The half way point.

Half way recap

Well it has reached that time. The time when we will have been away for more time then we have left to go. I know you are all sad to hear this.  This seems like a perfect time for a top ten style recap of what has happened so far.

We will start off the top ten lists by throwing a curve ball and counting the top 5 best cities so far. 

Top 5 Citys

5) St Luce  ( while it is not technically a city… not even technically a town.. really more a collection of people it was a very unique experience)

4) Stone town (with fish markets, spice markets, the remnants of a slave market and no shortage of men who think the pretty lady needs another bracelet it was an interesting few days. )

3) San Sebaston ( Tapas, Sangria, Cider, A beautiful harbor and best of all good friends combined to make this one of the best stops in Spain)

2) Interlaken (wait… did I just step into a post card?… or maybe a cliché of Switzerland?… nope it’s Interlaken.  Breath taking views of cute mountains and crystal clear lakes makes this the most beautiful city we have been to)

1) Livingstone ( lion cuddling…  do I need to say more? No. but I will, rafting, bungee jumping, waterfall adventures and general shenanigans make this the most fun city so far)

Top 10 reasons to say T.I.A

(T.I.A meaning This Is Africa is often used in place of a shrug to explain away all the inexplicable oddities of Africa)

10) somebody tells you not to use the bathroom after dark cuz lions like to hang out there

9) you start referring to showers as “really good, not to creepy at all ”

8)  when deodorant costs more than your accommodations that night

7) your visa is supposed to cost 0$ but may cost anywhere between 0 and 50$ depending on the mood of the border official

6) You can’t have a shower tonight because an elephant drank all the water.

5) part of the transmission falls off your truck so you start scanning the trucks rolled over at the side of the road for one of the same make so you can scavenge parts.

4) the exhaust falls off your van but no worries you have aluminum foil.

3) The bridge is out… because somebody took it and hasn’t brought it back yet…

2)  we are now going to spray the inside of the plane with something… not tell you what it is, recommend that you cover your nose and mouth but assure you it is safe…

1) Dozens of people a day are not only allowed but are encouraged to lie on a ledge 103 m from the ground in a waterfall… with no safety gear at all..  

Top 10 best Drinks 

with special guest the worst drink I have ever had

10) cider in san sebastion

9)  Nile special ( local beer in Uganda )

8) Mosto  greap juse in spain

7) Tusker ( local beer in Kenya sometimes available throughout east Africa

6) Alpen Perle ( local beer from Interlaken )

5) strawberry wine ( laterburnnen)

4) Ceres fizzy green apple juce

3) Crazy strong punch made by our tour guide in kande beach 

2) amarula with peppermint snaps also known as a spring bok  

1) Sangria

-10)  crazy nasty moonshine from st Luce… it didn’t have a name or a bottle, it did have a right fowl stench. You just get it from some guy for .50$/1.5L… you know its good when you pay that much

Top 10 best foods( much of the food we have had so far has been fantastic it was hard to choose but this is the stuff that made the list ) 

10) bull ton ( SA)

9) rosti ( laterburnn)

8) churros in san sebastion

7) french onion soup ( paris )

6) chapata bread…

5) croissants by the Eiffel tower in Paris

4) tapas in san sebastion

3) butternut squash soup made by our tour guide in kande beach

2) palleya (Valencia )

1) gelato in the shape of a rose ( barcelona )

Top 10 hilarious adventures

10) driving anywhere.

9) discovering witchcraft is alive and well in zambia…

8) having a crazy man show up to help us find our lion project…. But he had no idea who we were

7) zoomba under the Eiffel towel

6) Following directions to a hostel that started with… take 60 steps south and turn into the unlit unmarked ally way…. Um??

5) Getting drunk at the cider festival in san sebastion at 11 am

4) Buying a birthday cake in Uganda…. Note… it is bring your own box….

3) getting run at by a hippo at night cuz the dogs pissed it off

2) throwing everybody into the pool at waterfront in Zambia

1) sitting under a tree with lions… and being afraid of the elephants running past you

 

Top 15 favorite activity’s see you thought I was trying to get off easy by making the first one a top 5… well here are the extra 5. ( In actuality I was unable to kick 5 of the list )

15) swimming to the island in lake Malawi

14) cider festival in san sebastion

13) swimming in the Mediterranean sea… it is sooo warm

12) giant tomato fight

11) dancing, drinking and doing a poi performance at a bush party in St Luce

10) rafting the white Nile in Uganda

9)  bungee jumping / gorge swing / zip line over the Zambezi 

8) safari in the Serengeti

7) SCUBA diving in Zanzibar

6) mycrolight flight over Victoria falls

5) paragliding in the swiss alps

4) cuddling lions 

3) Rafting the Zambezi river

2) trecking the mountain gorillas in Uganda 

1) hanging off the edge of a waterfall

more lions before breakfast then most people see all day

Africa part 5

Livingstone adventure

AKA Playing with more lions before breakfast than most people see all day.

Livingstone round 2 started with a bang. We were back on the mainland of Africa and boy could you tell. For starters soon after checking into our hostel Erin went on the mycrolight flight that got cancelled 2 weeks before because of bad weather. And wouldn’t you know it… there were elephants on the runway. Yes elephants. Just chilling, walking across the runway. Yup we are back on the mainland kids.  The mycrolight for those who cant picture it is basically a hang glider with some chairs and an engine suspended underneath. It is a really neat experience. The ride is not as bumpy and unstable as you would expect and the view is amazing. Probably the best view you can get of vic falls you circle around the falls a few times to see the rainbow and the breathtaking spectacle of water crashing down from over 100m up ( hold on to that stat for a while it will be important later ). The ride on the mycrolight also allows you to see if you are lucky hippos, crocodiles, elephants and buffalo wandering around the river.  On our previous foray into livingstone Erin Jamal and I partook in jumping off a bridge. We had the pleasure?? Of bungee jumping from the bridge over the Zambezi river. The view was breathtaking and terrifying. Erin jumped off seemingly unafraid and started to hate the journey once she hit the bottom. Disliking the jolt and the length of time she hung upside down waiting to be rescued. I on the other hand. Nearly had to be forced off the edge for both the bungee jump and the bridge swing but was in love with the feeling once I got off the ground. I loved the bouncy feeling of being weightless. Other then the initial jump the worst part of any of it was about 5 seconds after you jump off on the bridge swing and your brain tells you that the rope should have taken your weight by now… but it hasn’t. A few seconds later it does but those are terrifying seconds. After the jump or the swing just to add insult to injury they make you walk along a narrow catwalk on the underside of the bridge. With 2/4 of the adventures we wanted to undertake in Livingstone completed we set off the next day on adventure #3. Rafting the Zambezi river. Just 3 weeks prior to this the river was rated the best white water rapids in the world. We were in for a treat. The full day adventure consisted of  26 rapids in fairly quick succession. They had comforting names like stairway to heaven, devils toilet bowl and oblivion.  In the end we had a great day! We flipped our boat a few times, fell out and swam through at least 1 rapid, each had a solo performance ( falling out while everybody else stays in) and enjoyed the beautiful canyon of the lower Zambezi.

The following morning we set off to have our lion adventure. We got up and were ready to go by 10. We sat in the bar airea waiting for the ALERT people to come and pick us up…. And we waited…. And waited…. By 11 we decided that this was not just Africa time and that we should try to contact somebody. So erin took out her emergency contact card…. The one they said “call the number on the back if anything happens or if they don’t pick you up.” So she called. And got some guy, he did not sound very smart and said he would be there in 15. So we sat down to wait some more. When he arrived he said he didn’t know who we were and that we had not paid and he couldn’t help us despite his name and contact information being on our card. Eventually it was sorted out that the lion people were coming to get us at 12:30 and the staff at the hostel had been told this but had failed to pass the information on to us… oh Africa.

The lion project was 2 weeks of sheer wonder, how can something so dangerous be that cute. It is a mystery.  During our time here we got do walk lions babysit lions, make toys for the lions, feed the lions, cut up meat for the lions and generally take care of them.  We would take out up to 2 groups of lions at a time on walks through the park where the project was located. The lions walked in 3 groups. Dende and Demara two girls both with a bit of a mischievous streak and both about a year old.  Zariah and zemphara, the youngest of the lions at 10 months these 2 are sisters both a bit shy with zemphara being completely unwilling to let any boy touch her.  The last group was of 3 lions madoda, manali and Zambezi. Madoda was the only boy of the group and was extremely lazy. Manali and Zambezi liked to stalk things and get into trouble. Manali was probably the naughtiest lion of the whole bunch and she loved to give stalking eyes to people. Her favorite game was trying to stalk our guide Friday.  Through the walks we were able to learn how to interact and work with the lions. We got to pet them, first on the back and later on the face and tummy. We were able to let them lick our hands and scratch under the chin. As well we learned to greet them and to discipline them. It was very important to stand your ground and be alert at all times. While friendly they are still lions and would have hurt us if they jumped on anyone. Play full or not they play with claws and teeth and our skin is no match for that.  Aside from the occasional bout of being chased by hippoes and having to scare elephants off from trampling the garden it was a relatively peaceful 2 weeks. It was much to hot and much to short but our time in Livingstone was fantastic. we have had 9 weeks total in Africa and I would not trade a single day of it for anything. It is sad to see it go but I am excited for adventures further east.

PS

Adventure 4 was going to the devils pool. Erin and I swam across part of the upper Zambezi river from Livingstone island to the island with the devils pool ( note the edge of the falls as we were swimming was about 10 m away) then we jumped off some rocks into the devils pool and sat on a ledge about half a meter wide at the top of the falls… remember the height from earlier. Then just to make sure we went all the way and lay down on that little ledge so we could look down at the spectacular view and get some pictures. No big deal tho cuz some guy was holding our legs for safety. Oh Africa this kind of stuff doesn’t happen anywhere else…. Mostly because it would be illegal

Africa Part4

Madagascar

The Madagascar experience was different from the mainland Africa in a number of ways. The first and most significant being that nothing on the island was trying to kill you. Nothing! No large predators, no angry large herbivores, no overly poisonous snakes, spiders or frogs. It was very nice. It is perhaps valid to note at this point that some of the plants did like to cut you and that any time you get a cut of any type there was a very good chance it was going to wind up infected.  The other notable difference from the places we had been is that most people did not in fact have any working knowledge of the English language. This was made even more difficult by my lack of a working knowlage of ither French or malagash. 

Most of our time in Madagascar was spent in the tiny hamlet of st Luce. This is a vague blip on the map 4 hour drive from the middle of nowhere.  There was about a 45 minute walk to the beach and 3 hamlets including ours on the way totalling just under 1500 people.  The hamlet closest to us had just about 700 people in it and was considered the biggest one. This is a generous statement about a place with no road and no power sources. Well there was one shop owner who had a generator and played kung fu movies most nights in his establishment. There was also a mining camp not too far from us with solar generators and we could go over there and pay ~ 25 cents to charge something. 

The community was small but very friendly. It was fairly easy to buy things at the shops using a combination of about 5 words of malagash and charades. The best night we had at the project was probably the night we had a bush party. We got a local band to come play and they had some dancers. It was fantastic getting to party with the locat community. We all danced together and had a great time. It was really neat because it was just people getting together for a party 100% not toursty at all which was a nice change from most of what we have been doing in Africa.

Our camp was also very basic. we had a long covered area that we used as a dining area. There was also a cook house and a storage shed. This was the sum total of solid ish structures on the premise. There where long drop toilets and a kinda grass hut built on a concrete slab arrangement for the shower. The process being you pump water from a well into a bucket then use that to shower.

The project work was very interesting and had a lot of different parts.  The first part was obviously lemurs. We did a few things with them including walking transects and doing behavure studies. For the transect we would walk down a set path through the forest fragment and count how many lemurs of what species we could find. Then measure the distance from the transect and take some data on the tree  they were in. this was done both during the day and at night. The behavure studies were mostly spent wandering through the forest fragment till you come across a lemur and then you follow it for an hour and a half so you can record data on what it is doing and what type of trees it is in.

Other than lemurs the next most common activity was looking for frogs and geckos. This was one of my favorite things and consisted mostly of looking through swamp and leaf litter to find frogs or geckos. Then you would either hold very still and try to get somebody to identify it before it runs off or try to catch the jumpy little bastards.  Both methods have a moderate success rate. This was also done during the day and during the night walks. An offshoot of the looking for geckos thing was looking specifically for a critically endangered little guy found only in the forest fragments around st luce. Right now in about 300 hectares but after the mining company finishes clear cutting and mining what they plan to the habitat will be down to less than half that. So we looked through large spikey plants and tried to catch the little guys so we could take down hopefully enough information that they will be able to keep some of them in captivity.  

The last main part of this project had to do with community development.  the first part of this was building stoves for the local people. This was a great program because it helped the people and the forest. The stoves made boiling a pot of water some 70% more efficient. This means the forest doesn’t get cut down as much for fire wood and the people in the village don’t have to spend as much of their days looking for fire wood. The second part of the community development had to do with education. We had 2 days a week where we would go down to the school and teach an environmental and conservation lesion to the kids there.

Lastly I think it is important to make a note about the transportation we had in and around st luce. We only drove 2 times, once on the way in and once on the way out and boy was I great full. On the way in the van lost its exhaust pipe and muffler that were then attached back on with aluminum foil…. Go Africa mechanics. The second time we were in a huge truck with just kind of seats around the edge… it did have walls which was a nice safety feature considering that at many points I thought the truck was going to roll. This was not the fault of the driver… it was just a function of the “roads” really to call most of this a road is an insult to shitty roads everywhere. In town and by our camp it was mostly just sand with no plants growing on it… further on we lost the sand but there was still no plants. This was the only defining feature that let you know it was not say… field. In many places the term dry river bed would have been an accurate description. In other cases just. River would work. This is because the “bridges” probably wouldn’t have held the weight so we just drove around them.  I will get back to the bridge in a moment after I add that at some points there were mountain bikers happily jumping and sliding down the road. In some places it was so rocky and uneven that it would have been hard to even walk it. Now the bridges… picture a cracked and broken rectangle of concrete on either side of the stream or river you want to cross. Now attach these together with 2 small concrete beams… now lay sticks across the beams…. Hammer about 3 more sticks per side over top of the sticks directly above the concrete beams. Now let it sit and get old and more broken… now you have the bridge. At many times it was truly frightening.

Overall Madagascar was fantastic and we had a really great time tromping through the forest. It may have had way to much condensed milk for my liking but it had a lot of character And it was quite the adventure. Now back to the mainland and hopefully no more tents!

Africa part 3

Africa part 3

Zanzibar to Livingstone.

After leaving the beaches and old buildings of Zanzibar we set off on the final leg of our over landing expedition. The ferry ride back to the main land was anything but peaceful. The waves were big and it felt like being on a rollercoaster ride. I enjoyed myself but many people were feeling ill by the end of it. This made the rest of our travels on the truck much less enjoyable.

 Upon arriving back on the main land we set off on an adventure through the bayobab forests in the aptly named bayobab valley.  I would like you to take a moment to appreciate how cool bayobab trees are. Usually they grow to be thousands of years old. Yes thousands of years. At about a 2 meter diameter they are generally 2000 years old.  They have extensive root systems and comparatively little in the way of branches and leaves up top. Some people used to call them upside down trees and believed they were dropped from heaven by the gods when they were done with them.

One day after a morning on the truck we arrived at camp to an afternoon of free time. For the most part this was spent chilling and doing laundry. However part of it was spent playing extreme soccer. This is basically regular soccer but with a lot of shoving and full contact body blocking… and in one specific case jumping on peoples backs. This makes it much more fun for me then regular soccer as I am bad at kicking the ball in the right direction but am very good at shoving.

That night we had dinner in what used to be a broken building but had been given a new roof and new life as what can be considered a fancy restaurant. After dinner it was amarula and hot chocolate time. I have a new favorite liqueur. Move over bailey’s you have had your day in the sun.

The next adventure in our story takes place in a clothing market where “you can buy back any of those old clothes you ever donated to the salvation army” we had a party to prepare for in Kande beach, a costume party as it were and the theme was reggae. So off we went through a maze of small clothing stalls each with a seeming specialty all of them wanting to buy my shoes from me.  Some stalls had shirts others dresses some even had socks and bra’s by the armful. All the while as we made our way through the rows of clothing guys followed us around trying to sell everything from pants with cat tails to skirts with feathers and flames on them. Yes these men had bags of halloween costume pieces and they just knew you wanted something special.  In the end I got out with a green dress and a red head scarf. Erin had a white dress while jamal had a white shirt with reggae style hat and scarf. One of our friends came away with a party time shirt and alex… well alex managed to find himself an elf outfit… not really on purpose but that is definitely the overall effect it produced.

Once at kande beach we acted on the idea placed in our heads by GP to go swim out to the island about 800m off the shore. It was a fantastic swim. The current was not overly strong and once we made it to the rocks we had a great view of a lot of cool looking fish. By we I mean alex and I enjoyed the fish and erin got on the rocks as fast as she could. After exploring the rocks for a while alex and I decided it was going to be safe to jump off a particular rock face into the water. So we did. Then it was time to swim back. After being traumatized by the fish erin speed off through the lake and probably made it back in 10 minutes. Taking our time to look at the fish alex and I probably spent 20 swimming back. 

The next morning a group of us went for a 2 hour horse back ride and then swim in the lake. It was a great deal of fun. I have never tried English saddle type riding and it was really nice except for the part where I came quite close to falling off. This was caused mainly by lack of balance any semblance of skill and being surprised at a sudden change of speed.

After lunch I went for a snorkel around the island once more to have a more up close and personal look at the fishies. Then it was back to dry land for party time.

And boy was it a party. We all dressed up in our thrift store reggae costumes and sat around the truck drinking what might possibly be the tastiest alcoholic beverage ever. The punch GP made was less like alcohol (although there was a lot in it) and more like tasty tasty juice  mixed with awesome. For dinner we had what can be reasonably described as the best butternut squash soup on the planet and spit roasted pig. It was delicious in every way. For desert we had birthday cake as jen had had her birthday 2 days earlier.  After the feast we set off to the bar to commence with more drinking and some dancing. The music was a mix of things I knew, liked or recognised blended with a few strange south African songs courtesy of the 2 large very drunk south African farmers at the bar.  Then came the dancing, beside the bar, in front of the bar and on top of it. Yes it was a fantastic time. In the end people drifted away slowly leaving GP a british girl whose name I cant remember one of the drunk south Africans and I to shut down the night.  I stumbled off to bed at around 3:30 drunk, tired and not sure how I was going to accomplish the whole changing and brushing my teeth thing as both my flashlights seemed to be broken at once.

The next morning at around 6 I was packing my bags onto the truck and GP and I shared a moment. A grimace if you will. A friendly greeting of.. so how was your nap. We both knew neither of us was sober yet and this would not be the most fun day on the truck ever.

The rest of the trip down to livingstone passed in a fairly uneventful manner… well uneventful for Africa. There was the time we had to drive all over the place to convince some idiot that he was wrong about us needing a permit and that no we would not bribe him. Or the day a piece of the transmission broke off the truck. But nothing overly exciting. The truck still moved and we got to livingstone in the end.

Once in livingstone we had all manner of activities to choose from and ended up having ourselves a fantastic last few days with our group. Erin and Jamal went for an elephant back safari while I took a ride in a microlight. It was extremely fun. The falls looked fantastic from up in the air and I got to see elephants, crocodiles, buffalo and hippos from the sky. It was a fantastic trip and I fully recommend the experience.

In the afternoon Erin, jamal and I went bungee jumping along with a few other people from our group. To say the least it was terrifying. Not only did I end up going bungy jumping but also did a canyon swing off the bridge and a zipline over it. The rush was fantastic. After I finally got over being chicken and got close enough to the edge to jump off it was soo nice. The falling sensation was amazing but more then that the weightless feeling you get after about the 3^rd bounce on the bungy cord is really fun.

Once we got back from Zimbabwe and our bridge jumping experience we changed to head to our farewell party with the group. It was a fantastic night filled with perhaps my new second favorite drink ever ( the first one being that punch) amarula and peppermint, affectionately called a springbock. It was sooo good. Shanon and I decided we were going to “get drunk and make bad desigions ” and as a result decided on a shots only night. It went well. About 7 people had gone on the sunset booz cruse and showed up at dinner already drunk. One particularly drunk finnish man ( danny) stood up on the table at one point inorder to announce to GP  that “you, look like a hobbit! ” it was not long after this that the really fun part of the night started. After the heart felt speaches and the thankyous had worked their way around the table we felt it was time to start with the shinanagans. This was facilitated by the pool being right in the bar airea. How convienent is that?! The first one in the pool was GP carried by jamal, alex and danny. In soon after that was danny, alex myself and jamal. At that point all bets were off and everybody eventually made their way into the pool. Ither by choice or by dragging we all got wet. Once our truck had been thrown in GP decided that his tour guide friends needed to go in aswell and then that the people who would be on his truck next had to go in. going so far as to drag people out of tents where they had gone to hide.  By the end of the scuffle even the camp manager had gone into the pool ( leaving some interesting questions for the next day, like.. so did you hear that he camp manager got thrown into the pool. It was crazy I cant believe it… nope nither can we)

The next morning it was time to pack up and say a final good bye to people who had once again become very close friends in a very short time. Something about 24 hour proximity and late night conversations under the stars seems to speed up the transition from strangers to friends. I am really going to miss everybody but am excited for the adventures and the people Im going to meet on the next leg of our trip.