Thursday

Date: 28/04/2011
Time: 21:36
Days abroad: 94

Just an FYI...in South Africa, hot cocoa and hot chocolate are NOT the same thing.
oh, and Topper biscuits are DElicious...

In case you were all planning a trip here, I like to keep you all informed as I become informed...that way I dont forget before I remember to tell you

AND I hear the Pick N Pay got chicken today...I am going to have to go check it out, I am in desperate need of some protein.

Love

Some ramblings

Date: 27/04/2011
Time: 12:21 pm
Days abroad: 93

I am sitting at a nice little cafe...drinking rooibos tea (my new-found love) and eating a lemon poppyseed muffin.
mostly because they have free internet...and since they have free internet and I already finished my research...I felt like I shouldnt waste this golden opportunity to post on my bloggy...for free!

Now, I wish I had done something exciting this last week that I had pictures of...unfortunately, my little camera broke and I dont like to carry around my mom's big, beautiful camera because nothing screams "mug me!" like a nice piece of technology...hmm, makes me re-think lugging my computer down to main road to use this free internet...

On a lighter note, graduation is in 46 days!!
Hard to believe...I guess I better start learning to be a grown-up or something.

ALSO!!! Only 129 days until kickoff in Dallas!! How exciting...129 days is almost how long I have been in Cape Town. And that was like nothing...

The weather here has taken a 180 degree turn...I think Cape Town forgot it is in Africa. It has been monsoon rains every day all week. I'm talking like wake you up in the middle of the night rain because it sounds like the house is coming down. Also, we have these hilarious little heaters in our rooms that do absolutely nothing...See that white square on the wall? Basically, the plank thing gets hot but no heat actually radiates into the room. Hahaha. The funny thing is, I dont think it is really that cold but after 4 months of 90 degrees, it feels like Antarctica in there.

Well, I clearly have nothing exciting to report...oh! except! I went to Checkers AND Pick N Pay yesterday and BOTH of them were completely out of chicken. How do the 2 main grocery stores run out of chicken?! So bizarre. Sometimes, South Africa is so strange...

Happy Happy 21st Birthday to the lovely miss Alex!!

I miss you all!
Love

Hoppy Easter! (har har har)

Date: 26/04/2011
Time: 01:11
Days Abroad: 92

Easter weekend was fairly uneventful in the southern hemisphere...we had Good Friday off of school. And the Monday after Easter (Family Day) and we have Wednesday this week off as well (Freedom Day) so, basically all my lecturers took a second mid-semester vac and almost all of my classes are canceled all week. Which is pretty cool if you ask me.

Friday night I went into downtown Cape Town with some friends...we took a mini-bus. Which is supposed to be a big no-no after dark...but we had a boy with us, so we figured we'd take the risk. Well, after dark, I guess the mini-bus becomes the place to be. They are supposed to seat 16...at one point I counted 23 people in there...NOT including the driver. And it was all black lights and slow jams as we cruised into town...

We got off at the taxi rank and walked over to Long Street to see what we could see...we ate at a place called the Eastern Food Bazaar. They had Indian and Chinese and other unidentifiable foods and you could pick from any of them and watch them get it ready...it was so good. And so cheap! For R20 I got a full meal of rice and schechwan chicken...it was delicious until I accidentally ate a pepper that mustve been grown on the sun. It was so hot that the outside of my lips were burning 20 minutes after i swallowed it...I actually thought I might be dying. Anyway, after that we wandered up and down Long street, went into a couple of lounges...but it was kind of dead so we were home by 1-ish.

The rest of the weekend I was trying to heal a cold so I spent a lot of time in the comfort of my bed. Monsoon-style rains have arrived in Cape Town so I snuggled under my covers and read some homework and watched some movies.

Easter Sunday...I was out of groceries and the Pick N Pay was not open...so I had take-out Chinese...like a Christmas Story..not quite Gramma Tiny ham but it wasnt bad. Then I got to talk to my lovely family :) that was delightful...

Monday I was a little more adventurous...Sara heard that there is a Starbucks inside a hotel downtown but we were late getting going and then it was pouring down rain so instead of going to find it we went to the Cavendesh mall to watch a movie...on the way, our mini-bus overheated and the whole thing filled with smoke...the driver simply asked the guy in the passenger side to put down his window, made a couple halfhearted attempts at waving the smoke that was POURING out of the vents out of his eyes and kept right on a driving. No big deal. I thought I was going to die of carbon monoxide poisoning or something...not my ideal way to go out, smashed between 2 stinky men in the backseat of a very crowded mini-bus where nobody would realize I was dead until they reached Wyneburg and turned around and tried to collect my 6 rand for the ride back into town....haha

When we arrived (alive, thankfully) the mall was like a maze. We went and bought the tickets first then had about an hour to kill so we wandered and I was seriously concerned about being able to find my way back to the theater...it was 4 floors of escalators and corners and sky bridges and tiny little stores...and at one point we passed a sign that said "lift for paraplegics"...I am not kidding. I cracked up...what is wrong with just a plain old sign that says "lift"? Like if you arent a paraplegic you cant use the lift? What if you just had a hip replacement? Not a pareplegic but you arent allowed on the lift. No sir, those are for paraplegics only...ridiculous.

Anyway, we had no idea what our movie was about going in...we literally stared at the posters on the wall for like 10 minutes and I turned to Sara and said "Strangest thing...I have never heard of ANY of these movies..." So we took a leap of faith with Liam Neeson and saw Unknown. It was actually quite good. But, get this, the theater had ASSIGNED SEATS. When we went to the counter to get our tickets the lady said "Front, middle, or back?" and I said "excuse me?" and she said "FRONT, MIDDLE, OR BAAAAACK?" all slowly, like I was a total dummy and I said "er, middle?" thinking maybe they had seperate doors to go through or something...but then she printed my ticket and, sure enough, we had seat numbers. Seats D5 and D6. Now I am thinking that it is a little silly and probably nobody pays attention to that anyway but when we went into the theater...PEOPLE WERE SITTING IN THEIR ASSIGNED SEATS. How weird is that? It was like middle school all over again. We had to climb over an elderly couple, a pimply teenage boy, and a woman in a 3 piece suit to get to our seats then the old lady next to me talked to Liam throughout the whole movie. How annoying. I wouldve liked to move down a couple of seats to avoid her running commentary but I couldnt, because I was assigned to seat D5.

It was pouring still when we got out of the mall so we mini-bussed back to Rondebosch and the driver nearly took out an old White man trying to cross the street--not unusual. Except then the old White man walks around the front of the van and STICKS HIS ARM IN and tries to punch the driver...never a dull moment. I grabbed Sara and hightailed it up the hill...I did not want to be caught in the middle of a mini-bus brawl.

That was about it...I made some dinner (rice and the last of my frozen vegetables...it was a public holiday so the Pick N Pay was closed by the time we got back from the mall). Watched a movie with a couple of friends and now I am headed off to slumber.

All in all, not a very exciting weekend to share with you all...nothing compared to my last few posts...

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend!
Missing everyone!

Love

Number 5 (...and she lived happily ever after, the end)

Date 17/04/2011
Time: 5:00 pm
Days abroad: 83

(Post #5 (and final) of vac trip)

I know, I know…I fell off the wagon here with my blog story…I’m sorry, I had a paper due. Then it was Friday, then it was Saturday…anyway…I am going to finish it off now! Yay!

If it is any consolation, this will probably be the most boring story part but! The most exciting pictures!

Friday, April 1, 2011

Up with the sun…for the final time. Bella, Martin (the Swedish cousins), and myself were signed up for a game drive and our truck departed at 6:45am…the first and, I hope, the last time in my life that I have missed continental breakfast because I was TOO EARLY. Our game drive was through Masi-Oa-Tunya National Park which is the smallest national park in Zambia and also contains Victoria Falls…this is why it is called Masi-Oa-Tunya because that means the smoke that thunders (talking about the falls). Our drive was incredible!

Our driver started off by saying “I can’t promise anything except grass and springbok…but we will see”. So I am thinking oh great, we’re going to see nothing….boy was I wrong. We saw springbok right off the bat…and impala…but these aren’t exciting so I didn’t include pictures. We saw about a million warthogs (which are adorable) and elephants and hippos…but you’ve already seen pictures of them…

We heard the infamous Cape Turtle Dove (remember, “Bot-swa-na, Bot-swa-na…”?) only in Zambia they say “work har-der, work har-der” in the morning and in the afternoon they say “drink la-ger drink la-ger”…I think this is the case because there aren’t enough syllables in Zambia…I hear in Zimbabwe they say “Zim-bab-we, Zim-bab-we” haha.

We saw giraffes:

Mamas and babies and daddy giraffes…there were so many. Our guide told us that that is what the park is most known for is their large giraffe population. He also told us that the Hindi word for giraffe translates to “walking majestic” and the Greek call them “the camel with leopard's spots”…just some interesting tid-bits for you :)

We also saw buffalo:

I know they aren’t beautiful…but, once again, I promised my grandfathers big game pictures…plus they are one of the big 5.

We saw zebras:

Finally! I had been hoping to see some close enough to get a decent picture.

And we were all DYING to see a rhino. Our guide told us that the park only had 7 rhinos and that they were all white rhinos. White rhinos and black rhinos are actually both grey-ish-brown…they are named that way because of a total misunderstanding. When the Dutch arrived they thought the natives were calling the rhino white but they were really talking about his upper lip. White rhinos have a square upper lip and black rhinos have a pointy one…so, the silly silly colonizers misunderstood and called the one the white rhino and, in order to differentiate, they called the other one black.

Anyway, our guide asked us if we would like to see one of the rhinos and we all eagerly said yes…well, all the rhinos in the park have 24 hour guards because of poacher…locate the guards and you locate the rhinos…

These guys are a couple of the guards. The one with the hat is probably the scariest person I have met in Africa thus far…he was completely straight faced and he had that GIANT gun. We hopped off the truck and he said “single file. Watch for snakes” and set off through the bush. We all half ran half tripped after him through the underbrush…at one point we all heard something running and he brought his gun down into shooting position and I actually thought I might die…but it was just a buffalo we had startled. We tromped and tromped and finally came to our rhino! A mama and a cute little baby:

After we looked for a while they took us back to the jeep and, of course, expected to be “appreciated” for their efforts in showing us the rhinos…quite a nice little racket they are running in the bushes…I’m sure it is perfectly legal.

After our game drive, we got back to the hotel about 10:30 and ate breakfast in the restaurant. We hung out until about 2:30 when Bella, Aman, and I were scheduled to go on a lion encounter!

We drove back to the same park to a reserve where they take baby lions from mothers that are in captivity and train them how to hunt for themselves and they are eventually re-released into the wild. The lions that tourists interact with are in step 2 of the 4-step program…they are young (the 2 we walked with were 6 month old sisters). They go on walks twice a day and if they see game and start to pursue it nobody stops them…though they are also fed in their enclosure at night. The 2 lions we were with are about to move to step 3 where they are placed on a 5,000 acre reserve and have to hunt for themselves. They will be tagged for tracking purposes but wont have any human interaction…they will be monitored from afar. After they have shown that they can adequately feed themselves then they are taken into another, larger reserve where they can integrate into one of the prides there. Their offspring will never have human interaction so they will truly be wild animals again.

I LOVED the lion experience; it was so much fun…so I included 4 pictures from it:

Yes, this is me...PETTING a lion.
I can’t even tell you how many pictures I have of this day…it was a great day. I definitely want to go back to Livingstone. There is so much to do, it is a vacation on its own…it’s like the ultimate adventure vacation destination…

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Going home day…

We got up and had our last breakfast as a group at 8:30 at the truck. We said our goodbyes to everyone because several people were leaving for activities (most people had an extra day or two or week in Livingstone). Then we all went up to the bar to drink Coke and wait for our taxis to the airport. We got to the airport FAR to early (2 hours before our flight) and there was nothing to do…Livingstone international airport is about as exciting as Windhoek…and Maun. I bought some peanut m and ms and took a little nap (by this point, my malaria pills were wreaking havoc on my stomach and esophagus). We flew to Jo’burg where we went through customs…got completely lost looking for our domestic ticket counter and finally found our gate. From there we flew to Cape Town and called a cab to get home. We finally got back to home sweet Highstead a few shades darker, a few dollars poorer, and a few bites itchier…from the vacation of a lifetime.

That’s it. I hope you guys enjoyed this little mini series…I have millions more pictures that I will definitely upload to facebook in June when I return to the land of unlimited internet…

I'll post again later this week...I went to an eco-village today...it was really cool! But that's a story for another time...I need to go make some supper

Love

Number 4!! We're getting there...slowly but surely...

Date: 13/04/2011
Time: 12:52 am
Days abroad: 79

(post #4 of 10 day vac trip)

It is quite late…but I made 2 days of my trip per night my goal and I am sticking to it…so, 2 days it is! Onward.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

We woke up at 5…maybe I should stop saying this…since it happened nearly EVERY DAY. Some vacation…

Anyways, we were out of camp by 6 because our driver promised us a long drive over really bad roads and we needed to get to Chobe National Park by 3 for our game cruise. So, away we went…bumping off down the road. It was indeed a long drive over very bad roads…however, there were giraffes and elephants EVERYWHERE:

I swear, giraffes in Botswana are like deer…we saw so many we were actually tired of seeing them…like “ya, ya, another giraffe, woopie.”

Also, due to the bumpiness of the road…and the oh so high quality craftsmanship of our truck…the top of a bolt holding one of the seats to the floor sheared off and shot across the bus…the seat became completely detached and the poor girl sitting in it had to jump up or risk being bounced right into the aisle. Hahaha…here is Conrad, really pleased with the situation, attempting to repair the seat:

We finally arrived at our campsite in Chobe. We set up camp, had a little lunch and went into the town of Kasane to change money or get supplies. I had some seriously vicious heartburn due to my anti-malarial so I purchased a lollie (which is just how they say ‘popsicle’ in the Queen’s English).

We bumped along back to camp at about 3 for a game cruise on the Chobe River. We were on a huge boat with 2 other tour groups, one of which was a buss of 22 of my fellow CIEE comrades…I have to say, the Americans on the boat did not make our country look too good…they were very loud and carrying on when we were supposed to be quietly game watching…I can see why we Yanks have a worldwide reputation…

The cruise lasted until about 6:30…we saw elephants; hippos; kudu; springbok; buffalo; HUGE monitor lizards (relative of Komodo dragon); baboons; crocodiles (finally!); and, of course, about a million birds. I have pictures of all of these but I’m only including the hippos because they are ADORABLE:

And the Kudu, because I promised my grandfathers some big game pictures: We had yet another incredible African sunset…this time over the Chobe River. The land you can see in the picture is actually Namibia, we were staying on the Botswana side of the river: We had dinner at about 7…South African sausage, potatoes, squash, salad, and bread…we wandered down to the bar for a little bit but it was somewhat less exciting than the previous 2 bars so we went back to our campsite.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

We were SUPPOSED to be able to sleep in…Livingston was not a far drive away. Unfortunately, I was awoken at 5 by another campsite of people leaving and the birds. There is one bird that the Tswana called the “Go-away” bird that makes the most hilarious crying noise…it was not so hilarious at 5am on my sleep-in day.

We had breakfast at 730 and were out of camp by 8 headed for Zambia. It took us all of 20 minutes to get to the river crossing that is the border between Bots and Zambia. We were told to expect a loooong wait for the ferry (up to 3 hours) but we got our exit stamps, paid for our Zambia visas and were hurried down to the ferry because it was about to leave…so much for a long wait. Haha.

The ferry ride wasn’t long and then, we were in Zambia! We got our entry stamps and then we had to wait for Conrad to register the truck so we all went to sit in the truck and wait. There were so many Zambian and Zim guys around trying to sell their wooden and stone carvings and they would take ANYTHING as currency…one guy wanted my shoes. One of them was named Adam and he set up shop outside my window and we had a nice little conversation. He wanted a tshirt from the states and I had a ratty old Oregon one I would’ve gladly given him if it hadn’t been locked under the bus in the luggage bin thing…he was wearing a shirt that said Hoboken and he kept saying "I want a shirt from the US, a shirt from the US.” And I said “you are wearing a shirt from the US…” and he pointed at it and said “No, no, no Hoboken, Brazil!” bahahaha, I didn’t have the heart to tell him Hoboken is, in fact, in Jersey. Adam also had a niece named Kailee, though, based on previous experience…it was probably some crazy long African name and they called her Kailee for short….

We finally got the truck registered and set out for Livingstone and our last campground. Livingstone was about an hour from the ferry crossing. We stopped in town at a Spar (grocery store) so everyone could use the ATM and get some snacks. Zambian currency is the Kwatcha…and it is hilarious because it is 4,800 to the dollar…so I bought a coke and a snickers bar and my total was about K8,000. It was so hard to go to an ATM and type in that many zeros…I had no idea how much money I withdrew.

We continued on to our campground/resort which was called the Zambezi Waterfront. The cool thing about the resort (and most of Livingstone) is that they accept any form of currency. So we could get rid of our Namibian dollars and our Pula and our US dollars...whatever we had left, they would take it. It made figuring out the meal bills very hectic though, haha.

We set up camp, had lunch, and then met for our activities briefing. Livingstone is a HUGE tourist attraction (Victoria Falls) so there are about a million adventure activities to do while you are there…our resort set up a briefing session for us about all of our options and answered all of our questions. I signed up to do a game drive with the Swedes (Martin and Bella) and a lion encounter with Bella and Aman. Both on Friday, my last full day of vacation.

After our briefing, Conrad drove us to the Vic Falls entrance and turned us loose…however, Conrad and Sarah failed to mention that we should not take anything of importance with us into the falls…because it would be wet. Their words were “prepare to get a little wet”…what happened next might as well have been the 40 day flood. We got SOAKED. We were all in a panic over our cameras (mine got damp through 2 shirts and a rain jacket) and I got maybe 3 okay pictures of the falls:

Our guides had made a big deal about telling us to get everything off the bus and nobody wanted to leave valuables in their tents because these little suckers:
know how to open zippers!! They were ALL OVER our campground and since we couldnt leave our valuables on the bus anymore and they werent safe in the tents...many people had their passports and all their money on them and it all got drenched.

The falls, however, were INCREDIBLE. I hear they are even better from the Zimbabwe side but I didn’t have the funds for the visa…so I satisfied myself with the Zambia side. It was stunning…we hiked around for a couple of hours then Sara and Bella haggled with some of the guys in the market outside the exit before we caught a cab back to the campground. We got the name of our taxi driver and his phone number because he promised to give us a discount on our fare to the airport then we set about the business of drying out.

We had dinner in the restaurant at the campground and went to bed fairly early…we had our game drive at 6:45am on Friday…

That’s it for today guys…I am beat. I went to yoga class this evening (laugh laugh, I know) and yoga is HARD. So now, I am going to hit the hay.

Sorry about the lack of exciting details...I promise I will make it up tomorrow...I am just exhausted and so tired of wrestling with the internet...

Goodnight all

Love

p.s. you all better LOVE the pictures tonight...they only took like an HOUR to upload properly...holy moly...

Part numero tres

Date: 11/04/2011
Time: 11:00pm
Days abroad: 78

(post #3 of 10 day vac trip)

aaannnnnnddddd....we're back....continuing on from yesterday...

Monday, March 28, 2011

We all woke up very early Monday morning (surprise, I know) and left camp at 5:30am. We took a mokoro ride during sunrise over to another island in the delta, Khumo was our poler again:

When we got to the bigger island we split up into our 3 groups of 5 from the night before and set out on about a 4 hour game walk with our guides. Morotsi led the way and another one of the polers, Elia, came along with our group. We walked and walked for AGES and I was beginning to think they were playing a trick on us, calling it a “game walk” when Morotsi stopped suddenly and pointed in the distance and said “giraffe”. Now, walking across an island in the Okavango Delta is a special skill that probably takes years to hone. I spent literally the whole walk staring at my feet trying to avoid giant anteater holes and dips made by the mysterious elephants that supposedly live in the delta; how Morotsi spotted a single giraffe from a mile away I have no idea. And he was wearing flip-flops. I could not see the giraffe. At all. I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so this is no surprise. But I even borrowed Martin’s binoculars and could see nothing resembling anything except grass forever and then trees so far off in the distance they may well have been bushes. “Would you like to try and get closer?” was what Morotsi asked us uh, yeah. So we started walking again. It wasn’t for a good 10 minutes that I actually saw said giraffe. Standing next to a termite hill that was easily 6 feet tall. We stood there looking at him and he stood there looking at us for a good 20 minutes. Then Elia said “zebras”. We all turned to him and he pointed obscurely off into the distance. Once again, I saw nothing. These Tswana bushmen either have the best eyesight in the world or they know exactly what they are looking for. Or both. I couldn’t see a zebra if my life depended on it. I couldn’t even see anything moving. No blob, no herd, no nothing…I would’ve thought it was trickery for sure except the giraffe turned out to be true. SO, I took Elia’s word that there was, in fact, a herd of zebras over there. We set off walking again…pausing occasionally to watch the baboons chase each other around (Morotsi’s favorite animal, because you never get tired of watching them—they are always doing something funny). Morotsi told us the way to find lions is by listening to the baboons. When the baboons stumble upon a pride they start screaming and banging on the trees…which is a good tidbit to know if you are ever wandering around the delta… We walked and walked and walked and walked and I almost accidentally touched this giant caterpillar: Martin pulled me to the side just in time then Elia put his hand in there for some scale…apparently these caterpillars are a delicacy, you can buy them live in the supermarkets to cook…

Then we walked and walked and walked some more and, by now, it is starting to get hot out…then we came around a corner of shrubbery and there WERE zebras! A lot of them! And giraffes! And several other groups of people. It was like a huge relief that we hadn’t trooped along all morning in vain:

This photo courtesy of the lovely Sara :)

Morotsi decided that all of us tourists looked a little worse for the wear so maybe it was time to head back…we set off on a loop back around the island to where we left the mokoros. We passed by some elephant bones and Morotsi told us that when other elephants pass by the bones of one who has died they pick the bones up in their trunks and pass them down the line…like they are sad and compassionate for the loss of a comrade. Elephants are the only animals that show sadness when they come upon another elephant’s bones. This is Morotsi with the skull:
We also saw buffalo bones and a leopard tortoise on the walk back.

The leopard tortoise is one of what they call the “small 5” animals of Africa. The “Big 5” are the 5 main game animals that were the hardest to hunt and therefore made the proudest trophies; now, they are the 5 animals that tourists are supposed to try and see…so you can claim you have seen Africa’s Big 5…they are elephant, leopard, rhino, lion, and buffalo (what we call water buffalo). The “Small 5” are a fun, touristy play on the Big 5…they are: elephant shrew, leopard tortoise, rhino beetle, ant lion, and red-billed buffalo weaver. And there you have your fun-fact for the day…haha

Anyway, we finally made it back to the mokoros (“oh they are just over by those trees…” the ENTIRE island was circled in trees…and we were hiking across plains of grass up to our armpits in crazy heat) and we were the last group back so we all piled into Elia’s and Morotsi’s mokoros and they took us back to camp. We got back around 11:30ish and, once again, spent the heat of the day lolling about in the shade. The women mokoro drivers were gathering and boiling reeds and weaving beautiful baskets and jewelry out of them all afternoon.

At about 5, the mokoro polers rounded us all up and took us out for a ride to the main channel…Khumo finally started warming up a bit. He taught Sara and I the Tswana words for many of the animals: hippo = kubu which, I think, is a way more descriptive word for what a hippo looks like…you say “kubu” and you can totally picture a hippo; leopard (Khumo’s favorite animal) = nkgwe; giraffe = tlhatwe (no, that isn’t a typo, it starts with t-l-h-…I made him spell it several times); elephant = thuo (though it sounded like he said ‘thor’); and zebra = pitse. Khumo also showed me the reeds they use to make the walls of their houses which are different than the reeds they use to make the roofs. He pointed out many of the water bugs (including huge gross spiders) and told me about his siblings. His little sister is named Kelevemang and for short, he calls her Kele (like Kailee!), how cool is that? I think that was actually the topic that made him start talking to me…I asked about his siblings and we finally got to talking about his sister..haha. He also pointed out a dung beetle, which was huge, and all 3 different kinds of praying mantis. He said that if a mantis lands on you it is supposed to be a good luck of sorts; mantises are sacred bugs…that made me feel a tiny bit guilty about the flailing fit from dinner the night before…woopsie. I asked if they ever saw lions on their game walks and he said sometimes, but the grass is too tall this time of year…but, if you listen at night you can hear them roaring. I was skeptical but he was very adamant…he also said you can hear the hyenas yipping. Khumo also offered to show me how to dance Tswana…turns out he really was very nice, maybe just shy…? We stayed out in the mokoro until sunset and we bumped into Khumo’s cousin on the way back so we didn’t get back to camp until about 40 minutes after everyone else. As we were coming into the campsite, a huge lightning storm started…it didn’t rain much but the thunder and lightning were all the way around us during dinner. It was really cool.

We had South African sausage and pap with tomato sauce and corn and cole slaw for dinner. After dinner, all the mokoro polers sang and danced Tswana for us for a while, it was beautiful. After the dancing, most people went off to bed and Khumo came over and told the rest of us to be quiet and we really COULD hear the lions roaring! It was incredible. I asked why they do that and he said that is there way of talking to each other…which makes sense, but why do they talk so loudly? It seems like that would give away their position…he also pointed out some lightning bugs. By the end of day 2 in the delta I was wishing I had spent my whole spring break in the delta…I was learning so much from these awesome Tswana people.

We finally went to bed at about 11…our last night sleeping in a non-campground.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

We got up at 5am (again…this is starting to become a habit…one I do not like…) and Morotsi took us to watch the sunrise over the lagoon where we saw the hippos the first day in the delta:

We stood there for maybe 20 minutes and watched the sun come up and there were about 15 hippos in the pool making their hilarious grunty noises. After Khumo had pointed out the sound of lions roaring, I could hear it all night. That combined with the Tswana guys talking by the fire made for a very nice background noise to sleep to.

After we watched the sunrise, we wet back and packed up camp. The polers loaded up the mokoros and we headed back to the mokoro station:

These are all the mokoros leaving camp. Khumo is the one in the blue shirt and camouflage shorts on the left in the wooden mokoro with all of Sara and I’s things. We had a lovely little trip back to the mokoro station, about an hour…Sara dozed most of the way but she was rudely awakened when we crashed into the reeds. I heard Khumo laughing behind me and I couldn’t figure out what was going on and he said “I dropped my pole!” then, Morotsi’s mokoro came around the corner and Martin had Khumo’s pole in his hand. Poor Sara was buried in the reeds since she was in the front of the boat but Khumo managed to get us out of the mess and back on track. We finally reached the mokoro station at about 8:30 and said goodbye to all our new poler friends. We piled back into the speedboat and, after we all pushed to get it un-stuck from the mud (it came too close to shore) we headed back to Island Safari and the truck.

After a quick lunch and some showers we headed back into Maun for fuel and some more money and snacks for the road. We hit the road and drove for about 3½ hours…once again, never a dull moment in an overland truck…we had been on the road for maybe an hour and we saw a herd of elephants on the side of the road. We all yelled “STOP STOP STOP” and started banging the tables and the windows and they heard us in the cab even though nobody had the intelligence to pick up the microphone…Conrad hit the brakes and pulled off the side of the road thinking there was some kind of emergency and we all piled out to take pictures. Unfortunately…the truck got stuck. Really really stuck. Conrad tried digging it out:

We tried putting wood under the tires, it disappeared in the sand. We tried pushing, it didn’t budge. We were stuck. Conrad and Sarah (tour Sarah, not traveling partner Sara) were more than a little displeased. Finally, a semi truck came along and pulled us out.

After our adventurous day traveling we finally made it to our campground, Planet Baobab. The baobab trees are the really big trees you see when you think of Africa that look like they are growing upside down—like their roots are going up. They are really cool:

The campground was quite nice with bug-free bathrooms and a cool little bar. We went down and drank Fanta with the Swedes and Gareth and had a perfectly lovely evening…spaghetti for dinner. The English people call it spaghetti bolognese…spag bol for short. Haha.

Went to bed early again…5am start on Wednesday to get to Chobe national park

More tomorrow my lovelies!

I feel like one of those Christmas radio shows that only does part of a story every night before Christmas…or those old fashioned magazine stories that continued every month…like Laura Ingalls and the Little Town on the Prairie…

Until tomorrow!

Love

Part 2-doo doo, doo da doo

Date: 10/04/2011
Time: 11:30 pm
Days abroad: 77

(Post #2 of 10 day vac trip)

We continue on our journey through southern Africa...

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Saturday came very early (again) and we got our first experience packing up the heavy canvas tents we used. It was not my favorite experience of the trip…for sure. We left the campground (Trail Blazers) at the wonderful hour of 7:30 am and set out for the Okavango Delta. It took us about 5 hours to get to the city of Maun, Botswana. The trip was uneventful except for one bathroom stop in the middle of the bush where I accidentally displayed my superhuman strength and broke a window in the truck…I was feeling a bit carsick but it was cold out so we had left the truck windows closed while driving. Well, we stopped to let people find a bush and I decided to get some fresh air, I slid the window and it shattered into one billion little safety glass pieces, all over the ground, all over me, all over the seat…woops. The theory is that it cracked while bumping over the harsh roads and me sliding it jostled it just enough…really it was because I am too strong for my own good.

Anyways, after the window broke, of course, it started raining. And raining. And raining. Making for a rough ride into Maun. We stopped in town to exchange our money (Botswanian currency is the Pula) and buy some supplies for the 2-day trip into the delta we were taking…we all had to buy water since we were about to embark on some actual bush camping (no toilets, no sinks, no buildings, no pool, no bar, and no showers). Then we continued out of Maun a little way to the Island Safari Resort where we were camping Saturday night. We had the option to upgrade to a hotel room but, once again, Sara and I opted to save the money and sleep in a tent, as did most of our fellow travelers. After lunch, we headed back into Maun to the Maun International Airport. Somewhat reminiscent of the Windhoek International airport, it was a tiny building (though, it had 2 floors—so I guess a little bigger than Windhoek) and 7 of us purchased a ticket for a 45 minute scenic flight over the Okavango Delta. We proceeded through security (a machine from the stone ages, I doubt it would’ve signaled that I had metal on me if I was wearing a suit of armor) and headed out to meet our pilot, Frank and get in our little Cessna plane:

It was the first time I had ever been in a plane so small and I had a blast! (Minus the last 10 minutes where I was feeling the effects of lunch…) Of course, they told me right before I boarded that Frank is a pilot in training, as are all scenic flight pilots, trying to build up his flight hours so he can get certified to fly real passenger planes…I guess that means I am not a real passenger?! Yikes. The view of the Delta from up there was INCREDIBLE. The Delta is enormous…obviously we only saw a tiny portion of it but it seemed to stretch on forever! I have about a zillion pictures of it…here is one of a watering hole and some of the expanse: We flew at about 450 meters off the ground so we could see a whole bunch of animals. We saw elephants and giraffes and buffalo (water buffalo) and zebra and impala and springbok and tons and tons of hippos (like these little guys):
(if you click on the picture it will get larger and you will actually be able to see the hippos...they are the 2 grey blobs one on the left-ish side, about a third of the way in from the edge and a third of the way down from the top and the other on the right side, closer to the bottom of the picture with little white birds on his back)

Aren’t they just ADORABLE?

After our flight we drove back out to the campsite. I wandered down to the bar with most of the people in our group…everyone wanted to use the wi-fi and have a drink. We hung out until dinner at 730…pasta bake and broccoli and a salad. Then, we had CAKE!! Because it was Martin’s 22^nd birthday. Happy birthday Martin.

Then I set about the task of re-packing my bags…for the next 2 days we were going to be camping in the delta and we were travelling by mokoro which is a tiny little wooden canoe…we were limited to just our day packs so we had to pull what we needed out of our big bags and smash two days into a little backpack. The showers at island safari were surprisingly bug-free…and when the water spread out through the shower head it looked surprisingly clear (as opposed to when we put it in the dish tub and it was a murky grey-brown…apparently the taps come from the river, hence the buying of water in Maun); so I took a very long, Hollywood shower in anticipation of my next couple of days…We all went to bed early because we had a 530 am wake-up in order to pack everything into the delta.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

We got up verrrrrrrrrrrry early (530) in order to get camp packed into the speedboat we were taking up the river to the mokoro station. We all piled our gear and ourselves into a speedboat and headed off down the river. We hadn’t gone more than 100 yards when the driver man turned around…apparently we were too heavy for 1 boat and we needed to offload 6 people into a second boat. After that minor hiccup we were on our way. The mokoro station was about a 50 minute speed boat ride from Island Safari and we paused every time the driver saw a unique bird or animal he wanted to point out. There were a ton of fisher eagles along the river which are beautiful big birds…I thought of Kimmy every time we saw one, she loves eagles, haha.

When we got to the mokoro station it was madness! There were people and boats and gear everywhere! There was another group there from a Nomad adventure tour which was mainly people from my CIEE program so I was talking to some of the girls…we finally got it all sorted out. 2 people per mokoro plus their gear. Extra mokoros for the tents and food and kitchen gear. Sara and I’s mokoro driver was a nice 25 year old Tswana man named Khumo (though when he said it it sounded almost like Kumar). The mokoro ride was another 45 minutes to our campsite and Khumo was very quiet but I kept pestering him with questions about the bugs and the frogs and the delta and his life…I’m pretty sure he would’ve loved to flip the mokoro on top of me…or smack me with the pole he was using to drive the thing. But instead, he just answered me as best he knew…and he knew a lot. When they get hired to take tourists out into the delta they have to study and learn all of the animals and the bugs and the plants and the trees according to the English words, on top of everything they already know from their parents and people in their village—the Tswana people have been living in he delta forever...so they have all kinds of knowledge. I asked him what he would do in the instance of a hippo charge and he said “if a hippo charges the mokoro I will jump out and run away and leave you guys here” hahaha, a sense of humor out of him, at last! Although his joke did end with me as hippo fodder—clearly our relationship was off to a bit of a rocky start…

We finally got to camp at about 11am. The mokoro drivers unloaded the boats and we set about putting camp up. We had a little intro speech—don’t go off ANYWHERE by yourself (or in a group without a mokoro driver), don’t shine flashlights into hippos eyes, basic things like that…then we were given the afternoon to lie about in the sun. We dragged our mattresses out and sat in the shade and just relaxed. At about 3:30 a huge thunderstorm came up. It was absolutely beautiful:

It reminded me of the thunderstorms in Rocky Mountain National Park, where the lightning is all the way around you. We watched the storm build from our campsite and when the rain started pouring we all retreated to our tents for a little nap.

At 5 that evening it had cooled off enough for our introductory game walk. We were introduced to the 3 game walk guides: Morotsi, Khumo, and Justice. Then we split into 3 groups of 5 and headed out. I was in Morotsi’s group (I’m sure Khumo was relieved) with Bella, Martin, Sara, and Jennah. We started the walk with basic game walk etiquette—walk in single file; if there is a hole in the path, say “hole” for the person behind you; if you are charged by an animal, follow instructions specific to that animal (elephants = run downwind in a zig-zag pattern, they have excellent noses and they can out run you but they don’t zig-zag well; lions = don’t run, stare them down *right*; and my personal favorite, buffalo = run up a tree) after our briefing, we set out on our walk. We could hear hippos as soon as we started our walk, they make a hilariously cute grunting noise; so, Morotsi took us on a long loop around to a pool he called the lagoon. There were about 7 hippos hanging out in the pool including a little baby hippo! So cute. We watched them for a while then headed back to camp for dinner. On the way back, Morotsi talked about all the different birds we could hear: the Cape Turtle Dove tweets all the time and, according to Morotsi, he says “Bot-swa-na, Bot-swa-na, work har-der, work har-der”; we saw a couple of parrots; several kinds of storks; and big white ducks. Morotsi also pointed out elephant tracks, anteater holes, and “snake berries” which are little yellow berries that grow close to the ground (they look like yellow cherry tomatoes) that you are supposed to boil and drink when you get bitten by a snake—good to know since there are many snakes in the Okavango Delta.

We had chicken, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and corn all cooked over the campfire for dinner—delicious. Though I had a little bit of an issue regarding giant bugs flying at me while I was eating. There are 3 types of praying mantis that live in the delta. One of them FLIES. And from what I could tell in the dark panic flailing that went on all of dinner, they can grow to be about 2 or 3 inches long. SICK. The stars that we could see in the delta were incredible…for the first time in my life I actually SAW Orion, and understood how the constellation worked. Wow. And the Southern Cross…of course, being in the Southern Hemisphere helped me out on that one I think…

The Tswana guides kept the fire going all night and I fell asleep listening to a couple of the guys speaking Tswana around the fire. Tswana is a beautiful language, much more flowy than either Zulu or Xhosa which are the 2 tribal languages I hear the most in Cape Town. I quite enjoyed listening to the Tswana. Though, for all I knew they were making fun of the dumb American tourist girl who asked so many questions…but if they were making fun of me, at least it was nice to listen to…

Also, a fun fact I learned about Botswana. “Bo” in Tswana refers to language so the country is effectively named after their language. How cool is that?

Well, that is all for tonight…I am going to try to keep up with this two days per night thing I have going…that way the picture upload doesn’t take years and I don’t get carpal tunnel from all the typing…if you cant tell, I have a LOT to say about my trip…though the 3 days we were in the Okavango were I think my favorite days…but I did really enjoy Zambia as well…there were good points during every day…you’ll see.

I hope you aren’t all sadly disappointed so far…I promise, pictures of animals are coming!

Love

And so the adventure begins!

Date: 10/04/2011
Time: 1:15am (dont worry, I napped all afternoon, I am not sleep depriving myself for this blog)
Days abroad: 76
(Post #1 of 10 day vac trip)

Okay okay, I know you have all been DYING to hear about my little vacation I took…I have over 600 pictures…plus my friend Sara who went with me has over 600 pictures…so I did my best to pick some out to show a little bit of everything we did…just keep in mind, the pictures do no justice to the real thing…

Also, it is a long story (10 days is a lot! And I kept very careful notes so I don’t leave important things out) so I am going to post it in pieces…that way it isn’t like the second coming of the Iliad on my blog (not that I am going to write it in poem form or anything…and I am certainly no Homer, but the Iliad is REALLY long)…you dig?

Ok, good.

Here we go.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

My friend Sara and I left our house in Cape Town about 1-ish (I may or may not have skipped my last 2 classes…and my one Friday class. Woops, sorry Dad). Our flight left Cape Town at 3:45 and we landed at Windhoek International Airport in the bustling metropolis of Windhoek, Namibia at about 6-ish. South African Airways is the ONLY way to fly. They fed us twice—on a 2 hour flight. Let me tell you, landing at the airport in Windhoek is an experience all its own…as we were coming in, we could not see a building ANYWHERE. Or a runway, for that matter. They did have one though. One. So we landed in the middle of a huge thunderstorm and got off the plane in the middle of the runway slash parking lot slash cement pad outside the one and a half room building that made up the airport. Then we got our passport stamps (yay!) and our bags and went to find this shuttle that our travel agent told us about. Well, we walked outside and a thousand tourist-thirsty cab drivers saw us though “aha! Americans!” And came rushing over yelling and waving…I asked for the shuttle to the Safari Hotel in Windhoek and they all assured me that there was no shuttle but all the taxis were the same price…140 rand each.

Well, they had told us the shuttle was 120 rand but since there was no shuttle in sight…and no city in sight…we decided to go with a nice young taxi driver. The next hour was spent bumping over the worst “tarred” road ever…through what appeared to be the middle of nowhere…and the trip to the hotel involved a police blockade AND fording a creek…in a tiny tiny Toyota hatchback. I am not kidding, the road dipped down to allow the creek to cross the road. Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore.

Anyhoosit, we finally arrived at the Safari Hotel (alive…and with all our things) and the reception area was super fancy…I think I know where most of my money for this trip went…the one night they put us in a fancy hotel.

We met our driver, Conrad and our tour guide, Sarah—both are originally from South Africa; and two Swedish cousins, Martin and Isabelle (Bella), they were finishing an AROUND THE WORLD TRIP with our little African tour. Awesome? Yes. We had our briefing about the trip, signed our wavers, checked into our room and reassembled in the parking lot at 730 to go to dinner. We met the rest of our group…they had been traveling for 10 days already, they started in Cape Town. Leo and Kate from Winnipeg; Alice from Pennsylvania; Lee and David, Aman, and Gareth all from England (though only Lee and David were travelling together, Aman and Gareth had signed up on their own); Aviva and Aneta from Toronto; Mark from Switzerland; and Jennah from Australia…a nice little diverse group.

We all piled into this beauty:

This picture was actually taken on the last day of our trip...but the truck looked relatively the same at both ends of the tour :)
(this is actually where we would spend the majority of our next 10 days) and bumped down into Windhoek to a little restaurant called Joe’s Beerhouse…this was unlike any beerhouse I had ever been to, since the menu included zebra and kudu steaks (I kept it safe with beef…no zebra meat for me please, thanks).

Something you should all know if you plan in traveling in southern Africa: service is SLOW. Like really slow….anyways, we got back to the hotel at 11ish...I had a moment of panic about the boot prints all over the ceiling of the bathroom (Namibia has the densest population of scorpions in the world…I do not know if scorpions can climb on ceilings but the boot prints indicated that SOMETHING unwanted can…) oh, also, the bathroom door stuck closed so if you shut it—which you had to do to get in the shower—so it is fortunate that there were two of us in the room because someone had to give it a swift kick from the outside to let you out. Now imagine if I got stuck in there with whatever the person before was chasing with a boot! I would’ve had a heart attack. For sure.

We had to be up at 6, breakfast at 6:30, and on the road by 7 am…which is an hour I rarely see…I hardly slept at all, partially in anticipation of the next 9 days and partially in fear of the boot print causing creature…

Friday, March 25, 2011

Up before the sun…which is not something I do well, haha. Breakfast was included at the hotel and it was a HUGE beautiful spread, which I could hardly appreciate because I could barely open my eyes. We all piled into the truck and hit the road. This was the longest drive we did during our 10-day stint on the tour. 8 long hours. We crossed the border into Botswana (another 2 stamps! Yaaay!) and kept driving and driving. This gave us plenty of time to get to know our new travelling companions…alongside the roads we saw baboons, ostrich, warthogs, donkeys, donkeys, cows, donkeys, cows, oh and more donkeys. Apparently Botswana has all of these wild donkeys and cows that just hang out on the roads. Several times Conrad had to hit the brakes and lay on the hooter (that’s what South Africans call a horn…I LOVE it. I think EVERYONE should call them hooters, hahahaha) because there were donkeys too lazy to get out of the road.

At one point, the largest dead moth I have ever seen blew out from underneath one of the seats and Sara (the girl I was traveling with) goes “ew, that’s a big bug” and Aman said (this is my favorite thing anyone said all week) “Oh don’t worry, they get much bigger. And more colorful.” Bahahahahahaha. At this point I am thinking holy moly, what have I gotten myself into? Because I HATE bugs. With a passion.

Anyway, we finally arrived at our campground…a lovely little place in the middle of the Kalahari Desert…which, funnily enough, looks like this:

At the end of the rainy season…not too desert-y, huh?
The campground was quite nice, as far as campgrounds go, and we could “upgrade” for 5 US dollars to a grass hut…Sara and I opted for the tent though, the huts were definitely not sealed against bugs. And the tents had zippers. There is a tribe of bushmen who live off the land in the Kalahari and for 10 US dollars we could go on a walk with them and learn about the plants. Instead of paying, I took this picture:
This is the bushmen and one of the upgrade huts…
And went on my own nature walk with David, Lee, Sara, and Aviva. We found so many giant giant black beetles…and there were tons of termite hills that were a good deal taller than myself. And all kinds of desert bugs...my favorite.

We walked back to camp at 7 for dinner time…we had shepherds pie and squash. Funny thing, I love squash! Who knew? I always thought I didn’t like it…but in fact, it is delicious…I have seriously been missing out! After dinner I held the light for the people on kitchen duty. Big mistake. Point of information: if you are camping in the Kalahari Desert and you don’t like bus, don’t be the good Samaritan who stands in the dark HOLDING THE LIGHT. All kinds of creepy crawlies fly directly at you. HUGE HUGE HUGE bugs…worthy of being mounted in the Smithsonian. Terrible.

I was exhausted after my sleepless night in Namibia so we stayed up and talked for a little whole but went to bed very early.

That brings us to day three…I am going to stop for the night because it is late…I promise, the animals get bigger (including, but not limited to, the bugs) and the pictures get much more exciting as the trip continues…stay tuned

Love