffee farm and house in the Kenyan capital. The house, which in 1986 was converted into a museum on the outskirts of Nairobi, and although houses are now built around the farm, you can still see the beautiful Ngong Hills from the large park of the house. The house / museum itself is not particularly large, but you can definitely “sense history", when you stand in the baroness's office, among her original furniture and look at her books and authentic photos of her, her husband Baron Bror Blixen and her lover Denys Finch Hatton, who died tragically in a plane crash.

Dinosaur footprints are scattered all over Lesotho and there are a few near the village of Roma. They are located at the top of the mountain and are difficult to find by yourself, but, luckily, the local kids are happy to act as guides for a few maloti/rand. It takes about 30 minutes on foot from the village to reach the few footprints. They lie unprotected on a slab of rock and are eroded by weather and tear from the locals, so their condition is thereof. But it's cool to 'explore' something in the real world instead of a museum setup with fences and explanatory texts. The panoramic views from the footprints are equally amazing and worth the walk up, even if you don't give a hoot about a few dinosaur footprints.

Lesotho has more prehistoric sites than just dinosaur footprints, namely rock paintings, also known as bushman paintings. As with the dinosaur footprints, the rock paintings are totally unprotected and difficult to find without help from a local. For the rock paintings at Ha Tjooeng, you first have to walk through the village down to the bottom of the gorge, cross the river, and up to the overhanging on the rock face. Among newer drawings and carvings, you will be able to make out the original rock paintings - some men, a cow and a lion(?) - which surprisingly have survived millenniums of tear, wear, and graffiti. As with most sights in Lesotho, the journey through the breathtaking scenery is half the reward.

Even though we've seen and read numerous reports about Rwanda's genocide in 1994, it might still be hard to grasp the magnitude and sheer horror of the event. The Murambi Genocide Memorial could be the place to help people get a sense of what happened. Set on top of a hill with incredible views and a seemingly peaceful environment, the Murambi technical school has been the theatre of the killing of 40,000 to 50,000 Tutsis in just one night. Mass graves were quickly dug and volleyball courts and baseball fields set on top of them to cover the massacre. 20,000 bodies have since been found, exhumed and reburied, but about 1000 of them have been preserved with lime to be exposed in the many small dorm rooms on site. It's a tear-inducing, stomach-churning experience to see all those contorted mummified corpses piled one on top of another... and it goes on and on, room after room, until you reach the point where, overwhelmed, you want to scream "No more!", but you keep watching this incredible display, feeling invested in a certain duty to bear witness and make your motto the same as Rwanda's: Never again.

Out of respect for the victims, picture-taking is forbidden inside the rooms.

Even centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, countless architectural symbols of it's magnificence still scatter the Mediterranean coastline. While everyone knows about the Colosseum in the centre of Rome, not so many know of the UNESCO listed Amphitheatre of El Jem. Built in the 3rd century for up to 60,000 spectators, the amphitheatre is the 3rd largest of it's kind in the world. Even today, the amphitheatre is the centre of town life. Surprisingly, the area is not a touristic as you might expect for such an great site. And being so big, it's easy to escape any of the few tour groups that make it here.

In the flat region of Eastern Uganda, some oddities happen, like very circumscribed areas where giant boulders and other rocks seem to have landed there, as if they had fallen from the sky. In one of such areas, Nyero, even odder oddities can be seen. It appears an ancient civilisation (it is still unclear who and when) had taken refuge in this area and left a mark on some of the rocks. Three main sites can be visited easily (but there are more), very poetically named Nyero 1, 2, and 3. If you know anything about primitive art, you will be able to rave about the painters' skill and ingenuity, but even if you're just the average uncultured traveller, you will no doubt appreciate the great geometrical forms of the paintings and the beauty of the surrounding landscape. And next time you see a 1000 Ugandan shillings bill, you'll be able to boast: I have seen the original.