Back in the land of technology

I know you guys have been waiting patiently for this post, so here you go! Sorry it took so long!

So, we made it back to the land of technology without any huge mishaps. We managed to avoid being mawed by lions, bitten in half by hippos, dragged off by hyenas, or eaten by leopards. There was a brief incident with a charging elephant, and the jury is still out on whether we have malaria or not, but time will tell.

I think this is going to be one of the most difficult posts I have had to write so far. The 3 weeks we spent in Africa were indescribable really, and I just can't to them justice in words. However, I will try to give you a glimpse into what we saw and did.

The trip started out a little bumpy, as you might have gathered from my last post, but we decided to just not worry about things and go with the flow. There are some sayings here that we learned to adopt fairly quickly..."That's Africa" "Happy Days!" and for you Lion King fans, "No Worries!" (hakuna matata actually is the Swahili phrase for "no worries.") And so, our adventure began with 17 other people plus our cook, Moses, our driver, Steve and our trip leader, Mwangi (more correctly known as Francis John Mwangi, but refused to let us use his first name.)


Our first day in the truck was a short one. We drove to a little area in South Africa called the Ceres Area where we found a delightful little campsite. It was there that we all found out what our jobs would be over the next three weeks and where we prepared our first of many lunches together. I got nominated to be the key holder, along with a lovely Australian girl named Jocinda. Now, this job is an awful one. Basically, we had to keep the only 2 keys to the only truck safe (which we called a "fridge" as a code word for safety) on us at all times without losing them. Mom, you probably find that hilarious since you know my record of losing things. Any time someone wanted something out of the fridge, they had to come and find both of us to get it out, and we always had to do it together. ARG! No matter what you were doing, you were at the mercy of the fridge. The last day of the trip when I handed that key over was a very very happy day! I also had a daily duty that rotated with my group. We rotated between being cook's help, dishwashers and security (which is a hoot since my entire group was women and I was the biggest one out of them by far.) Security actually consisted of cleaning the truck every night when we got to camp. Sometimes you had to stay on the truck when we were in a town to make sure no one came on and messed with anything. Shane got the best job of all. Being a guy, he was put on Doggy Buddy duty, which meant that he was in charge of loading and unloading everyone's luggage in the morning and at night.


We mostly relaxed that first day and tried to get to know one another. Shane quickly made friends with an Australian guy named Shane. We had to distinguish between them, so Shane 1 and Shane 2 were born. I chatted with two Kiwi girls, Roxy and Zara and an English/Welsh couple, David and Rhian. (Just as a side note, David and Rhian have the most romantic, crazy and wonderful story of how they got together and got married.) We all started getting to know each other and by bedtime, we were on our way to making some friends. That night, however, was a miserable one. It was so cold (2 degrees Celsius) and damp. Shane and I hadn't brought sleep mats, because we were under the impression that they would be provided. So, the only thing between us and the cold, hard ground was our sleep bags (newly purchased in Cape Town) and the tent. It was not a fun night. I don't think my feet have ever been so cold. When we finally got up the next morning just before 5am, I was frozen and wondering what in the heck we had just gotten ourselves into. Now, I pride myself in being an outdoors girl who loves camping, which is true, but I quickly learned that I love it with the right equipment!! However, that was not the end of our torture. We then had to break down our tents. This sounds like a simple enough task, but when it's pitch black, wet and you are dealing with rusty steel poles in the ice cold, it isn't so simple. Do you know how cold steel gets?? Or how it can make your hands burn like they are on fire because they are so cold? There was one person that morning who wasn't so cold, and that was Zara. She walked around all morning in 5 layers of clothes and wearing her sleeping bag. We did all make fun of her, but I am convinced it was only out of jealousy for not coming up with the idea ourselves.


However, we survived and got back on the truck for "another easy day" of driving. Mwangi's favorite saying, well one of them, was "another easy day." Every night at dinner, he would tell us about the next day's itinerary, and no matter how easy or difficult, he always ended with that saying.


The second day, we went to an area called Orange River. This is the border between South Africa and Namibia. We got to the campsite early and set up our tents and made lunch. After lunch we all played a really pathetic game of volleyball with a ridiculously flat ball, but managed to have fun anyway. That night, we had beef steak, roast potatoes and steamed veggies. This was just the beginning an amazing menu that Moses had planned for us. Breakfast and lunch pretty much never varied for 3 weeks, but wow! the dinners were fantastic! We ate so many different kinds of animals that Shane thought he had died and gone to heaven. And I actually started liking meat. Kudu was our favorite, but it was all good. Our list of animals we ate between us included: Kudu, Oryx, Warthog, Gazelle, Crocodile, Springbok, Impala and a variety of fish.


The 3rd day, we got to wake up a little late for breakfast, because 4 of our group went for a optional canoe trip on the river. The rest of us lounged around, wrote in journals, read and Shane and I played in our first game of cricket with a little coaching help from the Aussies and Kiwis. Shane kept trying to swing the paddle like a baseball bat, but other than that, we started to catch on eventually.


Over the next few days we did a lot of driving. There wasn't much to see in those first couple of days. The scenery didn't vary much and there was lots and lots of dust. The lots and lots of dust thing would be a theme over the 3 weeks and by the end, we were all blowing dust out of our nose, picking it out of our ears, trying to remember what color our feet and fingernails actually were.

On day 5, we got to an area that was one of my favorites of the trip. It was an area called Sesreim and Sossusvlei where some of the most famous sand dunes in Namibia are. The most popular of these dunes is called Dune 45, because it is 45km from Sesreim Canyon. It stands over 170m high and is composed of 5 million year old sand that was brought there by the Orange River. I was very curious to see these dunes before going there and thought that I was prepared, but they blew my mind. They are just stunning and absolutely massive! When we arrived in Sossusvlei, most of the group went on an optional desert walk with a real and true bushman who showed them all kinds of stuff about the desert. Myself and 2 other girls decided to stay behind and do some dune walking and exploring on our own. Shane went on the desert walk and saw all kinds of stuff. Then, that evening, we all climbed up Dune 45 (now that was HARD work! For every step you take up, you fall back down 2 steps.) and watched the sunset while sipping on wine. It was a stunning sunset, and just the first of many.

The next day, we headed towards a little German town called Swakopmund for a 3 day stay. This town is what they liked to refer to as an "adventure mecca," and it was where we would all choose which optional activities we wanted to do. The first evening we arrived, we met with a guy who introduced us all to the activities that we could chose from, and then we signed up for what we wanted to do. Shane and I both chose to do quad biking in the dunes (4 wheeling) and sand boarding. Lots of our group chose these activities also, as well as sky diving and a dolphin cruise.

The next day was our quad biking adventure day. We had about 13 people from our group and when we arrived at the quad biking place, there were about another 50 people already there. Now, quad biking on sand dunes might sound pretty straight forward, but it is actually pretty dangerous. It is really easy to get lost in the dunes and easy to just kinda fall off the top of one if you get too close to the edge (you can't tell when you are close, so that makes it more dangerous). So, the group was divided up into 10 groups, so that each group could have a guide. They broke the groups up into slow slow, slow, medium slow...and so on. They kinda yelled the safety speech at us, which most of us didn't hear, and then the main guy quickly started pointing out which guide was leading which speed of group. No one really heard any of it, and all the sudden the guides started taking off and we were expected to follow in the right group. Well, myself and 2 Aussies, Michelle and Sally, ended up racing after this group and we just couldn't keep up. (I should mention that there were different speeds and sizes of bikes) After about 10 min., the guide stopped and asked up which group we were supposed to be in and we told him we had wanted to be in the medium fast group. Michelle and Sally had never rode before. So, another group was going past us right then, and he told us to join them. Well, that turned out to be the slow slow group and the 3 of us were not having any fun at all! All the groups had 3 stopping points for photo opportunities, so at the first stop, the Sally kinda demanded that we be put into a fast group. So, after that, it was fun fun fun! Shane was in the fastest group, of course, and was already loving life! We did these things on the quad bikes called roller coasters. If you can imagine the face of a sand dune, and we would go up on side of the face all the way to the top, and then turn and go down the other side of the face. It's kinda hard to explain, but it was really fast, exciting and actually really felt like a roller coaster. We had to go as fast as possible up, because if we let off the gas, we would start sliding sideways down the dune. There were some points where we would get to a ridge and have to go straight down and dune and you couldn't even see the slope you were about to go down cause it was so steep. We had to just lay back on our bike, gas it and hope for the best. Riding through the dunes was just such an amazing experience. Sometimes when you look at them, you think you know what the landscape is like that you are about to drive over, but it's totally different. That's why the guides made us stay in a single file and follow his tracks exactly. It was an experience to remember.

The following day was sand boarding day. The group was huge again and it was divided up into standing boarders and laying down boarders. Standing is a lot like snowboarding and I decided that since I hadn't been too successful at snowboarding, I would just do the lay down boarding. I didn't want to spend all day trying to learn when I could be having fun. Shane opted for the standing one though. We were driven out to the dunes and given our equipment and then we had to walk up the dunes to the top ridge. The standing boarders went down the same hill all day and got to do some lay down boarding also. The lay down boarders had 5 hills to go down and we had to take a different route up the dunes every time. We got up to the first hill, Little Nelly, which was supposed to be the smallest and easiest. As soon as we got to the top, most of us got pretty nervous, because there was nothing little about Nelly! I quickly decided that there was no way I could move to the more difficult hills if this was to be the smallest and easiest. I made the mistake of saying this out loud and was quickly nominated by the guide to go first. So, we had these little flexible wooden boards that you have to lay down on and hold the front bit up. He made me lay down and shoved me off down the hill...it was at this point that I might have yelled out some not-so-nice words. A few seconds later at the bottom of the hill, I decided it was actually not as scary as I had made it out to be. So, I grabbed my board and headed up the dune again. (You see how I just casually said I headed up the hill??? Well, there was nothing casual, easy or simple about that act. By the end of the day, we were all exhausted from climbing those dunes!) Each time I would get to the top of the next dune that day, I would be convinced that there was no way I could do it because it was way too scary. But, each time, I got sent down whether I was ready or not, and I just kept having more and more fun. The evil twins, Dizzy and Lizzy, were my favorite hills. On Lizzy, I got up to 72km per hour (one of the guides clocked our times) and I even got a little air at one point. They videoed the whole thing, so everyone can see it when we get home.

That afternoon we went to support everyone who was sky diving. Now, Zara is probably the only person I have ever met with worse luck than me. She was also probably the most nervous about doing that activity and as luck would have it, her's was the only parachute that didn't open. When her group went up, we all were watching as they jumped and we noticed that one person was spinning more than what seemed normal. Then, we saw the red parachute fly off into the air and we all started getting really nervous. We knew there would be a reserve chute, but we also knew that whoever that was was having a really bad experience. We kept saying that we hoped it wasn't Zara or Lee (the 65 yr. old woman who went up), and that we hoped it was the camera man. The reserve opened and sure enough when the only white reserve parachute landed, it was Zara. She had tears in her eyes but was surprisingly okay after the traumatic event. She did say that she would never do it again though! Luckily her tandem was really good and experienced and kept her pretty calm.

On the 3rd day in Swakopmund, it was time to say goodbye to Shane 1 and an the only other American, Jenny. They had only signed up for 9 days of the trip, so they were taking a bus to the airport in Windhoek. Shane had been working in the Congo for 5 weeks and just did the overland trip at the end before heading back to Australia. He is from Perth, so we made plans to meet up with him when we got to OZ. We also gained 10 new people here which brought out number up to 27, which made the truck much less bareable!

Then, our truck headed off to Cape Cross in search of the stinky seal colony. It really isn't called that, but it should be. As soon as we got to the colony, the smell started to penetrate the truck. The seal colony at Cape Cross is the breeding place of the Cape fur seals, which are actually a species of sea lion. Along the Namibian and South African coast there are 24 colonies with a seal population of about 650 000 animals. At Cape Cross live about 80 000 to 100 000 seals.

That night we camped at a place called Spitzkoppe which is where Namibia's most well known mountain is. It has an altitude of about 18oom, which is not the highest in Namibia, but because of it's striking outline, it is the most well known. This was our first really bush camp. Up until this point, we had been camping at various campgrounds that had showers and toilets. This place had none of those things. We were all pretty excited. We spent the afternoon exploring. Spitzkoppe is also famous for the bushman paintings that could be found there. I never managed to find any though. That night, some of us climbed up one of the rocks and watched another amazing sunset. Probably one of the strongest memories I will take away from Africa is the sky. No matter what time of day you look at the sky there, it is breathtaking! Sunset, sunrise, midday and midnight all just take your breathe away.

The next day was something we were all looking forward to, the Cheetah Park. In Africa, cheetahs are considered pests, because they eat farmers sheep and livestock. So, the farmers kill them. It is estimated that there are 7500 cheetah left in the world and 6000 of them are in Southern Africa. So, places like this Cheetah park are trying to save and preserve the cheetahs. This particular park used to be a family farm and after cheetahs killed over 3 dozen of their livestock, they decided to trap one. It was pregnant and gave birth to 5 cubs, of which 3 survived. The family kept them as pets and now they are tame cheetahs that tourist can pet and interact with. Now, the family pays farmers between N$2000 and N$2500 for every cheetah that farmers capture instead of kill. This gives the farmers incentive to capture instead of kill. The park was such a great place. We got to pet the tame cheetahs and even though it is a little scary, it is super cool. They even come up and lick you. One of them likes to steal flip flops off your feet, so you have to be careful. Then, they drove us out in game trucks where we watched them feed the wild ones. They have 22 wild cheetahs on the farm. That night, myself, Zara and Roxy stayed up pretty late chatting with one of the guys who works on the farm, James. Roxy is a vet nurse, and I was just really interested in the farm. That is how I found out all that stuff I just wrote about. He told us so many interesting things about the cheetahs, and other cats. James was a pretty amazing guy. The 3 tame cheetahs were like his dogs. He loves them so much and they love him! We were so interested that as the night went on, he started telling us things he usually doesn't tell tourist. For example, he told us about the leopard that they had on the farm. We all got so excited because it is the hardest animal to see in the wild. (In Africa, there are the "Big 5" animals that everyone wants to see when they go there. Elephant, Rhino, Water Buffalo, Leopard and the Lion) So, James offered to take us out and show us the leopard, if we promised not to tell the rest of our group. They have had the animal for almost 2 years and he is still not even used to James who feeds him every day. He is a wild animal and will never be tame, but he hasn't adjusted at all to humans, so they don't take tourist to the area where he is kept. James also told us that leopards are the most dangerous animals to humans, because of the way they attack, the way their fangs are made and because they will never give up. So, we drove out to the area where the Big Man was kept and got out of the trucks (there was a fence) We stood in the dark, cold night air and waited. It wasn't but a few mins. and we saw the cat take off running and you could hear his feet pounding. He was such a sight to see. So graceful and powerful. He would hide in the bush and make this noise in his throat to tell us that he wasn't happy that we were there. Then, he let out a roar that made me and Zara grab each other like 2 scared school girls, but it was exhilarating! That night was definitely a highlight of the trip. I ran back to the tent as fast as I could to wake Shane up and tell him. The next morning, I took Shane back to try to show him the Big Man, but he didn't cooperate.

The next morning, we headed to our first national park, Etosha. We were all really excited because this would be our first opportunity to see lots of animals on game drives. We spent 2 days in Etosha. We did 2 games drives and saw a good amount of animals...Elephants, Giraffes, Kudu, Oryx, Impala, Rhino, Springbok, Warthog, Wildebeast, Zebras, Honeybadgers, Bateared Fox and some different kinds of birds. We were supposed to camp in the park both nights, but once again, our tour company messed up, so we couldn't stay the first night. We had to go to a campgrounds about 20km away. The second night we got to camp there though, which was a treat. When you camp in the park, you get to go to the watering holes at night and watch for animals to come in and drink. We saw loads of Rhinos and their babies the night we were there. We also saw a group of hyenas.

After leaving Etosha, we headed to the town of Rundu for our last night in Namibia. This was a lovely campgrounds and we all relaxed, played mini golf, did pilates and watched some news for the first time in weeks. We had to wake up early early the next morning, so it was an early and uneventful night. It was also around this time when everyone started getting sick. Some kind of sickness made it's way around the truck and got about 90% of us. Luckily I stayed well though.

We had to cross the border to get into Botswana the next morning, so we were up at 4:30am so we could beat the other trucks to the boarder and get to our destination, Maun, before the shops closed. We were scheduled to be in Maun for 3 days, because there was an optional activity to go into the Okavango Delta for 2 nights. So, those who chose not to go could stay behind at the campsite in Maun.

All but 4 of our group decided to go into the Delta. 3 of them were really sick, and one stayed behind to take care of his wife. We woke up early and loaded up on a truck that drove us to the river where there were tons of little canoes called Mokoros waiting for us. 2 people fit into each mokoro along with a poler. The polers were local people who stood in the back of the mokoro and literally used a pole to push us along the river. Shane and I got assigned to a poler who was quite a nice young chap. They loadeds us all up with all of our equipment and took us down the river for about 2 hours. It was slow and steady moving and really relaxing. We all just kinda laid back and relaxed and took in the sceneary. This is, however, where the charging elephant incident happened. We saw an elephant up ahead of us in the river and noticed that it was running towards some of the mokoros. One of those was Zara's of course! But, all was well and no one was hurt. One Dutch guy from another group did jump out of his boat crying and left his wife behind. I think I'd be asking for a divorce if I was his wife.

We arrived at our campsite, set up tents and started chatting with some of the polers. They built a fire, brought water for us, dug a toilet for us, and even taught us lots of fun stuff. We learned how to make fire with 2 pieces of wood and elephant dung, peel palm fruit (which tastes and looks a lot like wood), and we got to watch them all weave with palm leaves (which facinated me for hours). We went on a short game walk that night, but didn't see too much. We mostly learned about how to identify different animal's dung and footprints. That night in our tents, we could hear lion's roaring, hippos, and all kinds of other animals!

The next morning we all woke up early and went for our real game walks. We divided into 5 groups, each with a guide, and went out in search of game. My group saw all kinds of stuff...herds of buffalo, elephants and elephant bones, baboons, zebra, kudu, springbok, wildabeast, impala, and lots of other stuff. Shane's group saw pretty much the same. It was really exciting, but little scary to be walking around with all those animals with no fences anywhere.

That night we went for our "sunset cruise" in the mokoros. The polers took us all furthur up the river to where the hippos were. It was really nerveracking to get so close to them in those little canoes. Hippos are responsible for more human deaths in Africa than any other animal. But, Shane kept asking out poler to get closer, so I just had to deal with it really. Then, we all stopped on a little island to watch the sun set on the river. And, as you can imagine...another beautiful sunset!

When we got back to camp, we ate dinner and then our polers annouced that they were going to sing and dance for us. So, around the campfire, we all sat with mouths hanging open as we watched these wonderful, amazing people dance and listened to their beautiful songs. It reminded Shane and I a lot of Southern Gospel music, but it had even more soul. Then, they asked us to sing for them, which they very soon regretted. Being from so many different countries, we none knew a song that we could all sing. We made an attempt to sing "In The Jungle" which was...well, I'll just say it wasn't good! Then we decided to do the Hoki Poki, because the polers knew it and we all did it around the fire and had a good laugh. I got another laugh later that night when I started towards the toilet hole and heard 2 girls laughing hysterically. Turned out, a Scottish girl, Kirsty, had dropped her flashlight in the toilet when she was trying to hold it under her chin and squat all at the same time. After about 10 mins. of trying to get it out with 2 sticks, I finally managed to fish it out. We wrapped it in toilet paper and Kirsty went to throw it away (with it still on) and one of the polers took it out. He went and washed it in the river and kept it. We learned not to throw anything away in Africa:)

Sadly, the next morning, we packed up and headed out of the Delta. That was by far my favorite experience on the whole trip. We went back to the campsite in Maun and met up with the 4 we had left behind and spent one last night there. We were happy to find all the sick ones had become a bit more healthy after 2 days of rest.

The next day we went to our second national park, Chobe. We arrived at the campsite early, so we got to hang out by the pool and relax for most of the day. The next morning was our early game drive. We woke up early and loaded up in open game vehicles. It was freezing, but it was by far our best game drive. We finally got to see lions and even saw some mothers and cubs feeding on a fresh kill. We saw animals really really close up and got all kinds of good photos. On the way back to the camp, something really horrible happened. We had stopped on the side of the rode to watch tons of baboons. As we were sitting there, we saw one baboon running really fast towards the road just as a huge semi was speeding down the road. The truck hit the monkey and kept going. There was blood everywhere and the monkey was trying to crawl with one hand off the road. The big male tried to come and pull it off the road, but cars kept coming. As soon as it happened, all the monkeys started screaming and crying. After a couple of attempts, the big male got the smaller one off the road and checked it to see if it was dead. It was, and so, they all gathered around and touched it and cried. It was heartbreaking. They are so human like and most of the girls on the truck were crying. It put a damper on the morning's game drive.

That night, we did a sunset cruise on a boat on the river. We got to see lots of animals and got to see them up close. The boat would pull right up to the shore where the animals were. We saw some of our first crocs there.

After 2 days in Chobe, it was time to leave Botswana and go to our last country, Zimbabwe. Our destination in Zimbabwe was Vic Falls. Victoria Falls or Mosi-oa-Tunya (the Smoke that Thunders) is between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Mosi-oa-Tunya is the name given to the Falls by the local people and Victoria Falls is the name that David Livingstone, a British missionary gave them when he discovered them between 1852 and 1856. The Zambia side of the falls is in the town of Livingstone. The Falls are, by some measures, the largest waterfall in the world. The waterfall measures from 1.7 kilometres wide and 90-107 metres high. I can't even really tell you how amazing the falls where. I've never been to Niagra, but Vic Falls was something to see!!! We loved it!

This was Shane and I's last stop with the overland trip. Zimbabwe is a really sad place right now. The government is extremely corrupt so there are all kinds of horrible things going on. There is very little food in the country, so when you go to the grocery store, the is ketchup and maybe some candy on the shelves. When bread is delivered, people wait in line for hours to get a slice. Also, the money fluctuates so much, that is pretty much worthless. For USD$1 you get about 130,000 Zim dollars (that depends on the day) on the black market and 260 Zim dollars at the bank. To give some perspective, it cost about 60,000 Zim for a coke. So, the bank rates are ridiculous and our tour leader traded our money for us on the black market. However, we ate some of the best food and went to some of the fanciest restaurants we've ever experienced. It was such a crazy place. Every time you walked out onto the street, there were guys hanging out with crafts to sell. They would follow you for ages trying to convince you to trade your clothes, shoes, pens, anything really, for their goods. Shane's bandana was the hottest item on the street. Everyone wanted it. Shane loved talking to the guys and bargaining, and he loved going to the markets and doing it too. He went every day. We got so many nice things for cheap! I wasn't as big of a fan of the markets.

The group spent 3 days there and then continued up north. It was pretty hard to say goodbye to everyone. We made some really good friends on the trip, and we also really really wanted to continue north also. But, we said our goodbyes and waved to everyone as the truck pulled away. Shane and I stayed for one more day and on the 14th of Aug., we joined a transit truck that took us back to South Africa. We started driving at about 6:30am and got into Johannesburg at about 1:00am. We stayed 2 nights in a hostel there before we got onto the plane to go to Australia.

Getting on the plane to leave Africa wasn't easy. It broke my heart a little, and Shane's too I think, to leave. We really fell in love with it and didn't feel like we saw nearly enough!! We haven't stopped talking about what we will do when we go back and what we will do differently. We had a lot of fun on our tour and met some fantastic people, but we definately regret not buying a Land Rover and doing it on our own. But, no regrets, we have memories that will last a lifetime! Africa touched me in a way no other place has. The best way to describe it is the way a South African said it to me the other day, "Africa has a heartbeat."