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.

africa part 2

Nairbie to Zanzebar

the first day of this trip started with introduction to our new tour leader GP. This man can best be described as a charasmatic hobbit. our drive this dsy took us into zambia and to a campsite called snake park. named because of the large number of snakes living in cages here. Next morning we pilled into small safari trucks and set off for the sarengetti.

our trip out was fairly un eventfull we tried some red bananas and almost got eaten by birds. . .  what was that you want an explanation. well ok so our lovely tour guide warned us that the birds where we stop for lunch try to steal food and dont hold food out to them they may cut you. what he left out was the part where they might dive at you. so we all set out on the grass to eat and he got his camarah... yeah

our first day of driving through the sarengetti was amazing and well orth the bird attack. we got tosee zebra and impala and some hunting lions. but the prize of the day was a leppard sitting just beside the road. in a place where our gide said he might see a lepord 1 in 3 trips to have one beside the road was basically unheard of .that night we got to the camp site to tents that were already set up and  warning not to walk around after dark because sometimes animals are in the camp and elephants like to drink from the water tank.

day 2 had us up and out of camp very early to catch the morning activity of the animals. we got to see something lke 30 lions including a pride eating its kill and 3 maiting pairs of lions. in addition to this we found a cheeta with " cubs and to top it off we came across another 2 lepords sitting in trees.  this night we camped on the crater rim and were warned that there might be lions in the camp so dont use the shower after dark. as it turns out there were lions in the camp that night and Erin allong side jamal decided that 5 am was technically morning and went to the forbidden lion bathroom for a shower some 20 min afte the lions were heard.

our last day in the airea found us driving through the crater. after the excitement of the sarengeti the crater seemed a bit empty the most exciting part was watching a cheeta and a hiena have a bit of a stare down while our guide managed to fall out of the truck. another exciting bit was when we stoped by a lake full of hippoes. hippoes are neat and super cute. to bad they will rip youe face off being some of the most agressive animals around.

after our morning in the crater we sett off back to snake park. spent the night back in our tent and the next day set off for arusha. the ride to arusha was uneventfull and the next day we set off for dar es salam. this was a very long day on the truck combined with traffic in the city and the world outside our truck semed more hostile then it had been up to ths point. at our camp site we were told in no uncertan terms that we were not alloud to leave and wr just hung out by the beach utill we went to bed.
nextmorning bright and early we set off to catch the ferryto zanzebar. it was hecktic and at one point our guide came up to me and said. ok when those gates open you just push through and get on that boat. everyone will folow in the gap and I will watch the stragglers at the end. it was exciting to say the least.
the longer fairy ride was less eventfull and mostly I sat on the top watching the waves orsleeping.

once in zanzebar we had some free time. for me this was spent buying new pants and wandering the streets of stone town. it was a very cool place and I deffinitly reccomend getting lost in it.
that night we all met up for sunset drinks at a fancy bar before heading off to the night market. this was the most exciting eating experience I have had since the birds.there were peole everywhere yelling and pushing plates at you asking what you want toeat. I had o idea. so after getting shrimp some kind of flat bread and mystery fish I sat down to eat. it was very tastey. desert was a zanzebar pizza with banana and chocolate. also deliscious. I loved the market experence it was exactly the place the locals go to for dinner and was very neat.

our next day found us at a spice plantation it was very cool to see the way many spices we use every day start off before they hit the bottle. lots of things like coffee and choclate are neat looking fruit and more things then I expected grow on vines. after the spice farm we set out for the beach. after booking diving and having the slowest lunch on the planet ( T.I.A.) I finnallly got to the beach to go swimming. in the water I found a very posonus lionfish and some starfish. the water was soo clear and beautiffle. after dinner I looked for firespinners but was unable to find any. the same thing happened the next night but it was still fun to play with my glow toys on the beach.



bright and erly the following mornng I set out with a few other peple to go diving. after about a 45 min boat ride we set out on our first dive. this was hands down the best dive I have ever been on. it was on a sloap into the ocean so the decent was easy on my ears and the water was so clear it was like you could see forever. lots of starfish and rock fish and a sea cucombre. there were fish of every colour but my favorites were the bright purpple and orange ones. so many diffrent purpple and rainbow coloured fish.  the second dive of the day went less well for me. I had a very hard time clearng my ears and it made me panic a bit while under the water. I was ok but it made the experence less relaxing then normal. it was still awesome tho and we saw a sting ray and a sea alligator. the only down sidr of the day was an extreme amount of pain in my ears following the second dive. they hurt all the way back and were still sensitive days later. if I go diving again it is going to be single dives only cuz my ears seem to hate it.

thqt night we had a beach bbqand said goodbye to the peole leaving us at the beach it was a lot of fun and ended wih GP being thrown into the ocean by tim.

our last day in zanzebar was spent back in stone town. I wandred around to the old slave market and the spice market. it was a goodday of wandering. that night we said goodbye to the rest of the people leaving us in zanzebar and went to bed getting ready for the last part of our overlandng aventure.


p.s this was typed on a keyboard set up for french so im sorry if it is hard to reade. the a and m keys are in stupid spots

Africa Part 1

Kenya and Uganda

Well right from the get go you can tell you are not anywhere like home anymore. about 5 minutes after we left the airport in a cab Im sure we paid to much for we noticed very distinct differences. the complete lack of traffic organization was probably the first one. sometimes we had 2 lanes, sometimes 5 whatever people thought they could fit at the time. after you get over the shock of random trafic patterns you get to start really looking at what is happening. nittably people just wandering through the streets and dodging cars... just dodging them. oh and then... the children jumping up onto garbage trucks coming from the airport to eat the food that has been thrown away. It was a shocking introduction.

The first night in africa was spent at a hostel that can only really be descried with the word sketchy. it was just around the corner from an airea we were warned to not go down. the hotel itself was... old and not the cleanest place I have been. the bathroom was special. it was just a swuare room with a sink , toilet and a shower head. when you turned on said shower the whole bathroom got washed... I felt like it was a nice innovative touch.

our next adventure was the buss tour that we went on. we found our way to the meeting place and got introduced to our truck , driver, tour guide and cook. the next 14 days were largley spent on said truck and we got an intamate view of the small roadside towns and citys in Kenya and Uganda.

while looking out the window the first thing you are really going to notice is that there are 3 main types of houses.

1) the concreet house

this is easily the nicest of the 3 variety. it has 4 walls or sometimes it is 3 houses joined together with usually something like a corrugated metal roof on top. sometimes with doors but other times with fabric over the doorway. often with windows. these seemed to be fairly common for shops and could be found in both countrys. In Uganda there was also an influx of cylindrical concrete buildings.

2) Bricks
these houses were more common then the larger more sturdy looking concrete houses. many of them had thatched roofs and looked to be a little less finely finished. according to our guides they are less durable and need large scale repairs every 5 ish years. this was evident by the number of buildings with extra windows... also known as holes in them.

3) Mud

as I am sure most people have tried at some point in time to build something out of mud I think we can all agree this would be a challenging prospect. however the people here seem to have made great technological advances n the art of building mud houses and start with a base of sticks and pack the mud into it. these houses have thatched roofs and are very inexpensive to build. the problem being that the roof must be replaced every 3 years or it will leak allowing the rain to wash away your house...


Once you are done staring at the houses one might look closer to see the people of the city. for the most part you can see children running around wearing anything ranging from nothing to  a shirt or a nice clean school uniform. we tended to get a very good look at the children as  they had a habit of running towards the truck at high speed yelling and waving and jumping up and down. it was strange and we have been told a few reasons why they do this ranging from they are excited to see the big trucks to they think you will give them something. I would say it is a mix of both. 
while driving around you can see people hiding in the shade or just going about daily life. mostly the men look like they are hanging out and chilling while the women are carrying things around, cleaning, washing clothing and looking after kids. we have been told by a few people that African men are lazy and the woman does everything. you can see it.

other strange things on the side of the road include lots of garbage... and live stock.
yes livestock... just wandering around on the road. eating grass... eating garbage. just minding their own business... nothing is quite so unnerving as being stared down by a cow on the side of the road with 6 feet of horns on his head... no I'm not exaggerating. these things are huge.

another thing you are likely to notice while traveling in a huge  truck is that the roads are crap. in fact to call them roads is generous. mostly I think they just toss some asphalt on there and call it a road with no real idea of what kinds of process goes into making something that will last more then a weekend. 

As for our nights we were camping. usually at a camp site out of town with alternately hot and freezing showers with usually a bar and sometimes fun things to look at... like hippos... or the occasional warthog in the camp ground. these ones came with warnings like. don't use the toilet in the middle of the night. a family of warthogs sleeps there... just go behind your tent. oh.. OK well as Erin says just so long as we have a plan. 
I really enjoyed the camping. we set things up ourselves and helped with cooking and cleaning up. the tents were quite large and mostly didn't leak to much. the beer is very cheep here and usually after things wer set up we would go have a drink or to of the local brew. my favorite was tusker a Kenyan beer. but he Nile special in Uganda was also delightful.


onto the topic of the Nile river. we stayed at a camp site for 2 nights on the banks of the Nile river. during the free day we had there Erin and I went white water rafting. at the end of the day 6 rapids later  I had the thrilling prise of being the one to fall out of the raft the most number of times. yay for me... >.< it was a great day. we got to flip our boat a few times and go swimming down the river. we freaked out some of our passengers and basically had a lot of laughs. after the rafting our guide told us it was expected that we would all go hang upside down in a kayak on the ceiling of the bar to go have a shot... so we did. well I did. Erin did not. claiming she didn't want to in a skirt. oh well. it was a lot of fun.

other then rafting and driving we went through 2 game parks. we saw a lovely selection of giraffes and antelopes and birds. there were also elephants and water buffalo and on a boat trip we took one afternoon we got to see hippos and elephants swimming around. the animals were great fun and it was nice to sit and watch them. it was a bit difficult to always see everything from the large truck we were on but it was a fantastic time.  We also passed through a few local markets selling everything from camp stoves to raw meat from wood tables in the sun... yes raw meat. or you can get a still live chicken and deal with that yourself once you get home.. the options are endless. on one day in particular a group of us took a trip on the lake by where we camped with the gorillas to a pigmee village... that was... well... something. basically the boat ride was fantastic taking us past beautiful islands including punishment island where they used to toss the pregnant women within easy swimming distance of shore to die. and the island where they used to keep the sick people. nice... the pigmees themselves were drunk short people who get very angry when you don't pay them what they think they should get for jumping around and clapping.the hike after that was fantastic however and we got within view of Rwanda to take pictures.

all in all I lo9ved Kenya and Uganda it was a very eye opening experience I will not soon forget. I would definitely come back. we had a lot of fun and many adventures. probably to many to type in to one blog post in an hour. but this way we still have stories to tell in person later.

Mountain Gorillas

Uganda Gorillas

Location: Bwindi Impenetrable national Park

Our epic adventure to the Nshongi family of mountain gorillas in Bwindi Park started at the completely reasonable time of 4:30 Am when we crawled out of our tent to stumble around brushing our teeth and packing lunch. After ensuring our shirts where on right side out and our shoe laces were tied we hop into a 9 person van and start the 2.5 hour drive to the park office where we would check our permits and meet our guide. Now one might think that during this time you could catch up on sleep and relax before your hike. You would be wrong. Going at a speed that seemed way to fast we switched back and forth over what can be called roads (if you use a very broad definition of road). The van at times seeming to be scant inches from the edge of the drop off on one side. It was bumpy and full of gaps that I was sure would swallow the vehicle. Needless to say I didn’t get too much rest.  After arriving at the park office and checking the permits we met our guide Rita and our guard Adam.  Rita was a very friendly tiny girl who smiled a lot and was probably no older than I am, Adam was a quiet man with a large gun and a strawberry short cake bag (the cartoon from the 80’s not the actual cake). During our initial conversation with Rita she recommended we get porters to help us up the hill. When we were hesitant she insisted that she knew where we were going and our party of 8 would need at least 2. After informing us that the group yesterday didn’t get back from trekking till 9pm and at a price of 38000 Ugandan shilling each it seemed like we should take her advice.  So we set off in our van again with visions of an 8 hour hike dancing in our heads we headed off to the start of the mountain we would climb. On the way over just to make things more interesting our van very very nearly went over the edge. This time we for sure missed by about 1cm as we fishtailed in the mud and came face first with the edge of the cliff.  About 15 minutes after that shot of adrenalin we arrived at the starting point.

At a first glance it looked nothing like you would expect a hike to look like. To start with we were on top of a hill and there were houses and farms all around us… interesting. As it turns out we had to climb down the terraced farm field paths first before we could start climbing back up. Before setting off we got handed some walking sticks and shuffled into a walking order,  Rita telling us the Big Tracy (me) should be in front to set the pace…  So still feeling great about that complement and after about 1 hour of stumbling down slippery mud paths with louse rocks I was having a hard time. At some point my brain decided it was going to panic and I found myself unable to breathe well or calm down no matter what I tried.  Needless to say it was going to be a long day. On the way down the hill we passed farmers, cows and a hut where they told us pigmies lived.  Once we reached the bottom of the first hill it was time to cross the first… bridge? Log? Half a dozen half submerged rotted logs that liked to move and roll in a marsh… yeah that’s the one.  This was the first time the porters really came in handy leading a strong hand and really remarkable balance to us as we tried not to fall into the mud around us. After crossing a small flat part we went over another bridge? But this time it was almost bridge like… they had taken some logs and nailed a railing to one side…. Not well and not very solidly but they put in the effort… and it was almost half a meter out of the water. So… good hustle.

At this point the real fun started. After putting on long shirts finding gloves and tucking our pants really stylishly into our socks we entered the forest.  The first thing I noticed was the ridiculous abundance of butterflies, this may seem insignificant but not only were they pretty but at points trying to see one almost caused me to fall off the mountain. We began our trek up what can reasonably be called a path. It was just shy of vertical. If I had to guess it was about an 80 degree slope I have been up latters that had a gentler angle. For the most part it was about an hour of this slight path with roots and vines crossing it. Trees to jump over and slippery mud with large rocks to jump up or down. The sort of path followed right along the edge of the hill and you at many points had just slightly more than enough room to place both feet side by side between the hill to one side and the drop off to the other side. It was about this time I started to use the friendly helping hand of our porter Francis. Basically this man is the reason I got up the hill. Just having somebody’s hand to hold helped me to calm down a little bit.  He kept telling me I would make it and not to worry, it is very nice to have a personal cheering squad. Not to mention the very real physical help he gave me with balance and guiding me to put my feet on stable ground and helping pull me up the really steep bits.

At 2 hours into this adventure I was fairly sure this was the most physically demanding thing I had ever done. I was wrong. The next 2 hours would be the most physically demanding thing I have ever done.  After passing our 2^nd large downed tree and having experienced at least 3 sets of biting little bastard safari ants we got to the hard part. Yes the hard part. Everything up to this point was comparatively easy. Because up until now we had had something that resembled a path. Now at 2 hours in we were faced with the true impenetrable forest. To call what we followed next a shitty path is really an insult to self-respecting shitty paths all over the world. At its best it was slightly bent branches and reads that looked like they may have been stepped on once before. But often there was not even that. For a bunch of it we were just picking the clearest looking way through the trees and trying that. At other points we just hacked branches off and vines out of the way to get through.  For much of the next 2 hours we were walking strait up and kind of switch backing a little bit to just not fall off the hill.  Really it is hard to give you a full idea of this part of the trip. Picture on one side of you a slightly slanted wall covered in vines trees behind you trees on the wall and green everywhere you look. Plants and vines on the ground under you and somebody telling you that now you need to go straight up. Oh great. That is no problem at all. Mostly I kept my head down looking at my feet. Just looking far enough ahead to plan the next huge step I would need to take or the next tree I could grab onto. Every time I looked up basically I came face to face with extremely steep slope that if you believe hard enough you could imagine had places you could put your feet or your stick to not just slide all the way back to the bottom. The vegetation was spectacular the trees and bushes were extremely thick but the vines… the vines. They were both a help and a hindrance. At times they were tripping you and grabbing onto your legs and ankles. At others you were grabbing onto them just to stay upright and get to the next foot hold. It was about 20 minutes into this part of the climb that the helicopter ride they mentioned at the beginning for if you couldn’t make it started to sound like a much Much better idea than this. After about 1.25 hours of slogging up the side of the mountain we started to hear the trackers in the distance they would kind of hoot at us and our guide would call back to them giving us an idea of the direction we needed to head. About 10 minutes later we found what our tracker told us was fresh gorilla poop. I must say that I have never been so excited to see poop in my whole life.  At this point there started to be cut marks in the trees and we basically went from one tree to the next following the rout the trackers took up to the gorillas. Soon after this one of the trackers met up with us and helped to guide us the rest of the way. I was excited now but was still not convinced I would make it. At one point I really wanted to stop and have a rest for a minute but Francis grabbed me by the arm and basically dragged me up the last 20m, I don’t know how I kept up it felt like he was running up the hill. When he finally let me stop I looked up and could see 2 gorillas walking about 10 m up from me in the trees. I started crying. I had really been convinced I would not make it. They were spectacular.  It took about 5 minutes for the rest of the group to catch up with us and we made our way up the last few meters to where we could see the family. 

When we walked into the almost clearing (if by clearing you mean 3 feet in 3 directions around a tree that had comparatively few vines and bushes in it) everybody’s jaw dropped.  To one side we had 2 gorillas hanging out at the bottom of a tree with the baby climbing around in the top. To the other side we have a fallen tree by us and half a foot beyond that on a fallen log there was about 5 gorillas just chilling.  About 5 minutes after we arrived we witnessed 2 silver back males have a bit of a growl at each other, this was defused by the head silver back coming over and showing his teeth at them so they backed down. The head of the family then went to sit on the log surrounded by his haram of females. Over the course of the hour we spent with the gorillas we got to watch them sleeping in the grass eating trees and wrestling with each other. We got to see the baby swing around on vines and generally make a nuisance of himself. There was one gorilla in particular that was intent on stealing our bags, so Adam kept scaring him off. Mostly we stood in awe staring at these massively huge powerful creatures who really for a lot of it looked board or sleepy. I think the most amazing part was how expressive their faces were. It was eerily close to most human expressions.  In total we got to see 16 of the 24 gorillas in the family including 4 silverbacks and one baby. The Nshongi family we climbed to see was the largest but was also the highest. At a height of 2000m up they were as high as gorillas usually go and basically at the top of the mountain.  By the one hour mark we were surrounded by gorillas, the ones in front of the log were still close enough to touch, but we had acquired gorillas behind us in the trees plotting to get to the bags, and on both sides just chilling and eating trees. After what seemed like way less than an hour our guide told us it was time to leave them alone and start heading back.

It was approximately 30 seconds after this that we heard ominous rumbling in the distance. We all went to our packs and put on rain pants and jackets. Just as we all finished putting on our rain gear the rain started. Big, fat drops of rainforest rain…. Yeah. Going down was going to be interesting.

In the interest of being fair I have to mention that there was one good point to the rain. The biting burrowing safari ants that had burrowed and crawled down shirts, up pant legs and through socks or gloves were mostly absent in the rain.  The vines that covered the ground became unbelievably slick and I developed a death grip on my walking stick. At times it was only that stick that kept me from falling face down the whole mountain.  The ground was muddy, wet and unstable. More or less you could not step anyplace somebody else had already stepped because it was a slid shoe print with no stability. The guides told us to try and step above where the last person had slid down but this was only marginally effective. For the most part we slid down the hill from vaguely flattish stable spot to the next. Well that was the idea anyhow. For a lot of it we just fell down parts of the mountain and grabbed onto the nearest convenient vine, tree or person to stop and then took a few more steps to the next slide and continued.  We spent the next 2 hours effectively falling down a mountain. In this situation the bushes ended up being a bit of a help as they added stability to the slope and gave just a little bit of grip as we stumbled along.  At one point while walking up a downed log one member of our party. For the sake of argument we will call her the little Tracy fell off. More like launched off the log really. Became air borne and fell head first into a tree. I had been standing a few inches in front of her and as she screamed I turned around in time to see most of it. The guard, guide and one of the trackers that had joined us ran down the hill to help her up.  Luck was on our side and she was not hurt badly. She had banged her head a bit but seemed fine to continue till the end.  It took far less time to fall down the mountain then it had taken to climb up it. We made it to the river and sketchy bridge number 2 in what felt like no time at all. It was just over an hour. Now we took a short break, striped off some of the rain gear and gloves then set off across the sketchy bridges and onto the uphill part at the end. I feel like putting a steep uphill climb at the end of a day full of steep uphill climbs is a particularly cruel joke to play on somebody.  In the end we all managed to drag ourselves back up the farm terraces and pigme huts to the top of the hill.

Here we got certificates from the guides signifying that we had survived the day. We were then introduced to the t-shirts that Adam had been carrying in the strawberry shortcake bag and a few of us bought them. We said good bye and took some pictures of the mud covered soaked messes we were.  It was now 6 pm and time for the 2 hour drive home.

This drive seemed to take forever. Back down the windy almost roads and through the narrow switchback turns we went. It was so bumpy and I was so worn out that for the first time in years I actually started to feel car sick. Fortunately by this point we were only about 10 min from the camp and we got out of the van to cheers from our fellow adventures…. Some of whom had not gone trekking that day… and the others who got back by 3…. By 3… seriously we had just made it up the hill at that point. This meant we had the bragging rights.

Freezing cold cut the water had soaked through or under my rain gear I nibbled on some food then went to have what I was really hoping would be a hot shower…. Nope.

The best thing I can say is it was not an ice cold shower. So grit my teeth and tried to very quickly remove the parts of the forest that had decided to come home with me. After sitting by the fire to warm up and dry my hair I fell into bed.

At the time of writing this some 26 hours after arriving back at camp my legs and in particular the muscles above my knees are still stiff and stairs have become more challenging than usual. Also I seem to have a sore right arm from the death grip I had on my stick and can hardly even make a fist. Still sitting here in front of a fire hurting far far less than I thought I would, I can say with complete sureness that was the hardest thing I have ever done.  Man was it worth it. We may have climbed 4 times as high as the other group but we also got to see 4 times the gorillas. It is quite the story and back on the ground I am glad for how challenging it was. The struggle made the reward and the pride at succeeding so much the greater. It was an amazing day and I am really not sure how to top it. 

 pictures later when I have more then 10 minutes for them to upload

Switzerland

Switzerland

our adventure in Switzerland started in Geneva. we began as usual by finding our hostel. as it turns out this place was about 2 blocks from the lake so we decided to take a walk find some Swiss franks, some food and some chocolate. first we found the lake. it was beautiful and the water looked soo nice. so obviously I had to check and see how cold it was. after taking off my shoes and about 3 steps down the stone ramp both of my feet flew out from under me and I landed flat on my back in the water. don't worry it was not that cold. Erin being a fantastic sister had a really good laugh at my expense. so we sat on the dock so I could dry out marginally before we set off in search of food.  we found food, chocolate and money in a grosery stroe not to far away and took our salads and chicken back to the beach for a picknick. that night sitting ont he dock we got to watch a hilarious display of a puppy trying to figure out if swans are evil or not... they are. a mother was getting her children to feed them and one started nibbling ont he girls leg... it was hilarious.

for the next day in Geneva we went for a walk to a swimming airea on the lake and had some beach like time. it was nice with our pick-nick lunch and the grass. the water was freezing however and so not much swimming happened. in the afternoon the weather turned cloudy and we called it a day early. on the way back to the hotel we stopped in at the history of science museum. by stopped in I mean I looked at everything and Erin went to the bathroom before waiting outside for me. that night we decided to go for a dinner of cheese fondue. it was an interesting meal being how it consists completely of bread and cheese. we were told white wine goes with it and apparently pear licour goes after it. I think our weightier was trying to get us drunk but it was all very good even tho I had a buz by the time we left.

the next stop on our swiss adventure was interlakken. it is hard to describe how beautiffle this place was. nesseled between 2 lakes with mountains on all sides it was very beautiful. the town was small and cute and had houses going up the sides of all the slopes around us. it was magic. after arriving in what has been the nicest hostel to date we put our bags down and picked up a add for paragliding. after about 10 minutes we had decided we wanted to go. so we went downstairs to reception to book it. about 5 minutes later we were running around putting on good shoes and grabbing money. 5 minutes after that we were on a buss going up the mountain. the flight was amazing. there is nothing quite like being in the air in my opinion. it is amazing the rush of the wind and the view you get of the hills and the lakes from up there was soo wonderful. I loved it, erin felt vaguely sick and all in all it was a fantastic time. note... we have a video of Erin having a very hard time in the air. it is really funny. once we got back on the ground we went to find food for the next days hike and dinner. dinner was lovely but the beer I had with it was absolutely delightful. it was clean and fresh and perhaps the best beer I have had. it was brewed in interlakken and I hope one day I will find it again.

day two in interlakken brought ous out of the town and into a smaller town higher up in the mountains. a place called latterburnnen. this was about half an hour away by train and was very prity. it is also known as the vally of 72 waterfalls and the ones we found were stunning. some fell from so high the water seemed to turn to mist half way down before flowing together again at the botom. we hiked up to a site in the mountains who has a name I cant remember how to sepll. it had 10 waterfalls in it that wound through the mountain in a series of tunnels caves and cat walks. most of the day was spent walking around and at the end of it we had a delightfull dinner of rotti or however you spell it. it is for the most part hashbrowns with all kinds of stuff and cheese on top. was very good.

the rest of our swiss adventure was spent wandering around train stations and airports ont he way to zuric and then to nairobi. in the train station in zurich however we found a woman selling mead. this was probably the best alcoholic drink I have ever had. sweet and beautiful and with almost none of that alcoholic bite to it. basically I could have sat there and had a whole bottle of it.

all in all our adventure to the land of decorative water fountains you can drink from, cheese and chocolate was a success. I would go back in a heart beet. now... on to africa.

Paris...

Paris

City of love, romance, passion…. I saw none of these things. For the most part I witnessed expensive food shopping and cars mixed in with old buildings and a strange Korean hostel.

For us the trip to Paris started off by trying to find our hostel. For the most part so far this has not been a terribly difficult ordeal. This time however it turned out to be fairly complicated. At the train station we first had to untangle the ball of string that is the Paris subway map and find our stop… right at the very end of a line. So far things were not looking exceptionally good, but we moved on. Now we decided it was time to fire up the lap top and write the directions the hostel  gave us down on paper. At this point life started to get very interesting.  So with sketchy directions in hand and a vague idea of how to find the metro station we wanted we wandered through the building looking for the metro station to start at.

After about an hour we found ourselves outside the metro station in what can only be described as the suburbs of Paris, nowhere near the center.  Now we looked at the directions and took our first tentative steps along the path they set out for us. A first 60 steps, south from the station according to the paper. Where we should find a narrow ally way on the left that is probably not marked… oh boy. Well after 60 steps we where beside a hedge but another  23 steps later brought us to an ally way that did happen to be labelled. So being close enough to 60 if you were only rounding to the nearest 100 we decided to go this way.  After following the labyrinth of directions we finally ended up going down the wrong street and were really starting to doubt finding this place at all. When off in the distance the sound of English voices with an Australian accent come to our rescue. Walking down a dirt path out of some kind of park they say. Hey you looking for the hostel? Its right over there. How did you get on this street?

And in a matter of minutes we were there. Looking at a hostel with Korean letters on the door and a happy but flustered woman leaning out of the window. We were let in and shown to our room then left to decipher the mystery of the communal shoes and various notes… such as no bathroom after midnight… what did that mean. What if I have to pee at 12:01? How strict is this rule? What if I get in there by 11:59? As it turns out only the shower was off limits after midnight. Guess they didn’t want any gremlins. Apart from being hard to find, having strange shoe related habits and no keys at all this hostel was nice and clean with a solid internet connection.

Day one in Paris was unfortunate to say the least, had we left the next day as planned we would have not enjoyed Paris at all.

The day started out dark and just cloudy enough that we chose to bring hoodies but not rain coats. As it turned out this was the wrong choice as it started raining almost immediately upon getting off the metro in the city center. Our first stop was the notra dame cathedral. And boy was it creepy. I must say that having that as your church would certainly shake the fear of god right into you. With gargoyles and towers and stone worked filigree it was basically something out of a fantasy novel. Well perhaps more accurately it was something to inspire a fantasy novel. We took pictures of the outside and even took a stroll through the interior.  After a lunch of 16 euro hamburger we set off down the street through a cute little shopping area and poked into various stores. One was a shirt store that sold the most flamboyant collection of shirts I have ever seen. Others where chocolate shops and pastyr shops and a hat shop. In this particular shop I fell in love with a hat and being how it was cold out and my sweater has no hood I justified its purchase and have added a more grown up hat, one without horns to my winter head wear collection.  The rest of the day was mostly spent in various stages of disappointment and bad mood.  We went to the Louvre mostly with the intention of seeing the monalisa and it was ok. Small, looks nice, was underwhelming. This is how I felt about the Louvre in general. The sculptures were my favorite part the stone seemed to have a lot of life. The paintings were nice if very full of religion but for the most part we spent a lot of time wondering who decided that these pictures and sculptures in particular where the fantastic works of art that should be on display here. Who decided that Picasso was so great… I really don’t know. So after that we wandered around the city and decided for the most part paris is like any city big and loud. Eventually we got to this area referred to as the Latin Quarter and that was more fun. Here we had dinner and then went back to the Louvre because Erin was convinced it had some kind of light show at night… well it did light up, but that was about it and without the addition of the fountains it was fairly unimpressive.  After waiting for an hour for a light show that was not delivered erin realized she was in desperate need of a toilet. On the way to the metro there was many signs depicting toilets and indicating where they might be found however Paris did not deliver on this promise.  

The next day we set out with half hearted hope that Paris would be fun and set out to the mulon rouge. Here we found an interesting theater on a street full of sex shops and peep shows, complete with creepy guys in baggy pants coming out of the theaters. .. yeah you go city of romance.

So after a breakfast of a chocolate tart and our fill of laughing at the sex stores we set off to the Eiffel tower hoping that Paris would not disappoint us once more.

This time we were pleasantly surprised, the tower was really quite impressive and really neat to look at. We spent some time walking around it and then went for what can probably be called the best croissant of my life and some hot beverages at a small cafe where we could see the top of the tower through the trees. This was the wonderful Paris moment I had been waiting for. After this we walked back by the tower and found something resembling a fitness festival complete with zoomba on center stage. Naturally we had to join in. after a few songs we left and went back to the Latin Quarter for dinner. Once again the food was good and we indulged in French onion soup that can only be described as fantastic. Once dinner was finished we trekked back to the Eiffel tower for a light show we were still convinced might happen. So we sat down on the grass to wait. At about 8:30 the lights turned on and we got ourselves some crepes and ate them while waiting for the tower to “sparkle” this we got to see at 9 pm and took some pictures. We went back to our hostel soon after this glad that Paris had put in such an effort to redeem itself to us. 

my new hat

louvre at night

eiffel tower at night.... see much more impressive

one of the hillarious sex stores