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On the way across Ethiopia's northern highlands, Donal Conlon either loses his bus - or it loses him. Either way he finds himself relieved of his luggage and any obvious options for onward transport.

The DRC is a strikingly mis-named country, finds Ben Cooke. It's undemocratic, for a start, and a republic only in name. He starts in Lubumbashi, heads into the hinterlands of small-town Kipushi and then braves the capital, Kinshasa. He finds the Congo's reputation for being dangerous has been superseded by its capacity to relentlessly hassle any visitor - especially if carrying a camera - and he finds the unremitting focus on a lone white traveller forces his mind into solitary reflection.

When his hotel's plumbing problems force Tom Coote onto the backstreets of Mombasa he's beset by hustlers and hookers. Forget the standard safari in a pop-top matatu: this is where he meets Kenya's alpha predators.